As I was straightening up today I found piles and piles of the stuff everywhere! They don’t look familiar? These are books in the Magic Tree House series. Crack for budding readers, my friends. Tim does at least one a night, sometimes two, then he re-reads them until a new one is procured. He leaves me notes “Remember to buy more Magic Tree House books!” Could be worse, he could be addicted to Captain Underpants instead.
This strip had me giggling all morning:
So I picked up this book a year or so ago, called Your Own Worst Enemy - Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement. 
Because, like, I’m a major underachiever/procrastinator/perfectionist.
I read the intro but then forgot about it until a conversation I had with Pat last night. I’ve been feeling like I’m just running in place (even when I’m not even on the treadmill) and my frustrated loving and patient husband played therapist with me last night (minds out of the gutter, people, we were talking) and I remembered this book. So I dug it out and started reading.
The author has a list of behaviors, about 25 or so, and you’re supposed to see if you recognize yourself doing any of them. Uh, yeah, like 20 of them.
I’ve got some reading to do!
Last night after dinner Nick had a sudden pain in his belly. At first we assumed it was gas but it didn’t clear up after a couple hours, and we were thisclose to heading to the ER. Suddenly it started to ease up, a lot, but it didn’t go away. Still, he managed to fall asleep and had a good night’s rest. But when he woke up it was still hurting, enough that he couldn’t really stand up straight. I waited it out a couple hours but with no improvement I took him over to our Family Care center. They asked the usual questions, then poked, prodded, pounded, pricked, drew blood, made him pee in a cup, and took and abdominal xray. Ruled out strep, mono, and the xray was clear, but he’s still got the pain. His white blood cell count was a little raised, so they want him back in the morning to check it again, sooner of course if the pain gets worse.
It seems like it’s getting a bit better, though. He ate a good lunch, so we’ll just keep an eye on him. Probably (hopefully) just a virus that will clear up.
Meanwhile… I’ve been away from the internet for 2.5 days! A big part of that is that Andy’s been hogging my computer to work on a video for his TV Production class. But I’ve been busy.
Saturday Tim and I went with some friends to visit the Monmouth Museum where they had animatronic dinosaurs. Very realistic- like the Dinosaur ride at WDW! Tim was a little freaked by the T-Rex but he loved the rest of it. I have to admit that when the T-Rex looked right at me then came at me with it’s mouth open I was a little freaked myself!
After that we headed to a nearby park (it was chilly but beautiful out.) Had a tailgate picnic lunch and let the boys run around.
Yesterday I took Andy to an open house at The College of NJ. He liked the school, more than I did I guess. But it was a nice, compact campus, and there was a lot of activity for a Sunday afternoon (probably helped that the weather had warmed up and everyone was getting out to enjoy it.) It’s a tough school to get into, one of the most selective publics in the country, so if Andy wants to go there he’s got his work cut out for him, but it’s a good choice for a reach school.
And we had a good time. I think we’re both working on avoiding the nagging mom vs sulky teen trap. Not easy, but a shared sense of humor helps.
Catching up on stuff around the house today, and I need to start digging through the archaeological site that is my basement and pull out the trash to put out for Big Trash week. I love Big Trash week. Everybody puts out whatever has accumulated over the year(s). Mostly it’s busted pieces of furniture (I’m finally trashing some dangerously unstable chairs and a smelly ripped recliner) but some people put out perfectly good items they just don’t want anymore. Then trucks, old station wagons, and old Datsuns cruise the town digging through the piles, and eventually the town comes through and picks up what’s left. One year my neighbor wrote “DO NOT TOUCH” with spray paint on a piece of plywood he set next to his pile- sure enough the next day his stuff was strewn all over his lawn. Dummy.
Alas, I have to go to the “big box store” (which would be BJs) and buy food and assorted other large packages of stuff. I’d have left already but the traffic is backed up in front of my house again, so I’ll wait for it to clear.
Then I’m heading over to Nick’s social studies class for “Greek Day” which involves a toga fashion show and possibly baklava.
The good news is the day is pretty free after that. I want to try to get at least one of these gazillion little projects I’ve started recently finished. Is that a symptom of ADHD? Starting new projects before the old ones are done because I’m bored? Or is it just another puzzling piece of my personality?
Ugh, I need to reboot. My computer is acting possessed. Every time I hit the apostrophe a java search window pops up, and when I right click to open a new tab in Firefox instead a random word on the page gets highlighted. Quite odd.
Shutting down…
Yes, I removed a post I made last night. On further reflection this morning I decided it wasn’t in my best interest to leave it up. My blog, my prerogative… :dance: .