A new hiding place

This time it's Wally in there, but I've seen Eddie do the same thing. Whichever cat wants to hide will go in our closet, knock over the hamper and then make himself comfortable in the dirty clothes.

(I finally deleted enough photos to post a new photo. Whew.)

ITEOTWAWKI

OK that title dates me. But yes, it's the end of the world as we know it or at least it's the end of the amount of free storage I have with Google for my photos. I had a cute little cat post all ready to go with a picture but boom! I'm out of free storage.

So I need to go through all my bazillion and one photos and prune out what I can, because frankly I'm reluctant to pay to store more.

We are family

We had such a great time in Virginia—so glad we went, so very glad Jordan and Sophie could be there also and very grateful that Ben and Jen are willing to host all of us.


We met Colin. Just look at those eyes! They aren't exactly brown (sigh) but they are also very different from Alison's eyes and Eliot's too. Both of those kids have crystal blue eyes. Colin's eyes sometimes look gray or navy blue.

Alison has changed so much. She's looking very grown up, not like she's in kindergarten. Some of that is her height (she's nearly four feet tall at age five), but a lot has to do with her new sense of confidence. This visit, she got to make cake pops with Sophie; watching her break the eggs and use the mixer was a lot of fun.

This picture shows perfectly how Colin is--a little love bug who grabs on tight and likes to cuddle. He's really fond of clutching hair in his little fists and can get a death grip you wouldn't believe. I'm not sure how Jen still has any hair left on her head.

Isn't this a great picture of Jen, Alison, Eliot and Colin? I swear Jen stays calm through anything.

Sophie posted this story yesterday about Jen:
The best mommy quote this holiday was definitely when 2 1/2 yr old Eliot asked his mom to get him out of the highchair. Jen, who had a baby in her arms, said "I can't get you right now Eliot, how about you sing a song to yourself."

Jordan and Sophie are just the coolest, always upbeat and looking to make sure everyone else is having a great time too. Kent took some great pictures of them "dancing" with Alison and Eliot and you should see the grins on the kids' faces.

OK, bear with me. Yes,it's another picture of Colin but this one is pretty cute even if he is crying.

Kent and I had gotten Eliot probably three different sets of train tracks from Ikea last spring before we left Boston.

I'd protested that three were too many plus the package said they were for children ages three and up and that Eliot would only be two at Thanksgiving, all to no avail.

I'm here to say that Kent was right.

Eliot loved his train tracks and splitters and whatever else was in there and so did everyone else.

Finally, here's our annual family picture. We clean up OK, don't we?

Running on empty

There can be only one

When we moved to Boston, I could not find my favorite brand of deodorant anywhere. It's not like I use something unusual, it's just Arrid solid unscented. Apparently the only unscented solid deodorant available in the Boston area also had to be the kind that isn’t supposed to leave those white deodorant streaks. That sounds like a great idea, only whatever is used to make the deodorant streak-free seriously bothers my skin.

That year, we’d gone to visit Ben and Jen for Easter. Kent picked up probably half a dozen sticks of my deodorant at the local store, which left me in good, non-smelly shape for a while.

About six months later, we flooded and poof – no deodorant. At the time, I wasn’t sure if the remaining sticks had been ruined or tossed but either way, I only had a single sad little stick. So the next trip we made, which happened to be to see Jordan and Sophie in Nashville, I bought another six or so sticks.

That last deodorant purchase was in December, 2009. As it turns out, the deodorant involved in the flood had not been ruined, only packed away by the restoration company. So by April, 2010, we had about 10 sticks of deodorant.

Today we’re down to one in use and one left in stock. I haven’t bought deodorant in close to three years. I was a little afraid my brand wasn't around any more, but I did a little scouting and I think I'm in luck. 

So much to say

I learned to type on an IBM Selectric II in high school.  Once I got over how weird a QWERTY keyboard was, I got really fast as long as I used an electric typewriter. A couple of times I was forced to use a manual typewriter while in the Army; I learned that my hands, especially my pinky fingers, just weren’t all that strong and I gratefully returned to the world of electric typewriters.

Later on in my early 20s, I used word processing machines which I absolutely loved. Those early programs used command key combination to move the cursor, they didn’t use mice. I was all about those combinations and couldn’t see why on earth you’d ever need a mouse. The combos just seemed so much more efficient and I got even faster with the keyboard. At the time, I thought that mice were rather like Betamax videos. Boy was I wrong. So of course I learned to use a mouse and stayed super-fast with the keyboard.

Fast forward to the last five years or so and now we’ve got smart phones and tablets with touch screens, which I mostly love. But I don’t do so well typing on a touch screen. I find it slow and frustrating and unless I’m typing something short, like a Facebook update or a quick reply to an email, I stay away from them.

But it’s killing me. I was gone eight days and had some things I wanted to post, longer emails I wanted to write and I was stymied by the lack of a keyboard to go with my tablet (I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1). I bought a non-OEM Bluetooth keyboard, which paired with my tablet easily . . . only the (, 9 and . keys didn’t work. That’s sort of a problem, don’t you think?

Other than that gap, I love my tablet. But it’s a pretty big gap. I’ve been looking at the Microsoft Surface but don’t care for the operating system (Windows RT). They’ll release another version of the Surface sometime early next year with Windows 8 on it and I’m intrigued. Kent's intrigued that I'm intrigued because he'll get my tablet if I do switch.

What kills me is that I know the kids growing up using touch screens will look back at keyboards the way I did at those clunky manual typewriters. They'll wonder how we managed to get anything done with physical keyboards. I'll just shake my cane and tell them to get off my lawn.

Still alive

But we're traveling, so posting is spotty. Plus I need to solve some technical issues (portable keyboard struggles with a period and parens, plus my camera's SD card is too big for the tablet). So right now, I type the periods with my touch screen and most of the words with the keyboard. Apparently I'm not the only one to have this issue. I may  just need to break down and call customer service, I guess. Or just get used to using a combo approach to typing.

A sweet story

We’ve been ordering Christmas presents and having them sent to Ben and Jen’s house (we have a small Christmas celebration there after Thanksgiving with Ben and his family and Jordan and Sophie). Kent’s address entry in Amazon for Ben et al says “Ben, Jen, Alison, Eliot, Milo and Smoochie.” Milo and Smoochie are the cats.

When one of the gifts Kent ordered arrived in Virginia yesterday, Alison was very concerned because Colin’s name wasn’t listed. She noticed the omission and said, "I guess Nana doesn't know about Colin."

We know! I promise, we know and can't wait to meet him.