One of best parts  about spring is all of the amazing new growth.  I just love seeing all the flowers everywhere.  Well…other people’s flowers, I’m in charge of growing the weeds, something that I seem to be very good at.  At a certain point, those lovely weeds really need to be cut back. 

So I got out my handy-dandy weed whacker that I had gotten at the end of last summer.  I was (somewhat) happily working for a very long five minutes when the tool abruptly stopped.  As far as I could tell, the line was either stuck  or had pretty much run out.  So, I started to unscrew the little compartment that holds the line…only I couldn’t get it loose.  It didn’t matter how hard I tried or how loud I swore, it was staying stuck.  

When Shaun came home, I asked him to open it for me.  He gave me a look suggesting how pathetic I was, then went to open it. Well…ok,  it took a few days of nagging, until he tried, but we won’t mention that.  Shaun doesn’t do yard work because he very conveniently tragically has severe allergies to the Great Outdoors.  I do have to say that he risked a huge reaction even touching that weed whacker, yet all of his efforts were to no avail.  He even used tools to try to open it.  (For some odd reason that really impresses me!)

Not to be thwarted for long,  I came up with the brilliant idea to bring it back to the hardware store and ask them to fix it.  Either that, see if they would take it as a return even without a receipt or any paperwork. After all, it came from the factory like this and was clearly broken. I mentioned this to one of my girlfriends and she just laughed at me for thinking they would take the time to help me. 

Undaunted, I showed up at the customer service desk with my grubby weed whacker in tow.  The burly guy at the counter just looked at me like I was pathetic.  The he flexed his muscles and attempted to unscrew the lid.  His face had started to sweat and had turned red with exertion before he finally gave up.  In desolation, he suggested that I bring it down to “tool rentals” and they could open it for me there. 

There was a young girl at the desk in the tool rental department.  When I asked her to help me, she just looked at me in bewilderment.  A moment later, a debonair man drinking coffee glided up to us. He quietly asked the girl at the counter to get him a couple things.  In moments he had the lid unscrewed and was rewinding the line that twisted inside my weed whacker.  I just looked at him in amazement.  Then I asked him if he worked there or just hung out for fun.  He gave me a quick grin and a wink then swiftly slipped away.  Yeah, weird… 

But, at least my weed whacker is fixed and I can attack my lovely weeds.  Although I’m not really sure why I think that’s a good thing….

I visit  blogs for various reasons, but the main reason usually isn’t to think.  (Apparently I’m a very shallow person…sigh)  If I want to think I can listen to NPR or try to decipher the odd symbols on the cover of KT’s math book. 

Needless to say, trying to narrow down my recipients of the Thinking Blogger award was tough.  It’s not supposed to be my favorite blog (as if I could narrow that down), or the funniest or anything but a real thinker.  Hmmm… let me think…ok, here they are, in no particular order.

One of my newest reading treasures is Quarter Notes.  I’m still slowly making my way through her archives as I don’t want to miss any of her posts.  She ranges from poignant stories about her family to her passion for music, with a little Mathew McConaughey thrown in just for fun.  At the end of nearly every post I make a little “huh” sound.  (It’s probably a good thing I don’t read these in public)

You never know what you will find when you check in with the “New” Jersey Girl.  Lynne could be writing about anything from her latest mini-vacation to the bears that ramble across her front yard.  She has such a fascination with the world around her and great photography skills to prove it.  I get the feeling that she could be one of my best buds…heck, I’d even let her drink out of one of my new mugs!

Betty believes that “everyone is entitled to her opinion” and boy does she have opinions! Betty doesn’t hesitate to give her wry commentary on anything from book and music reviews, current events and yes, even American Idol. (She’s also the Queen Mother to two of my other favorite bloggers…but we aren’t getting into favorites)

Every Friday, Cazzie gives an Australian history lesson.  Although I’ve seen her around forever, she’s very new to my blogroll.  (Technically she, like many others, aren’t quite on my blogroll yet as I haven’t updated it in forever, but that’s besides the point) I don’t know why I didn’t start visiting her sooner, she’s fascinating!

Much to my own surprise, I realized that The Jayman deserves a Thinking Award.  He’s one of the first blogs I started reading and my day just isn’t complete without reading him.  Basically he’s a Cream-puff.  On the surface his blog looks like just another stat-grabbing, foul-mouthed, fluff blog.  Naturally full of scantily clad women and talk of beer guzzlers.  But, if ou scratch just a little below the surface you’ll find that he’s one of the most sensitive, caring and witty men around.  (But don’t tell him I said so, we wouldn’t want to ruin his carefully cultivated image, would we?)

Congratulations, you  Fabulous Five, you have won a !

Should you choose to participate, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging. I thought it would be appropriate to include them with the meme.
The participation rules are simple:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the ‘Thinking Blogger Award’ with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn’t fit your blog).

That was that! Please, remember to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all – blogs that really get you thinking!

Now if I could only figure out how to get this up on my sidebar…it may have to sit in the closet collecting dust along with my Golden Spork award.  Sigh…

Last night Shaun came bounding up the stairs to tell me that he had just sent me an email.  He was very excited and wanted to watch me click on it.  Being the indulgent obedient wife that I am I checked my email…and was distracted by a different email.  I had just been informed that I was a “WordPress Best Blogger”!  I tried to share this with Shaun, but he was insistent that I look at what he had sent me.  Normally I would be very excited that my sweet husband had cleverly managed to record AI and get it on my laptop (our recorder thingy is broken and I forgot to watch it in real time) but this was WAY exciting! 

So, I watched the whole two hours of  AI (mainly because I couldn’t figure out how to make it go away) wondering what exactly the Best Blog thing was. (Can you even imagine the agony???) 

When I finally got to see the little blurb about me (Thank you Tylor!)  all I wanted to do was bask in my glory.  Shaun, being the only person still awake on the west coast was to be my bask-ee…only he didn’t want to listen to me prattle on.  For some strange reason, he thought it would be much more fun to mess with me.  (imagine that!) At one point he told me that I may be famous now, but I still wasn’t as famous as he was.  (I hate to admit it, but it’s true…in certain nerdy circles he’s fairly well known)  In exasperation I finally blurted out that he was just jealous of my new-found fame! 

Instead of feeling chagrined, my beloved burst into peals of  laughter.  When he finally managed to catch his breath, he told me that I had reminded him of the ”Special Award” that gets broken  in A Christmas Story.   Father yells that Mother “was always jealous” of that lamp…

Sigh…I never thought that I would empathize with Father about the loss of his ugly lamp…

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AND, I’ve been awarded the Thinking Blogger Award by It’s a Wonderful Life! (Boy do I have her fooled!)

Now I have to think some more about who I should award this too.  I don’t know how I’ll ever narrow my list down….

As an avid coffee drinker, I think it’s only right that I’m rather picky about what my coffee comes in.  I like a BIG mug with a handle so big that I can fit almost my whole hand in it.  The shape has to be just right and the width of the mug sides have to be fairly thin.  Needless to say, it can be daunting to find the perfect mug.  When I do find one that I love, I treasure it. 

For the longest time, I’ve had two mugs that I love.  (and a whole lot of strays that are pushed to the back of the cupboard as they didn’t make the cut) Those two mugs have been showing their age with chips and little tiny cracks on the inside.  I knew they really needed to be retired to the Great  Cabinet in the Sky, but I wasn’t quite ready to let them go yet…I still needed them.   I’d been searching desperately for a replacement to no avail, when Shaun finally found it.  The newest Perfect Mug for my collection. 

I had my mug for about a week when tragedy struck.  Yesterday, I came home to a tearful Mimi.  She had done the unthinkable…she broke my mug.

Of course, I forgave her.  I know that accidents happen.  Later on, when I checked my email, I found one that she had sent me.  I thought it was adorable (in the way that perhaps only a mother can) so I forwarded it to Shaun.

Here it is:

mom while i was getting my quessedia ready to put in the microwave i had an accident. i was moving stuff out of the way and i moved a bag. your blue cup with flowers broke and there is no way to fix it i already tried five diffrent ways. i will buy you another one. i feel really bad. but please dont yell at me i already did to myself. im sorry like nothing could ever fix it!!!

XOXO
lots of love
(she signed her first and last name, apparently I forget who she is sometimes!)

P.S. i am soooooooooooooooooooo sorry mommy

It seems as though fathers can think it’s adorable too.  When Shaun came home he called Mimi to him right away.  Between the two of them, I got this.

I have this incredible talent.  I do realize that nobody likes to hear someone boast about how awesome they are, but well…sometimes you just have to toot your own horn.  I want you all to know that I have the talent of being able to get lost going nearly anywhere! It’s a gift inherited from my mother.

This weekend I took KT down to the aquarium for her first training day.  We dutifully printed out directions (it doesn’t matter that everyone else just knows how to get there, I need directions.) Despite the fact that  there is very little traffic at the crack of dawn in Seattle on the weekends, my child insisted that we take double the amount of time normally needed to get there.  It’s a good thing we did, as despite KT’s careful navigation skills, we found ourselves not near the water, but in the International District, known by some as “China Town”.  We wandered around for a while trying to find our wayout  and eventually managed to end up at the aqarium with at least five minutes to spare. 

With KT dropped off, I merely had to find my way home.  As far as I could tell, I had two choices.  I could head back the convulted way that we had come, or I could attempt the straightforward way that Shaun always took. Naturally, I picked Shaun’s quick and easy way. 

Have you ever noticed that when somebody else is driving, you don’t really pay attention to where you are going? No?  Hmmm…  Anyways, I should have come directly to the freeway, but I…um…couldn’t find it.  So, I just drove around looking for something familair like I always do in situations like this.   I finally found the familar city of Ballard and more importantly, an on-ramp to the  freeway.  I decided head north as we are north of nearly everything.  I was getting pretty close to the Canadian border before it occurred to me that maybe I should have been headed south…

Two hours after I dropped KT off, I proudly made it home before the rest of my family even woke up.  Like I said…it’s a gift. 

You may not be aware of it, but Washington is the everGREEN state. You may have heard our state referred to as the home of the environmentally-aware-tree-huggers.  If you are even considering visiting here you have to be prepared to sign an agreement that you will recycle everything possible.  Heck, even SeaTac has the Green Patrol out in force to make sure that nobody gets off their plane without knowing the rules. 

From the earliest age possible children are indoctrinated with the urge to recycle.  Every home has a bin delivered by Waste Management.  We are expected to fill these bins with the tiniest little scrap of anything recyclable.  And goodness help you if you get lazy and just toss it in the trash.  Big Brother and all those little children are watching.  I once had a friend who didn’t heed the warnings. I think she lives somewhere in Montana or something awful like that…I’m not really sure as I don’t dare get caught communicating with her…

In reality, everyone is great about recycling.  It’s made so easy for us that we just all do it and feel good about ourselves for it.  A few years ago, I went on a tour with the Girl Scout troop (I told you we indoctrinate our kids!) to a recycling plant.  It was fascinating.  We got to see the enormous mountain of waste that the trucks had dumped into a huge bay.  (Mimi insisted that the cereal box nearest us had come from our house) We got to see the process of how everything was sorted out, from paper to plastics and metals.  We were there for at least an hour just gawking at everything.  Then we came back into a conference room and learned what happened to all the recyclables that we had just seen. Some things like aluminum cans were remade into other cans.  Plastics could be melted down and made into entirely new things like carpet and drainage pipes.  It really made and impression on me the kids, so everything goes in the bins. 

Recycling is an easy way to keep our world healthy and clean.  Besides it keeps the Green Patrol away and gets rid of those pesky phone books!  
 

Shaun Somebody couldn’t figure out why the heck I was talking about recyling.  It’s because of all the recycled phone books that we all have to deal with.  It made perfect sense to me…but obviously that doesn’t work for everyone. 

When I came home today, there was an odd little package on our porch.  It was a knotted heavy white bag.  I looked at it for a moment and then simply sighed.  I knew exactly what it was. 

I suppose I should be happy to get a newly updated phone book.  All sorts of new information would now be just at the tips of my fingers.  I can’t help but feel that new phone books are a burden though.  You see, I don’t really need a phone book.  Nearly everything I want is at the tip of my fingers.  It’s called the internet… 

Still, there might be some small local spot that hasn’t managed to find it’s place on the Web.  And you are supposed to keep phonebooks.  (I think it’s in the Constitution)  There’s even an expiration date on each phone book so you know how long to keep them for.  Finding a place for a phone book isn’t really that big of a deal…until you realize just how many phone books I get. 

We are very near the county line.  As both counties want our business, they both deliver phone books to us…both the white pages and the yellow pages.  Dex has decided they want to take over the world of phone books so they deliver phone books too.  They even have a “small” phone book designed to fit in your glove box that they send out.  Then the city that we almost live in (we aren’t officially in any city) brings us a phone book.  At least that one is relatively small.  (If you ever need a job I’m pretty sure there’s big future in phone book deliveries!)

Now do you understand my quandary? How am I supposed to decide which ones to keep? Do I get rid of Dex because they the newcomers? How about the Old Guard…do they still deserve a place? Then which county do I keep? I don’t want any phone book to feel rejected.  Maybe…just maybe…this could be the year that I gently place all the freshly delivered phonebooks in the recycle bin along with the old ones.  Well…it could happen!

In the meantime, just let me know if you need a number, I’ll get it for you just as soon las I get back online….

A while back, KT came across a list of great books you should read before you go to college or die or some great landmark like that.  Being KT, she decided that she would read the titles on her list.  Many of them we already had in our bookshelves, but she insisted that she had to get all of them. 

She stopped in at her school library and selected a few books from her list.  I don’t recall what they were, but it was from the ilk of Hemmingway, Falkner and Bronte…you know, some of the good stuff.   The librarian apparently looked over her glasses at our girl and gently sighed.  She then proceeded to try to talk KT out of the selected books.  She was sure that those books were simply too much for her to handle. 

KT, of course, was highly insulted.  She is very proud to be a straight A honor student and feels pretty confident with her reading skills.   KT couldn’t imagine why a librarian would have books on her shelves that would be inappropriate for her to read.  She politely persisted and came home with those books in tow.  She had also decided that she didn’t trust nor even like that librarian.

Now granted, some of those books are above KT’s comprehension level.  She doesn’t quite grasp all the symbolism within the covers, but she will get there and for now they are just good stories.  We have always encouraged our girls to read anything and everything without censorship.  I almost always get the synopsis of the story as they are reading it and am often asked to read the book as well. (I love that they get so excited and want to share with me)  

Today at school, KT saw one of her friends reading a book from the newly formed after-school book club.  She mentioned that she had wanted to join, but kept forgetting about it.  Her friend immediately jumped up and went to talk to one of the librarians about it.  the one that she had talked to was that librarian.  She gave KT a copy of the book and told her that she probably wouldn’t be able to finish it as she only had two days, but that she was welcome to try. 

Now for many kids, that would be that and they wouldn’t even bother to try.  KT of course, took it as a challenge.  Despite her heavy homework load (she’s working like crazy on a huge research project among other things) I can guarantee that KT will finish that book. 

Just because that narrow minded woman told her she wouldn’t be able to….  That’s my girl!

Ever since the girls were tiny, I’ve made it my business to know who they were going to school with and who their close friends were.  I volunteered to be in the classrooms and on field trips as much as I possibly could.  I really got to know the kids at the school and watch them grow up. 

 At about forth or fifth grade, I started noticing some real changes in some of these kids.  No longer were they the sweet, loving children I had known for so long.  They seemed to be getting secretive and sullen.  Naively, I just chalked it up to hormones.  

 When our girls entered junior high, it seemed as though I no longer saw most of these kids anymore.  The small classrooms that I had hung out with became a huge sea of kids.  I only got to see the ones the girls would bring home.   Fortunately, our kids still talk to us and tell us what is going on.  It has often broken my heart to hear what they had to say.  One boy had picked up a habit of sticky fingers, another was experimenting with drugs.  A couple girls tried to escape the pain of life by cutting themselves and yet another started to boast of her sexual exploits.  She ended up switching schools, leaving behind a rumor that she was pregnant. 

 While we’re constantly aware and watching for things that could easily go array in our girls’ lives, one of my girlfriends was finding signs that something was wrong with her child.  This sweet little girl that I had known since first grade, that had been in my Girl Scout troop, that had one of KT’s best friends for years, was in serious trouble. 

 She had gotten involved with a different group of kids that completely accepted her.  They made it easy for her to lie to her parents.  She started experimenting with drugs and sneaking out at night to go to raves and hang out with her new friends.  When her parents found out what was going on and set boundaries, she simply ran away from home.

 Things were starting to get better.  She was doing her school work, attending AA/AN meetings…just working towards getting away from all that stuff.  Then she made a huge turn for the worse.  Her parents don’t know what to do.  They are strongly considering sending her to something like Sagewalk, a wilderness school. 

 My friend has asked me to see if anyone knows anything about this.  She would really like to find a blog from a parent view point.  Or just be able to communicate with someone that has gone though this.  So please, if you have had any experience in this, or know of someone that has, and are willing to help, please let me know.  You can email me at QueenSaraphina at gmail dot com (yeah, don’t ask…) or simply leave a comment.  Any little bit of help is more then welcome. 

 Thanks 

I’ve been a bit busy the last couple of day.  Much to busy to blog…

You see, it all started when Mimi left for a day at the zoo followed by a slumber party to help celebrate her friend’s birthday.   I had been encouraging KT to invite a friend over to hang out with or whatever.  It’s rare to have time without a pesky little sister butting in all the time.  (Not that I ever minded having a pesky little brother snooping around all the time or anything)  I was really puzzled about her reluctance to call anyone.  That was until I realized that her choice of a pal was me. 

We went had a fun filled day of shopping and just messing around.  We ended it by meeting Shaun for dinner when he got out of work.    KT loved being the only child for once and simply basked in all of the attention.  On the way home, KT convinced me that we needed to stop by the video store.  She wanted to rent the series Alias.  This is a show that one of her friends had introduced her to and she wanted to see more of it.  She also wanted me to see it.   I figured that I might as well watch it as she had been telling me about it non-stop for days anyways. 

We watched this show until the wee hours of the morning.  As soon as I crawled out of bed the next morning, KT was waiting for me…we still had more to watch.  Just in case you haven’t ever seen this show, it’s about a female spy named Sydney who is constantly wearing colorful disguises or aliases in her work of beating up bad guys and defending the world from evil.  This agent also just happens to work with a handsome “handler” that KT has developed a bit of a crush on. 

After watching way too much of this show, KT has decided that when she grows up, she’s going to have an exciting life as a CIA agent.  (She’s still going to be a marine biologist too, that will just be her cover job) I’ve tried to convince her that it’s more sitting around doing surveillance and paperwork then anything else, but she’s already made up her mind. 

I have to admit that the show has started to influence my way of thinking as well.  I was driving down the road in front of the main campus of a local software company this afternoon.  There was some sort of roadwork going on in front of it.  That in itself isn’t all that unusual.  It was just the huge flashing sign that disturbed me, it seemed to be a bit overkill.  There was also the police officer that was directing traffic…don’t they usually have flaggers for road work?  I suddenly realized that he was probably using an alias…and there was nothing I could do.  Most likely some top secret research will come up missing from that software company.

Did I mention that the character Sydney’s mother was also a spy?  Hmmmmm…..