1. This blog cracks me up. Warning: There may be some strong language.

2. Wednesday was leap day. And we had 2 leap day miracles:

a. I got to go to Target TWICE in one day!

b. This:

This is an excerpt from Max's Math book. And it was from his lesson ON leap day! caaaaraazy

3. Just going to remind you a little teeny bit about my wattpad account. If you like my grammar, the way I put quotation marks around dialogue, or ya know, the story please vote. And comment. I like comments.

4. Is this a cry for help?

Sam? Sam!

5. THE HUNGER GAMES!

6. If you haven’t read The Hunger Games, you absolutely positively must finish reading this blog post and then read it.

7. I haven’t read a book in like 2 weeks. I knew I was feeling an empty hole in my life.

8. I’m supposed to be reading Oliver Twist. My dad is reading it too. Rather, he’s most likely finished with it and I am just slacking!

9. number nine, number nine, number nine

10. One of my children thinks Yoko Ono can’t sing. But he wants to go to Yoko’s Donuts on his birthday. He couldn’t explain the thought process behind this. I have to add that he’s never been there before so he has no idea if it’s good or bad.

11. This same child thinks ’80′s music is terrible. I. am. ashamed.

12. A Treasure Trove

13. Spring?

Look very closely you can see a little bird in the tree. Not my son, an actual bird. This is getting confusing.

Spring! (Ok, I know it’s not official, but it will be in 18 short days–and also, did you see the blooming tree?)

14. I wrote most of this post on Wednesday, thinking it was Thursday and I was getting a jump on it. This was the least procrastonaty I think I’ve ever been. And it was a mistake.

15.

Do you think he minds me going through his wallet?

This is a dump for the stuff rolling around in my head for the last few days that must get out. Enjoy!

   So apparently Beatle George Harrison showed up to my daughter’s first birthday party approximately eight years ago. I don’t remember this.
He doesn’t look half bad for a 61 year old, does he? Although the pastel polo seems a bad choice.

And here’s a pic of me with some chick named Patty.

Wait! No, that’s not right!

This post is dedicated to my father-in-law Richard…who pointed out that my ‘do was quite Harrisonesque. And Bird enthusiastically agreed with him. Bird got grounded as soon as Richard left. Not really.

So, all 2 of my regular readers should know that I lurve passiveaggressivenotes.com. So I’m always on the lookout for great notes that could possibly be submitted to the site and might actually have a chance to be uploaded. Let me know if you think this is a good candidate:

Maybe it's a little more aggressive. I'm still a little offended by this.

Random food I made:

Fajitas...nom nom nom

Homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese...yum.

Bob freakin' Armstrong dip. The Mona Lisa of dips...takes about as long to make it too.

I really, really wanted to do a fifteen last Friday but oh my goodness gracious, life got in the way!

It started on Friday with the little girl auditioning for a fine arts school. I was so nervous and freaked out for her that she didn’t feel the need to be nervous at all–I’m a giver. Later that evening there was a young friend’s party.  Saturday I built a desk (only 8 hours and numerous bruises for that one!) Saturday also featured furious chicken-with-it’s-head-cut-off cleaning–a sight to behold. Sunday my entire immediate family (including spouses – that’s 20! people in 2K sq. ft.)  came over to my house…Ma and I cooked for them all. Finally, today there were two birthday parties. And since I absolutely cannot buy presents any other time than half an hour before a party there was the requisite mad dash to the store. I seriously need a break from this weekend.

And I’m incredibly cheesed that I got NO pictures of the fam or the food. So here’s one of the desk I built instead:

And here's one of the cookies the little girl has to sell (sigh):

If you're still reading this, I promise I'm done complaining. 'Cause now comes the time after I rant and get it off my chest where I have to remember how lucky I am to be so busy and to be surrounded by so many people who I happen to be related to--and that actually want to spend time together. I'm incredibly lucky to have a house to cram 20 people into. I'm lucky to have the means to buy the food to contribute to feeding such a large family. I'm even lucky that we had so many appliances going yesterday that we tripped the breaker--twice.

As a consolation, here's a site that I would've included in my fifteen.

There's no more dancing with the dogs when the kids go off to school. No more quiet days of writing and waiting for 2:30. Those days are gone. At least for the 2011-2012 school year. For the past fourish months I've been (drum roll please)...a homeschooler...  I know!

Two still have the hurried morning of shower, dress, eat, brush, brush (teeth and hair, icyw) and gather. But that dear, sweet middle one has been told time and time again NOT to set an alarm in the morning...so he can get plenty of sleep and not yawn endlessly through math. Our reasons aren't many but very real, and I won't go into that. I will say it took us two years from the idea being said aloud and then passed into and out of favor from me to him, him to me before we made the final decision. Unlike almost all my other decisions, this was not an impulse thing.

I have lost my free time, but I no longer mourn for it. How many people can say that they spend every school day one on one with only one bright, super creative thirteen year-old? (That was not sarcasm, in case you couldn't tell.) Will I bring the other two home? Barring a very large change in their characters or performance, absolutely not. For my family, homeschool is not for everyone.

It's for me and my Max.

Hawaiian Haystack edition…

1. If the above picture looks good to you, here’s the recipe. For the love of refrigerator space, please halve the recipe. I did, and I still have mucho mucho leftovers. That’s okay though cause it’s Y-U-M.

2. Debated using half or halve on number one. By the time I post it I will be semi-sure though. English majors, speak up.

3. A week of Pete says:

Monday...oddly prophetic.

Tuesday. A weird question.

Wednesday. I wonder if he gets paid for this.

Thursday. heh heh heh...

Friday. It got a chuckle.

4. I think Pete needs a vacation. He wasn’t very informative/funny/creative this week.

5. So, if you love free stuff…go here. This is my fave site for the week. Thanks for the tip Sara!

6. I signed on for Google+ and I keep forgetting to actually go there. I also forget to tweet. I never forget to Facebook. *sigh*

7. Lala had to have her tooth (molar) pulled on Tuesday. It was rough. But it makes for really cute Dear Toothfairy letters.

8. Let me translate.

Dear Toothfairy,

I can’t put it [tooth] under my pillow because the dentist took it and [pulled] it out hard!!!!!!! Please still give me a quarter.

9. For the record, our fairy gives out a dollar. And she was going to give more than one this time, but when she saw she could get away with a quarter she reconsidered.

10. No new books this week. *double sigh*

11. Only ten days till school starts! And I’ve done absolutely no school shopping yet. Please tell me I’m not the only one.

12. The streak was broken yesterday. There will only be 40 days of 100 degree or over heat in a row this year for north Texas. My oldest was really pulling for us to break the record. Yes, he’s a teen.

13. I can’t wait to try it!!!!

14. I’m really glad no one showed up for my garage sale, cause it so didn’t happen.

15. Glad that I find out about Rockin’ the River at the end of summer vacay. not.

Okay, it’s late.  Here goes anyway:

1.  @benwhiting twitters all kinds of useful writerly information.  all day.  Oh! and he’s a fellow Fort Worthian.

2.  Hubby is officially on vacation!!! YAY!

3.  3 weeks down, 5 to go…

4.  Got stuck on this mom’s blog today.  She is hilarious!

Mr. Threepwood

5.  Guybrush Threepwood is the best character name ever.

6.  I’ve written approximately two sentences on my current project this week.  That is not a good thing.  ugh.

7.  Found another cool site just today.  Rachelle Gardner is a lit. agent.  Her site was listed on the Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers.  I’ve not even scratched the surface yet.

8.  Urgh, cannot find my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird!  I have looked everywhere…it’s driving me batty.

9.  I have had approximately eight cats in my lifetime.  Only one has ever come when she is/was called.  She is the best kitty ever and her name is P.J.

10.  Watched J.K. Rowling: A Year in the Life last night and was riveted.

11.  I haven’t seen The Half Blood Prince yet, maybe tomorrow.

12.  A week without a new House of Grey episode is a sad week indeed.

13.  Grad student Blair Hurley has a super info blog.  She posts a really interesting pic weekly to get the creative juices flowing.

14.  I’m as excited about Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana as my kids are.  wow. that’s sad.

15.  I don’t know why I’m surprised when I look under my daughter’s bed and see that it is stuffed to the wall with toys, books, clothes, etc. I did the same thing as a kid, but it’s shocking to me that my perfect little angel would do something so devious as shove everything under her bed in order to get her room “clean” faster.

1.  Writing short stories is fun.

2.  I found a new site, http://www.querytracker.net/index.php that is REALLY cool and helpful.

3.  Getting traffic to my blog is a lot of work for little results (so far)…does anyone have any suggestions?

4.  I wonder why mattresses go on such deep discount for the Fourth of July…freedom=sleep?

5.  One week down from when I sent my full manuscript out to an agent…just seven more to go!

6.  Sometimes doctors are just as clueless as the rest of us and sometimes schools make the right decisions.  This is shockingly different from what I’ve believed for many years.

7.  One of our cats, Cally, likes to leave “presents” on our front porch things like bunny ears, a mouse tail or birds legs…he always eats the best part and I guess he thinks he’s being generous by giving us the leftovers.  Not that long ago I burst out laughing when I saw that he left us part of a hot dog.  I really hope he didn’t have the nerve to hunt it during the actual cook out, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

8.  It’s very nice to have the Bird home from camp, but it isn’t so great doing the laundry he brought with him.

9.  I was going to put a pic of my dog on here, to prove that my dog is uglier.  That’s why we got her.  We went to the pound about 5 years ago in search of the most unadoptable dog in the place and chose our dear Lola.  When I looked at the pic though, I realized that she’s very photogenic.

10.  “Make it or Break it” is better than “Secret Life of the American Teenager” but not nearly as trashy…yet.

11.  I can’t help it, I thoroughly enjoyed “Princess Protection Program”.

12.  I have one minute to come up with 3 more things!!!

13.  Stuffed Salmon Bel Mar from Target it AMAZING…try some!

14. I wonder when I will watch a show or movie for adults…I just love the kid stuff so much…shout out to iCarly!

15.  This is number 15.

6-14-09 Fire

The great Parker fire of ’09…

It shocked, it amazed, it smelled…bad.

My sweet, long-suffering, adorable husband kindly offered to make dinner Sunday evening.  Actually, he didn’t offer, he just did it while I took a late afternoon nap.  So there he was, elbow deep in batter, dipping chicken breast in said batter when the small pot filled with super hot oil (the dial had been set to HI for about ten minutes or more) went up in flames.  I was told that it was licking the bottom of the microwave that’s mounted above the stove.  In a panic, hubby did the first thing that came to mind…he doused the pot with water.  Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew this was the wrong thing to do, but in the state of mind he was in, the back was way too far away to access.

The smoke alarm wailed, I awoke, thinking that hubby simply burned some food.  I got the shock of my life when teenage son burst into my room and announced, with a wild look, “uh..o..uh…fire!” and ran out.

In the kitchen the drama continued.  Hubby ordered teenage son to open the back door.  He then grabbed the handle of the flaming pot.  In the five long steps it took him to get to the back door, the fire was menacing his arm.  He tossed the thing out the door where the oil landed just shy of the porch.  Oil and flame are nothing like oil and water.  They like each other…very much.  Soon after it landed, we were choking on the smell of melting vinyl flooring.  I shoved the kids out the front door and yelled instructions from across the house while fanning the front door trying to get rid of the suffocating stench.

The pic above is of the mess after it was cleaned up…scrubbed actually.  I cut out the melty pieces of flooring and tossed them along with the bottom of the door that keeps this wretched June Texas heat out.  That’s why the lovely blue towel is there, it is a sad substitute.  I could not get the black off the door and wall for anything.  I even used my emergency only cleaner, goof-0ff and it did almost nothing.  This means I get to paint the kitchen as well as redo the floor.  And I’m okay with that.  A little kitchen redecorating is a small price to pay for an unburnt family.  The lesson learned: no napping while cooking with oil is being done.

This is what my children looked like nine months ago, perfectly scrubbed and coiffed, new clothes and all. They look happy even though it was the first day of school.

I should’ve taken a pic of them this morning before I drove them to their last day of the 2008-2009 school year. Equally as happy, not quite as scrubbed and coiffed. I think my oldest was wearing a shirt that was missing a button or two. That’s what living in the trenches of having three school-aged children will do to you. After 170-some-odd days of packing 3 lunches (510 in all), surviving hours of homework a day (some of which seemed designed to be homework for parents), signing my name countless times, lamenting the bad grades, cheering the excellent, two science projects, social studies and language arts projects it comes to an end today.

There will be awards ceremonies for the children, as there should be…they worked hard. But we, as parents do it all for the love of our kids…so that they can learn better, do better…be better. I for one am ready for the break. But I know in less than three months time, my kiddos will stand just as scrubbed and coiffed as in this pic, ready for a new year full of work and opportunity.