Gerbils

A little bit of background story here for everyone at home. Terra and Madeline begged for gerbils, Terra a lot more than Madeline. Finally, after literally an entire weekend of begging, Mom and I caved in to the request. Actually they wanted dwarf hamsters but after a few hours of searching on the Internet, I found the pet qualities of a gerbil to be greater than those of a hamster. I nixed the dwarf hamster request. However, gerbils are not as popular with the laymen out there and it's not easy to find them at pet stores, at least compared to rats, guinea pigs, mice, or hamsters.

The girls got some money from Grancy and Big Daddy for their birthdays and while Grancy visited we went to a few pet stores to find gerbils. The first didn't have gerbils and Terra was devastated. While we were driving away from the store back home to regroup, she convinced herself that I wouldn't take her to any more stores and she wouldn't get a gerbil, and she sobbed. Madeline sobbed, too, but it sounded so half-hearted. I asked, "Madeline, are you crying." She pulled her hands down from her face -- no tears. She laughed. "No, but I'm just trying to fit in back here." Grancy and I could barely hide our laughing.

We found a pair, finally, and got them. I built a cage for them and the girls love putting scrap pieces of wood for them to play. They quickly became proficient at getting out. I put some netting, the kind to cover a screen door, over the top and weighted it down, I meant to get some more wood and build a second tier to the cage this weekend with the girls. It was going to be slick. Mitred edges, panels using plywood, then the second tier would clip on to the first level of the cage. I wanted to get those suckers out of the garage and downstairs so the girls would tend to them better. However, the gerbils gnawed their way out of the screen netting that easily secured them for the last week. To make matters worse, they did this while the garage door was open.

I found one of them under the compartment in the deep freeze that houses the motor. He usually hides there. The other one though . . . gone. Probably out the garage door and hiding in some bushes. Maybe we'll find him, I doubt it.

The girls are taking it well. According to them, it is Madeline's that made the great escape.

New truck

New truck, new to me that is, it's not a new truck. This is a 1988 Ford F250 2x4. It smells a little like a field mouse lived there, but other than that it's in great shape. The clutch might need some help, too. But that's going to be my fault. I seized that thing a lot, rocked it, oh heavens. The first couple days were rough. I rocked the car so bad while trying to get the clutch out the tail gate shot down. That was a loud noise.

Pictures. Pictures. Pictures.

Best Bands

Misty has really taken to running. I try. She's really good. One of the things she received for her birthday is a Nike pedometer. Highly annoying is that you have to have a 2nd generation iPod Touch to get this freakin' thing to work. Well, maybe not so annoying.

See, I bought the iPod touch deal a while ago for Misty. This time, we upgraded to the newest "Second Generation!!!" (completely sarcastic) iPod touch system, but I get the first generation. Which is slick as anything for me. I can't take any of this cool stuff to work, so I've never paid much attention to it, but this thing is so sweet. I get to listen to my songs, or at least build my playlists of my thousand favorite songs. That doesn't mean I get to listen to them.

Back to the original thought for the post. Bar none -- Dinosaur Jr. and Catherine Wheel are the best bands. I'm totally diggin' on "Whatever's cool with me," "Get Me," and "Black Metallic," "Show me Mary," right now. It's been years since I jammed out to these things.

The Madeline Show

On a new note, now that one of my girls has a camera that takes video. They are collecting episodes of "The Madeline Show," loosely based on an iCarly show.

0.66 Done

When I sign-in to the Blogger thing I'm always presented with the option of adding a post to my Virgina Beach cohort's blog, or to this one. The former is at something like 679 posts, I think mine is at 69. I am jealous really, I wish I had that stamina.

SIXTY-NINE!!

That's an homage to my Bingo days from assignment in to AOR in Saudi Arabia back in the desert storm days. Those days are long past, so am I.

Two birthdays down. First my wife (my beautiful wife). We "celebrated" her birthday Tuesday. Two days before her birthday but our middle baby (actually almost 9 years old), was going to camp on the real birthday. We opened a few presents. This has reinforced my hypothesis that the perfect birthday order is Mom, Madeline, and then Terra. I don't think Jack's order matter a great deal, but this is still in scientific exploration mode.

Following my wife's birthday is Terra's. Determined that the whole family had to get heartburn, she wanted to go to Chili's for dinner.

This reminds me of an excellent anecdote. While I was trying to convince my wife that only she was able to eat the delicious weight watcher's meals (the rest of us needed more -- ok ME!) I was on a "Let's always go out to eat," modal. We went to eat Mexican.

"I eat enchilada's all the time at my Mom's," Terra says while she is looking at the menu (never mind that Dad makes excellent Enchilada's). "Madeline, you should have some."

We placed our order. The enchiladas arrive. "Terra. Where is the meat? There is no meat on this!! You said there would be meat. There's only cheese." This was followed by several groans from the oldest. "OK! OK, I'm sorry Madeline. I made a terrible mistake!"

So, back to the storyline, Chili's wasn't so bad. Order from the "guilt free" menu if a kid you own begs you to go. However, if you also have a baby that is supposed to eat 1,200 calories a day, anything with "Crisper" in the menu title is going to be an ace!

Terra got what she wanted, she got a "digital camera, with zoom, that takes movies, and the pictures look good." Plus a ton of money from Grancy and Big Daddy! She's spent $10.00 so far.

My son is crying. One of his sisters will not let him play with one of the girls' toys. "Mine! Mine!" Jack's favorite words.

One and two liners

• The diversity of sizes in our plastic cup population is killing me. There isn't enough order in the cabinet to keep me sane.
• Jack is a killer kicker. He squares himself with the ball, takes between three and eight steps backwards, then concentrates, races forward, and nails it with his right foot.
• Jack's going to be right handed, almost positive.
• Terra wants an iTouch iPod; trying to convince her she wants something else, like a nice purse.
• Madeline's going back downstairs by herself again. Terra told her a vicious rumor about robbers and she wouldn't go downstairs for ever.
• I gave a presentation at the DOE Cyber Security Conference on "Federating a Wiki."
• The pool is freezing, I don't know how Terra and Madeline can stand it.
• While I was cleaning out our side garden, poison ivy attacked. I was miserable, spent like $50.00 on meds to try and fix it. Yesterday, I gleefully sprayed twice the strength necessary of Roundup on the plant. It's great to watch it wilt in demise.
• Jack loves his "Silly Christian Songs" video. I think his favorite song is "I'm in the Lord's Army."
• San Marcos whole jalapenos are a must with tacos at home. You can cut the jalapeno and let the juices drip on some chips, in addition to putting the pepper in the taco.
  
• Madeline and Terra are having a blast with frogs from the creek this summer. They've captured at least five and keep them in a five gallon paint bucket in the backyard, nourishing the creatures with crickets.
• Only a few of the frogs have passed on, there's only one in captivity presently.
• I did not like the new Star Trek movie, although I'm glad I was able to see it.
• Terra and Madeline both performed in their respective talent shows for the end of school. I could never have done that. Both danced.
• The backyard looks fantastic with all the grass. I removed two huge bushes in March and it's really opened things up.
• I'm trying to break Jack from the habit of throwing his plate filled with food when he's finished with a meal. He looks very seriously at me when I scold him, "OK, I won't do it again," but he never wants to remember.

New things to come?

Madeline could be an artist. Her art teacher in school loves her. She is always drawing at home and working on craft projects that she comes up with all on her own.

A few weeks ago, both girls put together a Card Company. "Let's make greeting cards!" They both were downstairs for an hour working on the cards, then I setup the foldout table at the end of the garage, the girls made a few large signs and started selling cards.

My favorite was a black and white card with the "Good luck . . ." on the front and when you opened up the card it said, " . . .with something." How perfect! It's a card for any occasion.



Madeline came down this morning with her new painter art program from the netbook and I think it looks great. She figured out all the buttons herself. I'm positive we will still have our conventional cards and projects, but I'm curious how much more of these things on the computer the girls will make.