yes...I'm that easily manipulated

I'm a little surprised that my two older kids didn't figure it out first.

Nae is pretty smart and Bud has the ability see into the heart of anyone.
But it was Mac who stumbled on my weakness.

She is, after all, my third child who I'm blindly stumbling leading through this jungle called teenager life.

And Mac is especially good at putting on the charm and talking me into doing what she wants.

Let's just say that she "has a way of putting things".

Today she found a whole new way to manipulate me.

The unborn grand kids.

Yep.

Today she teasingly told me if I let her do what she wants I can have extra time with the grand kids.

Mac: "Come on Mom! Let me go PLEASE!!! I'll let you see my kids twice a week."

Me: "What?!!" (I was a little shocked. I had to take a moment to collect myself...I had never thought of tactic before) That's all I get?! How much do I get if I don't let you go?"

Mac: "Once a month."

Me: "What?!! I was planning on living next door to you and seeing them everyday! How could you do this to me?"

Mac: "Ha! yeah right!" (she thinks I'm kidding)

You will all be proud of me. I didn't give in.

I'm holding out for at least four days a week...

poor babies

I had my first experience with the twins being sick last week.

Maybe it's because it's been 14 years since I had a little one around, I don't know. But I hang my RN head low when I admit that it took me all day to figure out they weren't feeling well.

I probably should have noticed something wasn't right when they slept an hour longer for their morning nap (I was ecstatically doing laundry).

I should have had a clue when they didn't want to swing in the baby swings at the park.

this is a different "happy day" at the park...I didn't take pics of them crying

Or fussed over their afternoon bottle.

It finally dawned on me when they slept for another 3 hours and woke up feeling warm to the touch.

Of course, they didn't have those fancy ear thermometers when my kids were little and all my rectal thermometers have since disappeared (maybe it was after one of my kids used the wrong one to take his own temperature orally a few years back---"you put this where?!!!!" he said disgustingly--like I never cleaned it or something).

So I ran next door and asked my neighbor if she had an ear thermometer I could borrow. Her youngest is 5 so after a few minutes of searching she gave me an old one and said "I don't have anymore covers for it and I don't remember how to work it. Good luck."

I took it home and replaced the batteries and finally figured how to get around the "cover missing" error and got it to read.

The only problem was I couldn't (for the LIFE of me!) get it to switch to Fahrenheit.

Another shamefully nursing admission was I couldn't remember the formula to convert it.

And my Internet was down that day and my math genius daughter wasn't answering her text.

I was pretty pleased with myself when I found a way to figure it out.

It was about the same time that the Hubby called.

After relating my story of not being able to find a thermometer in our house to the whole Fahrenheit conversion mystery....which was (in his defense) a little long and he probably wasn't paying very close attention to my story due to the fact he was busy at work...

I triumphantly exclaimed "So I finally got out the meat thermometer....."

"You what?!! You can't stick a meat thermometer in a babies...."

"No!!!!

I used it to convert the temperature from Celsius to Fahrenheit!"

"you want to stick that sharp pointy thing where?"

Kids and work

I'm very excited that my oldest daughter, Nae will be living with us for the summer.

She got an internship as an environmental engineer in downtown Chicago.


She's been home now for a couple of days and I'm loving it.


We took the train into the city this morning to get the timing of the Metra down and to see exactly how long it will take her to walk from the station to her office.
Her office is only two blocks from the train station but the train ride is over an hour each way.
It will make long days for her (leaving the house at 5:20am and getting home around 6pm).


But she is pretty excited.
And so am I.



Or I should say I'm pretty nervous.


I asked The Hubby if he was nervous. He said "no".
I asked him when he thought I would stop getting so nervous about our kid's first days of work.
He said "probably never".
He also said I should only be nervous about their first day of their first "real job".
That if you screw up and make a bad impression on the first day of your real job it can haunt you for a long time.


Now I'm still nervous and have something to look forward to when my kids get "real jobs".

Speaking of first days of work, here's a picture of Mac just before she left for her first day of her VERY first job. She is a hostess in a restaurant.




I always take a pic of the kids on their first day of their first job.
It's a tradition. Just like the first day of school picture.
And they love it just as much.
As you can tell by Mac's "hurry-up-and-take-the-stupid-picture" smile on her face.

And yes, I was super nervous for her that day.

I had a really great picture of Nae on her first day of her first job.
She was working for a civil engineering company and had to wear one of those cute hard hats while on the construction site. I got a picture of her in that. You'll have to trust me when I say it was cute because it mysteriously disappeared.

Anyhoo, it was a really nice day. We went out for lunch and The Hubby gave us a mini tour of the surrounding area.


We saw some interesting variations of panhandling that I've never seen before.




Not your normal signs like the one this weirdo is holding.

The first one we saw said this:

GIRLFRIEND KIDNAPPED BY NINJAS. NEED MONEY FOR RANSOM AND KUNG- FU LESSONS

The next one we saw said this:

NOT GOOD LOOKING ENOUGH FOR PROSTITUTION. NOT SMART ENOUGH TO STEAL. I NEED SOME MONEY PLEASE HELP.

These guys looked pretty young and clean cut. I'm wondering how much money they actually pull in a day with these kinds of signs. And if this turns out to be Tony's first job (which is the first thing I thought of when I saw them...I have no idea why) I won't be nervous or taking any pictures.

Magpie #13

Go HERE for more Magpie Tales.



Stella leaned back in her chair, or at least as far as her corset would allow. She enjoyed observing the guests around her long dinning table. Her secret to throwing a successful dinner party was not only her unpredictable sense of humor but how she could feel the flow and movement of the evening. She sensed that tonight's party would be in need of more than a little assistance.

To her the dinner party was a symphony and she took a moment to loose herself in the performance. Voices no longer formed words but joined in the concord of sound taking the form of the strings and winds. The china and crystal became the percussion. And the staccato of laughter quicken the tempo always enriching the texture of the movements.

She knew that her symphony had already played out the first movement, the animated talk around the table, the quick steps of the servants as they circled the table attending to each guest. But now silk gowns began rustling as the women stirred restlessly in their chairs signifying the second slower movement. To keep the evening interesting, they couldn't linger on the Adagio where satisfied appetites and drinks could lead to lethargic guests. Parties were much more enjoyable when the evening ended with a lively minuet.

Stella was the conductor and it was her job to keep the symphony moving. It was time for the group to move to the parlor for after dinner drinks, conversation and cards. This was her favorite time of the evening but as they settled around the room she felt the awkwardness hanging in the air like an atonal instrument. (she should have never invited the Hamiltons and Wellingtons to the same party!). The tempo continued to falter after the dull story told by Mr. Brentwood.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures" was her thinking as she excused herself for a moment to the side bar where champagne was being poured into crystal flutes by James, one of her servants. She had only done this once before.


She removed her glass eye (the result of a childhood injury) and placed it in one of the glasses of champagne. She whispered "James, give this one to Mrs. Brentwood."

Perennial Pete strikes again

This weekend is "garage sale weekend" here in my neighborhood.

I've only held one garage sale in my life.

It went like this....

I took a couple days off work.

I spent hours and hours doing the following~

*cleaning my garage and covering things that were not for sale.

*hauling out tables, digging through boxes in storage.

*sorting through clothes, toys and miscellaneous junk.

*folding, more sorting, pricing.

Then stood there for 2 1/2 days while strangers did the following~

*they riffled through my stuff.

*they unfolded and tossed things all over.

*they insulting me by saying that 25 cents was too much for that dress my 6 month old only wore once.

*they relentlessly haggling with me on things that were priced for 50 cents and less.

In the end I made a hundred bucks.

Then I had to haul all the unsold stuff to Goodwill.

It was torture.

I figured if I had worked my normal nursing shifts I would have made multiple times the money I made at my sale. And I could have just donated all the stuff and saved myself a lot of work and grief.

That's what I did from then on.

So when the garage sales happen in my neighborhood I just go about my business and try to be patient.

Yes, patient. Because we all know what it's like when there are garage sales in your neighborhood. All these perfectly normal people come into your neighborhood and instantly turn into "bargain-hunting-neck-craning-not-paying-attention-to-where-they-are-driving-can't get-to-the-next-house-fast-enough" bad drivers.

That's what was happening this morning when I went out to take Ace for a walk. Not only were people driving distracted but they were parking all over the place.

And this is where Perennial Pete comes in. If you don't know Pete or need to refresh your memory you can go HERE HERE and HERE oh and HERE

As you remember...

Pete doesn't like people to park in front of his property.

Pete likes to yell at people when they park in front of his property.

Pete insists on calling the police when he doesn't feel people are listening to him when they are parked in front of his property.

And that was how it went for Pete today.

Some of my neighbors were NOT amused.

The police were NOT amused.

I heard all about it today and started to get a little angry at Pete.

Then this evening I was sitting on my front porch relaxing when I saw Pete opening his gate across the street.

He yelled over to me "Do you want to come over and see the peonies?" (I haven't talked to him since the last time I blogged about him).

And so I went over.

I introduced Ace to Pete.

We went on a mini tour of his property and looked at all the blooming tree peonies. He has them in every color you can imagine. Multiple shades of red, pink, white, purple, and yellow (I didn't know the color of yellow even existed).

We talked and he picked me a bouquet of lilacs and quizzed me some more on my knowledge of herbs which I was about 50/50 this time.

I think we can find something in common.

We both hate garage sales.

I've decided that I like Pete.