Owner: A Smeddling Kiss URL:http://asmeddlingkiss.blogspot.com Join Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2007 11:55:27 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: Velma is, alas, a psuedonym. I live with my family on Cape Cod, where I attempt to successfully blend in with the normal folk. You'd never guess the darkness that lurks in my heart. (Insert evil cackle and rubbing of hands together.)
Site statistics:Click here
Fair Warning (58/365) 2007-03-19 15:45:00 Our house is right next to the last empty lot on our street, and we have grown accustomed to the privacy and sense of space from not having a house next door. I like the relief of not having to constantly shush the kids from their caterwauling, knowing that the neighbors are just far enough away that they are probably not overly concerned by the screaming. There is little doubt in my mind that we are going to have neighbors soon, though, since the builders are now listing the lot for a full $100K less than they've had it listed for the last 18 months. Despite being resigned to the situation, I have a hard time trying to restrain myself from scaring away any potential buyers.We've seen some traffic out there the past few weeks, and last weekend, when it was beautiful outside, I noticed two cars parked at the street. I couldn't figure out where the people were, however, since it's a razed muddy field now that they cut down all the trees, but each time I looked out there, the cars wer
Quickie Post: Time Suck (59/365) 2007-03-22 01:01:00 Thanks to Karyn, for helping me waste a chunk of time this past week by featuring this on her blog: Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™ Read more:Quickie
So. Much. Fun. (61/365) 2007-03-23 05:37:00 Just so you know, I'm being all crazy and sarcastic and ironical like when I say I'm having a fun week. Because - just so we are clear on this - I'm not. Today's little made-up humming-in-my-head theme song was sung to the tune of "Zippity Doo Dah," only replace "zippity" with "suckity." While you are at it, you might as well replace "what a wonderful day" with "what a shitty bad day" and I can stop writing this post right now.Yesterday was tons o' fun, too, so let's start there. Pepper had to have 2 teeth extracted, due to the massive overcrowding in her mouth. She actually did pretty well, thanks to another one of my patented Not-So-Evil Plans. In our house, getting teeth pulled means a trip to the nearest Build-A-Bear Workshop store. Not only does it give her something fun to anticipate after the procedure, it also effectively eliminates all requests to go there for anything less traumatic than teeth pulling. The extraction was pretty easy, and she was almost calm about the wh
Good Thing I Checked Her Backpack! (60/365) 2007-03-23 04:15:00 As extra-credit on the work her class is doing on 3-dimensional shapes, Pepper went around the house the other night collecting objects to bring into school. A Rectangular Prism:A Sphere:A Cube(We don't usually have Tiffany's boxes strewn around the house, really! This was from my big anniversary gift last summer. Pepper claimed it as her own as soon as she laid eyes on it.) It wasn't until the last item was dug out that I discovered her choice for a cylinder:After a short and pointed conversation, I convinced her to swap it out for a soup can. Uhm, no. Mommy doesn't think it would be a good idea for you to bring in her (empty) bottle of anti-depressants to share with the class. Read more:Thing
, Backpack
The Stars? They Were Aligned! (62/365) 2007-03-23 20:21:00 Apparently, the Universe totally approves of my Evil Plan to scare off any incompatible neighbors!Pepper stayed home from school today, even though she is feeling much better. She watched TV and played by herself while I did the typical morning stuff. Coffee, shower, Bloglines - all the basics. At one point, I noticed another car parked out in front of the empty lot next door. Quickly, I called up to Pepper to run out and grab the paper from the driveway. Whaaaaaaat?!? It's a perfectly normal thing for her to do, and remember - I want to impress on potential purchasers their proximity to small children should they choose to build next door to us. Imagine my delight when Pepper tromped down the stairs clad in her Halloween costume from last year! I had to laugh at the perfect timing of it all, and I watched happily from inside as Pepper made her way back with the paper clutched in 2 of her 8 arms. I wasn't convinced that the universe was winking at me, however, until a few mor
Ouch! (63/365) 2007-03-25 20:54:00 I was going to write a longer, more thoughtful post today, but after my latest bonehead move, I'm giving myself the day off from thinking. Dr. V. took the kids up to Boston again, and I'm such an idiot, I bought them tickets for the WRONG stage show performance. Instead of 2 p.m., I accidentally bought them for the 5 p.m. show. This is a problem, because it is still a long haul back to our house after they are all done up there. If they go and stay for the whole show, they won't get home until after 9 p.m., so I've ruined their big day out. This was the final blow to my fragile ego today. Dr. V. and I went out last night, and it was not one of our better evenings. It culminated with a trip to a pub to hear some music where I - no shit - got beaned on the head by a hefty wooden plaque honoring the pub's participation in some charity work. It hurt, yeah, but then it was just embarrassing, because they immediately cleared a table for us and kept coming over to check and see if I was
Obligatory Bershon Post (64/365) 2007-03-26 20:29:00 When my father retired the first time, he promptly got to work on a project of stunning magnitude. He began scanning in all of the family photos and papers left by the various branches of the family. Thanks to my dad, I have digital copies of everything from telegrams sent by my great uncle during World War II to the program from my starring gig in my high school musical.Up until this weekend, though, the CDs were packed away in the basement from our move almost 2 years ago. I was working on organizing the office and I went down to the basement to see if I could find some office supply stuff we'd packed away. The first box I opened had all the CDs my dad made, and I spent some happy time going through all the pictures on my laptop, making the kids play "Guess That Baby!"I read this piece reminding me of the joys of bershon on BlogHer over the weekend, so the coincidence of finding the old photo CDs was perfect timing. I have browsed through the Flickr pool now and again, and while som
Gimme The Good Drugs, Please! (65/365) 2007-03-29 21:21:00 I took a second Vicodin about 30 minutes ago, and it is beginning to kick in. Before I drift off to sleep, I thought I'd share my delightful morning with y'all.The dentist gave me Novocaine, and we waited for me to get numb. As usual, my freakish nervous system/metabolism/whatever required about 3 separate attempts before I was truly numb. We've all agreed that I will have to come 30 minutes early for future dental appointments just to get the Novocaine to work. Then the dentist cut away my gums from the teeth I am having crowns put on, and removed some of my jawbone. He needed to remove enough bone to expose a little more of the root of the tooth to allow space for the gum in between the bone and the bottom of the new crown to stay healthy. Then he stitched everything up and replaced the temporary crowns. I am going nighty-night now. Read more:Gimme
, Drugs
, Please
Harry Potter and the Shiny Clean House. (64/365) 2007-03-31 16:07:00 Pepper and I watched the edited-for-tv first "HarryPotter
" movie a few weekends ago. She did pretty well, although a few of the special effects were too intense for her. We got around that by doing our version of the "earmuffs" trick Vince Vaughn uses on his son in the movie "Old School."If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, you can watch the clip here:In our house, I say, "SCARY PART!" and she claps her hands over her eyes until I tell her it's safe to look. Most kids, this probably wouldn't work, but she's such a rule follower that she is rarely tempted to peek. I love that we have finally reached the age where she knows that if she does peek and gets scared, I don't want to hear her moan about it.The Family Channel obviously nailed their demographic and figured out that a lot of moms would be watching the movie with their kids to monitor the fright factor. It was a little odd, though, because there were no commercials for kids, no fruit snacks or gum or surfing Read more:Shiny
, Clean
, House
Best Easter ConversationEVAH! (68/365) 2007-04-03 05:14:00 Peanut: (hopping around kitchen) HOP! HOPPITY! HOP HOP HOP HOP HOP!Dr. V.: He's hopping again.Me: Don't complain, at least he's not leaving rabbit pellets around anymore.Peanut: (Hopping, then miming pulling something out of his rear end and holding it up for inspection) WHAT'S DIS IN MY BUM? AN EASTER EGG?!?!Dr. V.:....Me:.....Peanut: What is inside dis egg? What could it be??? (Pretends to crack egg...)Dr. V. and I, simultaneously: NOT IT! Read more:Easter
The Wind in the Willowzzzzzzzzzz. (67/365) 2007-04-02 05:21:00 I believe I may have found the solution to our never-ending bedtime routine. Pepper brought home a beautifully illustrated copy of "The Wind in the Willows" as her library book choice for the week, and we have been faithfully plowing through it each evening. The first few nights, I found myself gasping like a novice singer, trying to get the pacing and the breathing correct for the paragraph-long sentences. I've hit my stride in the last few readings, however, and am really enjoying rolling my tongue around the language. I was just getting into the rhythm tonight, when I realized that Pepper was totally out for the count...again. Each night, she's been falling asleep within 10 minutes of my starting to read to her, which is a blessed miracle. Usually, I read a chapter or two of whatever book we are in the middle of, and then she complains when I warn her we will be done at the end of the chapter, and then I say we are done, and then she complains some more and phlumphs around in her
Fresh Out Of The Funny (69/365) 2007-04-05 15:39:00 It's been kind of a strange week. I'm still tweaking my anti-depressant, which takes a few weeks of decreasing one and building up to full dosage on the other, and I just feel... off.When I pause to re-read that, it sounds so wrong. "Off" is such a weak word to describe how many fits and starts I've gone through mentally, how much second guessing and double thinking I've been doing. More important, and the reason I decided to make a change in my meds, it how heavy the disinclination to do much of anything or think about it all hangs on me like a blanket. My thinking switch has been pushed to the "Off" position, and I'm waiting for another week to see if the new anti-depressant can jiggle the switch and get it working again.Words are not coming easily to me, which is painful for someone who delights in finding the exact precise description of well, everything. My lack of focus is astounding - days go by before I realize that some crucial deadline has slipped by. What I want more th Read more:Funny
Is This Thing On? (70/365) 2007-04-12 23:11:00 Amazing how fast a week goes by when you aren't having fun, right?We had tons 'o dental fun, including 2 more tooth extractions (Pepper) combined with my continued surgical recovery. We then had fever and upper respiratory gooeyness (Pepper), followed by sore throat and fever (me), followed by yet more upper respiratory goo (Peanut). I even stayed home from the family get-together on Easter, having woken with such a sore throat that even chocolate bunnies couldn't tempt me out of my pajamas.By Tuesday night, my darling husband was moping around sounding congested, so we've had our first official 4-in-1 cold of the year. It's pretty rare that all of us pass the same thing around within a week, but when it does happen, we are a miserable bunch to behold.We are all on the mend, though. In fact, I am practically crapping rainbows and unicorns today, having gotten my stitches out this morning. Do you know why I am so happy about this? It's not that the stitches were bugging me or an Read more:Thing
School Vacation Is Killing Me (71/365) 2007-04-19 15:43:00 Hello out there! I'm back, revved up and ready to blog. Except I'm dead, because all this quality time with my darling children has killed me.First, we had the nor'easter that blew through here over the weekend. THAT was fun. The trees out back really enjoyed it, too:The dry well we had installed last fall paid for itself during this storm, and the basement stayed bone-dry. We loaded up on food, batteries, and water, so we rode out the storm like previous generations of New Englanders: hunkered down in the living room, wrapped in afghans, discussing the Red Sox, eating Tostitos, and watching "How It's Made" on cable.After the worst of the storm blew through, we still had a couple days of nasty rain. We've had a playdate here at the house every day this week, and another friend and her daughter are showing up for a sleepover tomorrow night, so I may try to get the children out into the paltry sun this morning. We will veg out on Sunday and the children will be back to a normal sche Read more:School
, Vacation
, Killing
Random Comment (72/365) 2007-04-23 01:55:00 Pepper's commentary on a television show:"They just passed by the Eiffel Tower, so they must be in Paris...or Vegas!"I'm. So. Proud. Read more:Random
, Comment
Friday Already? (75/365) 2007-04-27 13:31:00 Holy frijole! This week went by way too fast. I'm freaking out because Pepper informed me that there are only 33 days of school left, and I have nothing planned for either child this summer. We'll probably send Pepper to a few week-long local summer day camps, but there aren't very many options for a developmentally-delayed 4 year old. Can I confess that the idea of a summer spent home alone with my son fills me with dread? What a BAD mommy!Our summer is shaping up to be wickedly busy. Dr. V. turns 40 in early June, and since he is not a throw-me-a-party kind of guy, he will be celebrating the first weekend in June at a Red Sox/Yankees game with 5 of his buddies. 6 tickets to this game cost almost as much as we spent on my birthday dinner at a fancy restaurant for 30 people. Frankly? I think it is retarded to spend that much money on bleacher seats, but since that is what he wants, that is what he is getting.Two weeks after that, we are headed out west without the kids for a wedding Read more:Friday
Girls & Boys (74/365) 2007-04-26 15:53:00 Oh my goodness gracious, I have a BOY.I always wanted to have a daughter first. I'm the eldest daughter of an eldest daughter, and I guess I figured that while I didn't know anything about being a mom, at least I knew what it was like to be an eldest daughter. Or something - but whatever, I wanted a girl first.Remember "Free To Be You and Me?" As people we knew had their boys and girls, it was fascinating to watch how they treated their children. I watched and learned, and every now and then I'd see a little china doll girl being chastised for getting dirty and I'd think smugly to myself that I would do my best NOT to direct MY future children into traditional gender roles.Eventually, I got my girl, and she is a joy to me each day. Although I dressed her in overalls and bought her every Thomas train her little heart desired, she is a Capital-G-Girl. Not a particularly "girly" one, more of a spazzy tomboy whose hair is always wild, but oh, the drama! The tears! The eye-rolling and h Read more:Girls
I Was All Blogged Out (73/365) 2007-04-23 18:11:00 You may have noticed I took a little break from blogging. It seems to me that quite a few bloggers have been feeling the same Spring Slump I've been struggling with these past few weeks. I mentioned already that I was tweaking my anti-depressants, and I definitely fell into a lull there while they took effect. Plus, all the dental work was just a suck-fest. It hurt, I couldn't chew very well, and those two things reminded me that I'm getting older and made me feel gee-rumpy.Now I'm feeling much more normal. The biggest change I notice when the medication kicks in is how easy it is for me to focus and get things done. The best way I can describe it is that pre-medication, I might look at the clock and think, "15 minutes until I have to leave for the bus stop. Even though I know I have a lot of phone calls to make and some bills to pay, it's too exhausting to even make a mental list of what I have to do...and hey - is that the new USWeekly?" Now, I think, "15 minutes, huh? Let's ca
Ready For Anything 2007-05-02 04:07:00 Friday was kind of rainy around here, and Peanut was pretty darn disappointed that he couldn't go outside and ride his bike. 4 year old kids are not known for their firm grasp on reality, so he spent a good portion of the afternoon buckling his bike helmet on and cheerfully chattering that he was Ready! To go outside! I'd shoot him down and explain yet again that it was too wet and windy and try to distract him, and he'd have a little meltdown, and then we'd move on.He'd take off the bike helmet for 10 minutes and wander around doing other things, but pretty soon he'd see the bike helmet laying wherever he'd left it, put it back on and the whole cycle would repeat. After a while, it finally - finally- sunk in that I wasn't going to change my mind about letting him go out into the rain, and he had a little bigger meltdown.An hour or so later, after I'd tucked the bike helmet into a closet and figured he'd accepted his non-bicycling-in-the-rain fate, I heard an excited cry fro
Return of "The Wind In The Willows" 2007-05-01 04:23:00 By return, I mean that when I picked up Pepper's backpack one morning soon after I posted this, it was remarkably heavy. She informed me that it was library day and she had to return her library book. Mind you, we routinely keep library books for more than a week if they aren't finished, but she was adamant. I guess my little plan wasn't meant to work out, since it turns out my mellifluous voice was actually "boring her to sleep."Huh. So much for that second-half-of-life career in radio, eh?We are reading "The Secret Garden" now. We've owned the book for a while, but each time I would start to read it, Pepper would decide it was too sad. We never made it past everyone dying and abandoning Mary in India and her arrival on the bleak moors in England where she is a grim little unwanted child. I highly recommend reading this book while the exact same springtime blossoming is happening outside. Each night we read a little more and each day Pepper has some more questions about nature. I Read more:Return
A Birthday Shout-Out (79/365) 2007-05-04 15:12:00 I'd like to give a big birthday shout-out to the soon-to-be-ancient-like-me Mr. Big Dubya.For this virtual party that the fabulous and talented Kara has put together, I'd like to offer up a virtual present for the old man. Happy Birthday
, fellow book-clubber! Now that you are ancient and falling apart, put your feet up in this beauty: As long as I'm going hog-wild with the virtual gift-giving, I'll also throw in a couple pints of Guinness, since it's got TWO handy-dandy cupholders. Hope you have a great birthday weekend!
Utter Randomness - Now With Pictures! (78/365) 2007-05-03 15:22:00 LISTENING: Amy Winehouse. All you fine peoples of the innernets were not wrong. First entry on the obsessive-replay list for summer.READING:Not only did it win the Swedish Crime Academy Award for Best Crime Novel, but the cover photo was apparently shot in my backyard!CLEANING:The laundry situation has undergone a startling transformation, and I owe it all to Target. I saw these bins and had an epiphany right then and there. (Don't worry, no one saw me.) Our existing laundry set-up was a triple sorter in the corner. There wasn't anywhere to fold clothes and organize them before putting them away. Usually they would get stuffed into a laundry basket and brought down to the master bedroom to be sorted on the king-sized bed, but basically we had piles of clean and dirty laundry scattered around the house, 24/7. Anyway, back to my epiphany. Like a lighting bolt shot down into the "Storage and Organization" aisle, it came to me that I needed THESE bins - large bins that would stack Read more:Pictures
Hot Fuzz (80/365) 2007-05-08 17:39:00 We went to the movies last Friday night, braving the crowds of teenagers. This movie is frick frackin' hysterical, and you NEED to go see it immediately. But don't blame me if you then feel the urge to rent "Bad Boys 2." I'm not taking responsibility for that, no way.Other things I'm recommending today include Tea Tree Oil for toenail fungus. I decided that I needed my liver for more important things than processing medication to rid my big toenails of a mild fungal infection, so I started using the tea tree oil in February, and it's working great. Now I could have posted before and after pictures, but impressive as they are I decided I'd rather keep y'all coming around. Instead, when you are sitting down to lunch today, know that I have spared your appetite. You're welcome!I'm spending today doing boring errands like getting the car serviced, undergoing a haircut & skunk stripe removal, and grocery shopping. Woo hoo! Par-tay in the 'burbs! The best thing that happe Read more:Hot Fuzz
Ready Or Not... Happy Mother's Day! (81/365) 2007-05-14 02:07:00 One lazy afternoon in college, my friends and I were studying on a blanket outside our dorm. The conversation came around to what we each would eventually end up doing with our lives. S. was deemed destined to become a hermit, living a solitary life in a beach shack somewhere with a big dog for company. L. was suited for some glamorous high-profile big-city job, we agreed. When it was my turn, the friends all looked at each other and cried in unison, "Best mom on the block!"Mind you, this was 1984 and we were sitting around smoking our Dunhill menthols at our all-women's college while we studied for our classes in history and psychology and women's studies. It felt kind of insulting to be told by my peers that I was destined for motherhood, especially when one friend wouldn't let it go, continuing to snicker and say things like, "C'mon kids! We're making potato print cards at our house!" I remember feeling affronted by the easy encapsulation of my personality, even though I knew t Read more:Happy
, Happy Mother
More Fun With Taxidermy! (82/365) 2007-05-16 16:37:00 If you've been visiting here for a while, you know how much I love me some creepy-yet-highly-amusing taxidermy.Rick's Custom Squirrels is doing a booming business, with 100% satisfied feedback on over 400 transactions. If you are an eBay fiend like myself, you recognize that kind of a positive feedback score is actually pretty impressive. However, those little babies can get kinda pricey, so when I stumbled on this little "How-To" article in the Instructables website, I couldn't resist sharing it with y'all.Oh. Ma. GAWD!
Turning Japanese (83/365) 2007-05-19 01:02:00 Back in the heady days of NaNoWriMo, when my hit counter was spinning around like a cartoon clock ticking off the hours, I got an e-mail about including some of my posts in a book. I recently heard back from the editor and he said that, yes indeedy, some of my posts are going to be included in the book, "Journals of Thirty Americans Volume 2." This will be a follow-up to the first volume, which contains blog posts from 30 bloggers from various walks of life to show the Japanese
reader a view of ordinary life in America and the use of English in everyday circumstances.I am flattered to have been asked and included in the book, because it's just kind of cool to be blogging along, yappity yap, and then be asked to participate in anything. It's not a big thing, though - I'm getting a free copy of the book, and that's it. While I have dreams of eventually pursuing a writing career of some sort, whether it be on-line blogging, freelancing, or fiction writing, I don't think this counts a
Black Death, Anyone? Bueller? (84/365) 2007-05-22 06:59:00 Just when I was beginning to look forward to our upcoming trip to Colorado:DENVER, Colorado (Reuters) -- A Denver Zoo monkey has died of bubonic plague, apparently after eating a squirrel stricken with the disease, Colorado health and zoo officials said Monday.OK, so cross "Visit the Zoo" off our touristy "To-Do" list. With my luck, a flea-infested squirrel would attack me for my soft pretzel and I'd end up being the one-in-a-million oh-so-lucky squirrel-to-human plague transfer case. I''m starting to feel itchy already. It's a good thing we don't have pets, or I'd be flea-dipping their furry little asses all day. Read more:Black
, Anyone
Incognito At The Dentist (85/365) 2007-05-23 10:58:00 NOTE TO SELF: For God's sake, woman!Next year when it is time to schedule your annual eye exam, please try to remember what the annual eye exam involves... and then remember NOT to schedule a lengthy dental appointment right afterwards. Here's a hint, Einstein - one of these appointments involves dilation of a body part not involved in baby making, and the other involves shining a bright light at your face for a lengthy period of time.Or, in MasterCard-ese:Annual eye exam = free, thanks to decent health insurance;Continuing dental work to crown two molars = upwards of $2K, now that I have blown through my dental insurance;Sitting in dental chair wearing sunglasses and being made fun of by dental office staff...PRICELESS!
Not What I Had Planned For The Week (86/365) 2007-05-26 10:07:00 Oh, good gravy. My poor little Peanut!I've posted before about his various challenges, one of which is his allergies. We've always been more focused on the peanut allergy over the environmental allergies, because - until this week - we were only worried about the peanut allergy. Peanut allergies can be fatal, from even a small exposure, but hay fever? Pshawwww!Cape Cod has surprisingly poor air quality, thanks to a funky air pressure low that keeps much of New England's pollution hovering above us. We are also the second dampest area after New Orleans, apparently. Suck on it, Florida! Boo-YAH!Pollen levels have been particularly high this week, and since little Peanut tested positive two years ago to trees, weeds, and grass...well, let's recap the week:Tuesday, Peanut played outside for most of the afternoon, and when he seemed crabby and itchy he came inside. I gave him a dose of Zyrtec that night, and when I woke him up Wednesday morning, he had a goopy right eye that was bright
Nooooooowww I Remember... (87/365) 2007-05-29 08:15:00 ... why I usually limit myself to a single Tanqueray and tonic when we go out. I've found that two in a row usually results in mayhem or tears, because if I have two? You might as well just hand me that pretty green bottle of gin, give me a straw, and make sure your camera battery is nicely charged. That way, you can finance your early retirement by blackmailing me!Ouchie ouch ouch. Dr. V. and I went out for dinner and a movie Sunday night. We tried a new restaurant and enjoyed a lovely dinner, over which we made scintillating conversation and discussed Pending Life Decisions, and after we decided that we'd done enough heavy thinking for a while, we went to see "Spiderman."The movie let out a little too early for our comfort - i.e. not late enough to ensure the children would be deeply asleep yet. We found a couple seats at the bar of the restaurant near the theater, and proceeded to do some more Big Picture Strategizing of our life. I got a little "Why-Not-Tomorrow-Is-A-Holiday" buz Read more:Remember
Recommend Site To A Friend
