Well, it's Sunday afternoon, and I'm coming to the horrible realization that the holiday weekend is almost over. But then again, that means the H1 will be back to school and his morning ABA therapy tomorrow, so I'll only have one child to chase around for most of the day.

Then there is the gym hanging over my head, taunting me with, "You know, you haven't been in in 2 weeks. You've already used that sickness excuse. Your toddler doesn't have a runny nose anymore, but your butt fat isn't going to go anywhere unless you move it in here." I am still trying to get myself into a 3 day a week gym habit, which I had going great for about a year between kids. Strangely enough, in the 18 MONTHS I've had since H2's birth, I haven't gotten myself back into the gym habit.

I at least accomplished some sewing this weekend. I got my serger to work again, and my sewing machine works sporadically. I have a shopping cart cover partially completed, which is good since it was a baby shower gift for a baby who is now over 6 months old! Whoops! Oh well, I did give the baby's mother a gift instead of the shopping cart cover and told her I'd finish it "soon." Everytime I use my sewing machine I have to really wonder if this hobby brings me any pleasure, especially when I start calculating how much money it would cost to buy whatever it is that I'm attempting to make myself. There are a whole lot of things that are cheaper to buy, look better, and save my precious "hey, the kids are asleep and you can actually accomplish something" time for more important things -- like sitting on the couch, watching tv, and knitting. Which I would have done this weekend instead of sewing, except J was hogging the TV playing Halo.

Well, on that note, J isn't playing Halo right now, H2 will be needing a nap soon, and if I hurry, I can go get dibs on the TV! I need to spend more time with my other monitor, you know.

Random quote and funny story

Random quote:
"There has been one death from Vit A toxicity in an adult male who ate nothing but polar bear livers." From my website readings on vitamin supplements for viral issues.

Funny (and true!) story:
J repeated this one to me today when we were eating lunch with the boys. The restaurant was playing your favorite soft hits, interspersed with holiday music, though the phrase "favorite soft hits" is quite subjective, as none of them were faves of mine.

So, as an Alanis Morrisette song started, ("Under Rug Swept," or whatever it's called) I commented to J that the song was about her affair at age 13 with Dave Coulier, the Canadian guy from "Full House." J didn't know who Dave Coulier was, but asked if I remembered the story from our friend Neal about seeing Alanis at the Redhook Brewery. I vaguely did, but asked him to repeat the story.

So, Neal and his family went to the Redhook Brewery for lunch one afternoon. The walked in behind a petite woman and guest. Neal swears the petite woman was Alanis. The hostess at the Redhook apologized that the restaurant was closed, as it was in between lunch and dinner time. Alanis said that she was disappointed because they had come to the brewery for the sole purpose of eating lunch. Neal said he had to bite his tongue to keep from saying to Alanis, "Isn't it ironic?"

Bonus funny anecdote:
After lunch, we went to Costco. After shopping, we needed to get gas, so pulled into the line there for some super cheap $2.14 gas. Woohoo! J was waiting for a left side pump to open up, when the attendent tapped on the window. The attendent told J, "You know, I've got a 14 foot hose that can reach around pretty much any car, so you can use any pump." Of course, J immediately quipped to me, "He seems pretty proud of his 14 foot hose!" After pumping the gas, J expressed regret that his quip didn't include reference to the "reach around" as well.

It's better to burn out....

J just came upstairs to tell me he had something very sad to show me. I followed him downstairs. He turned on the TV and pressed play on the TiVo to start up the episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live he'd been watching. (Yeah, there's not much stored on our TiVo worth watching today....)

There, before me on the screen was the immortal 80s hair band, Def Leppard. The paraplegic (?) drummer started the infectious beat, and the lead singer, looking older but still sporting some long and not necessarily pretty hair, spoke/sang the lines, "It's better to burn out/Than to fade away!" Hmmm. You may want to really listen to that line next time before you show up on TV to sing a decades old song from the glory days.

Thanksgiving

I am upstairs in the "office" with the boys. We watched a little bit of the parade on TV, and now they are watching a video while playing with toys, while I read email and attempt to blog.

After H2 woke up at 7 am, I nursed him and put him back to bed. H1 was also up, but he is more self-sufficient when he gets up early, so I just went back to bed. An hour later when H1 was knocking on the door asking for breakfast (well, he's only four, he's not THAT self-sufficient!) J got up, so I got to sleep in.

I'm glad I did, cause I had a nice dream. It was Christmas time, and I was in Pulaski, TN, my parents' hometown. In the dream, my dad and my grandmother were both alive. In one scene of the dream, we were at a party at someone's house, and dad was ready to leave. I was going with him, and was going to walk back to the party afterwards. For some reason, he picked me up and put me in the bed of the pickup truck he was driving. Cut to the next scene. I'm sitting on a couch, next to my late grandmother, and she's smoking, as she did in life. I am smoking, too, though I have never been more than a social smoker in college. She says something to me about how I shouldn't be smoking since I have to drive later. I tell her it's not smoking, but drinking that means you shouldn't drive. Then I realize I'm smoking a cigarette held in an electric tooth brush handle, and it's really pretty nasty to have a cigarette rotating quickly throughout your mouth. Blech! Glad I'm not a smoker in real life, though if I were, I think I'd quit after that dream!

In the next scene, I'm looking through a couple of baskets of Christmas ornaments at my grandmother's house. They are handmade or hand-decorated ones. There are a few with letters on them, so I am looking for some with Hs for the boys. I don't see any H ornaments, but there is a Santa ornament that has my father's face, and another ornament looks like my late great-grandmother, though I can barely remember her face from life, so it was one that you just had to trust the dream. I was thinking that I wouldn't be able to have these ornaments as one of the other siblings or cousins might want them, too, though I really wanted to take them.

And then I woke up. It was already 10:30, and I had a not-so-big day ahead of me: THANKSGIVING, though only our immediate family, and we're not cooking anything special. My friend Liz is bringing over some enchiladas that Corina, who cleans both of our houses twice a month, brought to Liz. Corina's mother, who is visiting from Mexico, made them, but Liz has bad morning sickness and can't handle the onion smell from them. So, the boys, J and I will be having a very Ole Thanksgiving!

Definitely not in the spirit of the first Thanksgiving! The town where I grew up, Duxbury, MA, was one of the first towns settled by the Pilgrims after Plymouth. We knew A LOT about the Pilgrims from school, since their heritage was all over the place. We didn't wear black or those goofy hats or anything like that, but since there were monuments honoring Pilgrims everywhere, it was hard to avoid. There was even a granite slab inscribed to a horse used by the early shipbuilders for rope-making, for crying out loud! Honest Dick was apparently a very honorable horse. He walked around in a circle, twisting ropes all day. And all he got for it was this crappy inscribed plaque! Well, sorry, I googled him and couldn't find anything, but I think the plaque is on the grounds of the Myles Standish Monument somewhere, so if you happen to be there you can look around for the final resting spot of this good horse.

Ok, while trying to find confirmation of Honest Dick, I came up with the following. From another blog, of all places! Warning, this is disturbing, and I hope HD didn't know anyone involved!

Time to shower. I don't want to scare Liz off before she hands over the Thanksgiving Enchiladas.

Here's something to sing as you gather round your turkey, stuffing, and cranberries.

http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/w/e/wegattog.htm

We sang this at one of my school plays. I was a Native American extra. I braided my hair, cut up some old brown towels into a fringed shirt to wear over some brown cords, and stuck a feather in my hair. Though the Wampanoag people would have not had feathers sticking up in the air. They were a woodland tribe, so if you wear feathers, they should be braided into your hair so they won't catch on the tree branches.

Some more Thanksgiving-related info: http://www.tolatsga.org/wampa.html
Though this is mostly about the Wampanoag tribe, there's the story of the Pilgrims, too.