Daily Dose

Eating All The Things

7 Comments / Animal Issues, Daily Dose, Family Funk /

I’ve cursed this dog all damn day. ALL day.

She’s eaten a whole lot of things she should not eat and it’s making me crazy.

I was in the laundry room making a pot of coffee. She followed me in, as she usually does, and then she left. No big deal — except she took one of TW’s brand new water shoes. I didn’t know this until she’d had it for five minutes and I heard her chasing something around the living room. She was chasing the little plastic slidey thing that allows you to tighten the shoe.

Sigh. We got those shoes YESTERDAY.

I was on a phone meeting when I noticed the damn dog had a mouth full of… fur. Grey fur. Or maybe it was grey feathers? I don’t know, I was ON THE PHONE and she wouldn’t come to me so I could take whatever it was away. Because she KNEW she should not have that.

I’m trying to figure out a new thing at work and TW is off picking up the kids at school… I hear some banging noise… Skeeter, who was JUST on the bed with me, is in Prince J’s room eating the last bully stick (and she also shredded some paper while she was there.)

If she’s not laying here on the bed asleep, she’s eating SOMETHING. Eating ALL THE THINGS.

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Airing Another Dirty Little Secret

2 Comments / Books in Bed, Children's Literature, Classics, Daily Dose, Personality, Pet Peeves /

Yesterday I confessed to hating Little Golden Books. (I know. I know.) Today, I have a bigger confession. This one makes me really nervous.

Until last year, I hated The Monster at the End of This Book.

I know. I KNOW.

Here’s the problem… while I loved (and still love) Sesame Street, I did not love Little Golden Books. I did not own many Little Golden Books. I did not buy many Little Golden Books for my kids.

The Monster at the End of This Book was published in 1971, (I was 8 and my brother was 4), as a Little Golden Book.

Pshaw.

For most of my life I’ve heard adults rave about how awesome The Monster At the End of This Book is. I’ve seen people I otherwise loved and respected put The Monster at the End of This Book on their favorite books of all times list.

I’ve always rolled my eyes at those people.

ALWAYS.

And then, Starbucks was doing that free song or app of the week thing, (They still do it, but this was back when it was still new and I was excited by those little cards every Tuesday), and The Monster At the End of This Book app was the free app. I shrugged and said what the hell. It’s free. I’ll look at it. I’ll delete it.

Except I did not delete it. I held on to it because the app is cute. And.

Gasp.

The book is cute.

When JMP was born I was very excited because I could play with the app with him some day… and we did that when he was here in January. It was a little dissatisfying for both of us, he was a little young — he’d be better at it now. The app is still on my phone. It’s on my iPad, too. We’ll play with it again someday.

And, I really like The Monster At The End of This Book.

I particularly like that I can buy it in formats other than Little Golden…

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Poop

Daily Dose, Money Talks /

I’m grouchy. Getting rid of my cleaning ladies will do that to me. I really like my cleaning ladies.

Unfortunately, we really need to spend less money and we’ve made so many cuts in so many other places… this is the only thing left to cut. Darn it.

Kind of fitting that we made the decision to do that and then immediately following that decision, we both had to clean up poop. Not that I’d have left anything like that for the cleaning ladies — I’m very conscientious about the messes I leave for them and the messes I clean up so they aren’t faced with them. Still, fitting. Very fitting.

I’m going to miss those cleaning ladies. I’m going to miss them a lot.

Blah. Hmph. Poop.

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Not Reading Today

Daily Dose, Day to Day /

It was the #Readathon today but we weren’t reading.

Instead, TW, the girls and I met my brother (yes, I have a brother) and Christine at Fox and Obel (one of my favorite places in Chicago) for lunch, a walk along the river and a visit to Michigan Ave.

I’m a big fan of the Tribune building and Tiffany’s and the Apple store, on Michigan Ave.

One surprise from today’s outing — there’s a dog park right across from Fox and Obel. Who knew?

Since Fox & Obel validates parking… and there’s a dog park… and I really like the riverwalk… maybe we’ll have to take Skeeter out for dinner in the city?

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Art Journalers To Watch

1 Comment / Daily Dose /

Earlier, I blogged about the Journal It! book and I thought I’d share links to the art journalers featured in the book. For any of you who might be interested but also so I’ll have a record of them in case I want to go find something on their sites later.

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The Address Book

Daily Dose /

I couldn’t resist The Address Book. It looks like an address book. It feels like an address book. It’s also an interesting and kind of freaky idea…

You find an address book on the street. You look at it, see that the owner’s name, address, phone number are on the front and you’re going to return it. But first, you read it. And you copy names/phone numbers of everyone in it.

And then you contact those people to ask them to tell you about the person whose address book you found.

Fascinating and creepy and I couldn’t look away.

It ended early. And not the way I wanted it to end. So dissatisfying. I had such high hopes.

I also had a hard time remembering that the address book was found in the early 80s. Who carries around an address book now? To do this today, you’d have to find someone’s iPhone and copy all of the contacts and stuff. Totally different start to the project. (and even more creepy, hah.)

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The Things We Have Not Seen

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Friends & Family, Travel Log /

My brother (yes, dammit, I have a brother) and SIl (no, Christine is NOT my sister) are coming to Chicago this week. Yay! Christine is coming! (errr, and Mike, too.)

My brother and I are alike in a lot of ways but in other ways, we’re very very different — I think it might be most noticeable in talking about the things he and Christine might want to do while they’re here.

Some things I suggested, things I’ve enjoyed and other visitors have enjoyed, didn’t appeal to him/them at all. Other things that he asked about are things that I’ve never seen/done, often because they’re not high on my “things I want to do/see in Chicago” list.

But, that wee little phone call with my brother caused me to start thinking (again) about leaving this place in three years. Before we leave, there are things we should see and do and rather than wait til the last few months of living here, maybe we should make a list now and start seeing those things now?

Time to get out the Chicago guide books and make some lists!

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Good Grief

1 Comment / Community Chest, Daily Dose /

I’ve pretty much done nothing all day but watch livestreaming news from Boston.

And this makes me kind of miss the good ole days when we got news a few times a day with occasional breaking news coming in with an update but then you were taken right back to regular programming.

Breaking news coverage… stops being breaking news coverage when you have absolutely nothing to report and nobody to talk to who knows anything. And, that’s pretty much what the coverage was for most of the darn day.

Didn’t keep me from being fascinated by it though, did it?

Gah.

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Going to Austin

1 Comment / Daily Dose, Travel Log /

Yes, we’re going to Austin. That’s what my adding all of those Austin/San Antonio travel guides to my GoodReads account means.

We’re going to Austin June 5-9.

We’re going to Austin June 5-9 for BlogHer Food.

We’re staying at the Austin Hilton.

Michelle Belle will be there (tentatively) June 5-7, (she’s coming in for Chaos in Tejas and staying a couple of extra days in order to see US.)

We’re coming in early because I’ve never been to Austin and TW really likes Austin and I’m sad because I think the Cathedral of Junk might be closed. How sad would that be?

What weird interesting things should we do while we’re in Austin?

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