A feBreeze blowing through Beta's Hair.

It's 1:09am and I'm searching for fox urine on the web.
Just another night at the Lloyd house!
See... we've been having a problem. A skunk problem.
For once it isn't Friday's gas that's been keeping us up.
Even though we have two large (and gassy!) dogs, and we don't keep any food outside, our backyard is a little skunk highway complete with pile ups between 9 and 10 every night. When the dogs are out, they get sprayed during that time. When the dogs aren't out, the skunks spray anyways. I think they're just trying to prove a point.

So, what do you do when you've washed your 80 lb black dog and now she smells like a mix of skunk and wet dog and it's 11pm already?

That's right, you Febreeze your wet dog. And the other dog too, just to be safe.
Then you look on the web for skunk repellant, which, by the way, is crystals soaked in fox urine.
Yum. Better living through chemistry, right?!

While the daddy cat's away... the mice will play

So... Mr. Zimny is out of town for the weekend.
Even if only for a short time, it is hard being a single parent.
Let's review the hardships:

I wanted to sleep in....and so did Miss M. She slept until 10am. Er... not so hard.
For breakfast we shared chocolate milk and funions.
Then we went to the pool, where Miss M charmed everyone and "swam" until she practically fell asleep in the pool.
By "swam" I mean kicked and splashed and laughed.

Ok... so the day part wasn't so bad.

Our evening consisted of dinner (me- hamburger and blueberries, her- Cheeto's, funions, milk and hamburger), then a trip to Ikea.
Considering that to M, trips to any store are just excuses to throw a temper tantrum, she was pretty well behaved but did insist on getting a soft serve cone on the way out.
Oh wait. That was me. I'm getting us confused.

She fell asleep on the way home, but as soon as we got home, there was no sleep to be had. But I was willing to be the tough mom and let her put herself to sleep in her crib.
An hour later I was done being tough mom. I couldn't hear any of dvds I'd rented over the crying, so I went and got her and let her lay in bed with me.
For a good hour she just laid next to me, snuggled up and watched Weeds episodes.
After that she insisted that we get some blueberries to eat.
Wait, I'm confusing us again.
But she did enjoy the blueberries in bed with me.

By the way. Do not trust your baby when she says that she didn't spit any blueberries into the bed.
She is lying.
Just like me, you'll wake up with a blueberry stuck to the back of your knee and have to change the sheets.

Anyways, she finally got all giggly like she always does when she is really tired and I let her fall asleep on top of me and then put her in her crib.
Fast forward 11 more Weeds episodes (I'll do the math for you... thats about 4 hours)
I fell asleep in my clothes, remote control in hand.
I always have a hard time sleeping with Mr. Zimny gone.

Ok, so in general the weekend wasn't really that hard. The next day wasn't so bad either. But by the end of the weekend, I was a bit spent. Miss M is a pretty happy kid, and in general fun to be with. But it's always hard to be totally dependent on someone else's schedule. Especially when that someone shrieks instead of talks, wants to be entertained all the time, gets poopy diapers and is bad about sharing blueberries.
Gosh, I think that is exactly what I have to look forward to when Mr. Zimny is 95 years old.

I've almost got it!

Ahhh, the joys of having a small yet mobile child - who is oddly determined to retrieve the electric toothbrush she placed deep inside the cabinet.

Don't judge. I can totally explain why she had the electric toothbrush.

Explanation:
She likes the electric toothbrush
Mr. Zimny was gone
Playing with electric toothbrush = momentary reprieve from shrieking
Did you think it would be complicated?

Hmmm... although she was entertained for a good 10 minutes, I am pretty sure that isn't why the named them entertainment systems.

What's up girlfriend?

"Whatcha doing?"
"Nuthin, just standin' around."

Maryn tells it like it is

We know a lot of people have seen Miss M's "speeches", but we thought we'd put something up for those who haven't. Let's just say that she has a very strong opinion about something. We're not sure what her opinion is, or what it is about, but she is very certain of it. She gives mini lectures constantly, complete with wild arm gestures.
This is just a taste of one of her recent lectures. There is shrieking- so keep your volume low . I'll try to get a better one soon, but here is an example:

It's about time

So.... it's been a while. We have some news.
First, we'd like to report that THE DISSERTATION IS WRITTEN.
That's right. Written, turned in for "editing". Haven't heard much back besides something like "you should change the colors on that figure". I'm taking that as a good sign.
Second, I've had the last couple weeks off, so we've been doing some fun things (see below).
Third, I've started my summer class. It's a lot of work but it keeps be off the streets and still allows time to take Miss M to the pool.

Which brings us to number four... Miss M LOVES THE POOL!!!!

When I turned in the dissertation and told el parental units, I got this response :
"good.....so maybe you can start updating the blog more, huh?!"
HINT HINT.

Anyhoo....

There have been some fun events to talk about also....
I'll start the updates with what we've been calling Jammin' 2008.
It all started with good intentions - some berry jam.
Guess what?! No berries at the farm.
So we picked some apricots and peaches instead, then picked up some strawberries at the stand on the way home. We honestly didn't think we'd have enough to make more than a couple batches of apricot jam and a batch of strawberry.
About 3 batches into the apricot jam, we realized that we'd barely made a dent, and had a long way to go. By the time we started thinking about the strawberries, we were trying to cut our losses. I won the bet for how much we'd end up making (it was over 100 jars). There were 4 of us. This was my share of the jam to take home:

Ok, so that is where the fun started.
Next up was the delayed Spring Fling.

I am happy to announce there are videos. You'll thank me for this.

First of all, it was great to have the gang back together. We were really sorry that some of the better halves weren't there, but life isn't perfect.
It gives us something to look forward to next time.
We had a great time playing "testicles" in the back yard, trying to ignore the heat.














After dinner and a few drinks (er, who are we kidding?!), we moved on to some video games. Not your Atari 2600 people! We're talking ROCK BAND action!!!!

We had 9 people, so three teams of 3 seemed reasonable. That is where the reasonable descisions stopped. We won't bore you with the details here, but the idea for this game is for each person in the "band" to hit the right note at the right time.

Brian's team was up first... Brian on guitar, Chris singing and Joey drumming.
They're trying to play In Bloom by Nirvana.

Next up was Brad's team.... with an added twist:


Brad had decided a costume change was in order.

















Here is a little sampling of thier band playing Guns N Roses, Lisa on drums, Eric singing and Brad rockin' the guitar.


Then finally, it was time for the third team - The Mall Kittenz. Gabby on drums, Meeshmellow singing and me on the guitar. It's Roxanne by the Police if you can't tell.


So you can see how seriously we take ourselves. Mr. Zimny is mumbling something about how this violates the "what happens at the Fling stays at the Fling" rule.
With this last video, I'm flinging that rule out the window. This is Brad and Chris "boxing". Enjoy.


You know it's a good party when someone says: "why don't we do this more often?".

I'll try to keep the updates coming more frequently, and with less videos. Or more videos... we'll see how many complaints we get....