so much awesome in one day is awesome

So first THIS happened:




do you see ME?! I'm there, and I get to talk with one of my favorite authors and it was AWESOME!

And then while that was happening, I had a tweet get retweeteed on Twitter by Jenny Lawson... which is just awesome. Because she is also famous.. maybe not to most, but she is to me.. and I am just all excited now!

 

It's your birthday?! here! have a broken arm!

Friday... could've been better. Liam and I raced off to North Adams (a 1.5 hr drive) to rescue some friends whose car died 2 days prior (as in the water pump exploded and bore a 1/2 inch whole in the engine where it is) because it was the closest hospital that accepted their insurance to pull out my friend's husbands' teeth- got them all taken out. poor guy :(

so I'm on my way, and I get a call from my friend where Evan was supposed to be sepnding the night because it was Evan's friends birthday party. He hurt his arm. CRAP. And he is screaming bloody murder. The boys were playing and Ev tripped and fell and landed poorly on his arm. awesome. We didn't know it was broken at this point. I tell her Jason is on his way home from the eye doctor which was running late, and he will be there in a few minutes. Evan insists that Jason take him straight to the ER.. I get a call some time later on my ride home with my rides that he broke his arm. *sigh* 

Here are pictures from the last few days. The first one is from Weds, I think, after he got his first birthday present, in the mail, from his Gram. Right now it's happily residing among the clutter on the coffee table. Then we have a couple from the ER while the X-Ray technician was trying to get an xray.   oh! and a picture of initial plaster cast.And we have a couple from the party on Sunday when Evan was still in a good mood. and the final in the series was taken today, just a little bit ago. I finally got him to put a shirt on normally AND he is now able to handle the XBOX controller on his own!! yay!

Santa talk...

As posted by my husband at http://altonfreth.wordpress.com/

So my wife and I decided it was time to have the Santa talk with the nine year old because he had been hinting that he doesn’t believe anymore. So on our way to Staples I decides was time. Here is how the conversation went.

Dad: so what do you think about Santa?
Boy: He’s real.
Dad: Even though your friends told you he isn’t?
Boy: yup
Dad: what if I told you he isn’t?
Boy:  I would still believe.
Dad: why?
Boy: because my presents always say from Santa.
Dad: what if I told you that mom and dad just write that?
Boy: well, the presents are still wrapped in Santa’s special wrapping paper. It has his picture on it.
Dad: what if I told you mom and dad buy that too?
Boy:  Well there is still the video on the computer.
Dad: what if I said that was mom and dad too.
Boy: I would still believe.
We enter staples and he sits down.
Dad: So let me get this straight. I am telling you there is no Santa, but you will still get presents and you are saying that you don’t care what I say, you still believe?
Boy: yup
Dad: and your not upset?
Boy: nope.

We then discussed what Santa means and why parents pretend he is real and he is now playing with friends like we just talked about his homework. I was expecting tears or the "no crap, dad I knew that a long time ago. "This was one of the strangest conversations I have ever had with my son. I was afraid to upset him but I guess there was no need to worry

Timey Wimey & Robots

Here we are at the Downtown Trick or Treat last night. We had a pretty good time! Can you guess the costumes? My attempt is quite poor, but if you get Evan, you can use the power of deduction to figure out my costume. The people that got Evan's were very pleased, but he did have to explain it a few times. Every seemed to love Liam's outfit (yay!) Lots of work went into it Mon and Tues night. No better way to spend a hurricane, than to make a costume, right?

A key piece to Evan's costume was held up in shipping due to the storm. Thankfully it arrived at noon on Halloween so there were no meltdowns! At the end of the downtown event they do a rag shag parade and costume contest. The kids didn't want to do the parade and Liam didn't want to compete (rats!) I bet he had a good chance in winning too. Trick or treater volume at the house was light too, probably because the downtown thing was on the same night, normally it's not.. But that's cool because now I have my own pot of candy to munch. nom nom nom.... 

battening down the hatches!

Please oh please Mother Nature, don't force our town to CANCEL Halloween..... AGAIN.... 2 YEARS IN A ROW. I mean is that really too much to ask???

This time last year we were preparing for a SNOW STORM. Yes a snow storm.... we still had leaves on the trees and the temps were on the warm side for snow so it was heavy and wet... and we got over a foot of it. It stuck to the trees, and then they all broke taking down power lines with them. Much of our REGION was without power for WEEKS. We were extremely lucky to be only without power for 3 hours... I am not sure why this happened. Schools closed and they canceled Halloween. Well technically the postponed it to the following week, in which many people still didn't have power and crews were still doing clean up. It was weird, and we had to trick or treat early because we had to be somewhere at 6.

(Whoops... totally walked away from this post last night unintentionally)

My husband has been in Washington DC since Friday with a group of teenagers from his school. Due to the storm they left a day early. Winds here have started and aren't strong.... yet...

The first bad hurricane I remember going through was Hurricane Bob back in '91. I was 11. At the time I was living at the Cape and it hit us at a category 3. We moved "inland" to our friends place in the western part of town and spent the storm there. Arriving back home was crazy. Here is a picture of where I grew up.

The south end of the Canal is on the right side of this picture. Clearly this is a beach community. Some people decided they didn't care if their boats roughed out the storm in the water. What they didn't expect was to find said boats IN PEOPLE'S FRONT YARDS trapped on dry land after the water receded. Low lying areas still were sort of flooded, and on our house a piece of the vinyl siding was hanging off under the window. We were very lucky in that we lived on a small hill and the water only came to the bottom of our street. Other houses were not so lucky- They were swept away, or completely flooded as whole sections of our little village are low lying and/or very close to old cranberry bogs. In order for these houses to rebuild they had to be built on stilts.

So when Hurricane Irene hit last year...

(and... I walked away again, but this time I blame my sister who called me on the phone. Now it's the next day, again.)

Where was I? oh yes! Hurricane Irene...
So when it was approaching I got all panicky because of the way I remembered Bob being to violent.What happened instead was that it was a bit breezy, and not rainy at all. So even though I was still anxious about the weather I drove south for 15 minutes to attend a baby shower for a friend. I was a good time and everything was going great... that is until I was headed home... pretty much all roads north were closed because the rivers were flooding and other roads because trees were down. It took me 4 different tries before I found a road to which I could get to Greenfield.. it took me over an hour to get home. What ended up happening was that a crap ton of water flooded our region. Roads and bridges got washed out and people were stranded... MANY without power for a long time. My friend lost her house. Remember how I was at a baby shower. It was that friend who lost a house. Over a year later they haven't been able to rebuild because the flood insurance people said they won't cover their house loss FROM A FLOOD! Those f*ckers. some areas in Vermont are still recovering... It's crazy

And here we are in the midst of another hurricane. They are a way of life in in New England along with Snow storms and 4 distinct seasons. Given the choice of tornadoes or hurricanes, I would most certainly choose hurricanes. These guys we can prepare for, relocate from and most importantly we know they are coming- all of this not really possible for a tornado.

I am not nearly as anxious about this storm as I was about Irene, I am not sure why. But I'm glad for it. I hope everyone stays dry and safe during the storm and that Halloween goes on as planned!

#FirstWorldProblem

I broke my phone. It died prematurely and I blame the black top. Yes it was a smartphone. No not an iPhone or even an Android. It was a Windows Phone. It wasn't the best model as it was one of the first to come out, but I loved it.

But then I dropped it. And it was FINE... until I pushed the power button to kick on the screen. I used it and it was fine, but somehow the power button broke.. and now I can't use my phone. :( Of course I could go pick up a new phone. I was well beyond my contract period for it but I have been anxiously waiting for this one: 

Nokia Lumia 920 Windows Phone with PureView Camera - Nokia  <--link a="a" p="p" to="to" video="video">
The camera on this looks phenomenal and seeing as how my phone is my primary camera, a good camera is essential for my next phone. While I would probably be happy with the next model down- except that it doesn't have as much storage as I would like, and the camera isn't as good, this one.. is my goal! Only thing is, is that it's not available yet. Windows phone will be upgrading the operating system this quarter, and official dates and prices are not available yet, so I want to wait. Until then I am using my husbands old phone (he recently upgraded) and I am grateful, but I am not a fan of it. It's an Android- Samsung Galaxy S. I think if I chose to switch operating systems on my own my attitude would be different, but it's not and I'm almost tempted to just get a new phone now the Lumia 900.. which is cheap right now... and will still be supported after the upgrade...

I can't decide what to do

an open letter to men trying to pick up women:

Dear men,
It appears as though you need help with picking up women because twice in one week I experienced 2 instances of men epically failing to pick up women, (one was myself and the other a friend at our most recent book group meeting) so I thought I'd share a few pointers.

1. Make sure the woman isn't already married. A simple way to figure this out is to look at her hands. Is she wearing a ring on her left hand ring finger? If yes then WALK AWAY NOW. If not, then she's fair game until she says she is not single.
2. When you say, "you look like you enjoy a good beer, what do you like?" and she responds with " Oh I don't really drink beer, but I do enjoy a good cider" don't follow up with, " so you like Bud?" and when she says, "eww, no. I do microbrews if any" don't name anything with Bud in the name. You don't know what you are talking about and just need to shut your trap.
3. When you say, "it looks like blue eyes run in your family"and she says, "oh yeah everyone in my family has them... The harder gene to keep going the blonde hair..." do NOT say, "usually chicks with blonde hair and blue eyes are bombshells" for you will hear crickets chirping or get slapped.
4. When you sit at a table with a book club and they are discussing books, don't say "f#$% books I hate them" you are not impressing anyone.
5. Also don't go on a tirade on about plastic hardware after you interrept a woman's story about home depot. We  could care less. We're out without the kids or husband let us drink and be merry.
6. And when you leave, don't walk away in a huff because you failed so miserably in your moment of trying to impress, because your attempt was just so awful.

Thanks for the laughs gentlemen! I hope you found these tips helpful and cleared up any confusing areas for you.

With that said, its sweet of you to flatter us with your attempts at flirting. Brownie points to you for trying. Unless you're a dumbass.