It snowed yesterday.

It snowed today.

We had a two hour delay.

Then school was cancelled again.

White out conditions.

Our last day is now June 11th.  Middle G is excited because it is her birthday and she has never had school on her birthday before. 

Mommy is seeing summer disappear.

What I did today:

Today I learned how to get silly putty out of a bed spread.  Paint thinner.  Nothing else worked.

I finished six loads of laundry but they aren't all put away.

I heard the word "killer whale" 5,298 times on television.  Free Tilly before he kills again.

I made an autograph book for both my niece and my nephew for their upcoming Disney trip.

I baked a Percy Jackson birthday cake.

What I didn't do:

I did not get out of my pajamas.

I did not spend the day on the computer.

I did not take a shower.

I did not shovel a single flake of snow.

Bracing for another round of winter weather next week and keeping my fingers crossed that school doesn't move into the third week of June!

23 days until spring!

It became clear early on that this episode would focus mostly on Jack.

Just Jack....okay and Hurley and Jin and crazy Claire.  But mostly Jack.

Off the island we see Jack over scheduling himself and dealing with his mother who is slightly pissed off that Oceanic lost the body of her deceased husband.

Next we see Jack pic up his son, David (who looks to be about 12) and we are all like "say what" and then we are all like Maury Povich "Whose the mama?"

My guess is that Sarah, Jack's ex-wife, is the baby momma.



Turns our David and Jack don't really have much to say to each other and that he only visits once a month.  His relationship with David isn't much better than Jack's relationship with Christian.

Jack finds out that David is at an audition so he follows him.

While watching from the back Jack sees his son preform some seriously impressive classical piano playing and runs into Dogen, aka Mr. Miyagi.  He is there with his son and says something about the pressures they are under at such a young age.

"Before you know it they will be burning people with hot pokers and making pills out of poison.  They grow up so fast."

Jack can't make idle conversation with Dogen as he is certain he knows him from somewhere and makes a quick exit.

When David comes out he sneaks up on him and says "I brought pizza and you weren't there."  It is a tender moment when he tells him that he just wants to be a part of his life.  David rolls his eyes and says, "Fine, lets have pizza."



Back on the island, Hurley gets in touch with his sixth sense and hangs out with Jacob who give him some cliff notes and tells him to do him a favor.

"Someone is trying to find the island and you need to help him.  But you must bring Jack along."

So Hurley, who continues to be the nicest guy on the show no matter what timeline, goes to get Jack and Jack says something about not really wanting to hang out with him and Hurley says, "you have what it takes."

Jacks decides he wants to go so he can kick Jacobs ass.

Jack and Hurley find a lighthouse that has a wheel and some mirrors and a big chain hanging at the top.  It's quite the contraction complete with more candidate names and numbers and Jack stops at his name and sees his house.  It's all a little over the top and dramatic and gets even worse when Jack gets all Jackie Chan and smashes everything to bits.

Hurley's all "great Jack, great.  Mission not complete."

Jacob comes back after the tirade and says, "No worries that's what I thought would happen."


Meanwhile, infected Claire, who is having a really bad hair day, frees Jin and captures one of the extras.  We figure he is pretty much a goner because we have no idea what his name is.

Claire gets all domestic and fixes up Jin's shin which looks a little like uncooked chicken.  He thinks her cognitive ability must be a little low because of her three year solo jungle adventure.  She says, "I'm not alone I have this fake baby and a dear friend who visits now and again to remind me that those crazy temple people took my baby."

Jin all like "Who took your baby?'
Claire's all like "They tooka my baby, those temple people tooka my baby."

She then demands the extra tell her where he is or die and Jin is like don't kill him remember you gave Aaron to Kate.  Clairetakes an ax to the extra's chest.

Gross.

Indeed.

Claire than says something like "I'd do that to Kate if I found out she took Aaron" and the audience got a little excited (or at least I did).

Claire's friend Flocke shows up and says, "I love what you've done to your hair.  Did I miss anything?"

The 10 seconds I saw of next week's episode looks awesome.  f you have a review up, let me know.  I'd love to read it.

Dear Oldest,

On your 11th birthday I thought I would take this time to give you some motherly advice that you are sure to ignore until you yourself are a mother.

Nevertheless, I type.

Try to find joy in little things.  Like the taste of fresh snowflakes, the nuzzle of your favorite dog, the smell of your favorite soap, the plot of a great book.  Life tends to throw things at you that make you forget what's really important.

Never stop doing what makes you happy.  As we grow we forget how very important this is.  Take time to play in the snow; to get together with friends for play dates and to snuggle with the ones you love.

Many moons ago, I had a 7th grade teacher who used to say incredibly wacky things and make us repeat them regularly.  He'd say things like "Good, better, best, never let it rest until your good becomes your better and your better becomes your best."

Back then I thought he was quirky and odd but now I find him brilliant.  Never settle for anything less than your best.

Remember girls have the tendency to travel in packs.  Don't let the lead dogs bring you down.  If you feel like wearing a tiara on your birthday don't ever let anyone tell you not too.

And as always, wherever life may take you, I'm only a phone call, a text, an eye blink or a thought away.

Love,

Mom (formerly known as mommy)

I'm supposed to wear something plaid on Friday and apparently I'm the only person who doesn't own a thing beside PJ bottoms that are plaid.  I'm thinking about making a shirt that says "White is the new plaid".  What do you think?


So we have a "fake" intruder trying to get into our elementary school to test our security measures.  If that ain't a kick in the face I don't know what is.  Let's pretend that a "real" intruder isn't going to just strong arm his way in.  Likely through the cafeteria.  (insert sad sigh here)

Mr. Fake you don't stand a chance.  We are a small school and we know who belongs.



Our milk crates have warnings on them about it being punishable by law to remove them.  I have to take a picture because the mere thought of this makes me laugh.

Oldest and I spent the day together on Saturday. 

I'm happy to say that we had a great time.  She got a new tiara and some earrings and we saw the Percy Jackson movie with three of her friends.  They were all very well behaved and polite.

They helped me realize that I'm the average size of an 11-year-old.

No Joke.

It's only a few short years months until they are all bigger than me.
The movie was good, but deviated extensively from the book.  It was significantly  more predictable and if I was the author of the popular tween series I wouldn't have signed off on this screen play but to each their own.

The special effects were cool and all the tweens in attendance seemed to enjoy it.

What did you do this weekend?

This week was filled with wild and crazy children and a lot of menu changes.  Here's what I learned:

• Snow days make elementary children forget everything they have learned.  Including how to walk through the lunch line, how to discard the food on their trays and whether or not they want grape or strawberry PB&J.
• Sprinkling pears with jello powder is stupid and doesn't make children eat them.  It's especially important to remember to order red jello if you want them to look like "blushing pears."  It's best not to substitute green jello as this only makes them look like moldy pears.
• Ravioli's aren't very popular but the kids who order them LOVE them.
• Any changes to the menu, even those neccesitated by a blizzard, will cause mayhem and foolishness.
• Spiders can live on apples in the middle of winter and they still make me jump.

What did you learn this week?

This week's episode will center around Fake Locke (Flocke) on the island and poor pathetic John off the island.  Terry O'Quinn is a fantastic actor and has me totally convinced that these two people aren't actually played by the same person.

Poor pathetic John is pulling into his driveway and can't get his vehicle ramp to cooperate and kind of flings his crippled self out of the van and into the yard which results in his becoming a limp rag on the grass being pummeled by the sprinkler.

Just went you thought all hope was lost Peg Bundy comes out the front door to rescue him.

He calls her Helen at least six times in the first five minutes so that we can all be reminded of who the hell she is.  Oh yeah....I remember her.

She's the lady he met at that anger management class.
She wanted him to stop obsessing over his jackass of a father.
She left him when he wouldn't.

Hold up didn't John visit her grave?  I'm so confused.

On the island, Flocke is all "You people have disappointed me.  I'm taking Richard for a walk.  We need to go recruiting some backgammon players."  He storms off the beach and suddenly we are treated to an IMAX movie...which, quite frankly, I'm not a big fan of.

Flocke give Richard one more chance to join him.  For dinner? For world domination?  For and eyebrow wax?  We aren't sure.

Richard politely declines and looks like he is about to meet his death when suddenly Flocke is distracted by that creepy boy from "Children of the Corn".

Say what?



Soon Flocke stumbles upon our grieving cowboy Sawyer and says "Come with me, James and I will teach you how to be fishers of men." 

Oh wait that is a different story all together...or is it?

After a few shots of whiskey, Sawyer says "Okay, what the hell."

Then they both stumble upon the corn boy.

Flocke takes after him and Sawyer hollers, "You have fun with that I've had too much rum to run."

Back in LA:

John's boss, Randy, gets all Donald Trump on him and fires him and we all hope that John will jump out of his chair and run him through with a knife but then we remember that Oceanic Airways is incompetent and lost his luggage.

Leaving in dismay, John comes to find out that he can't get into his car because some dumbass parked too close to him and his ramp won't come down.

That dumbass?



Hugo.  He apologize to John for his obnoxiously large mutton chops and says "I keep forgetting it's not the 70s anymore"  Hugo tells him that he owns the company and that Randy is a douchbag and that John should contact this number and "chin up."

Back on the island:  Flocke comes back from hunting children empty handed and leads Sawyer deeper into the woods.  Sawyer continues to follow him despite a desperate pleading from Richard not to.

"Look here, Dick.  I'll follow whoever I want to follow."

Sawyer tells Flocke the story of Mice and Men and then pulls a gun on him.  Flocke says "I already told you that I'm dead, James.  Shoot me if you must but I'm about to tell you everything."

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

Back at the big foot on the beach:

Ilana mourns her friends for 30 seconds and then says "Let's go to the temple."

Sun say, "Yeah, right.  The last person I followed turned out to be a Flocke and now you want me to follow you."

Ilana says, "If Jin is on this island he will be there."

Sun says, "It has been years since I've seen Jin but first we must bury Locke.  Screw all your dead friends inside the foot."

Ilana, Sun, Ben Linus and LePenis the pilot bury John Locke.

Ben's eulogy goes something like this.  "Roses are red, violets are blue.  I am very sorry that I killed you."

LePenis says "This is the weirdest damn funeral I've ever been too."

Back in LA:  John is applying for another job and who is coming to his aid?  Rose!



John's all "I want to do construction."
And Rose is all "Be serious, man, you are in a wheelchair."
And John's all, "you are prejudice."
And Rose is all, "I'm dying from stage four cancer because I never landed on the island."

She gets John a job as a teacher.


With Ben. 

Who apparently knows nothing about fashion but a lot about European history.

Back on the island:

Flocke nearly kills Sawyer with a mountain climb but in the end reveals a scale with the balance of good and evil represented by a white rock and a black rock.  He pitches the white rock out to sea and shows Sawyer the writing on the wall.  Literally.

Names and numbers.  Some crossed out and some not.

Flocke says "You can do nothing, you can stay and protect the island, or you can leave."

Sawyer says, "Let's catch the next sea serpent out of here."

My oldest daughter is in love with this series of books.  She has read all of them numerous times and she can't wait to see this movie.

We are going to see it on Saturday for her birthday.

She convinced me to read the book.

It was actually a very fun read!  It has tons of Greek mythology in it.  The main character, Percy, is the son of the God of the Sea Poseidon.  His mom is a mortal so this complicates things for our young hero.

In this book, Percy has to return Zeus's infamous lightning bolt.

I would recommend this book to anyone with a tween aged child--boy or girl. 

On Monday's I usually update the millions three of you who regularly visit on what I did over the weekend.  Unless you want to hear about how I made ice cream out of snow than that post would be really short.

You'd think my house would be cleaner seeing as I've been spending A LOT of time here.

Anyway, since it is the 15th of February and about 6 weeks into the new year I thought I would update you on how fantastic mediocre I am doing on my 2010 goals.

• Write more. I wanted to reach 10,000 words on my young adult novel in 2009. I didn't. In 2010, I want to surpass that goal and then some.  Still sucking up on this goal.  You'd think I'd be more disciplined but alas I'm not and I like to watch TV.

• Craft more. I spend far too much time on this computer and not enough time in my craft room.  I'm doing a little better on this one.  I made my daughter's birthday book and I made some invitations for the movie party we will soon have for Big G.

• Yell less. I was doing okay until all the f**kin' snow.

• Eat better. See answer above.

• Walk more. I'm going to invest in a good step counter and try to reach 10,000 steps a day. (That counts as exercise, right?)  I bought a step counter at Stuff*Mart for $5.00; it sucked.  It fell off my pants and landed in the snow.  It reset itself all the time and I gave it to my kids.

• Eliminate some clutter. I cleaned out the closets.  I guess that counts.

• Get Organized: ROFLMAO

• Quality time: Spend some time alone with each kid and my husband once a month.  The blizzards have kind of forced my hand on this one.  It was hard to be alone with anyone, but we've spent a lot of time together.  Maybe even too much.  LOL

• See family. More than just the holidays.  I've seen my mom and her husband; and my in-laws have been out to visit.  As for me making plans to see them...I'm striking out.  However, I think at least a handful of them will be out again at the end of the month to celebrate Big G's birthday.

• Plan some day trips. does making my husband drive to swim lessons and taking us all to lunch on Saturday count as a day trip?  We HAD to get out of the house!

So how are you doing with your 2010 goals?

My sweet nephew C is my hero.

He lives with diabetes everyday.  He keeps track of what he eats, what he drink and checks his blood sugar nearly 2000 times a year.

He deserves a cure.

Can you help?

Visit my JDRF fundraiser page. Any little big can help.

Being cooped up for the last few days has given me the opportunity to catch up on a few things.  Like backing up my photographs, cleaning out  my closet and organizing my kids rooms.

I also had an opportunity to scrapbook middle G's 8th birthday party.  It was fun doing all the pool pics while the snow was falling.



Here she is with her pool shaped cake and the invitation I made.  I like to keep a copy for her book.  Someday she may get a kick out of looking at it.


The top picture is Middle G shooting out the water slide and the bottom photo is G and two of her classmates.  On the right hand side of the page are more party guests as well as little G.


More swimming pics including Grammie in the pool with the cousins.  The shark is from the life's a beach cricut cartridge as is the flamingo on the page before.



Here is a close up of the cake and the singing and blowing out the candles page.  I should have mentioned that the book is 8x8 so there really isn't a lot of room for a lot of photos.


More pics of guests.  This time they are eating cake.  The crab and the octopus are also from the Life's a Beach cartridge.



Look how happy G is opening her presents.  She had a blast and really liked the pink swim cover up and the shades.  LOL


Last page.  Finishing up gifts and wrapping up the party.  It was a lot of fun and the weather was fantastic.  Not a snow flake in the sky!!!

It's official:

• I haven't left my house other than to shovel or walk the neighborhood since Tuesday at 2 p.m.
• My kids haven't left the house since Tuesday at 3:30 p.m.
• I understand why animals occasionally eat their young.

Dear Mother Nature,

What did I do that pissed you off?

Why do you wish me to remain trapped inside my house with three insane energetic children?

Seriously, 50 inches of snow in less than one week is outrageous.



This is the corner where my kids catch the bus and that is me standing at the stop sign.  I am 5 foot 2 and  I think the bus driver may have trouble finding my six year old should we attempt to have school tomorrow.



As you may or may not be aware, my mail carrier is a f**king bitch bit lazy and likes to pass up my mailbox on a regular basis.

This isn't going to help matters.




Can you guess what this is?  This is the little path we were able to make revealing the sidewalk that lies beneath.  The red thing in the distance, oh that's my neighbors truck.

Personally I blame the rodent.



He just had to see his shadow.  Of course what does he care, he lives in a climate controlled environment with a servant who wears a top hat!

So seriously, Mother Nature, what gives?

Buried in PA,

~Kisa~

P.S.  The kids still think you rock.

After waiting a long week for a new episode of LOST, I'm disappointed to learn that this episode is going to contain and overdose of Kate.

Kate on the island fleeing.

Kate off the island fleeing.

Hey...a common thread.

So on the island Kate is all like "OMG is Sayid alive," and Sawyer is all like "Of course he is.  All kid killers and torturers deserve second chances.  Unlike, children grown women trapped in wells.  Why did she have to die?  It's all Jack's fault."

Of course it's Jack's fault.  Everything is Jack's fault.


So Mr. Miyagi comes back into the jacuzzi room and says "We need to take Sayid into my garden room for some "testing."

Jack says no way.  "His HMO doesn't cover any testing.  Tell us what is going on."

Miyagi says, "Don't make me kill you."

There is rustling and guns pulled and Sawyer says "Catch ya all later.  I'm mourning and I can't deal with any of this."

He tells Kate not to follow him so Kate immediate begins to think of how she can follow him.

Miyagi tortures the torturer.  Maybe Sayid is in hell after all.  He then makes a "pill" gives it to Jack and says "This is your friends day after being dead pill.  He must take it willingly."

Jack says how about I take it and we all cross our fingers that he falls down and dies but alas Miyagi knows karate and Jack's life is spared for the 1,700,876,543 time.

Jack demands to know what's in the pill and Miyagi says poison.  Jack says why do you want to poison Sayid and Miyagi says because he is infected and the same thing happened to your sister (i.e. Claire)  Jack makes that face he makes when it looks like he's trying to do long division in his head.

Meanwhile back in LA



Claire, who is being car-jacked by Kate, says just let me out and give me my bag.  Kate is all bad ass and says I'm not getting your luggage get out of the car beotch.  So she kicks out a hugely pregnant Kate, has eye sex with a car mechanic and he gratefully, no questioned asked, cuts off her handcuffs.

After routing through Claire's luggage, Kate feels bad because she has taken away not only Claire's things but her unborn child's clothes as well.  Having a change of heart she returns to pick up Claire who is still sitting there and lamenting her bad luck.

Claire says "You called me a beotch why should I go anywhere with you"  and Kate says "Because LA buses are always late and I have a stolen cab" and Claire says, "Okay great."

Kate drives her to the adoptive families home and the lady says "I sent you an email last week telling you my husband left me.  Didn't you get that?"

Claire gets upset and since she is on TV that puts her into labor.



It's Kate Gosselin wearing hair extensions Claire, suffering from the infection!



Did you do a recap?  Leave me a link.  I'd love to read it.

I'm not sure I can imagine what my neighborhood will look like with another 18 inches of snow!

3-18?  Those are dress sizes people.  Narrow it down a little!

Of course, I've yet to get any mail today....

It has officially stopped snowing here. After having helped my hubby dig
out the driveway I would have to say that we got about 28 inches of snow. It is more snow than I ever remember seeing falling at one time. Below is a picture of my almost 11 year old in our front yard.


Here is middle G standing in what I think is our driveway but who can tell. The kids were so excited. They were outside three separate times, the first time at 8 a.m.