Now I am going to HAVE to learn how to knit!!

So I was driving home from work, going to fetch the kids from school, and was only a few blocks away, when I pulled up to a red light at the intersection of Sudley Rd and Godwin. This is the main drag through Manassas, and my side of the road has 1 left turn lane, 2 straight lanes, and a right hand turn lane. (VERY BUSY.)

I was pretty dismayed to see a friendly looking dog loping around right in the street. The cars were stopped, but I had JUST pulled to a stop, and there were many cars zooming along in the right turn lane.

This little (not really that little) guy was running RIGHT up to the cars, and I even saw him rear up, put his paws on the hood of one car and turn his head sideways to look at the driver. He kept trying to look at the people, get at the people, “hey! look at me! I need to find my people!” he seemed to be saying. I could see he had a collar, and I kept thinking, someone has got to do something. SOMEONE HAS GOT TO DO SOMETHING OR THIS DOG IS GOING TO GET HURT. I heard a horn honk as the dog sort of galloped into the right turn lane, not someone about to hit him and trying to scare him away, but one of the stopped cars trying to warn oncoming cars of his presence.

I got out, and a simple, “Here, boy!” brought him to my side. I opened the passenger door beside me, and he hopped right up, panting and wagging his tail happily. “Look at me! I found help! I’M SUCH A GOOD BOY!!” (drool) (pant) “OH IMA GOOD BOY!) He was adorable. (Definitely a boy. Definitely un-fixed in any way.)

I called James and set him on the path of finding where exactly I should take the dog while I continued on my way to get the kids. Soon, the kids were collected, and fascinated by the cute pooch in the back and I took him to the Manassas animal shelter. Jocelyn kept saying, “No poochie!” because that is what she always says to the cats at home, until I said, “how about, “Good poochie!” and then she said that, over and over and over. Ethan kept asking the directions to the shelter. And kept telling me all the animals they would have there. “Cats, mommy. And dogs. And RABBITS.”

The lady behind the counter gave me some withering looks as she commented, “You put the dog in with your kids?” I paused, blushed, and said, “Nooooooo… I got the dog out of the road… and THEN went and put the kids in the car with the dog.” But really, the dog was in the back of my SUV. (Not that he couldn’t have gone over, but still. He wasn’t sitting in their laps.)
I can see her point. I have no idea what sort of dog this is. I quick google image search on ‘pit bull’ makes me go, “Hmmm.. maybe.” But I just knew from the few seconds watching him trying to look into all the cars stopped at that light, that he was a dog looking for his home. I’ve heard the scare stories about pitbulls, and the other side of sweet pitbulls, and this guy sure was a mellow dog. Not a rabid, scared animal who is on the offensive (or even defensive). The whole time he was with me, he was a complete sweetheart.

I’m posting on craigslist, and any other ‘lost pets’ websites I can find. Hopefully this sweet pooch will find his way home again. And hopefully they put some ID tags on him!

psst.

hi.

how are you?

I am good. The household, however, is falling into sickness.

First, it was Jocelyn. She woke up around midnight friday night with a fever. Saturday morning she spoke in a whisper all day, despite my attempts to get her to “use your normal voice.” Her glands were as big as basketballs, and the fever re-emerged around noon, so after her nap, I took her to the doctor, who looked her over and gave us a prescription for amoxicilan.

She’s doing better now, thank you.

Now however, James is sick. He felt woozy last night, went to bed at 9pm, and stayed home from work today.

Ethan better not be next.

And I sure as hell better stay WELL. Despite the fact that I stayed up til midnight and am guzzling diet coke (2 things I never do when Sickness is just Waiting To Pounce) I’m feeling pretty good. I’d like to keep it that way.

I’ve completed the baby dress for Tamara and Andrew’s baby (due in February) and let me tell you, it is sooooo super cute. I’m only a little nervous that it may be too small. This is one garment the baby will be able to wear right away.

Next I started on a cute little open weave hat out of the Happy Hooker’s book. I started out making it for Jocelyn, but decided it was for me (it will be too big for her anyway). I’ll have to make another one for her and figure out how to downsize it a bit. Except she could really use a WARM hat, and this one is definitely not a warm cozy hat. So I’ll have to pick a warm patterm to make for her.

Anyway. This was just a quick hi.

Hi!

The downside of having a new hobby (hi, that would be craftyness, more specifically this week, crochet) is not much time for internet-ness. But I’ll try to write more this week.

-amy

…when I came home and found this on our answering machine.

powered by ODEO

I knew it would turn up. (OK, so I’d given it up as gone forever, a girl can pretend, can’t she?)

Why do I always get the deformed M&Ms?

But I don’t. So you’re stuck with this blurry camera phone photo (clickity click to see the big version):

My latest batch of marble push-pins. We have a ton of marble magnets on our fridge, but I really needed more pins for my board at work. Push pins seem to be a hot commodity around here, because I couldn’t find any in the supply closet. What a great reason to make my own!
THE GLORIOUSNESS OF ASPHALT

A new road, which they have been working on FOR EV ER finally opened yesterday. James and I were buzzing like little bees over the flashing sign they put up to alert everyone that a new traffic pattern would be in effect Tuesday. Tuesday morning came – the road was STILL CLOSED. I was torqued. James was torqued. All of our (meager) conversation that day was how mad we were that they LIED and it WAS NOT OPEN.

But then! Lo! The heavens opened! And the new road was open upon our arrival home!

It usually takes James 30-40 minutes to take the detour to the kids’ school in the mornings to drop off. This morning, 15-20 minutes. It usually takes me 20-30 minutes to get to I-66 through the stop and go traffic. This morning, 10 minutes.

Now if they would only finish 66. It’s insane. They are so close to being done. JUST FINISH IT ALREADY!

DVD MUST HAVE

I think it’s about time we cough up the $17 bucks and purchase one of these:

That’s right folks, a DVD rewinder.

Just THINK of all the time you will have when you don’t have to rewind those damn DVDs yourself anymore.

That is all. I bid you adieu.

– amy says, “A-doo.”

The boy loves to build. Wooden train track layouts, GeoTrax train track layouts, or just blocks, the boy just looooves to build. Here is the latest engineering feats from the offices of Ethan P., Architect. I’m saving the lego creations for another day.

For the record, we have 3 GeoTrax sets – the Workin Town Railway, the Mt. Blast Construction Co, and the Cross Valley Junction. The wooden tracks…. Hmm. A whole crapload of the very simple Ikea tracks, which comes with 1 engine and 3 cars.. I think we have 3 of those sets total, and then a miscelaneous assortment of tracks that came with his train table from Costco, made by KidCraft.

Also for the record, I don’t recommend the KidCraft train sets from Costco. The official layout was too tricky to be put together by Ethan, at about 2 1/2. The risers for the higher level tracks had to be positioned JUST SO, right where two tracks connected, and then if it was shifted at all, one of the tracks would fall, causing chaos, and sometimes *gasp*, trains falling to their doom and little disappointed sighs and frustrated exclamations of, “IT FELL MOMMY! I NEED HELP!!” It really forces the user to be “careful” while playing lest the layout fall apart, which is asking way too much of a toddler.
A few of the key pieces (the 2nd story bus station) broke only a month into our ownership which made building the layout that it was intended for very difficult (couldn’t really build the layout without the 2nd level bus track. The track went up a hill to… nothing.) It also had a “control tower” that broke after 5-6 months. Some of the smaller pieces were falling apart all the time as well. Our set came with two wooden airplanes, and the wings and tail pieces were always falling off and had to be glued back on. It seemed there was always one small piece or two on the counter waiting to be fixed, or waiting for the glue to dry so they could go back into circulation. This was 2 years ago though, so maybe the sets are sturdier now. The tracks themselves however are doing fine and are still in heavy rotation, especially the track switcher pieces, and the crossing gate pieces (although the plastic gate pieces are barely hanging on). The set also has a huge amount of little pieces that Ethan uses sometimes, the people, the trees, the signs, the plane, the landing strip for the plane..

The table has served us very well, but the bottoms were constantly falling out of the trundle drawers, and sliding them back under the table was always problematic. They were large and heavy, with heavy caster wheels, and when you slid them under the table, they had to be perfectly straight or they’d hit the back table legs, and then you had to work it forward and try to angle it back correctly and blah. Way too hard for toddlers. I replaced them with big plastic bins that were much easier for little hands and muscles to manuver.

All that being said, I just looked at the KidKraft set Costco has for this year, and damn, it looks cool. Ethan would LOVE it 🙂 A STEAMROLLER! A CRANE! I can see I am NOT going to be able to take Ethan with me to Costco after Halloween. Still, I see that the track risers have to be EXACTLY in the right place on those high tracks. If they would just toss in a bunch of extra risers that you could use as additional support, it would do a lot for useability. The track “hills” are not the right height for a typical block, so they can’t even be reinforced that way. I could have dealt with the broken pieces and the heavy trundles if the set was actually easy to USE. It’s too bad really, the new set looks super cool. KidCraft can definitely get the imagination working though, and I did always love that they were all made of wood. Nice to get a break from the plastic stuff. (Now if only the pieces wouldn’t FALL APART…)
Wow, I got off on a tangent there. But Christmas is coming, so this little review might come in handy for parents of toddlers!

– amy

About 12:30, last night. Me – already in bed. James – coming to bed after his spree of massive destruction in World of Warcraft:

amy: “James, we can’t do this anymore”

james: “do what?”

amy: “The Chickens keep crowing”

james: “are you awake?”

amy: zzzzZZZZzzzZZZZ

james: “Amy?”

amy: “The Chickens keep crowing…”

(This one (above) we have dubbed, “the one where James looks like a psychopath.” His eyes are just a leeeetle too wide open.)