the reason i'm married....

The other night after the kids were in bed I had some TNT show on and was flipping through a catalog or something (I tend to multi-task at night) and I happened to glance up during a commercial break and for a second saw a familiar face during the preview for a Steven Seagal movie. Luckily, with DVR you can instantly rewind whatever you're watching and yep, sure enough, there was a whole second of an old friend Jackie Lord
in the preview. Well, her name wasn't Lord when I knew her in high school, but it comes from marrying and un-marrying a prominent, Grammy award winning music producer I guess.

Jackie was a senior when I was a freshman in high school, she was gorgeous and talented-the lead in Fame, the school musical that year. She drove an adorable old convertible Beatle, she had a college boyfriend, and she worked and taught at the campus ice arena. I had never ice skated as a kid and didn't try it until high school and at 14 was taking lessons for the first time. Amazingly, as unathletic as I am, I took to ice skating right away (I think all those years of rollerskating in my parents basement to Michael Jackson songs with the neighbor girls may have helped some!). Because Jackie taught lessons at the same time I was at the rink, she was able to give me ride from there to the school for musical rehearsals (I was merely in the chorus). She told me that she had a brother my age who was living with their dad in Georgia and would be attending our high school the following year. I didn't think much of it but when I met Dan on the first day of school sophomore year in math class we were friends right away.

And Jackie might also be credited for Aaron and I being together. As sophomores it was Jackie who encouraged Dan and I to get jobs at the ice arena. We were young, not old enough to even get to and from work (you have no idea how much fun was made of me by my college co-workers when mom would drop me off!) and our boss was skeptical about hiring us. But he did and it was the best job for two goofy high school kids and I worked there the rest of high school and into college and working there was how Aaron and I met.

And Jackie of course did well, as far as I know. She was scouted by modeling agencies while still in high school, she married and sadly divorced, but she records music, acts, lives it up on one coast or another. It's so neat to watch someone you know become successful. Her movie is on TNT this afternoon, pretty cool. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she's good!

today was nice, we painted our living room (okay, aaron painted while i tried to keep the kids from sticking themselves to the tacky, wet walls). we ran some errands. mostly it was just nice to have some family time, aaron's been working a lot on weekends.

andie suddenly came down with a cold, poor girl. and at one point during the day i was cleaning something off the kitchen floor, aaron was painting and she starts crying about something. she didn't sleep very well, she was being a little whiney, i didn't think much of it but asked her to come to me. she runs over and she's rubbing her nose and then i bring my hand up just as she shoots an unpopped popcorn kernel out of her right nostril and into my hand. ahhhh! we had had popcorn the night before, she must have found this little thing hiding in some corner and decided to put it up her nose. thank goodness it came right out, i wouldn't even have known it was in there. i don't think she's going to do it again but i'm still going to watch those popcorn kernels. and all this time i've been concerning myself with possible choking hazzards.


***
tomorrow we're picking up a new bed for kieran, yay! i think he's pretty excited, when we got ours we told him we'd be getting a new one for him soon too and he kept asking about it. the bed he has right now is really old, we'll just say that if it was person it could have little grand-beds by this time. when get something for kieran he gets all happy and complimentary, lately he often says things like , "You're the best mommy ever! i love you!" and he hugs me and it sounds vaguely like a not-so-good child actor audition, but aaron and i still suck it up. when the kids are constantly telling us they love each other and us we remind one another that we need to remember this, as the teenage years approach we can only imagine the eye-rolling, sighing, and door slamming...who are we kidding, i think that starts way before the teen years. ack.

***

aaron's playing hockey right now. poor guy painted all day and his shoulders were feeling a little tense before he even left. and he doesn't have a face shield. keep your fingers crossed that the pucks and sticks remain at a safe distance.

well, i finally got out of the big comfy bed. ....but i'm in it again right now, hee hee!

i'm watching an oprah re-run and Laurence Fishburne is a guest and i just keep thinking of him as Cowboy Curtis on Pee Wee's Playhouse.

i'm definitely ready for a weekend. aaron has a reunion hockey game tomorrow evening, i'm keeping my fingers crossed that it goes well and he doesn't get hurt or anything. the last time he played hockey was a year ago, for the last hockey reunion game. and before that it had been quite a while.

when aaron and i first dated he skated, played, or coached hockey probably an average of about 5 times a week. there were times where he skated every day.

at the last game there weren't many of the "oldtimers" present so they invited some of the Illinois club team to play (like the B team to the Illini which is the A team) and those young college kids skated circles around aaron and his buddies. he laughed ruefully as he described it, saying he and his friends were the old guys that they used to make fun off in college.

aaaahhhhh

our new bed is here. it's like heaven. i may never get out of it again...

it's hard to be mad, even cleaning up heavy, dark lipgloss stains on the carpet when the perpetrator doesn't feel good.

we spent our evening in convenient care, with andie wearing an odd contraption to collect urine in her diaper. it turns out she has a double ear infection and a bladder infection. she never has a fever, she never sits on your lap for long periods and she just wasn't herself. i started suspecting the bladder infection but had no idea about the ears. i hate when the kids are sick.

cutie for sale**

this morning andie somehow found an old Clinique dark pink lip gloss of mine and "colored" all over our master bedroom carpet, hallway carpet, and bathroom tile and grout. i think i'm still in shock. we have been working on getting the spots out and tomorrow we're trying Goo Gone and Ivory soap, please keep your fingers crossed.

kieran never did this, but our littlest artist just loves finding and hoarding writing utensils, or old makeup, and then covering any surface she chooses with it. my girlfriends were suggesting that she needs her own art area. i'm going to give it a shot, but i'm just worried that she'll find a way to leave her mark on yet another area of the house.

and if that isn't bad enough, our hamster, egon, keeps escaping. we've been meaning to get a screen but haven't gotten around to it. for now we have a Magna Doodle balanced on top of the aquarium he's in, but earlier when i went to check my e-mail he was standing on top of it....somehow even the family pet is troublesome these days. sheesh.

**our cutie is not for sale. let's not spread any rumors that someone is selling a child on her blog. i love the cutie and can hardly stay angry with her. she manages to say "i love you mommy" every other sentence, who wouldn't want that??

love overstock, the show house, new beds, and olive oil

it's so nice to rest for a bit. just watching house, snuggling under our new down comforter (thank you overstock). the only thing that would make it even better is if our new bed had been delivered. thank you to trish for convincing me that it was a good idea after almost ten years with the same caving-in bed to get a new one. aaron and i never went shopping for our bed in the first place, we bought the set from a family friend brand new (but pretty low quality) intended for an apartment unit he owned. it was so fun laying on these awesome new beds and determining the best one. can't wait now!

yesterday i did some projects around the house, i'll have to post pictures when they're all done. at one point while i was in another room i forgot andie had been having some pudding in the kitchen. the next thing i know she's telling me she's "all done" and she is covered head to toe in chocolate pudding. and there's pudding in the carpet. and on our family room chair. i couldn't be too upset, first, she was pretty cute, and second, i should have been watching her like a hawk with something that messy. lesson learned.

then at least three times throughout the day she stripped her clothes off plus diaper and would run through the house yelling "i'm a nakey butt!" then late afternoon she again took all her clothes off and as i was going to retrieve a new diaper for her i heard her yelling "help me kieran! help me kieran!" she sounded really upset. and for some reason whenever she needs help she first goes to kieran, it's kind of cute. i was immediately in the family room and found that my naked daughter's arm was completely stuck up to the elbow in a toy. i should say that this toy has been a "problem" before. at one point there was a fork with mashed potatoes stuck in it that aaron had to unscrew to get out. it's hard to explain but it has several small plastic balls and when you push down on this plunger thing it shoots air through some tubes and the balls are blown through the tube and then around some maze like stuff (i told you it was hard to explain and i don't think it really makes a difference anyway). anyway, i could see her hand and arm as the hard, molded tube was clear and i was a little worried because the tube curved like a letter U and there wasn't an easy way to ease her arm out. and her arm was stuck pretty well and was getting red. i called aaron but he was on the other end of town, a friend wasn't home, my dad told me to try to pour some olive oil down her arm. nothing. i tried unscrewing the parts of the toy but it was hard to do while holding her arm with the toy so that it didn't hurt her. finally i called a neighbor who was on her way over when i dropped the olive oil bottle, put it on the table next to us and andie just instantly removed her caught arm so she could hold the bottle. so, she's fine, even though i was traumatized picturing an ambulance visit with EMT's trying to help my completely nude daughter and free her from her plastic arm prison.

once a while ago (okay, it was only about a year ago) i put on this totally obnoxious fake diamond ring i have even though it was small and instantly it got stuck and i knew i had a very short time before my finger started swelling and it wasn't coming off. after two hours i finally called the E.R. and they told me that if i didn't get it off within a few minutes i had to come in to not risk problems with cutting off the circulation. the story ended with my wonderful husband sawing away at the thing while i hoped my finger would remain intact. went totally fine though. but it made me a little paranoid about cutting off circulation to body parts. ...and wearing bad jewelry. but oh well.

so all's well that end's well i guess.

geez, i sound like a dork. i just read what i typed and man, i somehow type everything that comes into my head, kind of the way i think out loud as i talk. nice.

getting to know you-50

okey dokey, i saw this somewhere else so i'm trying it. 100 things about me. only after 50 i got bored of talking about myself. and i think i elaborated more than necessary, so i think 50 should be sufficient. i may try the next 50 in the future.

i'd also like to challenge all my blogging friends to do this, it was more fun than i thought it would be. i have a really bad memory but it was nice to re-visit things...
***

1. I’m left handed
2. I do more things with my right hand than my left. I only eat, brush my teeth, and play guitar left handed.
3. I don’t really play guitar. Aaron once re-strung a guitar for me and I tried it for about a week but I was too much of a weenie to develop calluses for it.
4. I think Greg Wiggle is the cutest (they’re on in the background right now). I know more people who like Anthony but not me.
5. I also always liked Jonathan of the New Kids on the Block even though no one else I know did.
6. I’m still in love with Tom Petty. Since 7^th grade. Love him. Once again, I know he’s not everyone’s main attraction but I’ll take him.
7. I’ve never had stitches before.
8. My favorite color is green. But I probably own more blue things.
9. I have to have the bed made before I get into it at night. Even if the bed has been unmade all day, I’ll make Aaron stand to the side while I make it before we lay down.
10. I was in a local commercial when I was 10. My brother used to show my boyfriends the embarrassing tape of the whole thing.
11. I know all the words to Aretha Franklin’s “Respect”, Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me”, and The Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women” but can’t name three songs in the top 40 right now.
12. I’m not a big coffee drinker. I don’t own a coffee pot and when I drink coffee it’s probably either a) winter time or b) caramel or flavored in some way
13. I might have been named “Barry” if I were a boy. At least that’s what my dad wanted to name me. Ick. No offense to all the Barry’s out there…like Manilow. It’s even funnier with my dad’s New York accent.
14. I like Barry Manilow.
15. In middle school a group of girls put me in a trash can and then dumped me in the showers and turned the water on.
16. You couldn’t pay me enough money to go back to middle school.
17. I was senior class president and just realized this year should be our 10 year reunion. Darn.
18. My “campaign” (if you can call it that) involved running just before the election, writing Joanna for President on strips of masking tape and taping it to people.
19. In college I had a roommate who marked lines on her toilet paper so she’d know if someone else used it.
20. My favorite drink is a margarita.
21. I am not competitive at all. I could care less if I win or lose. It’s the reason I never liked sports and often why I don’t like playing games of any kind.
22. Lethal Weapon 2 was my favorite movie for many years.
23. One of the worst experiences of my young life was being a “duck” for the annual duck race here in the middle of summer in 90+ degree weather and encased in a Disney-like duck costume. And every time I turned around I knocked over some kid behind me with the tail.
24. Often when I run or work out hard I get so red in the face I turn eggplant-colored. People do double- and triple-takes. It’s like all the blood rushes to my head, I can literally feel my face pulse. The rest of my body gets goosebumps because it’s cold in comparison to my dumb head. It’s great.
25. I eat burgers and sandwiches around the edges first and eat the middle last. I don’t know why.
26. I like salty and savory things more than sweets.
27. I once showed up for the wrong final in college in a room of over 1000 people and tried the exam for ½ an hour before realizing I was in Macro Economics instead of Micro.
28. I insisted my sister Julie’s full name be “Juliette”. I’ve always loved naming things.
29. I also insisted on the names for the family dogs: Cody and Skippy.
30. I was bossy when I was a kid.
31. If I could travel anywhere in the world it would be Ghana.
32. If I went to Ghana I would learn everything I could about intellectual property.
33. I hate pulp in orange juice. Before they had pulp free I always strained it.
34. I chew when I drink (it relates a little too the o.j.) I swish everything I drink through my left rear molars. I drink one sip at a time and can’t “chug” unless I concentrate really hard. I have a hard time swallowing pills too.
35. My favorite day of the week is Thursday.
36. I had an imaginary friend, a husband named “Timmy” who took me to “ruffly suit parties” and traveled in space. After a driving trip my mom asked about Timmy and I just told her, “We left him in Ohio.” And I never mentioned him again.
37. My favorite musical is “Bye Bye Birdie”.
38. In high school I got into a fight with my parents and decided to drive to Memphis. I only had $6 and after clearing my head for a while I turned around in Charleston and headed back and returned just as the school day was ending.
39. Friends and I did a Ferris Bueller day on St. Patrick’s Day, called ourselves in, drove to Chicago, walked the parade route (we missed the parade) and went to Sears Tower.
40. I worked for three months at Baskin Robbins and had to quit because my arm hurt so much from scooping. I was a big weenie.
41. My first car was a Plymouth Horizon hatchback.
42. I used to have three Styrofoam wig-stand type heads on top of the hatchback facing outward.
43. The summer before college someone stole the heads from my car. Never heard from again. No ransom note, nothing.
44. I had a John Hughes/80’s movie type senior prom when I saw my boyfriend at the mall an hour before the event walking hand in hand with his (ex)-girlfriend. I cried in the men’s suit department at Sears.
45. I can drive a Zamboni. At least I think I’d still remember.
46. Aaron and I never took a honeymoon.
47. We had two guys crash our wedding, they signed the guest book, had a picture taken of themselves and everything. Two years later I was working on campus and there was a Smoothie King right next door and one of the guys worked there. I recognized him immediately and he always said I looked familiar but I never told him he knew me because I was the bride from the wedding he crashed. He turned out to be pretty nice.
48. When swing dancing was popular I was really into it and had a guy friend who would flip me when we danced.
49. I got a C in the Intro to Advertising course right before I applied to the program. I insisted I wasn’t a good test taker and the course was composed of just 3 exams for the grade and that I was a member of marketing and advertising organizations even though I wasn’t in the program yet and despite my less than stellar grade I was advertising material. I got in.
50. I’ve never been skiing.

pictures

woo hoo

it's 8:45 am and everyone is still asleep. the one day when the kids sleep late and i've been awake for an hour and a half. all because of another dumb cold and the stupid hamster wheel rubbing against the side of the cage, keeping me up. darn it all.

i'll have to post a perkier new years post later. now feeling the perkiness right now :)