To Handy-gram's House we go....

We were lucky enough to be invited to the Cal/MSU game at Memorial Stadium in Berkley this weekend. I'd never been to a college football game, so it was a really fun experience for me. It also meant M's first real excursion to Grandma Linda's (Handygram's) house!
M can be a bit of a handful, but evidently she was no match for Handygram! They had a big day of walks, social calls, swimming and dogs. Here are a couple highlights:




























We were really happy that it all worked out and that everyone had a good time. There is nothing like coming home with a bellyfull of hot dog to find your baby just nodding out in grammy's arms!

What happens when she spills her bubble juice.

It's a little funny. I felt a little bad, but not bad enough to not put it on the internet.

The beginning of the end of life as we know it.

It's happening. She just started doing it.

Now she can get almost anywhere. And she does.
This was actually a couple weeks ago, so more has happened, but I need to get video.

Addicted to the Blue Pony

I've admitted it to most people, but I'll just lay it out here on the internet.
We had an incident with blueberries this summer.
By we, I mean me. By incident, I mean I couldn't stop eating them.
For days.
Exhibit A:

Now I'd love to say that I made a pie or something but I'd be lying.
I totally just sat on the couch and chowed down pounds (literally) of them.
I started to save the packages up to remind myself of the sheer volume I was consuming. Mr. Zimny calls them "carcasses".
I ate all the containers in the picture in 3 days. That's 2.5 lbs a day.
I'll put that into perspective for you.
IT'S TOO MANY.
I had to cut down, I started rationing.
But Safeway was happy to play my enabler by putting them on sale, so I was back on the blue pony for another week.
But I think I'm clean now.
Just don't bring any of those things over. I don't know how strong my will power is.

Judgement Day

So.
I have Jury Duty today.
In a cup-half-full type of way there are two decent things about the situation.
First, the incredible venue for people watching. More on this later.
Second, FREAKING WIFI!
That's right. I'm sitting surrounded by strangers in the courthouse,
blogging about how weird said strangers are.

I have been here for an entire 44 minutes and have moved 3 times, trying to find the best balance between the woman who used the f word in the first 2 sentences in our conversation and the guy who looked at me like I was a hoodlum when I pulled out my laptop while simultaneously situating myself at the best vantage point for people watching but not sitting in the sun.

Note: There are 2 seats in the entire courthouse that fit these criteria.
The first one is right next to the star student of the class I just finished teaching, who also got called in for jury duty.
I think that is really weird so I am in the other spot.
Secretly blogging about the weirdness.
Plus, in a moment of supreme "Wha? What time is it? Crap, better get dressed.... do I keep on the sweat pants I wore for pajamas, or do I change into my "dress" sweat pants?",
I chose the latter.However, I am still sitting here amongst strangers in my sweats.
But who cares with all the f words and piercing looks being thrown around?
Right?! RIGHT?
Oh, well maybe the star student of my class who actually took the time to dress better than a street urchin.
Whatever.

So .... I gotta go. I'm trying to keep mobile in order to avoid being caught in an uncomfortable conversation. But I must say, I think that a woman just changed seats and moved away from me when she looked over and saw what I was doing. But that's ok because she sat down next to the f-word woman.
She'll come crawling back, you'll see.

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.