that time (again)

As we speak, Rick is off at a coaches meeting for Spring baseball. We had a bit of a set back with our select plans but I think it is working out well. We will play some league ball and mix in some non-sanctioned tournaments (I can explain it all later to those that really want to know). The good news is that we get to be the Voodoo in league ball and we have a good deal of sponsorships coming in so by mid-summer the Voodoo should officially take flight.

For now, check out the best logo (designed by some guy in Portland) and made in to a decal by Chattywalls. And yes, you should support Chattywalls because they are supporting us.

So get ready, more baseball talk to come.

wolf boy

I seem to be on a canine theme this week so I am going to keep it going with wolf boy.

When Zach started kindergarten, he started drawing lots of tigers. I have kept a collection (although I am still wondering exactly what I will do with them) that shows the tiger drawing progression. Most of these tigers were Tiger Jedis.

When Halloween rolled around, tigers suddenly changed to werewolfs or a wolf boy. Most drawings show wolf boy as a Jedi . And while it is enjoyable to see his constant free-time drawings of wolf boy it is even more enjoyable to see an everyday boy turned in to wolf boy.

And as an added bonus, he is in a 3-D letter writing phase.

dogs

Jet had a play date with his brother Ollie. They had a great time running through the field while the kids played baseball. Jet looked like the cleaner one of the bunch but I spent over 20 minutes with Jet in the tub trying to get mud out of his paws.He also had an interesting collecting of twigs and what-not in his beard and chest. Perhaps next play date is sans mud.

The picture is from my phone so not the best quality but look close and you can see the dirtiness.

puppies

This story gets a brief preface:
Our sweet little Jet has a brother named Ollie who lives with our friends the Largents. Because of this close tie there are endless questions about their differences and similarities. Of course while JT and I are out walking, he hits me with the following lines of questions.

JT: When is Ollie's birthday?
Me: Same as Jet's.
JT: So they are twins?
Me: No - they are brothers.
JT: But if they were born on the same day, they are twins.
Me: Well with dogs they have lots of babies at once. It is called a litter. The mom has lots of eggs.
Note: No I have no idea why I brought in the topic of the egg but I was at a loss for how else to explain a litter.
JT: So when does the shell crack off?
Me:  The shell?
JT: Of the egg so the babies can come out.
Note: Yes at this point I am screaming internally, "Why me? Why am I having this conversation and not Rick? We are way too young for this conversation."
Me: Oh they aren't that kind of egg. They are like jello eggs, no shell.
JT: silence
Me: still in a little panic and worried about the silence; too much silence means he is thinking this whole conversation over.
JT: Wish we could have played baseball today.
Me: Yeah, me too. And then I did a little mental happy dance that I was out of the egg, baby conversation and on to something that I could actually talk about. Well until he hit me up with:
JT: Mom what does poem mean?
Me: Well, it a form of writing
JT: No, where does it come from? Like amphibians means two lives.
Me: Amphibians means two lives? Really?
JT: You know, the frog is a tadpole and then a frog. (Internally he was thinking - "my mom doesn't know much - she thinks babies are in jello eggs and she is clueless about the word amphibian. Gheesh!")

taking a break for puke

Today was one of those days. I stayed up late to get some work done, which meant I was super slow to get up this morning. Rick was subbing today so by 7:30 the house was empty. I was in a daze for a good portion of the morning but finally pulled myself together to get some work done and that is where things went from a lazy, quiet Friday to a mess. By 11 am, I realized that I had been on the phone consistently for 2 hours, had yet to shower, and needed to take lunch to Rick. By 11:30, I was back on the phone until 1 at which point I finally showered and decided to take a break by attending the POPs rally at school. No, I really don't have any idea what POPs means but basically they bring all the kids together in the gym, parents show up, the acknowledge good grades, attendance, and then there is usually some special guest or event.
Back at the rally. I get there just a bit early and  as luck would have it I get to be right next to Zach's class. I knew the moment I saw Zach enter the gym that something wasn't right. He almost walked right past me and didn't seem his usual cheery self at the sight of familiar faces and a captive audience. I watched as one of his little friends kept turning around and getting in Zach's face, talking to him, touching him, and I noticed that Zach just ignored him and his invitations to goof around. And then we all stood to sing the National Anthem. Now some of you have been blest, truly blest, with the opportunity to listen to Zach belt out the National Anthem. No one quite captures the essence of the line "with the dog's early light" in the way that Zach does. At first my attention was focused on the guest up front that was leading everyone in song but then I turned to Zach at which point I noticed he wasn't singing. And about the same time I pondered what his lack of singing could mean he opened his mouth and let out his lunch. Interesting point, the little friend who had been all over Zach when they first came in, had oddly moved away at the moment of the puke and thankfully everyone was spared. I think I may have let out an "oh shit!" as I and a few teachers jumped in to action. I honestly was paralyzed for a moment and could only think "I need Rick." Was I supposed to stay and help clean up the puke, where was I suppose to take Zach, did we just put an end to the rally, and do you get in trouble for puking during the anthem? I got Zach to the office, we found Rick and we made it home without incident.
The little guy isn't himself still. Luckily we were planning a family movie night with some Smokey and the Bandit so on this rainy, cold night we are all happy to just be lazy under some blankets.

Happy Weekend to everyone!

Portland Gets a Big Girl Bed

revising the resolutions

It was brought to my attention that some of my resolutions can’t really be mine because they are things others should be doing.

 

So with that said, I am revising a few:

 

1) No change – still not getting on facebook no matter how tempting

 

2) Ok –I do think the boys will work on being a little bit tidier. I toyed with the idea of creating one of those awards charts but I wonder if I can really maintain something like that all year. So I will ponder this one a little more but I promise that there will be few socks left around the house. For my part, I am going to work on making the bed, probably not every day but it is one of those weird things that makes me feel just a little bit better when it is done.

 

3) Projects – I admit, there isn’t much I do when it comes to putting in new floors. I helped Rick when we did the main part of the house but really it is all him. He does the hard work and I just lend a hand. I am leaving landscaping on the list primarily the front beds because I want to own that one since I am certain it only really bothers me. Projects that I think belong to me and therefore I am putting them on my resolution list:

 

• Closet clean out especially our master bath closet, ok really all of our closets. They all need to be organized and it is going to be all me. I will take suggestions from the rest of the house and truth be told if anything needs to be built, I will rely on Rick.
• Curtains – I picked up some curtains in the fall. I hung up one set but they need to be shortened (they are those fabulous curtains from Ikea where you get to set the length). So in that vein, I need to close out my curtain work, which also includes hanging curtains in the master bedroom and deciding whether I want to get new curtains in the dining room (which I am leaning towards so they match the living room). 
• Bench redo – back in October I bought a piano bench at Round Top. My intention is to sand, paint, and recover and find the perfect home. It currently lives at the end of our bed and still has the “Sold- Megan” sticker on it.  
• I am sure there are others but that is a good start for now.

4) Nothing really to change here but I do want to add that along with Meghan time, I need to work on less computer time. I need to get just a little better about figuring out this work at home thing. Some days I do it really well and others aren’t so great. I just need to learn to budget my time more wisely and maybe not expect to get 5000 things done in one day.

 

2011 is here and I think I am ready

I wish I could say that I stayed up until midnight saying good-bye to 2010 but I think I fell asleep by 11 PM. What I have been doing over the past few weeks is thinking about my resolutions. I tend to keep my resolutions to myself but this year I am opting to put them out there in the blog world as a way to help me stick with them.

Resolution #1 - No more facebook. I just deactivated my account. Sure - I have done this before but this time I am going to try and stick with it (for a whole year). I could spout off a my concerns about privacy or talk about the degradation of actual person to person interaction but truth be told, I find myself wasting too much time there. I loved that initially it helped me find people I haven't spoken to in years and I admit that I love looking at other people's photos but when I am done, I feel like I just lost brain cells. I will miss catching up with some people (aka the voyeurism) but I will now be freed up to waste my time on blogs (which may lead to a 2012 resolution). Sure I worry about missing out on something big or not being in touch with someone but the people that want to find me, will find me.

Resolution #2 - I believe I shared this worry before but I do worry that in 20 or so years, I will have daughters-in-laws that sit around, drinking wine, and complaining about all the damage I have done to their husbands. I worry that I have created two boys that expect their mom (and eventually their wives) to clean up after them. I swear that I have not consciously done this and truth be told they aren't that horrible but I feel like now is the time to ensure we don't go down the horrible path of messy men. I haven't quite mapped this one out but I need to get them working on picking up after themselves on a more consistent basis especially their socks and toys which are spread throughout the house. And I need little boys who focus on peeing in the toilet; we have had a few incidents here at the Flisakowski Manor and I am always fretting over the imagined (or real) odor in their bathroom. I realize I live with 3 boys and my expectations aren't going to be unrealistic.  I don't expect or want an immaculate house that doesn't look lived in but I think they can work on helping make a tidy house.

Resolution #3 - Projects, projects, projects. Mr. Lucas and I are usually fairly good about tackling home improvement projects but I think this year, I am going to put together a list and make more concrete plans about what we want to get done especially since I know that in just a few short months (or maybe just one month) our weeks are going to be consumed with baseball. These projects will require funding (just send me an email if you want to donate) but I think if we are smart we can get a few tackled. Here is the brief list:

• flooring in our bedroom - after one child spilled an entire bucket of dirty water (he was cleaning up messes around the bathroom toilets) in our bedroom, I told Mr. L I would rather live with the concrete floor then the grossness that was our carpet. We found some flooring at Home Depot that matches the rest of the house so this will be project #1. I would like to do the other two bedrooms as well but those may wait.
• counter tops - this one has been on our list for a long time but I think we just don't know what we want. Funding may be a roadblock on this project but I would like to at least get a good idea on what we want (new counter tops include a bit of a revamp to the layout too) so we can properly budget.
• backyard landscaping/patio - we have done a lot of work on our backyard including the much used, fabulous deck but I want to finish things off a little. Before July hits, we tend to spend a lot of time on the deck and I want to make it bit more inviting. I'd also like to invest in a sunshade to help make the deck a little more usable when it gets warmer.
• front yard landscaping - I hate our front bed an I really need to invest some time to figure out what would be the perfect solution for the space. I have tried various plants but it seems like I plant the wrong plants at the wrong time (right now we finally have a tree that provides shade and I have lantana planted and they want full sun - sounds like those will be moving those to the backyard). Again, I want to focus on making this space more inviting. I'd also love to create a pathway from the sidewalk since most visitors access from the street and not the small path by the driveway.

Resolution #4 - It has been a long time coming but I had to admit to myself, like many other women, I think I wear too many hats. I relish and love each role (mom, worker bee, wife, volunteer) but I tend to loose myself under all these hats. So in an attempt to get me spending a little more time on me I want to focus on two main things.

• Exercise - after running the half I had all sorts of plans for running more but then I hurt my foot and then I just lost motivation all together. Lucky for me I gained extra pounds. So despite the cliche, I am going to commit myself to working out. Specifically I want to get back in to running and focus on getting myself ready for another half. I also really want to get back to the Y and the Body Pump class and honestly this one is the hardest because I realized how much I loathe going to the gym alone. It might be cheating but I may wait and work up to the Y for a February goal in hopes that by then the crowd of other "exercise as my resolution" folks have dropped out.
• Craft time - I am linking up with Chandra on this one and we are going to start a craft night. We are ironing out details but I loved working on the quilt I made for Judes and I think (or rather I know) I need the outlet and sharing it with a friend will make it that much more fun. Of course we will have to make some very strict rules on wine drinking.

Well congratulations on making it through that long, long list of things I want to do in 2011. I am sure that there are more but this is a good start. I'll do my best to keep you posted (I know you desperately want that) and hopefully making this public will help me stick with it.