T H E

These three letters are really hanging me up.

I've been spending a lot of time out of the house lately. That means that I've been checking blogs and emails and Twitter on the fly... on my phone ...more than usual. I used to love my phone... not an iPhone. I have a Droid 2. I love the little slide-out keypad. It takes decent pics in well-lit environments and shoots video well enough for saving memories and filming gadgets ;-)

Recently, however, it has been pissing me off. I'll be in the middle of a well-thought-out or extremely time-sensitive (as a stay-at-home-mom, you know big deals are being wheeled and dealed constantly and at a high rate of speed in my world) comment or email or tweet or text message and it will seize and freeze. And then 'force close'. WTH???? Often I have tried several times before just giving up and then forgetting when I got home that, in fact, I hadn't replied or commented or whatevered. If you have been the non-recipient of my technological and memory lapses, I am sincerely sorry. For real. It's probably not personal.

Last night I figured out the problem!

Whenever I type the word "the", the phone has a panic attack and just stops.

"The".

I don't know about you, but I use that word quite frequently.

So for the time being, I will be trying to not use the word "the" when typing on my phone. I am seeing this as a sort of intellectual challenge... that will also be a huge exercise in patience :)

Plus I'm too cheap to buy a new phone.

Do you tend to make do with what you've got, or are you quick to replace things that aren't working perfectly?


Want to place bets on how long I can go working around the word "the"?

Homework battles of a different sort...

I know, I know...

I'm super lucky to have a kid who will even do homework on the weekend (with a minimum of threats coaxing), but...

I just want to know how this makes sense as a homework-doing location?

It's the doorway between the kitchen/family room and the rest of the house. It is probably the most-traveled threshold in the place. And Big G decided it would be the most comfortable, most reasonable spot in which to do his Chinese homework. Yes... Chinese. And while he likes challenges of the intellectual kind and may be very smart, little dude has zero common sense about most other things in life.

Like where is a good place to do homework.

Hence his awesome spot... viewed now from the other side... I did have to mince around and step over him to get here.

He and I went back and forth for too long on this. I should have known better. In the end I just walked away, saying, "Okay... but if someone steps on you or pisses you off because you are in their way, I don't want to hear about it."

And mostly because I didn't get to run yesterday or last night and I am going nuts, I let this happen...

I swear to you... this was not staged.

You should have heard the screaming.

I cannot wait until my husband comes back from his camping trip. 

Can.

Not.

Wait.

New tricks up our sleeves...

Exciting things are happening chez moi... that means 'at my house' ;-)

Miss C and her new trick.

You've seen her jump off retaining walls and scale safety gates.

You've seen her take stairs three at a time (she did 4 once... got it on camera, click and skip ahead to 2:11 to see it).

You know she is unstoppable.

And last night ...

Fortunately, as soon as I said, "Okay, honey. Come down now." She did. I think she's been watching The Waltons... or maybe she read yesterday's post. In any event, a little obedience was a nice treat for me :)

Now for my new trick.

A friend of mine was reading about my running and biking on Facebook. He asked if I had ever heard of PowerCranks. I said that I hadn't. He 'splained it to me. Then he let me know that if I ever wanted to check it out, to let him know and he'd hook me up. I checked out the testimonials. Go check them out. Go. Sounds pretty awesome, right?

I made the call.

"Hook me up," I said.

This week he dropped this off for me to try...

I know it's hard to make out what it is because of all the awesome collectibles stored in the background. My garage is a veritable treasure trove :) It's a stationary bike with PowerCranks... independent cranks. You have to lift up and not just push down. Both legs must work equally. 

see how both pedals are down at the same time?

I've tried it out a little bit, and it is sooooo cool. I already feel more balanced and like my hip is getting stronger...after just a tiny bit of using this thing!

I am definitely going to work on incorporating this into my cross-training, and I'll be sure to update you all on how it's working out :)

Any new tricks up your sleeve? How about old tricks? Or good jokes?