It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Sing it with me now people -

It's the most wonderful time, of the year.

Yes that's right folks, school starts today. Yippee! Even though I know come next May I will so be looking forward to no more deadlines, no more structure, and no more last minute "I have to bring/do/study this by tomorrow, Mom!" Today I am looking forward to getting back into a routine. I'm looking forward to normal bedtimes. I'm looking forward to coming home and not finding the kitchen filled with dishes that I didn't dirty. I will miss having the laundry done each day though - Bailey has been very good about that.



Each day on the first day of school we take a picture of Bailey. She didn't want me to take a picture this year, but she didn't have a choice, we were doing it anyway.

She has to wear the shirt she is wearing because she is a "WEB Leader." WEB stands for "where everybody belongs." The Web Leaders are a group of 8th graders who help the new 6th graders find their classes, the library or anything else they need. Last Friday all of the 6th graders had an orientation at the school and the WEB leaders took them around and showed them the school. They didn't have this when Bailey was a new 6th grader - I wish they did, I think it is a good thing.

So, this year she is the big 8th grader on campus. She's feeling confident and wise. I'm looking forward to a good year for her.

This picture was taken this morning.




It's hard for me to not remember first day of school pictures from the past. . .

This was last year . . .

And this was 2 years ago . .

But my favorite picture still has to be this one . . . Oh the joy and excitement of becoming a first grader.

Infection!

For a little history to explain what I'm talking about - read this first.

I took my cat to the vet again yesterday. Actually, I took both of our cats to the vet yesterday, even though we were only treating Zephyr (aka Orange). We have to take both of them to the vet each time because otherwise one cat will come home smelling different and they act like they don't recognize each other for a couple of days. Lots of hissing and fighting is involved.

Anyway - the good news is that Zephyr/Orange has a urinary infection. Why am I happy about this? Well, this would explain why he's been marking or peeing everywhere. So yeah, we have a cause and we can treat this. The thought is that once we get his infection gone, he will go back to his usual behaviors of using the litter box.

Keep your fingers crossed. Mine are.

100!!

And this would be my 100th post. I'd better think of something profound to write about to mark this momentous occasion.



Nah.

Various Things

Wow - quite a long time has gone by since I last posted. Sorry about that.

So, are you curious as to how I've been spending my time since I clearly was not blogging? Well, first thing is this:



This is one of our cats, Zephyr - also known as Orange.



Don't let this picture fool you. He's a stinker.

This cute little creature has decided that he must mark his territory throughout our house. He started with peeing on my daughter while she was holding him. She was not amused. This is behavior that I cannot condone. I've taken him to the vet twice now, in hopes of finding something, anything that will make him stop peeing in my house. We now have the little heathen on pills, a hormone spray, and special stuff that we put in the litter box to make him want to go there. Even with all of this I still occasionally spend a few minutes cleaning up a pee mark. Yeah, I live a grand life!


Luckily, Rominal hasn't killed him yet. We plan on replacing the carpet someday (someday sooner rather than later now) and therefore Rominal has been a good sport about this whole thing.

So, if anyone has any home remedies out there that I should be trying, please advise.

Our carpet begs you.


Luckily, during all of this drama, Rominal's attention has been focused on this:



Our new gas grill.

Even though Rominal still prefers charcoal, he can appreciate the ease and convenience of a propane grill.

Say it with me now in your best Hank Hill voice, "propane and propane accessories." Thank you.


Here's Eddie and Rominal setting it up.



And our first meal cooked on the grill - oh yeah baby!

Yummy! Can't you just smell them?

The new grill wouldn't have been possible without the very last minute help from our friends Melissa and Bobby, who own a truck. This grill was so big it wouldn't fit in our van. They came to our rescue. We owe them a steak dinner too!

Crazy Frog

The other day Bailey's cell phone gave up. Well, to be honest it didn't just give up - it had been working up to it. You couldn't understand or hear her when she was talking on her phone. This really shouldn't have been that much of an issue, considering that she mostly texts, but it was pretty bad. So we went to the cell phone store to look at new phones for her - much to her delight, because as Bailey puts it, "My cell phone is soooo old! It doesn't slide or play music or anything!"

We ended up getting her a new phone that slides and has a full keyboard for all of her texting. I admit that was getting somewhat concerned that when she starts typing more on a computer she won't know how to use a full keyboard because of her years spent texting on a smaller cell phone keyboard where there are three letters for each number.

Bailey then spent the next hour or so picking out the perfect ring tone to signify that a new text message has arrived. After much debate and discussion (Mom, what do you think of this sound? How about this one?), she decided not on a simple bing, or ding-dong, but instead on one called Crazy Frog.

I didn't think I knew what a crazy frog sounded like, but I assure you that I do now.

It took all of about 10 minutes for this to get old, real quick. Do you know how many texts a 13 year old girl who has just told all of her friends that she got a new cell phone can get in 10 minutes? I can't give you an exact number, but I wouldn't have been surprised if no one else in the country could get a message through due to her spike in usage.

Luckily I have to go to work during the day and I'm away from the crazy frog. Saturday we were all driving to a restaurant and we heard crazy frog. Less than one minute later we heard crazy frog again. And then we heard crazy frog again. And then we heard crazy frog again. And then we heard crazy frog again.

Rominal asks Bailey to change her ring tone, NOW. And then we hear crazy frog again. She complains because it's her favorite ring tone. And then we hear crazy frog again. Rominal insists. And then we hear crazy frog again. We are now at the restaurant and we forget about the previous discussion, and the restaurant is loud enough that we can't hear crazy frog or a bing. We just assume that she changed the ring tone because we can see that she is still getting text messages, we just can't hear that she is still getting text messages.

Until after dinner. And then we hear crazy frog again.

Bailey lost the use of her cell phone for the rest of that night. And we haven't heard crazy frog since.