Unexplored Territory

Friday, April 13, 2007

Friday's Feast # 8

Appetizer
When you were a child, which crayon color was your favorite?

Pink, I think. I don't know. I was more in love with those smelly markers ... with the little artist man on it holding the pallette. What were those called? My favorite scents were the red and blue (cherry and blueberry).

Soup
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being highest), how likely would you be to change jobs if it required you to move?

Well, it really depends on the job and where I am moving to. Fargo ... a 1. London, England ... a 10.

Salad
Take all the numbers in your birthday and your phone number and add them up, one by one. What’s the total?

74.

Main Course
Have you ever “re-gifted” anything? If so, what was it and who did you pass it on to?

I am sure I have, but I can't think of the exact object that I re-gifted.

Dessert
Name something you need from the store.

Ummm.... groceries.

Labels: Friday Feast, meme

Thursday, April 12, 2007

TT #34

This morning is one of those mornings. I have been having a hard time getting up to work, so I am PAINFULLY behind on that. I also have two girls who don't know the concept of sleeping in after they have had a really rowdy night the night before. Add to that a child who decides that it is her duty to wake up her sleeping brother (Thank you SOOO much for that, Monkey), it has already been a great morning, and I have only been awake for 10 minutes. But my mind is going ...

1. When did it get to be the middle of April already? Seriously. Soon it will be May, and then *shudder* June and summer break. Wow.

2. This weekend. WHY does EVERYthing have to happen in one day? Saturday, Queen has soccer pics. Then she has a game at 9:30. I have to be at the church for Kinder Choir rehearsal with the Monkey and the Man from 9 to 10, and the Queen needs to be there from 10 to noon. I can't let her miss the rehearsal because she has a substantial speaking part, and she needs to be there to practice. I'm with Robin. Praying for rain.

3. Speaking of soccer, I have a bone to pick with our soccer association. While I appreciate the fact that they want the kids to look uniform, WHY in the HELL do they have to wear the skimpiest of NASTY polyester jerseys? AND let me tell you ... that little "emblem" will crack and fade with subsequent washings. And some kids will look like crap out there. You should have let us keep up with the tradition of hte hand-me-down soccer shirts. They will look better over time.

4. I have to write a quiz for my one student-class tonight. I also have a speaker coming in to talk to her, along with a few others. Did you know that April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month? Now you do.

5. CKU: I HAVE to prepare. I had a dream that we left and I had NOTHING with me.... no tools, no pictures, no clothes, no NOTHING!

6. My inlaws are coming in this weekend. Yep. Enough said.

7. My family is going to Great Wolf Lodge next weekend while I am away. So I have to get them prepared, meaning I need to get the Queen a new suit. So meant to order one from J Crew. Never got around to it. Bad Mom. Bad, bad Mom. And the only place that I have seen bathing suits is the Walton Trust Fund. Great.

8. Did I mention that I am PAINFULLY behind in work? Yeah. I think I did. And all I want to do is knit and do what I want to do. But I have been down that road so many times I have lost count. Oh yeah... did I mention that I didn't get that job? Nope. Got the email File 13 letter last Friday. But I was going to tell them no anyway. Seriously. I was. Honestly.<9>We have to finish the cars for the youngers production this Sunday. But let me tell you ... Sunday at 12:30 will be a GOOD time of the day, because both performances will be O.V.E.R.

10. I need to get some pictures taken of my knitting, my yarn, me knitting my yarn, and then 3 1" black and white pictures for a CKU class. I guess the first thing to do is see where I can get that done.

11. I have to make a decision about the Monkey's preschool situation next year. While the little school is wonderful where she goes now, they have no room in their 4 and 5 year old class. And the teacher suggested that I *hold her back* in the 3 YO class, no matter the fact that she will be turning four in June. So she will be FOUR in a THREE year old class. No thanks. I appreciate that you don't want to lose my money, but I won't hold my kid back just because the 4 and 5 YO class filled up quickly. Montessori is a huge consideration right now. I think she would fare wonderfully there, plus her little friend, Abby, will be there.

12. My mother, sister, and I need to decide if we are going to go out on the craft show "circuit" this summer. I have applied for a vendor's license, but haven't heard anything back about that. And my mother asks me about it, every time she sees me. EVERY time. I'm about ready to send her to Columbus with a note in her hand...

13. Need to finish a pair of shorts for a customer before we leave next week. Yes, BEFORE we leave. That means I need to get four days worth of work done in these next two days.... HA! That should be a sight to behold. My suggestion, people ... stay away from my house for the next seven days. After that, it's all fair game.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Labels: meme, Thursday Thirteen

Friday, April 06, 2007

Friday Feast

Appetizer

When you travel, which mode of transportation do you prefer?

I suppose car. I used to love to fly until I had kids, and then I realized my own mortality. I haven't flown too much since I started having kids.

Soup

Have you ever met a blogging friend in person?

Well, one of my really good friends is a blogger ... does that count? Shout out to Miss Robin. In fact, I am friends with some bloggers, but the friendship came first.

Salad

When was the last time you were really, really tired?

Ummmm.... yesterday?

Main Course

If you could have dinner with any one fictional character from a book or movie, who would it be?

Indiana Jones, baby. And not the 65 year old version, either. The 1980s version of him.

Dessert

Fill in the blank: One day, I hope to see _______________.

One day, I hope to see the happiness of all of my children in their adult lives.

Labels: Friday Feast, meme

Friday, March 23, 2007

Friday's Feast # 7

Appetizer

Who is your favorite news anchor/reporter? Why?

I don't watch the news. Seriously. If I had to choose one, it is going to have to be Peter Jennings. I just liked him, and sad that the world is without him.

Soup

Name 3 foods that are currently in your freezer.

A Smart Ones meal, frozen chopped sirloin (2 packages), and coffee (is that a food? well it is now).

Salad

If you were to have the opportunity to name a new town or city, what would you call it?

"The town with no name where all the siblings get along, there are no bills or mortgages, and Meredith owns a knitting store next to Robin's scrapbook store" How is that for originality?

Main Course

What will most likely be the next book you read?

I've decided to break away from the Stephanie Plum series and read Memoirs of a Geisha.

Dessert

What's the first thing you notice about the opposite gender?

Their height. I love me a tall man (don't ask how tall Ace is ... let's just say that two of my female friends are taller than him).

Labels: Friday Feast, meme

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

TT # 32

Just today, Ace and I were talking about how the Monkey has totally gotten into a LOT of stuff ... and that she never STOPS! No matter how many times we tell her to stop doing something, she just keeps on a truckin' and we know where she gets it ... her big sis.

I thought that a Thursday Thirteen about the three kids would be a fun thing to do ... so here are

Thirteen Things about My Three Yahoos

1. The Monkey doesn't sleep well at night. She never has. She will cry out in the middle of the night for the most assinine reasons ... she needs some water, she needs a bandaid, her knee is hurting her, she's tired ... you name it, she has an excuse for it.

2. When the Door Man was a baby, he didn't sleep well, either. In fact, there was a point in time when I didn't think he would EVER sleep through the night. Until I finally clued in that maybe he was just hungry, and that was it. I felt like such a rotten mother after that.

3. Queen Bee really surprised me this year with basketball. I think she will make a really good little player if she gets the basics down ... like not standing behind your defender when you are on offense with your hand raised saying "pass the ball to me!!!"

4. The Monkey weighed 4 pounds 13 ounces when she was born. She was a PEANUT, but she had the wail of an airhorn. The nurses commented in the NICU that she was the loudest baby they had heard in a long time.

5. The Door Man has announced that he wants to work at two local ice cream establishments, as well as be a construction worker and work with his Dad at Ace.

6. When I was pregnant with the Queen, I grabbed her foot and told Ace that she was going to have very large feet. He didn't believe that the length I was showing him with my fingers really represented the size of her foot. He was wrong; I was right. She had huge feet, and she still does. She wears a size 3 1/2 Youth, 5 1/2 women. But it is long and skinny.

7. I remember the DAY that Queen slept all the way through the night.... January 1, 1999. Ace and I woke up, realized that she hadn't cried during the night, and said "Happy New Year to US!" She was (and still is) a beautiful sleeper.

8. The Man is the sweetest, most caring little boy. He will tell his sisters that they are pretty, and that they are the best sisters in the world. Such a little man....

9. Instead of crawling a lot, the Monkey scooted around on her back a lot. I remember being at Jacque's for Bible study, and we all watched as the Monkey scooted all over her living room in record time.

10. Queen has seen just about every single bathroom in every single restaurant we have been to ... and that is a LOT of restaurants.

11. The Door Man was born with cataracts. I have mentioned this on the blog a few times. But I don't think I mention enough how much this little man amazes me on a daily basis. I know the struggles he has ahead of him, and he just meets everything with gusto and a passion for learning ... it is amazing

12. Did I ever mention that the Monkey loves lip gloss?

13. These kids are changing on a daily basis and I feel like I blink and someone has grown an inch or two. The other day, the Man's old preschool teacher said that he is going to be taller than me soon ... and he is. He is up to my chest already. The Monkey will always be a petite little thing, but she packs a mighty punch (sorry that she made Abby cry tonight, Robin... I felt so bad for Abby!) and the Queen will always be the over-achiever. So many things to love about these three people I brought into this world... and so many things to look for as they grow up.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

Labels: meme, Thursday Thirteen

Friday, March 16, 2007

Friday's Feast # 6

Appetizer

Name two things that made you smile this week.

The 70 and sunny weather we had on Tuesday and realizing that the Door Man is just growing up so quickly, literally ... he is up to my chest now and I have always wanted to have a tall son.

Soup

Fill in the blank: Don't you hate it when ________?

Don't you hate it when you run out of coffee and don't realize it until you reach for it in the morning?

Salad

When you can't go to sleep, what is your personal remedy to help yourself drift into Lullabyland?

I haven't found one yet ...

Main Course

What is something about which you've always wondered but have not yet found a good answer?

Why I went to law school if I hate conflict.

Dessert

What is your favorite pasta dish?

It is commercial, but I LOVE Olive Garden's Portabello Mushroom Ravioli. Yum.

Labels: Friday Feast, meme

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

TT # 30

I haven't moved around a lot in my life to an exciting location. Mostly back and forth from school to work to school to work to law school, etc. So I thought it would be cool to tell you about the Thirteen Places I Have Lived (the might be the same ones ... this is just the chronological order of it all)

1. Ok.. I am giving up a lot here ... Findlay, OH. Born and raised. Still live here. You realize, this doesn't go hand in hand with the anonymity that I want to keep, so ... don't tell my inlaws where I am, ok?

2. Rio Grande, OH. Went there for my first two years of college. Nothing too exciting. It is, however, the home of the Bob Evans Farm. When Bob was alive, he OWNED that town. I remember the age-old story of when a police officer pulled Bob over for speeding (Rio was known as the big speed trap along the way), and Bob looked at the officer and said "son, do you know who I am?" and the officer replied "no. Should I?" Bob read him the riot act. That officer learned ALL about Bob then.

3. Lexington, KY. Went from Rio Grande to Lexington to attend the University of Kentucky. Lived in a dorm with an RA. Hated EVERY minute of that, and so did my RA because one of the deals with being an RA was the fact that they didn't have to have roommates. Never liked her.

4. Sandusky, OH. Went to work at Cedar Point in between my jr. and sr. year in college. My first year there, and it was a BLAST!

5.Back to Lexington, but wisened up this time around and lived in university sponsored apartments. MUCH better deal than the last one.

6. BACK to Sandusky. Spent the summer there with Ace. What a magical summer it was....

7. BACK to Lexington for my final semester at UK.

8. Home to my parents. What a bummer this was. I remember being the surliest, nastiest person on the face of the planet. Which led me to take a job in the

9. marketing department at Cedar Point in February. Living on Lake Erie in the winter ... you KNEW I had to be desperate.

10. Ada, OH where I went to law school. Lived there for my first year. My mother insisted on it.

11. Findlay for my last two years of law school. Ace and I were married between my first and second year. There was a point in time when I moved in with my parents because Ace went down to

12. Lexington, KY. We moved down there after I graduated from law school, and had Queen Bee down there. Then we moved back to

13. Findlay, where we have been since 1999.

Labels: meme, Thursday Thirteen

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Wordless Wednesday

Art ala Monkey-style.

Labels: meme, Wordless Wednesday

Friday, February 23, 2007

Appetizer

Where on your body do you have a scar, and what caused it?

I have a 5-6 inch scar on my left hip where I had surgery when I was about 9 months old. My hip was dislocated at birth so I was in a cast. The cast was a major deal, with a hole ... yes, a HOLE ... in the bottom where they could put a diaper on. Needless to say, I guess I smelled awful sometimes. I remember getting the cast sawed off of me, so I guess I was in it for a while.

Soup

What is something that has happened to you that you would consider a miracle?

Hands down, it would have to be the "voice" I heard tell me that the Monkey was a person who I needed to have. I was sitting in church one Sunday, drifting in and out of the sermon. I was by myself as Ace was at work. I started thinking about whether we should have a third child because we had always been on the fence about it. Then a voice in my head said "Riley Kathleen (this was the name we were going to use ... we didn't) exists ... let her happen." I thought it was just a strange thing, so I dismissed it. The following Sunday, same scenario, not listening to the sermon, and I thought that we should have the two kids dedicated to the church. I imagined us up front, and the kids were standing beside us, and I had a baby in my arms. We conceived the Monkey the following night with no intention of doing so. Her due date was always a mystery to us because the dr's office kept putting it in July, which made no sense because that would have put us conceiving her AFTER I tested positive.

Salad

Name a television personality who really gets on your nerves.

Ok... just one? For movies, it is definitely Tom Cruise. Can't stand him. Used to love him. For television, it is Calista Flockhart. I LOVED her in Ally McBeal. Then she started dating Harrison Ford, and nobody moves in on MY man. B**ch.

Main Course

What was a funny word you said as a child (such as "pasketti" for "spaghetti")?

I have no idea what I mispronounced. My mother never told me "cute" stories, but I do know that my first word was "beer." My Dad must have been so proud.

Dessert

Fill in the blank: I have always thought ______ was ______.

I have always thought my hometown was a good place to raise kids (the reason we moved back here).

Labels: Friday Feast, meme

Thursday, February 22, 2007

TT # 29

Well it appears that the higher powers are discontinuing Thursday Thirteen, and no change of hands is in the works. So I guess this is my last TT until someone purchases the rights to it, and starts it up again. It has been a lot of fun.

Thirteen of My Favorite Thursday Thirteens

1. Thirteen Things I Learned from Napoleon Dynamite

2. Thirteen of My Favorite Cereals

3. I think this was my ultimate fave of all ... Thirteen Men I Find Very Yummy ... that was the week I was featured

4. Thirteen Reasons Why Working at Cedar Point was So Much Fun

5. Thirteen Reasons Why I Love the New Battlestar Galactica

6. Thirteen Reasons Why Knitting Rocks

7. Thirteen Things for Which I Am Most Thankful

8. Thirteen Things I Like About Myself

9. Thirteen Lines from Raising Arizona

10. Thirteen Songs That Hold Memories for Me

11. This one was a labor of love ... Thirteen Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

12. Thirteen Nice Things About My Work Computer Crashing

13. Thirteen Jobs I Have Had

Labels: final Thursday Thirteen, meme, the best of

Friday, February 16, 2007

Friday Feast # 3

Appetizer
What sound, other than the normal ringing, would you like your telephone to make?

I would love for my home phone to be able to identify every single caller that comes in audibly, like a cell phone. We used to have a phone that would recognize phone numbers, and it would pop on and say who it was (in my voice, of course). I would like to have a phone with different ringtones for everyone. I would have to work out a list of carefully selected tunes, but I think I would choose Fat Bottomed Girls for my Mom's ringtone. And then when she would hear my phone ring, and hear the songs I had chosen for other people, she would always wonder what her ringtone was.

Soup
Describe your usual disposition in meteorological terms (partly cloudy, sunny, stormy, etc.).

Sunny with a 100 percent chance of being stormy at any given moment.

Salad
What specific subject do you feel you know better than any other subjects?

KNITTING, baby! Now, I am not an expert in knitting, but I feel that I have a pretty good grasp of it.

Main Course
Imagine you were given the ability to remember everything you read for one entire day. Which books/magazines/newspapers would you choose to read?

I would read every single knitting book and magazine that was out there, just so I could increase my knowledge base. Sure, I might throw in a child behavioral book in there for good measure.

Dessert
If a popular candy maker contacted you to create their next confection, what would it be like and what would you name it?

It would be a totally decadent chocolate concoction that was actually chocolate, but had no calories. And I would name it "Don't Worry, This Won't Go to Your Arse, Baby!"

Labels: Friday Feast, meme

I'm a mom of three peeps ... Queen Bee, The Door Man, and the Chandelier Monkey, and wife to Ace, the Helpful Hardware Man. I created this space to get away from the people known as my inlaws, and because life with three kids and a hubby is all Unexplored Territory.

The nine-year-old who seems to be growing older every minute, has an opinion and a comment for everything, and has a true servant's heart.

The seven-year-old who loves the organization of things, will someday be someone's therapist because of his kind soul, and will more than likely be living with us until he is 40 years old.

The five-year-old with the 13-year-old attitude, who has a dictator's personality, asks you to watch her all the time and say "hold on" to keep your attention, and will someday come home on the back of some dude's motorcycle with 10 tatts and a body piercing or two.

The man of the house, the fixer of things, the winner of prizes, and the only person in his family to escape the South.