Happy Birthday Smarty Pants

There are many things I love about LT. Here are just a few.

He knows how to have fun!

He's nice to chicks.

He has a fun sense of humor.

He looks great with a mustache.

He likes being outdoors.

He does a great Gomez Adams.

He's a geek who likes to solve puzzles.

He really knows how to sweep a girl off her feet.

He's a good daddy.

He looks hot in his sunglasses!

He likes to make things grow.

He wears a pink tie.

He serves his country.

He makes silly faces when pictures are being taken.

2011

AND.....

He wore the same shirt this year that he did last year for his Birthday.

2010

Thoughtful

I'm holding out for good news.

These past two weeks have been so very heavy. People we love are carrying heavy loads and because we love them, we share some of that weight.

Relationships are crumbling all around us.

Some of our friends from when we were newlyweds are getting a divorce. We've watched them have 3 children and now, they will have to work out the dance of custody and state lines. LT and I were in shock for days when we found out. "Those guys? But, they were so rock solid. How did it happen?"

We hugged.

Another friend confided in me her marriage is not going so well. She'd be happy to stay or go.

My heart sank.

I'm involved with another set of friends while they sort out their relationship. The emails, phone calls and personal encounters are heavy. They are good people, maybe just not good together.

AND, on the other side of the crumbling relationships is a story of a friend who is so dear to me. The relationship with her husband is fine, and, he may have cancer, for the third time. The last I heard she was in a waiting room, waiting.

In the middle of all of the shifts going on around me, I am so grateful I can crawl into the shelter of my relationship with LT and grieve for my friends, in safety.

Folk Life

I love living in Maryland. I love that I don't feel like I'm in a BIG CITY. I love that I see fields and farms around. AND I love that I can hop on the metro and in less than an hour, be in DC to attend the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

I'm such a culture, folklife geek. I think my parents did a good job of exposing me to other cultures and the arts. In Pocatello, it's not very easy to do. I mean, c'mon, it's Idaho. It's not known for it's cultural diversity. It's known for potatoes and for the Neo Nazis in the panhandle. (Who, I might add, don't appreciate cultural diversity). My point is, if you wanted to learn about other cultures and countries, you had to make an effort. You had to travel to a larger city with museums or something.

I remember going to the Greek festival one year. The food was awesome.

Anyway, the first year we lived in Texas, I dragged LT to the Texas Folklife Festival to see the dancing and taste the foods. At the time, I was preparing to travel to Brazil with Clog America and I wanted to get a taste of what I was in for on my trip. I loved it!!

Now that O is old enough, I can introduce HER to the coolness of folklife festivals.

So, today, we ventured out of our little world in Odenton and explored other cultures.

It started out pretty hot and poor O was melting and grumpy. Fortunately for us, a storm was on it's way to the Mall and the cool air blowing in made it more comfortable as time went on. Upon our arrival we caught the tail end of a performance of clowns in the Columbian area. That seemed to be our luck for the day. We caught the tail end of almost everything. We made it to the last dance in a rhythm and blues dance workshop. We ran to another tent and made it to the end of a dance in the Columbian section.

I really, REALLY wanted to dance, so we went to our final tent of the day and made it in time for some good dancing. The performance was cut short because the storm had arrived and everyone had to get out of the tents and off of the Mall. It turns out the Mall + Tents = Lightening Alley.

(I'm so glad O was with me because getting out on the dance floor is something LT would NEVER do. Well, he did dance with me once, when we were dating. Anyway, O loves to dance so we had fun with all of the other people on the floor).

It was okay, by then, we were both ready to head home. We ran through the rain to the Metro and sloshed onto the train. When we hit New Carrolton the storm was in a fine fury. We ate popcorn and waited inside for a break in the weather. We'd parked a bit of a walk away so we got kind of wet on our trip. Once we got in the car, the rain picked up again. We drove through a torrential downpour and pulled into our driveway at the tail end of the storm. A perfect way to end our "tail end of luck" day.

On the metro headed to our adventure.

O painted a square on a world map that the Peace Corps will use in one of it's international "classrooms". The volunteer congratulated O on being an official Smithsonian Cartographer.

O gave me the, "are you seriously taking another picture" look.

Proof that we were there.

O looks so tall in this picture. Wow!

I had to bribe O with ice cream to get her to pose with this lady from Kenya.

The beadwork on her head and neck were stunning.

The picture does NOT do it justice.

I also like that you can see Os razzle dazzle shoes in this picture.

O showing off her red tongue.

I had to document the joy of

being easily pleased by the color of your own tongue.

Just another dose of Star Wars

Hightlights from Star Wars night at the Baysox game.

O met R2D2.

O met Princess Leia

While O was hanging out with R2, I chatted with a friend of the Jedi Knights. After one of their battles between innings two knights came over to our seats to meet O.

Can you guess what she did? Do you think she got all wide eyed and giddy? Do you think she talked and talked their ears off?

Nope!!! She buried her head in my arm and was shy. SHY???

Just so you know, the ENTIRE ride to the stadium, O went on and on about all of the Star Wars characters.

O and J got to "run the bases" at the end of the game.

The fireworks were pretty cool. O said they kept popping her eyes out and she had to put them back in several times.

Our friends at the game.

Tinkerdad

O is kind of hard on her toys. Well, let's just say, she plays with them quite vigorously. LT has fixed so many things; the cars, hinges on doors, chairs, appliances, toys. O really isn't all that bothered when things break anymore. She just says, "Dad will fix it." She also thinks it's pretty cool that dad is a tinker, just like Tinkerbell.

What is the coolest thing about having a dad that is a tinker?

He can fix Tinkerbells shoe

I also think it is very cool to have a husband that is a tinker. I can't tell you how many hundreds or thousands of dollars we have saved over the years simply because he can do a lot of things on his own. Install a garage door opener?? No big deal. Assemble a shed, replace spark plugs and distributor on a car, install a bedroom fan, add crown moulding, set up a grey water system, rewire a portion of a house, secure our network and set up a server on a virtual machine? (Just to name a few) Got it covered.

On another note,

it turns out our caterpillar is currently unavailable.

It's chrysalis - ing.

(I'm just glad it's not dead. That would have been tragic.)

A lotta Pinata

I just love parties and I love parties with pinatas. This is the first party I recall O attending with a pinata. W celebrated her 6th birthday in style.

Here's the girl giving me some sass.

It looks like she's showing off the lip gloss in her pocket.

There we go, a nice big, melt your heart

and make me want to give her anything smile.

"The Balloon Lady" was there to create almost every request put forth. A crown, an octopus, a fishing rod with a fish, a person, a cobra, to name a few.

O wanted a bunny.

"Take a whack at Weezer"

What movie?

On our way home I saw this massive neon green thing crawling on the road. So, of course, I had to pull over and show O. And, of course, she wanted to bring it home. So, we did. I hope it survives the love and attention O shows it. (Actually, I checked it a few minutes ago and either it is preparing to make it's chrysalis or it's dead. I sure hope, for O's sake, it's only sleeping.)

The last time we drove on the very same road, we encountered a turtle crossing the road. We pulled over to see it. Fortunately, the "taking it home" conversation didn't come up. I think LT would start to worry about letting me out of the house for fear of us bringing home another "pet". In fact, tonight, before he came home, O told him we had a surprise for him. We had a pet. He hesitated before he offered an unenthusiastic answer. However, once he found out it was a caterpillar, he was totally cool with it.

And for something completely unrelated, here are some funny stories about O.

I think she doesn't quite understand what "question" means. Today, she interrupted someone and urgently said. "Hey, hey, I have a question". "Yes" my friend replied. "I had some chicks and I had to give them away". Silence.... "Oh".

I know I've mentioned before that O is planning her birthday party. She has quite a long list of people she wants to invite and she's wasting no time issuing her invitations. At preschool on Tuesday she invited everyone to her birthday party. She told them there is going to be a pool and they needed to be careful where they stepped because our house is a mess.

Now, to explain her messy house comment. You can see the evidence of our messy house. When I see what she's done, I say things like, "Oh my gosh, this is such a mess, we need to clean it up." and "This is so messy". I'm trying to make her aware of her environment and teach her to put things away. Perhaps I need to change my wording.

Just a few things that make me smile

Our tiger lilies are blooming. I'm so happy to have something beautiful in our front yard. O is dying to pick one and bring it inside. I think before long, we will make a pretty bouquet and give them to a friend. I just love fresh flowers.

The other week, I went to one of the best girls nights I've been to in a long time. The friend who hosted it had recently moved to MD from living in Spain. She fed us traditional spanish cuisine and decorated her home in the national colors of Spain. We were given a quiz about Spain and thanks to the Murphy in me, I won this gorgeous picture. My friend, just "painted it the night before". Wow, I love the colors and the shapes and the shadows. Art doesn't usually catch my eye, but when she showed us the prizes up for grabs, this is the one that called out to me. Doesn't it just make you smile too?

Gift cards make me smile.

I bought a new camera. It's refurbished. Although most refurbished things are just fine, I felt some reservation with purchasing this camera. Then again, I was nervous buying my bose sounddock for the same reason and so far, nothing is off with that. You just can't beat the price of a refurbished product though.

Speaking of my sound dock. I love the remote. It makes me smile to skip songs and blast the volume on my favorite ones, all without moving from my desk. I know, it's a remote, right? So simple. I just love it.

The thought of a mute button on my "remote" for O. I know that will never happen, but the thought of it makes me smile.

The cassette adapter for my ipod in the car. It's a whole new world. For years I've been using an FM transmitter and the sound is very poor quality. Wow, I feel like I'm living in a new century. I'm getting closer and closer to my music nirvana.

O in the swimming pool. She has a crush on her teacher. I like it when she acts shy in her extroverted fashion.

LT has been home and available a lot more in the evenings. It's been nice having him around.