Things Are Going Swimmingly

So much going on!

This week is Carnival Kick-off and I found door prizes right in the house. I've been Grocery Gaming for almost a year, and I realized it was time to donate the overstock. I mean, do I really NEED twenty-five toothbrushes? Or twelve bottles of bodywash? So everything went out on the kitchen counter and JJ took a picture. I forgot to have him download it for me, so I'll add that soon. We figured out that for the entire counter's worth of stuff I paid under $50. But I discovered I had two complete sets of Garnier Fructis styling products that I had got free, and now I have door prizes. That's not too cheesy, is it?



Last week I had an interview for Precinct Chair with the county GOP vacancy committee. No news yet, but they sounded mucho enthusiastic. However, they'd best hurry if they expect me to be an election judge by the first week of November. County office isn't the most efficient place, for sure.

It's raining and the back door let in water again. No sense replacing the carpets until the yard is graded, so there's another back-burner item. Anyone having a spare, oh, $20k lying around is welcome to forward it my way. I can pay you back in groceries, apparently.

The Little Critter's school had a Word Parade the other day. Each grade got assigned certain things, like homophones or prefixes, and they were to dress up as their word. Her grade had compound words, and they sent home a list of suggestions. Did Fish work from the list? Perish the thought. Fish discovered a list of eleventy thousand compound words on the internet and scoured it for entire minutes until finding the perfect one. Since LC collects pigs we had them in abundance, so I sewed elastic bands on the back of a denim shirt and inserted her pigs in them to make PIGGYBACK. This was the hit of the day. They were talking about it hours afterward. A picture will be in the yearbook. Downside: now Fish has set a high bar for creativity and is afraid she shall never reach it.

Great idea for school fundraiser: Teacher Pizza Delivery Night. We teamed up with a Papa John's and had PTA parents drive teachers to deliver pizzas to students. The families would call and order, and state that it was for the teacher delivery. Then a random teacher would be driven to the house and bring the pizza. The kids loved it, the PTA got to spend time with teachers they didn't know, we kept the tips, and PTA raised over $1000 in a couple of hours.

Great idea for birthday party goody bags substitute: Movie Theatre Gift Cards. LC got one yesterday after a skating party, and I was impressed! No junky candy, no toys that disintegrate in moments upon opening, and a gift towards another activity to do with the LC. Home run in my book. If you already do this just call me Fishie-come-lately and move on.

Great Birthday Party Gift: Webkins. Go see for yourself. Addictive, cute, and less than $10. Someone tell Miss Doxie; it's almost time for her gift guide.

Work Update: I'm off the rest of the month! Yay! And they fired the slacker girl whose scripts I had to write. Actually it was more that they took away her position, offered her another non-salary non-benefit just-hourly thing, and she declined. I since heard that she was not holding rehearsals and was lying about it, and that she frequently wandered in to work whenever she felt like it. Oh, poor thing, that cushy seat in that new location just got really uncomfortable, dinnit?

God love the library. Make Your Kid a Millionaire is one of the best non-fiction books I've read in, oh, weeks. Seriously, it's all about things you can do now, relatively cheaply, to get your kid to $1 million or more with little or no help from them. And how to get them interested as they start work to make them even richer. Oh, if I had started sooner. One way I am going to make my kids millionaires is to stop buying so many danged books.

Greatest In-law News Ever: They sent a check to us payable to our mortgage company for $5000. Unasked. Unsolicited. Out of the ever-lovin' blue. JJ says his mom said something about having done so much for his sister, they felt they should do something for us. Could you just DIE? Who DOES that? I'm just shocked and awed.

Mrs. Chili reports a call out to bloggers to post something every day in November. Possible?

You're OUT!

What? So I haven't been prolific as usual on my blog? I blame Albert Pujols.

Who?

Ah, you non-baseball fan, skip this entry.

Anyone who has followed any amount of baseball the last few weeks have heard about the amazing run of luck, skill, success, mojo, whatever, that the Astros have been the beneficiaries of. (Trace: make that "of which the Astros have been beneficiaries.")

Coming in to the last two weeks of the season, the Astros' (the 2005 National League Champions for the first time ever) only hope for playoff contention was a run of really bad luck for the Cardinals and a really good run of luck for the Astros. And as the Astros were 8 games behind, this was completely impossible to make up.

But no matter what you thought, if you did the math, the Astros had a chance, a miniscule chance, of returning to the playoffs again. And the Baseball Gods smiled and said "Let's have some fun with Houston."

And they won a game. Then they faced the Cards at home. Me, I had totally given up and was watching that series to see how well the Cardinals played. And they lost. And they lost again. And again. And, impossibly, again! Suddenly the Astros had closed the gap by half!

So the Astros went up east to play Phillies and Pirates. And they won again. And again. And again, and yet again. Meanwhile the Cardinals were losing, and losing, and losing.

It came down to the final three games each. Then the last two. At this point I realized that baseball superstitions are necessary, so I bought the Talisman.

The Talisman was the one item that, if I bought it, would guarantee the Astros a win, and more games in the season. So I dashed out Saturday and got it. And came home and placed the Talisman on the television to make its power do the most good. And then, since I didn't have a Rally Cap, placed a throw blanket over my head, and made JJ wear a couch pillow on his. And they won.

And it still wasn't decided until yesterday, the last day of the regular season. Atlanta, curse them, played just well enough to keep hope alive until the last game of the series, and then the 'stros left a gazillion guys on base in several innings. It was then that I realized that I should have bought the other Talisman I intended to buy, the additional one. It appears the Talisman works only for one game. Or the Texans stole the mojo, and finally won one.

I knew they'd break my heart, but it was certainly fun hoping.

And now I have Season 4 of 24, the Talisman, to watch during the playoffs. I knew I should have picked up Season 5 too.