Happy St. Paddy's Day!!

a four leaf cover of green bisquits to start the day!

Free Rice

do you know this site? my friend, anna, told me about it. it's really addictive and fun AND...the best part? they donate 20 grains of rice through the UN World Food Program to help end world hunger.

the highest level I've reached so far is 50. but i think i must've gotten an easy set of words - tonight i'm having a hard time on 38! and this is for the whole family. you can have it start at level zero :D

i just found this video about free rice.

so go and check it out - you'll be doing a good thing.

finally! true possibility of blooms

here is my sweet pea. i love sweetpeas. really and truly love them. i got married in october and if i could have, i'd've had a bouquet full of sweet peas. but, sweetpeas don't so much bloom then. so my mom, in ohio, fostered a sweetpea plant and brought a wee plant with two blossoms that were tucked into my beautiful bouquet. so see, i do love them.

pat and bob would bring me some of their amazing sweet smelling sweet peas. it would make me so happy to have all those beautiful bright blossoms with their wonderful and intoxicating scent.

for the past 2 years, i've valiantly tried to grow sweetpeas in our back yard. one year they did nothing. just plain nothing. last year i started them inside - then took them out too soon. i got some vining, but no flowers. so i brought the vines inside (i had them in a pot) where they've been continuing to vine all winter. and now - we have the true possibility of blossoms!!! i'm so concited (as rhys used to say but sadly doesn't say anymore). i'll keep you apprised.

the other lovely spring-ish thing happening next to our sliding glass door is that the fuchsia is very happy and the brown sticks have now got lots of greenery!

we were supposed to have a booth sale today for the girl scout cookies - but the weather is awful and there is no overhang at our local chili's, so we begged off today, so it's extra nice to have some spring among all the drab, cold, and ick.

story time at the library

The Weather Has Conspired Against Me

so firstly - do you remember when i entered dee's book dish contest to win The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson? and so i did this?

well, i won!!!!!!!!!!! but my computer was being persnickety and didn't like me - so i didn't KNOW until i was in concord helping my gramma celebrate her 93rd birthday (there's a post coming about that) so i needed to e-mail with my iPhone.

and i was planning on leaving today to go to corte madera's Book Passage to see Joshilyn and get her book and have it signed as well as getting Between, Georgia signed and reminding her how we had been but one degree of separation of being best friends ever (b/c of Lydia). i was going to go with my girlfriend, tanya and irene and rose would probably be going with us while curtis watched rhys and max and i was hoping my friend jaye would also be able to meet us there...

but.....the dadgummed weather over the pass (between northern nevada and the bay area) decided to go from beautiful to SNOWY!!! ARGLE!!! it's supposed to snow and snow and be windy and snow this afternoon and all day tomorrow. because i'd have the kids, i'm going to have to skip it. the thought of many many hours on the road due to snow and chain restrictions. i'm bummed. i'm missing out on visiting friends as well as meeting joshilyn and getting books signed etc.

so that's why my little punky girl is frustrated.

yummy

self portrait

the biggest little city

the night view

waiting for dinner

view from our suite

30 miles to go

1 1/2 hours to go

D with a drink of scrumtrulescence

just past colfax

c3po needs coffee

Page 123 Meme

I got tagged by Julie (sorry I'm only just getting to this!) for this meme. it took me several tries to get a book that was close-ish to me that had more than 123 pages as most of our books downstairs are children's books. but i DID find one! :)

here are the rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

1) so here is the book I grabbed that i knew had more than 123 pages: 365 ways to a smarter preschooler.

2) i did, i opened it up

3) and i even found the 5th sentence!

4) Observing the spoonful of beans, the child guesses how many beans are in the spoon. The spoonful of beans is then spilled out onto the table and counted to check the prediction. After counting, the child can put all the beans into the pitcher and take a second turn - aiming for a higher number!

5) you know, i usually don't tag people, but today i will. and if you don't have a blog, just post it in the comments...Debbie (yes, you - i know you're reading *beam*), Anna, Julie (crunchy), Rob (who is sure to have a riviting manual near him at work!), and Carrie. no major penalties if you don't/can't do it.

have fun!

YEA BLACK ROCK PIZZA!!!

this was in yesterday's Reno Gazette Journal:

Black Rock Pizza Co. in Sparks has been selected as one of eight finalists in the Pizza Festiva pizza contest for the upcoming International Pizza Expo April 1-3 in Las Vegas. The other seven finalists are from Australia, Utah, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and Indiana. The eight finalists will square off on April 1 at the Las Vegas Convention Center and be narrowed to four; then the four finalists will compete again at the convention center on April 2. The winner will receive the 2008 Gourmet Pizza of the Year award, as well as a check for $5,000. "They selected our Poker Brown pizza," said Dave Winchester, who co-owns Black Rock Pizza with his wife, Linda. Poker Brown pizza has Thai sauce, sun dried tomatoes, roasted red peppers, red bell peppers, green onions, celery, habanero jack cheese and fried noodles. Black Rock Pizza Co. is at 2855 N. McCarran Blvd., No. 106 in the Sparks Mercantile shopping center at McCarran Boulevard and Pyramid Way.

It's good to know which pizza we're going to try on our next visit! I don't think this is one we've tried yet. I have had the Thai Yoyo and that one was scrumtrulescent.

fuscia and Irene's custom whirligig

sweet peas

they refuse to bloom, but they are growing and climbing

i've got a question...wristband help!

how does one go about making fabric wristbands - you know the kind, the stretchy ones. the groovy ones like this pac man one from our friends dede, coco, & dj.



where does one get the stretchy terry fabric? can you buy it in tubes? then just stitch it together? i want to know. help?

science fair

yes, that's right, Irene participated in the science fair this year. She and two other kids in her class asked the question - how long will it take a drop of food coloring to completely color a glass of still water.

how long do YOU think it would take? i thought it would take about 5 minutes. Irene and her posse thought it would take about 10 minutes. would you believe it took 6 HOURS??? irene was upset that her hypothesis was wrong. i had to remind her that it's okay - *most* people get the hypothesis wrong. it's a way of learning. it's OKAY. then i remembered Meet The Robinsons and they have this great scene where someone's experiment fails and everyone cheers b/c it means that they've learned something - as we'd just seen that movie, i was able to remind her of that scene.

after that she started having fun with it. i helped several of the groups in the class. NO i didn't do the projects for them (you could tell one parent that had quite a hand in one of the projects as he was the one demo'ing it!!!). but i helped them get their layouts glued down and reminded them about spelling etc. it was more time than i knew i would be spending at school, but the kids were happy and irene was very pleased that i was able to help out in the class so much. so that's good. we'll do it again next year, i'm sure.

science lesson

rob gave a quick chemistry lesson with our groovy magnets. do you see the CO2 molecule up there? we were talking about house fires and what our smoke alarms do and the fact that they are also CO monitors. Irene asked what carbon monoxide was, so rob took that teaching moment and ran with it. in fact, several a few days later (tonight, actually, as i'm writing this part on wednesday) rhys was asking about the molecules that daddy had made on the fridge. Go Science!

honey latte gooooooooood

blog 365 said i could take yesterday off

and, without even meaning to, i did.

today was filled with booth sales. it was C.O.L.D. and i'm only now (after 5 hours) warmed up!! at least it wasn't the 50 - 80 mph winds that we had last night. it was only between 15 and 25 mph.

irene was not so much having fun at the booth sale - and she was only there for 1 1/2 hours! blurg. oh well.

we have another booth sale in 10 days. same bat place, different bat time. we sold 167 boxes in 3 hours. not bad. at first i was sort of bummed at the number b/c last year on the first day, we sold a bit more than 200 -- BUT!!!! then i remembered...last year it was 6 hours of selling! so YEA US!!!