Wow. I am really a grown up now.

Sort of. Well, this year Bill and I did not get each other presents at all. I mean I cheated I got him a Columbia wallet for like 16 bucks and two huge Cadbury bars. He got me two cd's. BUT we got mostly presents for Spencer. The thing that surprises me is that I do not care at all. Its like I am not longer invested so much in "things." I am pretty surprised and happy about this, actually. I guess I would like a better car radio, some other stuff, but honestly I am getting less and less worried about THINGS.

This surprises me.

We got our dinner for tomorrow from WHOLE PAYCHECK (Foods) along with some organic everything else too. Exciting, huh? Spencer is FINALLY in bed we still have a present or two to wrap and then we are gonna watch netflix movies and just relax.

That kid has been insane all week long. Its like every morning he wakes up and its like he was shot out of a cannon, and then he just goes goes goes all day long. he was CRAZY ion Whole Foods today running into people, grabbing asparagus, wandering off, and I only have ONE KID. I do NOT understand how people ever have more than one kid. I love mine SOOOO much but he is ENOUGH He is really a handful. He NEVER EVER stops talking, yelling, jumping around running - he is a total spazz. If I get pregnant again ever I might just have to throw myself in front of a train.

Its Christmas Eve..........

Wow Where did THIS year go?
Well, though we have yet to indoctrinate him on the whole SANTA thing, Spencer will be getting a few presents this year. They are all wrapped and under the tree. I am not sure why we have not done the whole Santa thing I guess because Bill is sort of against it in a way. His parents were, and they never really had Christmas trees. I could care less though I do remember believing in Santa was one of the more magical things in my childhood.

So anyway. Here is what Spencer is getting for Christmas: Two Leap Frong things one is this magnetic thing that helps him sound out letters and words on the refrigerator and also this Leap Frog MY FIRST COMPUTER thing that also will help him learn to read. I have two friends who are teachers that highly recommended this. AND since Spencer will NEVER EVER be allowed to play NINTENDO or PLAYSTATION crap, this is the closest he will get to that. I am dead set against kid doing video games. I just think they are just CRAP - trashy, violent, horrific, and moronic. I am sure I will not be able to prevent him from doing them at other kid's houses etc but we will never have it at home.

HE also got a KITE, that is like nylon and in the shape of a dragon. He will LOVE it. SInce we have two acres I think he can fly it here without any problems. Also, I got him a kid's Timex Watch really cute with a lizard on it. A piggy bank, a raincoat, oh and an AQUA DOODLE which is like this drawing thing.

His big present will have to wait for after we move into the new house, we are getting him a trampoline, but I guess they are a TOTAL pain to set up and everyone says do NOT get one until we get to the new house. We did find a really good one, though a website called JUMPSPORT is reportedly the best and safest trampoline.

So anyway... tomorrow we will drag ourselves once again over to WHOLE FOODS to get dinner. Sad Huh? BUt you cannot make Christmas Dinner in the Crock Pot, so what is a mom to do.. I spent the day partly today making a replica of the Canby Ferry out of this Cardboard Box. We put signs on it and stuff with tape and ribbons and it looks really cool Spencer uses it to push his little cars around the house.

I also watched a movie called A GOOD YEAR after he went to bed. It was really a great movie. Russell Crowe is in it and its really good I really liked it. It is based on the books by Peter Mayle, who wrote the whole A YEAR IN PROVENCE stuff.

I cannot find my phone or else I would post the pics of the Canby Ferry. Spencer loves it. We had a great time doing it. Then he spilled my Diet Pepsi all over me. Then we ate dinner - frozen stuff from Costco.

ONE fun thing about your house blowing up....

You get to build a new one from scratch. Now, this cannot be an entirely different house, unless the foundation is toast and if it is, then all bets are off. We will not know this until they completely rip it down.

I have to admit I am looking forward to picking out things like cabinets, fixtures, wall colors, granite, bathroom tiles... all this kind of stuff. We are reusing SOME things but a lot of it got messed up. Some cabinets, for example, LOOK fine, but upon closer inspection have a sticky residue that will not come off. This is because the finish of the wood MELTED.

Until we get to the part where its time to pick stuff out, it really just bores the hell out of me. I am probably being stupid but I am just pretty much letting Bill think about crap like insulation, energy star water heaters, 90 percent efficiency furnaces and all of that other stupid crap. I am pretty much COMPLETELY burned out on just about ANYTHING having to do with the house. I do not even want to hear the word house. I can only spend about 8 minutes maximum a day talking about anything having to do with the house until my head starts feeling as if it will explode. I mean it literally makes my brain just HURT. SO I am letting Bill just worry about crap with the lawyers, WAMU crap, mediation crap I mean, I help, but I really do not want to hear much about anything until it is time to call Habib the Tile Guy so he can come over and revolutionize my bathroom.

Until that time, I would like to pretty much pretend I am at the movies. I am sitting there drinking my 56 oz $7.00 Diet Pepsi, and eating my box of DOTS or NECCO WAFERS(smuggled in from Walgreen's), and my GINORMOUS $8.00 TUB O POPCORN, that is bigger than my head. I am watching a really great and either extremely funny or extremely engrossing movie. No horror ( Freddy), no gross out stuff (Kingpin), no murder after murder(The Departed), no teenagers(American pie), no cartoons(SHREK), no "message" movies (The American President), where at the end you feel like they are saying, "Now, WHAT have we LEARNED?", no weird ones (Vanilla Sky) where at the end you are going WHAT THE HELL was THAT?",nothing about space or aliens(ALIEN), and NOTHING involving four hour epics about dwarfs, elves, or witch school (you know what they are).

Instead I am watching Tootsie, Rushmore, Out of Africa, Michael Clayton, The Firm, Who Killed the Electric Car?, Best in Show, Spinal Tap... something like this. I am at the movies and planning my new kitchen. I pretty much do not want to hear about anything else.


As Martha would say, "Denial. It's a Good Thing."

Yet Another milestone reached in my Hideous Experimental Cooking.

I am not quite sure what went wrong with this one... It was made in the crock pot, with chicken, sundried tomatoes and artichoke hearts. I guess the first clue might be that even though the recipe said to, chicken should probably not cook for eight hours. It turned out pretty revolting, but at least the dogs liked it. Then I also made this Paula Deen Corn Casserole, which was good but WAY too rich.

I have yet to find many good crock pot recipes. I need to find some, and I have rented out like EVERY SINGLE Crock Pot cookbook in the entire Clackamas County Library System. The other night I made some other weird thing that was like Crock Pot Greek Meatloaf... Its just not working out so well. Maybe I should get a new appliance to work with. Maybe a waffle iron, or a George Foreman Grill.

Well they are sort of starting to tear down the house I mean do prelim work to tear it down strip away some stuff to find the weak points or something like this. I really don't know what the hell they are doing actually. It should get underway soon.

Today I wrapped some presents, and cooked some stuff and went to the mailbox and the library. I wrote more X mas cards, and I have to go back to work in January and already the kid is driving me up the freaking wall. But I do love him.

Well I wish I could write more about my exciting life, but I have to read "Curious George Gets a Medal."

Tear DOWN IS IMINENT.

Builder has the tear down permit.. Just a few details left to iron out and we re gonna rip that sucker down.

This is why I am happy I no longer live in Michigan:

I have a lot of friends and some family there, and I love them all. BUT this is my little brother's house there, and his buried car. What a nightmare. It does not hardly EVER snow here, which is why I am NEVER going back to the snow. I may visit, in warm weather, but I will never LIVE there again.

It rains here day after day after day after day. But you never have to SHOVEL rain.

Phone Company Strikes Again.

Earlier this evening yet another house was destroyed by some kind of an industrial accident. At this time the cause is still undetermined, however the phone co is going on record as saying that they believe in this instance faulty construction was partly to blame.





Crews were on the scene immediately trying to repair the damage:
Residents of the nearby homes were evacuated, as were the residents of the exploded house. Thankfully no one in the home was seriously injured, though were quoted as saying they felt flattened by the experience.

Preschool Tree Party

Well We got there and Teacher Gina had all of these little tiny fake trees. We had to gather as a family and each decorate one of them. Then on Monday and Tuesday, the last days of school for the year, the kids are going to walk in a line over to the Senior Center next door to the school and give them the trees we all made. Last time they went to the Senior Center they read books to the Seniors, supposedly. It all went fine for Spencer and the elderly lady he was paired with. She found him charming, but then, in his usual exuberance he went to hug her goodbye and almost knocked her over.

At the party there were cookies and cider and I guess it was okay Not as fun as we thought, and they did not give us parents our secret presents yet. I did get to meet a lot more of the moms and dads though, and Bill also knows all of the kids, and he was pointing them out to me, but honeslty they all started to blend together after a while.

I could NEVER do what Bill does volunteering at that preschool. Everyone is really nice but everything in there is really small - the chairs the stuff all kinds of potential messes to clean up. I would CONSTANTLY be worried about the messes and the chaos. I don't know how anyone works with that many kids on one room. I would throw myself in front of a bus.

Then tomorrow we were supposed to go to Travis's (my friend Siri's son) annual Toddler Holiday Party. Its always fun and there is just kid food and favors and they make ornaments and stuff and everyone has so much fun. BUT Travis is not feeling well and so it has been postponed til Jan 5


I have to work from 11 - 3 but then after this I am off til Tuesday and then I think I will work only til Friday and then I'm off tile after New years probably.

Today we had a conference call with our attorney Herb ( Robin to Joel's Batman) and we went over the contracts and stuff. The house and its evirons are all COMPLETELY EMPTY and as soon as we can we are ready to tear down. I cannot WAIT.


Over the break I plan to do a few things.. I would like for one day for us to go to that Evergreen Aviation Museum, that houses the SPRUCE GOOSE airplane. its a plane that was built by Howard Hughes and it is made out wood I guess. Also we are going to see a couple of movies.. we are going to get a sitter and have her watch both Spencer and Travis and then Steve and Siri and Bil & I are gonnna go see that move "WALK HARD the DEWEY COX STORY" It looks hilarious. I also would like to see Charlie Wilson's War.

However no big plans other than this kind of stuff. Just hang with the goat. I guess. WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR CHRISTMAS:??

Two new pictures of Elmo the Sexy Beast Goat.

Hi, My name is Elmo, I am a Scorpio, I am into grass and long walks in the field. I am looking for someone to share my barn and my tree with. I don't have horns, currently but that does not mean I am not horny. Turn ons: blackberries, dogs, snacking on patio furniture. Turn offs: negativity, fertilizer, raccoons and squirrels. Not into head games, No sheep please, no drugs, no smokers, no fats, no femmes.

An Homage to Mom....

To celebrate my Dad's birthday. I am, this week, honoring my mom. She was a sister who was doin' it for herself. All day long she put up with sh*t from men in the workplace, and then she came home to me. She had been married to this doctor, my dad, where her main job was going to little luncheons dressed like Doris Day, and steering committees. Then, she flew the coop, and pretty soon Jane was a divorced, bra burning, Gloria Steinem Admiring, '71 Pontiac Catalina Convertible Driving, full time working, single mom. The "Mom" part has long been a little questionable, as I grew up on Stouffer's frozen food, our house looked a little like the one in "Running with Scissors" and the only cookies she ever made were Madelines. However, at least she was around, unlike certain other Oncologists who shall remain nameless.

She cooked, but only from recipes from the New York Times Magazine, and only things like the Hors D'oeurves from Truman Capote's Black and White Ball, or things with capers, caviar and other odd things kids hate.... Stuff like that.
For the dull every day cooking she abhorred, her number one weapon of choice was the CROCK POT.

This week, all week long, we are honoring Jane by making only dinners in the Crock Pot. Forty Years Later, her daughter, who also cannot cook her way out of a paper bag (?) is still using the trust;y old crock pot... But mine is not Harvest Avocado....

All of the recipes this week are from the "Fix it and Forget It Lightly" Cookbook I got from the library. I have recently discovered our library and it is freaking AWESOME and I currently have like 36 books checked out.

So tonight is Stuffed Peppers, tomorrow night is ground beef casserole, then Southwestern chicken, and then on Friday, Beef Stroganoff.

Jane, you were weird and stressed out and a little bit crazy but I loved you very much, and I am a lot like you actually, whether I want to be or not.

OK Its official: I am annoyed by Michael Buble. YECCCCHHHH.

First of all he is just some kind of Sinatra knock off, and I KNOW that he likes the Nostalgia music and I mean, so do I! In college in Wisconsin I had an entire three hour radio show full of the stuff, mostly from records I found in the basement of my house. But at least I did not pretend to be Doris Day and make a career out of it. Plus other people have already done that gig just WAY BETTER Harry Connick Jr, for starters.

SO whatever. I am sure that his future holds a two year stint at the Celine Dion theatre in Vegas. But you will not see me in the audience. YUCK.

Oh Yeah.... Its ALLL HAPPENING in GROSSE POINTE.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-ODD-Cursing-Nun.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

What to name Iplaw's new baby girl. UPDATED

HADLEY HEMINGWAY

OONA O'NEIL CHAPLIN

Hmmm.

I can only tell you the names I picked if Spencer had been a girl.

Oona. Or you can spell is Oonaugh. I like this name. It was Eugene O'Neil's daughter's name, who married Charlie Chaplin.

My other choice was Hadley. Not many famous Hadleys, except Ernest Hemingway's third wife.

SO there you have it.
Oona Hadley Iplawbaby.
Or, Hadley Oona Iplawbaby.

I am sure everyone will hate these names...

UPDATE: I thought of two more that I like. I also like AVERY and AVA.

SO there.

SO NOW what are YOUR ideas!!!!!!!???????!!!!!

UPDATE MISSY HAS BEEN FOUNDSend out some good karma.... Missy the dog is Missing.

OKAY UPDATE We found her about a mile away on Gribble road near the famous Gribble Barn whose claim to fame was that it was once filmed in a Burger King Commercial.
http://gribblebarn.com/

ANYWAY It seems that she ended up in a septic tank or soemnthing because she just REEKED but she is back very tired and stinky but home. For now.

This is awfully hard work chasing all of these runaway dogs and goats.






She took off again to the nursery down the road again and of course being the bad girl she is, led the other dog astray as well. However, Amy came back and Bill found her but not Missy. Missy is wearing two tags with our name and address all over them, so if anyone finds here they should call.

We just hope nothing happened to her.

So if she should show up in your neighborhood, just ship her on back to us...

COME BACK, MISSY!!! You are a MEATLOAF!!!! You like to sleep all day next to the heater.... you will NEVER MAKE it out in the wild!!!!

Most people tried to tell me that Beagles are a pain in the ass. She is a sweet dog, but she follows her nose and sometimes it does not let her come back home....

MASTER THESPIAN THIS WEEK dedicated to IPLAW

it is also 70's week in Master Thespian....

IPLAW and his wife are expecting!!!!!! YAY!!!!

Master Thespians for this week are:

Clint Eastwood

http://imdb.com/name/nm0000142/

and

Jane Fonda

http://imdb.com/name/nm0000404/


WINNER for this week GETS TO NAME IPLAW's BABY!!!!!!

Here is My Suggestion:

Since he already has one adorable girl names Mamie Eisenhower Iplawtoddler,

This girl should be named:

Eleanor Roosevelt Ladybird Iplawinfant.


So put your fav movie moments long with name suggestions here and

well..

Do ya feel lucky, Punk? Well, Do ya?

NEWS FLASH!!! Goatless Goat Farm No Longer Going to be Goatless!!!!!

Apparently RJ The owner of this house and our landlord, took his goat to his Dad's house and the goat is driving his father insane.. SO he is BRINGING THE GOAT BACK HERE!!!! I guess the goat is sort of maintenance free. You have to make sure it has water and stuff but other than that it just hangs out in this big field. It sleeps in the barn on some hay. SO the goat farm will no longer be goatless. We are all looking forward to the goat arrival. I have always wanted to live with a goat!

LOOK! SO Tragic....

Underfunded Schools Forced To Cut Past Tense From Language Programs

WASHINGTON—Teaching students how to conjugate verbs so that they can describe events that have already occurred is a luxury many schools cannot afford.

Hi My name is Daisy Tootsie Pop.

Recently a friend and I had an interesting conversation about what our stripper names would be, if we were strippers. This came about because an older lady in our Weight Watcher's meeting mentioned that we should call her by a certain name, because the other name is actually not her real name... it is her stripper name.

We then decided that we should have stripper names.

I guess you take your first pet, and combine it with your favorite candy. My friend's stripper name is Kitty Kit Kat. Bill's stripper name would be Skip Skor or Skip Butterfingers.
I like my friend Diane's name the best. Her stripper name would be PUFF CHUNKY. I need to call her that now forever and the rest of our lives I am afraid.

So Uhmmmm WHAT IS YOUR STRIPPER NAME?

THIS GUY's BREAD IS KILLER!!!! And so is the guy I think? READ THIS

Whatever you can say about crime, at least there are some criminals out there that turn things around and make the world a better place. THis is what this guy DAVE did and he went on to create the co DAVE'S KILLER BREAD

YOU HAVE TO CHECK OUT THIS SITE AND READ HIS STORY,
and then RUN to where he says you can find his organic bread It is FANTASTIC!!! I cannot eat a LOT of breat but I do have the same turkey sandwich every day so I try to get those two slices to be really healthy. I just tried his Flaxseed and other seeds stuff and it was INCREDIBLE!!!! AND all organic etc.

AND I am proud to say, he is from PORTLAND!!!!!!!

You HAVE to check out this site, You HAVE to try this bread.

http://www.daveskillerbread.com/flashy/index2.htm

Got a lot of stuff done, and also: Exciting News!! I FOUND the WEIRD LAMP!!!!

Today I went to the movies with my friend Siri. We saw LIONS for LAMBS Clearly a message movie b ut still interesting. To me, Meryl Streep will NEVER age, though she was never ever more gorgeous than while in Manhattan, Out of Africa, and Sophie's Choice. Even all of that Auschwitz make-up could not hide her beauty.

We also watched some of our Netflix movies the weekend, including, REIGN OVER ME and YEAR OF THE DOG. The first I liked and it was weird but good. YEAR OF THE DOG I thought I would like but did not. Bill is actually watching The Departed right now. It seems very very violent. I do not like scary or horror or very violent movies. Some I will watch. you know like Saving Private Ryan... i watched that but I had to do it over a couple of days..It was horrific. But this seems very violent and I think life is scary enough.

Then tonight I baked some Pumkin-Cranberry-Walnut bread - three loaves. Some to give away and some to keep and freeze. I found the recipe on www.Epicurious.com which is a great site. I am bringing some to Matt's house tomorrow AM because his wife just had shoulder surgery. I will be working M-F for a while now and no more Saturdays.

BUT the most exciting thing that happened this weekend was this: I FOUND THE LAMP!!!!!

My entire life we had this lamp in our house. When I moved, I took it with me. All I knew about it was that it was an antique, and that my mother bought it in Italy in 1956.
It hung in our family room and it was absolutely indescribable.

Well when I sold that house I took it with me. I was going to hang it in our PERMANENT house, if we ever had one. We moved a LOT before we got to Oregon, and honestly we packed it up and kept it safe through like 7 moves.

Then when we got to Oregon, it took us like a year just to unpack all of our crap. Then we were going to remodel the house etc. I was always going to hang it somewhere in the house, but I was going to wait until we were done remodeling. That thing was packed to the max with all kinds of bubble wrap and peanuts and all of that stuff. IT was just DAYS away from getting hung in the house, because we were ALLLLLMOST done witht he remodel, but then the EXPLOSION happened. the lamp did not survive and not only was it BROKEN it was burned, crushed, you name it UNRECOGNIZABLE except for the weird frame thing. I was crushed when I saw that we had last it, but whatever.


In order to claim this lampto the insurance co, I had to find it on the internet and I had been searching for weeks about it. THIS WEEKEND I FINALLY found it at an antique store in the Bridgehampton, NY.

it was made by a company called VENINI in 1940, and it could have been worth quite a bit, considering that other much smaller (this one is about 14 inch tall and 9 in wide.and younger pieces from this company that I found are worth like three thousand at least. SO who knows. This photo is exactly my lamp, but mine had amber glass and it was not opaque. Otherwise, this is the exact lamp, in all of its glorious weirdness. So at least I got THIS accomplished this weekend. I found my hideous weird lamp.