MMMM, cake for breakfast!

This delicious and nutritious chocolate zucchini cake was kindly contributed by our own Queen of West Procrastination! 

Well, clearly Pixies have opinions about proper language usage, the all-important Oxford comma, untidy construction people who also drive like maniacs, and other matters. Sue wins the Grammar Queen Award for:  Pet peeve: when I see the words "should of" when "should have" is clearly intended by context. The slow and painful death of the English language. Sigh.

The Peeve of the Week Award goes to JenR, who complains:  my pet peeve is daycare sending home food-covered art projects weeks after they have been hanging on the walls there. Bonus points of the cheerios/pasta/beans/marshmallows are covered with glitter. Yuck. Just throw it out - please don't put it in my kids' school bag.  Your host favors bean mosaics, but really, marshallows and cheerios and glitter are asking for trouble.

Miranda wins the Mom's Sacrifices Award, for:  My pet peeves are that my oldest usually has my car and my daughter usually has my laptop so I'm stuck at home without internet. I have my work machine but um, I do enough of that all day long.  

The Sadness of the School Year Adjustment Award goes to QWP's Lil E, who pines for Daddy all day, then clings to Mama when he finally comes home.  Sniff!  Things will settle down soon, promise. 

Neighbor Lady wins the Back to School Allergies Award, which is self-explanatory, but we hope those allergen levels go down pronto!  Good luck!!

The Fashionista Awards go to Esperanza, who noticed all her pants are tighter on one leg, and Liz, whose summery shirtdress has a significant gappage problem in the rack area. 

See ya next week!

Pet Peeves Week

Bring 'em on!   What gets under your skin?  Possible categories include but are not limited to:  household tasks;  stupid driving tricks;  grammar violations;  untoward habits of our nearest and dearest; and annoyances at the cubical farm or equivalent.

Dishes, for example.  Apparently, nobody in my entire family has the ability to rinse dishes except me, despite years of training loving encouragement. We all dislike unloading/loading the dishwasher, which is why we got this fabulous double sink, with an extra deep side in which to stash the rinsed dishes until someone (me) gets around to the dishwasher.  And still, we have the spectacle of dishes, pans, and cutlery laying around the counter and stove and the other sink, preserving the remains of whatever was on them for posterity.  Because no, despite the promotional claims, our dishwasher does not handle food dried to the consistency of cement.  Harrumph. 

Regular whines and anti-whines are, as always, most welcome. 

Uncreative Awards Post

Extra Snooze buttons to all experiencing lack of sleep due to children or hormones.

Hugs to QWP and Mr. Q for difficult medical news this week. Kudos to QWP's friend, who gets it, really gets it.

Efficiency and Clear Thinking to QWP as she dissertates with Lil E's help, and to kathy a, as she tackles the work albatross. (You surely seem to attract a lot of work albatrosses, kathy).

Sloth Award to Sue, who is enjoying said activity with her hubby as vacation days dwindle down. Cluesticks to people who send emails to people who are vacationing.

Hooray for pain relief for Sue, for easy plumbing fixes for kathy a, for good interviews for kathy a's daughter.

Additional cluesticks to people who can't get campaign information correct and to people who butt in where they have no business being (why does it matter how many children someone does or does not have? Good grief).

Afternoons off for anyone who needs one and deep calming breaths to NL as the school year rapidly approaches.

BACON without repercussions for everyone!

Tune in next week for more whining and commiserating.

Uncreative Whining Post

Hi there.

Brain dead. Back from "vacation" to grandparents' house.

Two nights of too many people in house. Then three nights of appropriate number of people.

Grandmother's slow decline is draining (on her, too, I imagine. But I'm whining about my own feelings, of course).

Mom's knee is hurting. A lot. Arthritis. Pain makes her grumpy. Stress over grandmother makes her grumpy. Exasperation with my retired Dad makes her grumpy. Sigh.

Baboos out of routine and lacking enough sleep. Grumpy Baboos.

(Sweet has done and is doing, off and on this weird thing: awakening in the middle of the night for up to 3 hours, tossing, turning. Nothing is wrong. Nothing is hurting. She just can't sleep. She goes to sleep fine but then wakes up in the wee hours. I know this because we were sharing a bed. Ideas from the pixies?)

So. Whine away.

Awards! I just wasn't up to it edition

I'm sorry folks for being a poor host, but I seem to have misplaced the clever.

Everyone gets a prize this week for just being here.

XOXOX

Wednesday Shoe Whining

I know that in the grand scheme of things that this whine I am about to relate is very minor.

Josef Seibel has discontinued the Adelle line of sandals.

These sandals are magic. I have the world's flattest feet. Narrow at the heel, much wider at the toe. Skinny, skinny ankles. And these sandals fit. Mostly because they were able to be adjusted at both ankle and toe, but also because of the way the sole was shaped and the angle at which the ankle strap was placed.

People, I've had 4 pairs of these sandals, and wore them knocking for every politico that came down the pike. I knocked two-hundred doors in one day in them, and yes, my feet still hurt, but I didn't have a single blister. My toes didn't get bruised nail-beds. I mean, these sandals are made by ELVES.

And they don't make them any more. I've hunted down one last pair (being shipped from Canada). They're sending a different pair, too, that they think might be a close match.

Meanwhile, I'm just curling up into a ball and whimpering.

Ponies and Rainbows and Chocolate

And sprinklers, and swimming pools.  Sharpie markers and good proof-readers.  Beginning of school!  Nice weather -- not too hot, not too gloomy.  Excellent workshops.  Naps!  Functional appliances.  Ice cream.  Hugs.  For everybody!

Cluesticks to over-excited doctors and invasive medical procedures, the suppliers of uncomfortable office chairs and incorrect literacy posters, and those who schedule school years in inconvenient ways. 

Goodbye tree; long live the tree

Well, a few months ago my beloved -- who works out his angst with yard projects -- decided to take out the former potted Christmas tree that we originally got around 22 years ago, and planted in the front yard when we moved here 17 years ago.  And lo, the tree grew and grew.  It grew to tower over the house!  It grew to ruin the sewer line, which nobody knew was under the planting area until waaaayyyy too late.

So, in the way of manly men with tools, he cut all the smaller branches using a long-handled hand saw.  That kept him busy and out of trouble, but it left us with kind of a skeleton tree towering to 20+ feet and sporting approximately 3 pine needles.  Over the next several months, we had a lively discussion about whether or not it was a good idea for him to use a tall ladder and chain saw to take care of the rest of the tree, and weighing in on my side were a series of events that took a lot of his time on weekends, and coincidentally those events were not so potentially apt to end with a concussion or severed limb.   

Ultimately, the side of reason prevailed, and the tree guys showed up today.  LOTS of them, and two large trucks -- which frankly seemed like a lot of manpower and equipment, but they had a real larger job nearby and everybody came on over to help out.  I estimate that each of the workers got to carry 2 chunks of tree to the truck.  Anyway, it took less than half an hour, and nobody went to the ER.  Victory!

Two seedlings from the former tree are growing in pots, so the tree is not truly gone.

What's new in your world?

Doldrums Be Gone Awards Ceremony!

Ack! I whine about doldrums, and then p_k has to go and make some excitement with a trip to the hospital! So glad baby is ok, Happy Birthday to E (8! wow!), and we hope things continue to go smoothly. We will send a bit of energy your way.

QWP gets the "Lost" Award, for her poor frying pan, departed with Downstairs Girl. The cluestick posse will be armed with iron skillets this week in her honor. DG needs to act like a grown up.

Old Skool Award to Liz, for the classic salad-dressing-down-your-front whine. Mini had chocolate ice cream and pancake syrup on her pj's this morning. Don't ask. Honorable mention, animal division, for kathy a's close encounter with cat bark. Blech.

Remembering What It's All About goes to QWP, of course, for Lil E's new teeth have been put to nefarious use. No biting, Lil E. That hurts Mommy.

Deep calming breaths to those who are moving, those who are children of those who are moving, people whose backups didn't backup, people who won't go to the doctor, people who are related to people who won't go to the doctor, people with new teaching gigs, and people vacationing with "Extreme Families"

Good advice: just picture Lil E doing her dinosaur roar.

Tune in next week for more whining.