Crazy Daze, Silly Knights

It is that time of year again. When all parents' children become impossible to wake up. This condition is not due to any reported illness on CNN, MSNBC, Fox or any other alphabet soup news medium. You won't find any articles about this condition on the internet. In fact it will go unnoticed if you do not have school age children. If you DO have children in school, you know what I am referring to. It is commonly referred to as School's Almost Done Syndrome. Some kids have a similar condition all year round. A School Always Sucks condition....they never wanted to go to school, not from the first day of kindergarten. Not all kids get SAS, but the SAS kids can get SAD. All kids have another condition for a day or two around holiday breaks or final exam times, the Time Off for Present. TOPs is short lived because they all know they go back again in a week or two. SAD hits 99.9% of the school going children right around 2 weeks before school is out for summer. When the condition ...

Every year I try to make some sort of effort in planting flowers and plants around the house. I buy all sorts of nifty items to try and help me in my endeavors. Every year I start with good intentions. Every year I fail because I lose interest. There is an aspect of planting that is fun. Digging in the dirt....working with your hands. Putting something in the ground that is supposed to grow into something of wonder and amazement. Problem is it takes too long and I am not a patient woman. What I planted in May quickly becomes forgotten by June. I also can't tell the difference between a plant or a weed or a tree sprouting in the middle of my weeds. I do not have the green thumb....or even a green hangnail. I do believe I have a touch similar to plant fungi and mites. It doesn't matter what comes into my house or out of it....if it has roots it will DIE....it will be a long and painful death, too. I have killed every plant imaginable, even the ones they say an idiot can grow. Cl...

The scene.....in the house 45 minutes before we are going somewhere we have no other choice to be. There is a dress requirement for one or both of the kids. A voice carries throughout the house, "Mom, where is my (insert necessary article of clothing they have lost, i.e. bowtie for orchestra or white shirt for orchestra or a shoe for the other foot). Sigh.... Another scene....a child turning over everything in the house in a desperate search for a mystery item. After they have sufficiently made a mess, a frustrated voice utters, "Mom, where is my (insert name of desired item)." Groan... Another scene....a child standing in front of the refrigerator.....NOT bending at the waist. The child closes the door, circles the kitchen, looks in the pantry, goes back to the refrigerator....goes back to the pantry....then back to the refrigerator. Finally the plea rises up, "Mom, where is the (insert the missing condiment)" or "Mom, what do we have to eat?" You ha...

I have a teenager. For those of you with teenagers you understand the signficance of what that means. For those of you that do not have teenagers it doesn't seem like it is a big deal. Trust me....it is. Let me start this with a disclaimer. I love my teen, he is a good kid. He hasn't been dropped off by the police, the school doesn't call except every once in a while and I believe he might actually go on to college. He has decent friends, and as far as I know they have never done anything bad in my house. So I do not have the "troubled teen." I do, however, have all the reminders of why I never want to go back and be a teenager again. Frankly, I think I volunarily blanked out most of my teenage years. I was a geek....and a klutz...and a fashion disaster. I never had good training from my parents and I was essentially lost most of the time in high school. I had a good group of friends that put up with me and I thank God for them to this day. I remember being nervou...

When does planning get out of hand? I ask this as someone who is not a really big planner. I am not a "fly by the seat of my pants" kind of a gal, but I also do not schedule my every move. I ask this because while I was typing out my schedule in my Blackberry, I realized that some things were being planned in September. It is only May. To me, this is a bit disturbing. I'm not even out of spring and yet I'm planning events in the dog days of summer. It is like my life is in fast forward. But I know people who have things scheduled a year in advance. Which boggles my mind. How does anyone really know what they are doing in a year from now. I assume I'll still be here, doing what I normally do. But for all I know I could get a wild urge to join the circus and become a trapeez artist. I doubt that will happen, I am afraid of heights and I can't draw (wait for it...that one will come to you), but still...how does a person really know? I once was told, "If you...

I have a dog....his name is Monty. My family and I picked him up from the pound shortly after we had to put our other dog down. We wanted another animal to love, to give a home to another lost critter. When we arrived at the animal shelter we saw Monty on a leash. He was a 3 month old Golden Retriever and Bernese Mountain dog mix and just as cute as he could be. The owner had just dropped him off and hour before we arrived at the shelter. It was love at first site. The dear little puppy didn't lunge at the cat near him and didn't seem put off by all the commotion around him. He was good natured and loving with the kids. After spending some time with him we all agreed he was a perfect fit. It is interesting, but I don't remember his original name....I always remember him as Monty. I joked when we called him that because I said Monty was short for 3-card-Monty. Little did I know there was more truth to that joke than I realized because I believe that dog conned us from the ...

I have discovered I have a new fear. Jelly Beans. My fear began as a love of jelly beans. Jelly beans always had a feeling of "spring is here" for me. Mostly because they were in those plastic eggs at Easter. It was a simple idea too....put sugar and flavors in ovals. Easy to eat, easy to store. Then came the gourmet jelly beans. They added flavors we never heard of and opened up whole new worlds for jelly bean lovers. We could now taste what a pina colada would taste like if it was bite size and warm. Buttery sweet popcorn now had no fat in it and didn't leave an oily mess on the hands. Cotton Candy, bubble gum and apple were all able to live in harmony in the bag and there was no mess involved. The jelly bean makers made the jelly beans many different colors. They even speckled them to once they rain out of appealing colors. So entered the confusion. My problem began when I grabbed what should have been a green apple and instead grabbed a chocolate flavored bean. Thi...