Puss Reboots

We've lived in the East Bay now for five years and for one reason or another I've never bothered to get a library card for my local library. It's not like I'm anti-library. I adore the library and libraries in general. I just never got around to it. So whenever I checked out books I had to use Ian's card.

Today I finally got my act together and applied for my own card. In the past getting a library card was a traumatic event. There was paperwork to fill out and then the head librarian would scrutinize the paperwork and ask a bunch of questions. Then if I was lucky I'd get a temporary card while the real one was being set up. The real one would then arrive in the mail some time later.

Not now. Now I handed in my paperwork, showed my license and waited while the librarian on duty typed my info into the computer and hooked it up to one of the blank cards sitting ready next to the terminal. Within five minutes I had a new shiny card.

To celebrate, I checked out the following books. Some of these I will do as guest reviews on The Thin Red Line.

Jun. 13th, 2009 @ 07:58 pm

Sean has so many drawings now that he has started a scrap book to keep them together. Today we bought him the scrap book along with some goodies to decorate the pages. Meanwhile Harriet is old enough for her own "treasure box" to match her brothers. So we got her a balsa wood box just like his for her to decorate and put her treasures.

Then it was off to Target for summer jammies. They've grown so much they don't fit into any of their light weight jammies from last year.

Home for a quick lunch before heading out to Castro Valley for an open house. Sean's preschool has expanded to a second site. The new site is for grades 1 - 3 and is starting as a summer school program. It will then be an after school program in the fall. Sean and Harriet had so much fun testing out the new school's playground that we stayed an hour!

Then home for scrap-booking and decorating of the treasure box. Once Harriet had her box decorated she did her own scrap book page but decided to hang it on her wall.

Before dinner I collapsed for an hour nap while Ian cooked homemade spaghetti sauce from the local farmers' market.
Jun. 6th, 2009 @ 11:34 pm

“This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

1. The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
2. Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder
3. Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
4. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
5. Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny
6. Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
7. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells
8. The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne
9. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
10. The Pearl of Orr's Island by Harriet Beecher Stowe
11. The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling
12. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
13. Postern of Fate by Agatha Christie
14. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
15. The Odyssey by Homer

This song is causing a bit of trouble in my family. My son HATES it with a fiery passion. My daughter LOVES it with a similar passion. It's the first track in the CD changer in my car. When my son is in the car, I am NOT to play it. When my daughter is in the car it's the first thing she requests. When they are both in the car I have to mediate between the two loudly shouting at me.

I have also learned that the song takes exactly the amount of time to go from my daughter's preschool to our parking spot in the carport.
Jun. 3rd, 2009 @ 06:03 pm

Last week our house was over taken by contractors to fix some dry rot from a leak. They still need to replace the floor board they took up and finish the upstairs wall around the sliding door. Downstairs we have to reconstruct our wall which got the worst of the rain damage but that's a DIY project for the near future.

Here are the construction photos I took over the course of last week.

That's a 3 story drop through the missing floor pieces!

Jun. 1st, 2009 @ 07:58 pm

During the construction we had Caligula kenneled at Shamrock Ranch in Pacifica. She loves it there. She has her own private indoor / outdoor cat run. Inside is heated and there is a radio playing. Outside she can lay in the sun and watch the horses that are also being boarded.

Now that she's home she's been mostly napping on the seat behind where I do my reading. Or she's been sitting on me.

Jun. 1st, 2009 @ 07:50 pm

May. 24th, 2009 @ 11:40 am

Apologies for the blurry photo. Sean lost his first tooth tonight at dinner. He's had that tooth since he was 4 months old and now he's working on his first adult tooth.
May. 23rd, 2009 @ 08:51 pm

Here is some of the nature we saw at San Pedro Park.

May. 23rd, 2009 @ 11:38 am

Sean reads the sign to Ian.

Harriet helps.

Harriet.

Playing

Tag, you're it!
May. 22nd, 2009 @ 12:34 pm

May. 19th, 2009 @ 12:19 pm