jennanddave.com

Remember me? I thought I'd take a minute to tell you a bit about our weekend while my kid protests taking a nap by banging relentlessly against the wall of his bedroom.

Late Friday afternoon, the three of us piled into a rental car and headed for the vast open expanses of Interstates 80, 81, 84, and finally 87, home of some of the worst rest stops in the history of rest stops. (Roy Rogers? Seriously?) My grandmother's birthday was Friday and we thought we'd surprise her by showing up on her doorstep bright and early Saturday morning.

My parents got there in time for lunch on Friday so they took her out to dinner and got her a little cake to celebrate with on Friday night. Because Friday was her birthday. The bigger celebration with the bigger cake would be on Saturday. The day after her birthday.

By Saturday afternoon I noticed that she was getting a lot of phone calls from people wishing her Happy Birthday. There was even a bouquet of flowers delivered to her from my Aunt. After the fourth or fifth call, I asked my dad why everyone was calling on Saturday instead of Friday. Because Friday was her birthday. He said he didn't know. Then he said maybe her birthday wasn't Friday. So I asked her "Wasn't yesterday you're birthday?" And she said "No, yesterday I was 89. Today I'm 90." And my dad and I had a good laugh, then blamed my mom for misleading us, because she's the one who knows this kind of information. After discussing how we would avoid making this mistake again next year, we settled on writing down "Grandma's birthday" under the correct date on our calendars. Seems like a good plan.

Later when we brought out her extra super big and official birthday cake, Grandma asked us why she was getting another one since she'd gotten one already the evening before, and my dad said "Because yesterday wasn't your birthday." Slightly embarrassing and yet she got two birthday cakes! I hope everyone forgets which day my birthday is next year.

As if not getting the day of her birthday right wasn't bad enough, when I told Megan about it on Monday, she laughed and said "Didn't you guys do that last year? Or was it the year before?" Now that's embarrassing.

Posted by Jenn at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I have this friend. We'll call him Paul Fallon. (By the way, that's really his name.) Not so long ago Paul, being the crazy entrepreneur that he is, started up Irish Running Tours, a touring company that allows you to experience all of the beauty of Ireland from the runner's perspective, which if you're me would mean lots of resting accompanied by the rhythmic sound of me wheezing. If you're more fit than I am, and chances are very good that you are, it seems like a pretty nice way to experience a place. Why zip around in a car with your nose in a map thereby missing all the scenery when you can have a really nice guy like Paul take you on a running tour of wherever you'd like to go?

Right now Paul's been doing lots of traveling to trade shows and the like, getting Irish Running Tours' name out there. It's been going really well and I thought I'd do my share by posting a plug and also putting up a link to his site over there on the right-hand sidebar. Go ahead and click it. You know you want to.

Posted by Jenn at 09:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Henry and I haven't seen Dave since approximately 9 o'clock last night.

Have you seen him?

Posted by Jenn at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My kid could win an Oscar lately for some of the dramatic acting he's been throwing his whole being into lately. The last two days have been priceless. Yesterday he threw major fits at Megan's house so we left early, which, as far as punishments go, is right up at the top of his "Things I Will Never, Ever, Be Able to Forgive My Mom For. Ever" list, which made the howling on the way home easier to take because wow was he ever learning a lesson. And for the record, he was an angel after his nap.

Then today there was some drama over leaving the park. He's always good about leaving the park because we do the whole "Pick one more thing to do and then we're heading home," bit which always diffuses fireworks. So today he picked a slide that had been adopted by a carpenter bee that buzzed and hummed and tried to stare us down. While I was doing acrobatics keeping the bee away from Henry long enough for him to go down the slide, Henry sat at the top, seemingly paralyzed with fear. After five minutes I'd lost all patience, especially because by that time I started to get the feeling that Henry was less "afraid" and more "enjoying the show". So I carried him home. And I cursed the bee. And Henry cried. And I didn't have much sympathy.

Lately by the time naptime rolls around I just want to crawl into bed and not get up until the next day. Everyone talks so much about how much sleep kids need, yet hardly anyone mentions how much moms need. Taking into account the way I've been feeling lately, I'd put that number somewhere around seventeen hours of sleep a night. This would mean putting us to bed around 3PM and waking us up around 8AM.

Sounds glorious.

Posted by Jenn at 03:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

1. If you're at the post office trying to send a package to Iraq, the people behind the counter are a lot nicer to you.

2. If you're buying a sandbox for your kid with your kid, salesmen are really helpful, especially when it takes forever for one of the other employees to figure out what the price is, because that means the aforementioned salesman gets to sit at one of the picnic tables, relax, and chat. With a cute mom no less! Lucky guy.

3. The local butcher sells prepackaged 3.5 pound bags of frozen bones for $1.99.

4. My kid is always, always, better behaved than I expect him to be when we have to run lots of errands. I need to give him more credit.

Posted by Jenn at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Things are heading south over here. Last night Henry was up a lot with a cough. We gave him two doses of albuterol during the night, plus two doses of Tylenol. Unfortunately it would take him a while to be able settle down long enough to fall asleep, so we were all awake for about an hour to an hour and a half each time. I had fitful dreams that I attributed to being awake so much during the night, but as the day progresses, I'm feeling worse and worse so I have a feeling I'm getting his cold.

Henry went down for a nap about twenty minutes ago and I can hear him coughing away upstairs. Because he's an over-achiever, he also has a sore throat. I gave him some decaf tea with honey in it. Not too sure it did anything because he stopped drinking it fairly early on, but it was worth a shot. Might have to try a popsicle or cold apple juice later on this afternoon. Hopefully he'll catch a couple of z's, otherwise it's going to be a long evening.

Karen, Thomas, and Beth came over to play this morning. We had pumpkin pancakes and bacon. After breakfast we headed down to the park where we ran into Phoebe and Otto, the latter of which was tearing up the ground what with all the fast tracks he was making everywhere. Henry's cold definitely hasn't slowed him down at all; he was too busy running all over the house and park today and showing off for Karen to stop long enough to feel sorry for himself. I, however, am going to settle down in the living room with some tea and honey and commence wallowing in self-pity. I'm not above that at all.

Posted by Jenn at 03:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dave's parents came up for a visit on Friday. I can't speak for them, but the flurry of activity that has been the last two days has pretty much knocked everyone here off of their feet. Henry is zonked out upstairs and I'm about to hit the couch. How did this happen? It could be one of many things: marching around the house with drums and brooms while blasting "McNamara's Band"; running around outside; running around inside; going to Karen's house for a barbecue (where there was also lots of running around outside and in, not to mention really good food. Karen made killer burgers. I'm thinking of going over tonight and demanding more. Not that I've been at all invited.); planting potatoes; blowing bubbles; eating lots of pancakes; making play-doh spaghetti; etc.; etc. It was a great weekend.

Regarding my last post, I think it only fair to tell you that my dad, who also went to see Harry Belafonte, insists that the song he was referring to was not "Jamaica Farewell", but instead was "Day-o". I'm not sure I believe him. On the one hand, I remember feeling sad that it was "Jamaica Farewell" because it's one of my favorite songs, and I could probably convince myself that we had a conversation about it during the car ride home during which I could have declared "You'd think it would be 'Day-o' that he didn't like." Plus, my dad doesn't have a great track record for remember things, like, for instance, his high school graduation, or how old I am. On the other hand, he's like a sponge when it comes to soaking up useless information, so he could very well be right. Anyway, I felt compelled to publicly admit I could be wrong about the specifics of the whole Harry Belafonte analogy. Emphasis on "could be".

Posted by Jenn at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Back in 2001 or 2002, Dave and I went and saw Harry Belafonte perform at the North Shore Music Theatre. At one point during his concert, he told a story about how when he was first embarking on his singing career, his mom told him to make sure he liked every song he sang. Her theory was that whatever song he didn't particularly like would be the one that would become a big hit, and he'd be stuck singing it over and over at concert's for the rest of his life. That song for him happens to be "Jamaica Farewell". And by the way, mother's are always right.

When I made my dad and Henry matching pairs of the World's Ugliest Pants, I thought it would be a great laugh, that we'd pack up Henry's pair, and that we'd only see them when there was absolutely nothing clean left in his bureau. Little did I know they'd become the most requested pair of pants in the household. Whenever I ask him what pants he'd like to wear, he always says "Henry's wear orange pants." I now have to look at them almost every single day of the week. The lesson to I had to learn the hard way is: make sure I like whatever it is I'm planning on sewing for my kid, because if I don't, it will become his favorite article of clothing.

And by the way, mother's are always right.

Posted by Jenn at 04:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Tonight I hosted a meeting for a Board I'm on. The President of this particular Board is Megan. Everyone arrived for the meeting while Dave was putting Henry to bed. Apparently when Henry heard Megan talking, he said "Henry need Megan... Need Megan... Need Megan..." Dave said he was handling his lack of Megan like a real trooper, despite the fact that he knew she was in the house and that she was not there to give him yellow cookies or kick a cup while running around the house with him.

I was going to make an allusion to the fact that since Megan's both President *and* Henry's number one lady that she was gaining an upper-hand in my household and that she probably needed to be taken out. I even had a good Zoolander male model assassination reference ready to go. Then I realized if Megan's takes control of operations over here, the pressure would be completely off of me. After two seconds of soul-searching (I'm not that deep.), I've decided I'm totally down with that.

Posted by Jenn at 11:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I couldn't access my website this weekend, which means I also wasn't able to receive or send any email. (Is the plural of "email" "emails"? I just typed and erased it both ways a couple of times but nothing looks quite right and although I'm too lazy to hunt down the answer on the internet, I'm apparently not too lazy to type out this ridiculously long aside.) Although the first few hours were tough because I'm an email junkie, being forced to go cold-turkey was cathartic. I spent far less time running to the computer to check my inbox, which meant I also spent far less time on the internet getting sidetracked by random surfing. I need to beef up my willpower and go email-less on the weekends more often.

Yesterday in an effort to make progress with some house projects we went to Lowe's and spent $100. We felt much better afterward, except for being $100 poorer. This summer I'm going to make an effort at getting some sort of vegetable garden going, both in our little square garden box in the backyard (which is strategically placed to take advantage of the three square feet of consistent sunlight we get in our backyard over the summer once all the trees have leafed out), but also by interspersing some vegetables within our flower garden. I also bought a container to start a container herb garden. And, as if that weren't ambitious enough, I'm thinking of starting a tea garden on a small plot of land we have near the house that gets some decent light. Yesterday Henry and I had a great time planting some seeds in some flats we have leftover from last years nursery purchases. I've never started plants from seeds and have a feeling I'm already failing miserably, but time will tell.

Meanwhile, Dave took the door to our back room off the hinges so he could repair and sand it. The previous owners had a dog that had scratched the door a lot and, in doing so, managed to dislocate the lower panel of the door so it would drag on the floor and not open all the way. Now it's in Dave's workshop, freshly glued, mostly sanded, and ready for a coat of paint. Everything in the garage has a fine layer of wood dust on it, including all of the items that are in two boxes that we had set aside for a garage sale. This morning I had to vacuum the vacuum cleaner before bringing it in the house. Lovely. The door looks great though.

Posted by Jenn at 03:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

On Friday night, after deciding we were going to make an offer on the house we had been looking at, I came up with a game plan for getting our house ready to be put on the market. Thus the Great Purging of 2008 began, bright and early on Saturday morning, starting with our closets. Dave and I managed to fill two garbage bags full of clothes. Our house literally stretched, sighed, and settled itself back down into a more comfortable position on the foundation when those bags went out the kitchen door.

We've decided to carry on with our purging and painting as if we are still going to put our house on the market. When we had to sell our place in Salem, we madly finished all the painting and other half-finished projects we had going on and when it was all done, realized that our condo was not just awesome, but SUPER-AWESOME! and felt pretty bad that we hadn't just finished the projects when we started them so that we could really enjoy the place. When the moving trucks pulled up in front of current house we pledged we wouldn't make that mistake again. Then we started a bunch of projects. And guess what? It's been five years and we still haven't finished some of them. We're a sorry bunch over here.

But no more! A new leaf has been turned! And, Dave, you should be dreading this weekend because you're so going to be put to work.

Posted by Jenn at 03:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My towel is on the right. Yours is on the left.

STOP USING MY TOWEL!

Posted by Jenn at 02:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)