Saturday, October 29, 2011
Football at Zipps
After Mass Sunday the group headed over to Zipps to watch football and eat. The guys staked out the prime spots while the women entertained the kids.
My running dress
My as in MM's running dress. As you saw from the Maggie's Place entry MM had her running shirt. A little big so crafty mama said "I am going to make that into a dress". And I actually did. I think it is really cute and want to make all her play dresses this way. I am proud of myself.
I am pretty excited about my rousettes. Oh Hell I did a good job. (What you don't see are the 12 other mess ups)
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Bobbins' 10 Yr H.S. Reunion
Sat. night we went to Aunt Chilada's for Bobbins' 10 year reunion of St. Mary's High School. A few of the girls I had met before; Mary I knew well from the Moms Group, and by default her husband Zach. He and I traded laughs over the nervous Nellies at our table and watched sports on TV. The first photo is of Bobbins and Mary. The guy in the black shirt cracking Mary up won some $400 bet at the bar that night and bought Bobbins a shot before we left. She and I ended up drinking a fair amount for us -- 1.5 pitchers of Margarita.
These were the women at our table: L to R - Mary, Katie, Lauren, Bobbins, Tina. Don't you love how Mary is bossing us around? Guess she wasn't valedictorian for nothing. Zach and I got a chuckle at how Mary and Bobbins worked the patio, then came back to the table to report the intel they collected.
About 100 graduated in 2001 and probably about 40 came to the reunion.
Bobbins' cousin Pip wasn't one of them.
A good time was had.
These were the women at our table: L to R - Mary, Katie, Lauren, Bobbins, Tina. Don't you love how Mary is bossing us around? Guess she wasn't valedictorian for nothing. Zach and I got a chuckle at how Mary and Bobbins worked the patio, then came back to the table to report the intel they collected.
About 100 graduated in 2001 and probably about 40 came to the reunion.
Bobbins' cousin Pip wasn't one of them.
A good time was had.
The Grass is always greener at our house
Pretty much all my life I have loved green grass. I grew up in the desert, litterally the desert. You risked the chance of getting bitten by snakes and sitting in catcti. So grass meant luxury and comfort. When looking for a house I gravitated to the house with gorgeous green grass not being able to afford the fantasy of even pretending to live there.
My loving husband yet again fullfilled a fantasy. Or at least gave us luxury. So the grass will be greener at our house. I just can't wait to play and roll all over it. Go daddy go!
Money money monnnaaay
Ugly poor burmuda grass
Money money monnnaaay
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Fall Festival
Sat. we drove out to Mesa for the Fall Festival at Vertuccio Farms.
Our friends joined us.
Kevin and I took a stab, or should I say, hit at the feat of strength. He hit the bell on his first try, with good form; me, on the third. Then the girls all took their try.
Kevin did a little too well...
After the fun bikes, we hit the big air balloon. MM didn't enjoy it so much.
Last, the four of us did the corn maze. We made it to the back side pretty quickly and decided to sneak out to the back of the farm.
It was getting toward lunch time. I climbed into a big storage trailer and retrieved a plastic picnic table -- full of cobwebs which Bobbins dutifully cleaned -- for the girls to eat on. We had a nice picnic lunch before driving home.
Our friends joined us.
Kevin and I took a stab, or should I say, hit at the feat of strength. He hit the bell on his first try, with good form; me, on the third. Then the girls all took their try.
Kevin did a little too well...
After the fun bikes, we hit the big air balloon. MM didn't enjoy it so much.
Last, the four of us did the corn maze. We made it to the back side pretty quickly and decided to sneak out to the back of the farm.
It was getting toward lunch time. I climbed into a big storage trailer and retrieved a plastic picnic table -- full of cobwebs which Bobbins dutifully cleaned -- for the girls to eat on. We had a nice picnic lunch before driving home.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Great Essay in Vanity Fair
"California and Bust" - long and meandering, but full of insights and nice turns of phrase. Focuses on California and how the Governator failed to solve its problems and his thoughts about it; how the city of San Jose is nearly bankrupt but not in as bad of shape as its neighbor, Vallejo, a firefighter's paradise; and why even the strictest dieter finds it hard to reject chocolate cake when confronted by it.
Some of the best sections:
"Two years into his tenure, in mid-2005, [Schwarzenegger had] tried everything he could think of to persuade individual California state legislators to vote against the short-term desires of their constituents for the greater long-term good of all. “To me there were shocking moments,” he says.... “When you want to do pension reform for the prison guards,” he says, “and all of a sudden the Republicans are all lined up against you. It was really incredible, and it happened over and over: people would say to me, ‘Yes, this is the best idea! I would love to vote for it! But if I vote for it some interest group is going to be angry with me, so I won’t do it.’ I couldn’t believe people could actually say that.
"The people who had power in the society, and were charged with saving it from itself, had instead bled the society to death. The problem with police officers and firefighters isn’t a public-sector problem; it isn’t a problem with government; it’s a problem with the entire society. It’s what happened on Wall Street in the run-up to the subprime crisis. It’s a problem of people taking what they can, just because they can, without regard to the larger social consequences. It’s not just a coincidence that the debts of cities and states spun out of control at the same time as the debts of individual Americans. Alone in a dark room with a pile of money, Americans knew exactly what they wanted to do, from the top of the society to the bottom. They’d been conditioned to grab as much as they could, without thinking about the long-term consequences. Afterward, the people on Wall Street would privately bemoan the low morals of the American people who walked away from their subprime loans, and the American people would express outrage at the Wall Street people who paid themselves a fortune to design the bad loans.
We are set up to acquire as much as we can of things we perceive as scarce, particularly sex, safety, and food.” Even a person on a diet who sensibly avoids coming face-to-face with a piece of chocolate cake will find it hard to control himself if the chocolate cake somehow finds him. Every pastry chef in America understands this, and now neuroscience does, too. “When faced with abundance, the brain’s ancient reward pathways are difficult to suppress,” says Whybrow. “In that moment the value of eating the chocolate cake exceeds the value of the diet. We cannot think down the road when we are faced with the chocolate cake.”
Some of the best sections:
"Two years into his tenure, in mid-2005, [Schwarzenegger had] tried everything he could think of to persuade individual California state legislators to vote against the short-term desires of their constituents for the greater long-term good of all. “To me there were shocking moments,” he says.... “When you want to do pension reform for the prison guards,” he says, “and all of a sudden the Republicans are all lined up against you. It was really incredible, and it happened over and over: people would say to me, ‘Yes, this is the best idea! I would love to vote for it! But if I vote for it some interest group is going to be angry with me, so I won’t do it.’ I couldn’t believe people could actually say that.
"The people who had power in the society, and were charged with saving it from itself, had instead bled the society to death. The problem with police officers and firefighters isn’t a public-sector problem; it isn’t a problem with government; it’s a problem with the entire society. It’s what happened on Wall Street in the run-up to the subprime crisis. It’s a problem of people taking what they can, just because they can, without regard to the larger social consequences. It’s not just a coincidence that the debts of cities and states spun out of control at the same time as the debts of individual Americans. Alone in a dark room with a pile of money, Americans knew exactly what they wanted to do, from the top of the society to the bottom. They’d been conditioned to grab as much as they could, without thinking about the long-term consequences. Afterward, the people on Wall Street would privately bemoan the low morals of the American people who walked away from their subprime loans, and the American people would express outrage at the Wall Street people who paid themselves a fortune to design the bad loans.
We are set up to acquire as much as we can of things we perceive as scarce, particularly sex, safety, and food.” Even a person on a diet who sensibly avoids coming face-to-face with a piece of chocolate cake will find it hard to control himself if the chocolate cake somehow finds him. Every pastry chef in America understands this, and now neuroscience does, too. “When faced with abundance, the brain’s ancient reward pathways are difficult to suppress,” says Whybrow. “In that moment the value of eating the chocolate cake exceeds the value of the diet. We cannot think down the road when we are faced with the chocolate cake.”
Sunday, October 23, 2011
MP9K 2011
Last Sunday was the annual Race for Maggie's Place. Kevin and I did the 10K while SiSi and MM, for the first time, did the kids' 200 yard dash.
SiSi and her mom starting the kids' the dash, MM and her dad "dashing" toward the finish
200 yards was quite a ways for MM's little legs going full speed. About halfway through she started saying "Too much, Daddy, too much running." I told her to buck up and keep breathing, she was almost there. She finished near dead last, but she finished, and got her shirt.
She'll be motoring next year.
And a treat
Kevin and I ran a nice pace, finishing in 50:15, or 5.02min/K. We had a good time.
SiSi and her mom starting the kids' the dash, MM and her dad "dashing" toward the finish
200 yards was quite a ways for MM's little legs going full speed. About halfway through she started saying "Too much, Daddy, too much running." I told her to buck up and keep breathing, she was almost there. She finished near dead last, but she finished, and got her shirt.
She'll be motoring next year.
And a treat
Kevin and I ran a nice pace, finishing in 50:15, or 5.02min/K. We had a good time.
Friday, October 21, 2011
ASU - Oregon
Can't say we weren't ready to support the Sun Devils in their big game at Oregon last Sat. night.
I went over to a co-worker's house to watch the game, which started at 7:15pm. The girls went home with mom to go to bed.
Not surprisingly, the Ducks overwhelmed us. They get better as the game progresses and are very deep in talent, as evidenced by not having their starting RB and QB in the second half and still racking up points. The Devils shot themselves in the foot, as usual, with penalties, although the ref's were all too happy to insert themselves in the game, on both sides (that last offensive holding penalty on us that negated a TD was ridiculous, though). Eugene is a tough place to play and no one expected us to win, and we were right there with them even in the 4th quarter. So not a bad result. The D needs to stiffen up, especially tackling, and the O needs to make halftime adjustments after the opposing defense makes theirs. Two weeks off to rest and prepare for Colorado at home.
Apparently the Dog kept my seat on the couch warm while I was gone.
I went over to a co-worker's house to watch the game, which started at 7:15pm. The girls went home with mom to go to bed.
Not surprisingly, the Ducks overwhelmed us. They get better as the game progresses and are very deep in talent, as evidenced by not having their starting RB and QB in the second half and still racking up points. The Devils shot themselves in the foot, as usual, with penalties, although the ref's were all too happy to insert themselves in the game, on both sides (that last offensive holding penalty on us that negated a TD was ridiculous, though). Eugene is a tough place to play and no one expected us to win, and we were right there with them even in the 4th quarter. So not a bad result. The D needs to stiffen up, especially tackling, and the O needs to make halftime adjustments after the opposing defense makes theirs. Two weeks off to rest and prepare for Colorado at home.
Apparently the Dog kept my seat on the couch warm while I was gone.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Wild West Sat.
Bobbins took the girls to a wild west festival on the west side Sat. For some reason MM didn't want to, but JoJo saddled right up for a pony ride.
While they were off having fun, I stayed home to plant winter rye grass in the backyard. First time, we'll see how it goes....
While they were off having fun, I stayed home to plant winter rye grass in the backyard. First time, we'll see how it goes....
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