And We Have ...Background!!

I am being 'helped' write this post by three dogs, who know that the quicker it is written the sooner they will be fed...paws on keyboard...toes being chewed...and small dog jumping up ond down on the back of my chair.

So!

Did yez notice that I FINALLY managed to upload my own background image for this blog? I've been trying for ages but just couldn't make it work...apparantly the file size was too big....yeh, yeh, using a crowbar and mallet on one's laptop is never a wise move. Still, what do you think? Does it need to be lighter i.e. more transparent to read the posts? Or is it ok?

(What's the opposite of transparent...stationarygrandmother?)

Or should I leave the image just at the edges and the center panel white or pale something?

Let me know, gotta deal with the canines before they turn cannibal- or do I mean feral?

Scrabbles...

Youngest has acquired a couple of new hobbies over the Winter which entertain both her and the rest of us.

When she was really sick in January Eldest came home for a week and one day when one was miserable and the other was bored they thought to rummage in the Games cupboard. Behold! a rather battered Scrabble box, long forgotten. We used always to take it camping with us so it has covered much milage in both East Africa and Ireland.

Well, once again we are being regularly challenged to pit our skills against the little green bag of tiles....only a few more categories than what it says in the book of Instructions are now banned....swear words, slang from movies, text spelling and shortened words...things that never occurred to them in their innocent youth!!

I was recently laughing at Amanda referring to her dog, Ruby, as being 'low slung', but Heinz57 has a similar problem ...legs too short for the depth of his chassis!

As a result, whenever he returns from a particularly muddy walk, Youngest picks him up at arms length, and dumps him in the bath for hosing down! That way he, and the water, are contained despite the fact that he runs back and forth in the bathtub and scrabbles to get out before the water is turned on.

(As you can tell, the triffid needs trimming!) I know it was mean taking a photo of a brassed off dog, but he looks awfully funny in the bath.

After a rub-down he takes off into the kitchen and races round and round the table until he's puffed- we call it doing the Ascot! Then he goes into the sitting room, puts first one side of his head on the floor and zooms up and down the room several times, then the other side ditto. After that, he jumps up and down and dances on his hind legs...all this at top speed and without pause- by which time we are just about sick with laughter!

Funny how some animals love playing to the gallery...dog like owner, I guess!!

Start But No Stop

Two Junior Infants bounced into the office with a piece of paper and an armful of yellow card...'Our teacher says can we have 31 yellows of this please?'

I set the photocopier going just as one of the Clergy enter, so I turn to greet him.

Quick as a flash JI One reaches out and presses the 'start' button again....AAAGH!!

(In order to get the full scenario on this, you need to imagine a rather decrepit and temperamental photocopy machine, whose individual buttons may or may not work at any given moment...particularly stubborn are the 'stop' and 'interrupt' buttons....also, like most schools, we are pretty strapped for resources and wasting paper is just.not.on!)

Heckety shrieks and ticks off JI One whilst trying desperately to prevent twice as many sheets of paper as needed spewing madly forth.

JI Two gasps and exclaims something along the lines of...'Oooh! that was bold isn't he a bold boy Mrs H. I would never do that he shouldn't have done that should he Mrs H. isn't he bold?' whilst JI One is dancing with excitement at all these pages coming and coming and me not able to stop 'em!

And the Clergyman? That stalwart, upstanding member of the Church? He leans against the wall doing a narrow-mouthed frog impersonation and trying not to double up....until the Junior Infants have run off clutching their booty, whereupon he collapses into the chair and roars laughing!

The moral of this story is simple:

Trade in the photocopier! and possibly also a certain Infant????

Proud Momma?

We've just been to see Sligo Musical Society's production of 'TWOOz', and despite Youngest's forebodings, it was good. They opened with a matineé and we went to the evening performance.

You'd never know it was the second performance of the day, they were very lively. Toto was bored though, you could tell about half way through the first Act that he'd had enough; he lay down onstage and refused to get up! A couple of times he managed to escape, and once when he was supposed to come on he did a quick U-turn and went off even faster! Youngest said that during the matineé, when Dorothy was singing 'Over the Rainbow', Toto howled along in unison ...Youngest nearly had an asthma attack from laughing so hard!!

Of course Proud Momma here thinks that ONE Munchkin was particularly good, and ONE Emerald City Resident ditto, but that's not fair as everyone pulled their weight. Youngest, among others, was 'miked' for most of the singing, even when off-stage as the cast was not really big enough for the volume necessary.

Anyhow, its underway now, always the easiest part of a Show.

Eldest spent the last few days doing technical set-ups for two Shows in Dublin. One has such complicated light and sound that she is having to 'op' (operate) the show every night of the run. She says that one is quite spectacular with acrobats and colours, and one is a nightmare! But she is enjoying herself, and was wanting to know how to cook dumplings Thursday evening, which sounds the sort of daft thing she would do after a day in the Theatre!!

Middlest has been acting in a local film this week, and will be again next. She was all pleased to get a part because there is a fabulous car involved...ah me! she'll be the next Richard Hammond yet...Top Gear just doesn't know what's gonna hit it!!

Do you ever look at your children (those of you who have crossed that mighty Rubicon) and wonder... where the flippin' heck did they get THAT from?

Yeh....me too.

Riding on a...WHAT...???

Here's something to amuse you:

The Hub's God-Mother found this old photo of the Hub in his youth...not quite the day before yesterday!

Apparantly they were at Mt Kenya Safari Club, where there was a small animal orphanage. One would not generally get up to a prank such as this since African elephants are neither docile nor trainable, unlike their Indian cousins. It was probably taken in the '70s.

Books and the Blood Thirstishness of Youngest

How I laughed at your comments on yesterday's post...guess I'm not the only daft one so! Isn't it grand to know we're all in such good company??

I had various errands to do for school in town after work today, so afterwards I ambled around for a bit. The river is very high again, amazing to watch. The secondary schools are all on half term so there were a good many teenagers wandering around, which is always fun to watch (but different to the river!).

I stopped in to the Library to look for a particular book. They didn't have it, but I came out with four others. I wondered at the odd looks I got from the Librarian when she was checking them through, but it wasn't until I got them home that I realised why...a book on Cottage gardens, one on feminism, a cookery book, and one on the economics of the oil driven West...I guess that is rather a peculiar selection! The economics one is fascinating, started it whilst I was eating supper.

Well I WAS sitting on the sofa with my feet up, but Small Dog kept using me as a short-cut to ambush Hoover Dog and running across the keyboard! Interesting, but illegible, post content!! Now having a cuppa tae and listening to Andrea Boccelli before heading to bed.

Youngest has returned from her rehearsal and is watching '300'. On Valentine's Day she always watches the most blood-thirsty film she can find, which, for the last few years has been this one...she shouts along with the Spartans!! Please note that she is also the one who, for her History Research Project, is writing about 'Weapons of Medieval Warfare.' Her teacher finds her hilarious...this is also next week's Munchkin...

I wonder whether I should be worried?

Picture this...

Here's the scenario:

You plug away at whatever it is you do in the day-time, then you come home and get on with the chores- laundry, cleaning, ironing, washing up, yadda yadda fill in the gaps for yourself...you prepare the dinner, serve it, tidy up, take whichever child to whichever activity it needs to attend, sit in the car for an hour or two reading and knitting, or dash to Tesco late opening for groceries, return home, give same child snack or hot chocolate depending on request, send it off to finish homework or watch TV quota, and at last you can relax!

You look at the clock, nearly 10 pm, hmmm, how to use the next hour before bed? You look at your sewing table...ok.... (read 'sewing chaos' for table), and then PING! lightbulb moment! you recall a pattern you are wanting to try out....
...and next thing you know its 3am, you are elbow deep in half made Log Cabin blocks, ankle deep in fabric scraps...its not even Friday, and a normal work day awaits in five hours....

Holy Jerusalem!

When will I learn NOT to begin new patchwork projects on week days after supper???