Before and After

As promised before and after pictures of our casa.

Before our home makeover we had white walls with lots of gouges and nail pops and other fun things. We also had stained up carpet, which the cat and the boy know nothing about.
This is a picture or our dining room walls. I'm not sure why I took it, but apparently I thought it was a neat picture or something.

During the remodeling process we learned a couple things. Number one, our house was more crappily constructed that we originally thought (if the wall jutts out in front of the door, no problem, hammer it back into place. see pic) and number two, moving almost all of your belongings in the garage for a few days does wonders in squelching your desire to move. We can probably live here another year.



















And now, the moment you've all (my entire vast readership) have been waiting for, the results. I painted the kitchen a rusty nail red and the dinning room/living room a color called dipped in honey. Our floors are Hemse Oak Stave from IKEA. Pretty much they rock.

Getting rid of the old flooring and other construction waste did not involve me taking a stealth trip to the dumpster down the street in the freezing rain because a certain poopsquirt said that during the monsoon would be a good time to dump the waste because no one would be dumb enough to go out in the rain. He was wrong by the way. There was some punk kid playing in the rain and one of our neighbors was having a party, so I wasn't the only one "dumb" enough to go out in the rain. But I heard that the outstanding citizen that less than legally dumped her garbage in the dumpster used her father's truck so the cops can't possibly trace it back to her. Or him.


The boy and Mister Wili enjoying our new house. Our rug is also from IKEA.

Banned Book Week

September 23 through the 30th is Banned Book Week. More than a book a day faces expulsion from free and open public access in U.S. schools and libraries every year. There have been more than 8,700 attempts since the American Library Association began electronically compliling and publishing information on book challenges in 1990.

I am not going to crawl on my soap box and tell you why book banning (which leads to book burning, which I am also against despite the fact that I really enjoy burning a good couch now and then) is bad. I am just going to publish the list of the 100 Most Frequently Challeneged Books of 1990-2000 and you can think about how many of your favorite novels/authors are on that list and what you would have missed if you had not gotten to (or been forced to) read that novel.

The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000


Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain *
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck *
Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling *
Forever by Judy Blume *
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor *
Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Giver by Lois Lowry
It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Sex by Madonna
Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous *
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
The Witches by Roald Dahl
The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
The Goats by Brock Cole
Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
Blubber by Judy Blume *
Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
Final Exit by Derek Humphry
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood *
Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee *
Beloved by Toni Morrison *
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton *
The Pigman by Paul Zindel
Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
Deenie by Judy Blume
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes *
Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein *
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
Cujo by Stephen King
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl *
The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
Ordinary People by Judith Guest
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume *
Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
Fade by Robert Cormier
Guess What? by Mem Fox
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney *
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Lord of the Flies by William Golding *
Native Son by Richard Wright
Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women's Fantasies by Nancy Friday
Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
Jack by A.M. Homes
Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
Carrie by Stephen King
Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume *
On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
Family Secrets by Norma Klein
Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
The Dead Zone by Stephen King
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain *
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
Private Parts by Howard Stern
Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
Sex Education by Jenny Davis
The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell *
View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

* means I've read.

Reading this list makes me think to things. One, WTF did someone try to ban that book? And two, I'm going to use this as my reading list for the next couple months and try to figure out why someone would want these books banned.

Balancing Act

Not only do I heart hearts, I also heart balancing my check book. There, I said it. I heart balancing my check book. Does this make me a nerd? Probably. Do I care? Not really.

I love making all the numbers from the month add up and work out to exactly what I have written down - when the total from the front of the statement matches the total on your register - that makes me very happy.

Which is why I am currently not happy with ZCF Bank. My statement was supposed to come out today. I've spent all day looking forward to coming home and balancing my check book. But, ZCF hasn't published my statement so I can't.

I'm so disappointed. Maybe tomorrow!

Flare Hours

Apparently lab hours are like flare, when they say you need two hours a week for a certain class that means two hours minimum. You want to express yourself, don't you?

Next semester lab minimum lab hours bump up to 6 hours a week. Yeah, 6 hours minimum. And that's lab hours outside of lab. That's lab is open from 4-10 weekends and Saturdays from 8:30 until 10 and Sundays from 8:30 until 6 so your happy self better be there for 6 hours minimum.

Okay, so I have classes, labs inside of class, open lab hours, homework, and somewhere in there I need to have a job that makes a minimum of $150 gross a week to pay for daycare. Perhaps I should wait until Baba is in state funded day-care (elementary school) to go back to school.

Lab hours could have been mentioned at orientation. This information would have been useful before I paid my tuition.

Floored

Wow, let me tell you, wow. Today Poonch II, Zippy, Poopsquirt, and myself installed our new IKEA laminate floors downstairs. They look amazing and we did the whole thing for $600. Plus, we overestimated on fiberboard and flooring so we returned some stuff this evening and IKEA gave us $88 back. Which, since we had already spent the money, was free money. We bought two new rugs.

The other amazing part of the day is discovering how crappily our house was built. Sheetrock overhanging the door frame because you didn't measure? Bash it in with a hammer and cover it with trim, no one will ever know. No time to level or check the plumbness of the wall? No problem! Eyeball it. Cement settled weird on the slab? Why worry? Patch it with quick dry, who's going to see it?

Needless to say we will not be choosing this builder in the future. Pictures of our fanastic new house (a downstairs makeover is practically new, right?) to come soon.

I heart hearts

Despite yesterday being a pretty craptacular day over all, two very cool things did happen. Number one I get to play with pig and sheep hearts (funny, I will not eat either of those animals but I am perfectly okay with playing with their body parts) and number two I got to observe an echo.

Watching the heart pump was incredible. Amazing. I heart hearts.

I am angry woman here me roar.

Why does everything I get excited about turn out to be the complete opposite of what I'm expecting i.e. bad and stinky?

More therapy for me I fear.

Burn, Baby, Burn

Painting for 6 hours (which I did today) burns 2,074 calories (http://www.healthstatus.com/calculate/cbc). So, I could be smart and just bank the calories - that's almost a pound worth - but I think it would be more fun to have some delicious chips and dip.

Yeah, chips is definetly the way to go. Yum.

My helper boys and cross-dressing son

Tonight while I was getting ready to paint tomorrow, guess what my boys were doing?

Yeah, they were supervising.

After class today, Zerica, one of the girls in the program with me, and I went to IKEA to pick up our flooring. She asked me what I was doing between class and lab and I said going to IKEA. She thought it sounded like fun to ride along, so she did. I needed 16 boxes of Hemse Oak Stave flooring and 16 boxes I did get.

Who would have thought 16 boxes of laminate could take up so much room? Of course, they didn't fit in my truck because my truck was too skinny (Why didn't my husband say something like, "Take my car when you get the flooring, it should go in easier in my car?" Oh wait. He did). So plan B was to wedge it in my back seat. Zerica had to sit with her knees around her neck on the way back to campus because her seat was all the way to the front. It was pretty funny. She probably won't be my friend any more. At least I've got my lunch date with ZennieZou (as soon as we decide on a date, of course) to look forward to.

I was spot-priming the walls tonight and Zippy told me to come quick and bring the camera. I walked into our bedroom and this is what I saw:


I'm pretty liberal, so I'm not too worried. And anyone who is that proud of his milk-belly deserves to strut around in Strawberry Shortcake slippers. And, as the poopsquirt says, "Pink is a boy color, blue is a girl color."

The wonderful world of color

After the whole house sinking adventure, we finally got our settlement check from our construction company (we opted out of letting them replace the floor - we'll do it ourselves, thank you very much). We are buying laminate from IKEA, which my father, Zippy, Poonch II, and I will be installing this weekend (I will also be leading several lectures in anatomy because I will need to study while laying the flooring).

Zippy and I were discussing yesterday how much easier it would be to paint before the new floors went down. We wouldn't have to worry about spilling on the new laminate, etc, etc, etc. So we've picked out colors "Dipped in Honey" for the living room and part of the dining room and "Rusty Nail" for the kitchen. The actual name of the color escapes me at the moment, but I thought "Rusty Nail" sounded good.

Maybe when I grow up, I should be a paint color namer. Rusty Nail. Pus Green. Vomitous Yellow. Period Red. Bruise Purple. Something to think about anyway.

So guess who will be painting the living room, dining room, and kitchen on Wednesday....

The Problem with Toys

To say that Baba has a lot of toys would be an understatement. He has enough toys for a small army of snot-nosed babies and/or toddlers. I wish I could say that he is a perfect toddler: he plays with one toy at a time and returns the current toy to the toy box before choosing another toy. The truth is all of the toys must be removed from the toy box before any decision can be reached regarding which toy to play with.

Until today, this had not been to much of a problem. Oh sure, I've stepped on a fair share of trucks, duplos, farmers, tractors (tractors hurt theworst), and farm animals. But tonight, I walked into Baba Knievel's Wonder Trike of Death and Destruction and broke off half of my toenail.

On the plus side, I didn't swear out loud or get any blood on our carpet. I figure that's a pretty decent accomplishment. Much more worthwhile than the 8 hours of homework I did today.

Nickle Dickle Days

Ditty and Poonch II came down last night and babysat for us so we could go out for Zippy's 26th birthday (we went to Buca's and then to IKEA where we spent $230, thanks for asking). This morning we got up and went downtown for Nickle Dickle Days.

Yes, Nickle Dickle Days. I don't know why or who came up with choosing Dickle as the only word that would rhyme with Nickle, but someone did. So, what is Nickle Dickle days? After attending the event, I'm still not sure. There was a car show, which Baba, Zippy, and Poonch II attended. Ditty and I went to the scrapbook store where we purchased paper for a nickle! Hooray!

Then we went to Pizza Ranch for lunch where the lunch buffet (pizza, salads, chicken, potatoes, etc) was $5.55 a person. We walked past a bar with $.55 domestic taps. The candy store had candy for $.05. The library had a book sale, but no books were for a nickle, apparently they didn't get that memo.

What people in small towns do for excitement.

The Deal with the Driver....

Baba is obsessed with anything that has wheels, makes a vroom noise, and has a sterring wheel. Every morning when we get into the car I let him climb from the passenger side to the driver side. Once there he can press three buttons (yes, I have driven to my destination before realizing that my brights were on in the middle of the morning) and then into his car seat he goes.














He's happy because he gets to "drive" for three buttons and I'm happy because I know he is content and not running into the street while I load the car up. But, he always is asking me when he can drive for real. So we made a deal. He can't drive until he is two or his feet reach the pedals.

Hopefully by the time his feet actually reach the pedals, he will have forgotten our deal and will be content waiting until 15 or 16.

Human Anat

I bought my human anatomy book today. Techinically this is the second time I bought it since the stupid jerk I bought it from on half.com never sent it (as far as I know - I haven't received it at any rate) and won't answer my emails asking if they shipped it. I couldn't wait any longer. I'm already a week behind (yikes!) in anat so I bent over and paid the bookstore $143 for the book I paid $90 for (but never got. I guess technically, I've paid $233 for this book, but when you are rich like me, what is money?).

Besides getting to pay for this book twice, the best thing about the Anat book is it weighs about 40 pounds. I wish I was joking on the weight, but my back says otherwise.

Tomorrow the yahoos come to repair the 37 nail pops in our bathroom. And its double coupon day at Rainbow and double homework day at home. Hooray! I think I will be checking my email and doing other non-related homework activites tomorrow.

Nigh-Night

Why is it that the speed of a baby is proportional to the nakedness and wetness of said child? Baba can run 100 miles an hour when he is wet and naked, but only 57 miles an hour when he is fully clothed. Almost every night he escapes out of the bathroom after his tub, dripping and naked, and takes off for the bedroom, breaking the sacred "no naked weenies out of the bathroom" rule. He is by far the worst perpetrator of this rule.

Tonight after his bath (after we cornered the naked wonder in our bedroom) and after he was fully clothed and dried, Zippy said it was time for bed. Baba looked at me, started waving, and said, "Nigh-Night." And then took off running for his bed. He loves his big boy bed with the Spiderman sheets. He also loves pretending to fall asleep so we leave his room and he gets up to play. He hasn't learned that he has to play quietly to avoid detection.

Yes, I am avoiding doing my homework and blogging instead. Thanks for asking.

Banana

Baba learned a new word today: Banana. So between bird, Wili, go, more, read, book, Momma, Dadda, Pudge (parent's dog), dog, yeah, sure, no, moo, baa, baby, eat, and some other words I'm forgetting, he can practically speak English.

We took him to get his 18th month pictures today. We just took him to a certain store that starts with an S and ends with an ears. He was more interested in wrecking havoc than getting his pictures taken, but we ended up with 6 really cute ones. And $174 later they were ours to take home. Hooray!

Books & Homework

What did I do today? Homework. What are my plans for tomorrow? Homework. Sunday? Dinner with Ditty's future in-laws and probably, for a delicious change of pace, homework.

And to put me in an even better mood, one of my text books which I have been charged $90 for has not arrived. I have contacted the seller thrice with no response. I'm so excited. The first time I use half.com and I get burned. I want my book, but if this particular seller has no intention of sending my book then I want my money. Fair is fair. Neither one of us should get both the book and the money. Sometimes I really hate people.

Now, I'm off to shower and then hopefully stay up past 8 o'clock. I am so tired. I guess 8 hours of homework will do that to a girl.

Mount Kitty

One of the best purchases I ever made was a cat tree for Mister Wili. We bought it as a Christmas present for our furry baby 3 years ago and since then, she has spent countless hours sitting on the top perch watching the world go by and chattering at various birds and other fauna. I never dreamed it would become Baba's favorite toy. I believe I have mentioned that Baba likes to climb, a lot. He is very adept at stacking various things (couch cushions, toys, rocking chairs, etc) in front of the window in order to climb up and get a better view and saw the cat tree as the perfect ladder. It took a few tries before he was able to scale Mount Kitty, but he was not afraid of the danger he was facing.What an honor to be the first man, woman, and/or child to scale Mount Kitty. The glory was too much to pass up.
Eventually, success. Baba GoiGoi goes down in the history book as the first human ever to reach the summit of Mount Kitty and the Mister Wili is left to sulk under the bed because there truly is no place left where she can sleep in peace away from the boy.
Another "Wictory"!

Medical Term of the Day

This one is too good to pass up:

cranial capacity
The cubic content of the skull obtained by determining the cubage of small shot, seeds, or beads required to fill the skull.

How does one go about determining the amount of small shot, seeds, or beads required to fill the skull? Does the one to be measured (measuree) tilt their head to the side and the measurer begins stuffing small shot, seeds, or beads into their skull via the ear and nose?

Can I be the measurer rather than the measuree?

What did you learn in school today?

I learned to speak with a Russian accent.

My physics prof has a very, very, very heavy Russian accent. After listening to him for 2 hours all I took away from my first day of physics is the accent. Am I in trouble?

Pre-homework homework?

Classes haven't even started yet and I've been doing homework all day. I have a class to test out of tomorrow (hopefully, keep your fingers crossed) and a anat packet that is due. How can they assign pre-class homework? I don't believe that's fair.

Plus, my human anat book hasn't come yet. I ordered it over 2 weeks ago, so I'm less than thrilled with that. What is taking so long!?

For ZennieZou

My journey in pictures:

All of my non-plastic friends were too busy working, in school, etc to drive to Cleveland with me, so I brought my Glitter Girlz bobble head. Here we are at a gas station in Wisconsin.

Later, my Glitter Girlz bobble head, who I named Bobbi, got hungry, so we stopped at a McDonalds somewhere in Illinois. She made me order french fries when I would have been quite happy without.

I showed Bobbi to Zabby (my friend, Zeagan's, adorable daughter). She thought she broke Bobbi because her head bobbled. I managed to convince Zabby otherwise.

Below is a picture of Bobbi standing in front of another gas station in Wisconsin on the way home. Bobbi and I were both glad to get home. She's too much of a yes-man for my taste. Everytime I asked her a question she would just nod her head.

ZennieZou, I hope you appreciate the image of me stopping my car and taking pictures of a bobble head at each stop.

There's no place like home....

The truth is, I'm kind of a home-body, homey. Most of the time I would rather sit home with a good book than go out. That being said, I had a blast in Cleveland. And the best part is 28 hours of driving in 96 hours gave me a lot of time to think (and a stomach ache from all the junk food I ate. My stomach cannot handle fried food any more. Darn it anyway).

The bests and worsts of the trip:

Best Price for gas: $2.41/gallon - Cleveland
Worst Price for gas: $3.19/gallon - Chicago (the most I paid was $2.96/gallon)

Best trip time-wise: Trip home: 13 hours and 15 minutes
Worst trip time-wise: Trip out: 14 hours on the nuts

Worst toll: $5.45 for the privilege of driving on the Ohio Turnpike
Best toll: The toll that you no longer have to pay on I-39 just south of Rockford

Worst food: Nothing - I enjoyed it all!
Best food: Mongolian BBQ. Mussel and scallop stir fry, yum!

Worst overall moment: When my check engine light came on about 3 hours into the drive home.
Best overall moment: When I faith-healed my car and the check engine light went off (I'm certain my car is fixed).

Best book on tape: The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (love, love, love, love, love this book. Zennie Zou if you haven't read this book you should)
Worst book on tape: The Dragon Mistress by Margaret Weis (this may be unfair. I wasn't in the mood to listen to a book today. I was in the mood to give a concert to my Glitter Girl Bobble-head who accompanied me on my trip....more on this later)

Most exciting discovery: I can trip from Minneapolis to Cleveland without a map and/or written down directions.
What I don't want to discover: How many hours of my life I've spent driving between Minneapolis and Cleveland (if you must know, I estimate 364 hours, which is over 15 days).

I play the license plate game (simplified rules: look for different state's/province's license plates and right them down when you see them. Goal: see all 50 states and DC in one trip. The closest I've ever been was 47). I did see a new one - Nova Scotia. I was very excited.

One of these times I'm going to get pulled over for speeding up to look at a plate. I can see it now:

Officer: Did you know you were going 85 mph back there?
Me: Yes sir. I saw a license plate I didn't recognize and I had to speed up so I could see where it was from. I'm only 11 plates away from seeing them all! I didn't want to miss one.

Do you think that will get me out of a ticket?

Anyway, shout out to the following states and/or provinces: Don't you people ever leave your states? I didn't see you on the way out or the way home and I drove about 1600 miles this week. WTF?

Alaska
Delaware
Hawaii (I have seen two Hawaii plates in my life)
Louisiana
New Mexico
Nevada
South Carolina
Vermont
New Brunswick
Newfoundland (Haven't seen this one)
Northwest Territories
Nunavit (My life will be complete if I ever see this one)
Prince Edward Island (Never seen this one)
Yukon (never seen this one)

My father plays the road kill game. You tally the road kill you see by category: Deer, skunk, raccoon, squirrel, unidentified pile of guts and fur. I always forget to keep track of this until I'm halfway there. By my observation, deer were by far the most popular thing to hit on the roads I traveled on.