We're not in California anymore, Toto!

Yup -- that's the condo we sold for half a million! You see those pretty flowers out front? They were illegal!!! The association had clear rules that homeowners couldn't modify common areas w/out approval. I was on the board, so I could have gotten approval, but I didn't. Anyway, as I drive around I get reminded that we are no longer subject to wretched homeowners' associations. I thought I'd share some of those reminders. When I'm feeling down, I think of these, or I get onto my old association's web-site & read the board meeting minutes and think about how happy I am not to be dealing with it any more!

Signs that you've escaped associations:

• Easter Egg Lane -- No, that's not the name of the street, it's just my nickname. These five houses are on a well traveled street -- the first house is teal, the neighbor is mint green, the next one is lavender, then bright yellow & finally another teal house! No respectable association would have allowed any of those colors!
• The Libertarian -- When I was a kid, they put up a sign on the chain link fence. It was made of plywood and the letters neatly stenciled onto it: "LIBERTARIAN: Peace, freedom and personal responibility." Sometime within the last ten years someone decided to fix the typo and squeezed in the missing "S" in a different color. One side of the chain link fence was replaced with a rail-style vinyl fence and the sign hasn't come back. I'm pretty sure the Libertarian still lives there though. The shingle roof looked as if it was pretty useless, so they replaced it with a metal roof. It looks very nice, except that they didn't do the attached garage roof!
• The Zebra fence -- This just happens to be half a block from the Libertarian. They have a wooden 6' picket fence -- pretty standard around here. About a year ago, they did some work to the fence. They replaced half of the pickets. It's really easy to see that they replaced half of them, because they replaced every other picket. Since the original fence had weathered the old pickets are a dark brown. The new pickets are yellow in comparison. So even after more than a year, it's a striped fence!
• Unusual application of floor tiles -- Two blocks down from the Zebra fence, there's a house that recently installed vinyl siding on the exterior. However, from the ground to 4' high, they installed ceramic floor tiles on the exterior of the house. They are slate tiles and I think they were trying to go for a stone look, but really, it looks like floor tiles on the outside of the house.
• Lawn sculptures -- There's a mobile home that would be unremarkable except for the fact that they have two bronze birds (hawks or eagles) along their circular driveway and a 10' tall elk bronze at the front door. For the cost of the circular driveway and the bronzes, they could have put a down payment on a real house!
  

I need a separate section for vehicles & vehicle parts as landscaping:

• Old tires: On their side, they make a lovely retaining wall. Standing up they work as a front yard fence. Those really large tractor tires -- you know the ones that I could stand up inside? Lay them on their side in the front yard and you have a perfectly round planter!
• Old hub caps: Is your rail fence looking shabby? No problem - just attach fifty or so old hub caps for an entirely new look!
• Old wheels: If the junk yard is just too far away for you, you can weld together a few hundred old wheels in stacks 2 high for a front yard fence that will keep any toddler in the yard!
• Can't decide what to do with that broken down boat? Build a faux dock in your front yard and tie the boat right to it! You can decorate the boat for multiple holidays or even build a snowman in the boat!
• Wagon Wheels -- Just in case the fact that you've got to drive 300 miles to get to decent shopping doesn't remind you that you live on the Oregon, California & Mormon Trails, get yourself a few wagon wheels, plows & anything rusty for your front yard.

I know I'm forgetting some. If I missed your favorite, feel free to comment! Oh, the last time I checked, I saw a condo JUST like our old one selling for under $250K -- ouch!!!! I feel bad for the folks who bought our house, but not bad enough to give them any money back!

Adventures of the Upside Down Girl -- Next Generation

It occurred to me some time ago that I see the world differently from most people. I was told that it was because I was born in Australia and I'm therefore upside down. Well, it turns out that there is actually a more rational explanation than that: Asperger's Syndrome.

Some of you know that Peter's 2nd Grade experience was not good. After fighting w/ the school for most of last year, several NCSD employees suggested that Peter might have high-functioning autism. I knew that we had to get that checked out, or else the school district could use it as an excuse. Well, much to my surprise, once I started looking into it in great detail, I recognized Peter AND I recognized myself. (Aspergers and High-Functioning Autism are very similar.) The Dr confirmed the diagnosis today. The good thing is that now we can be more aware of what we need to do to help him learn the social, communication, creative writing, interpretation of literature, etc skills he needs. The crappy thing is that now I know that the things I struggle with will always be with me and Peter as well. Sigh! However, I do like a quote made by a successful Asperger lady: "If there weren't people like me in the world, everyone would still be sitting around the campfire socializing." Oh -- one more thing, it does run in families. So, if you are thinking to yourself, "this is just crazy -- Peter is absolutely normal. He does all the stuff I did." -- You probably have it too!

Boston!!!

We made it to Plymouth & saw this replica of the Mayflower. The exhibit was closed, but it was cool to see it. It looks very small compared to the cruise ships we saw in Florida! I would probably have stayed in England.....

Jeremy thinks it was a pirate ship, so I think maybe we'll bring out the eye patches for Thanksgiving dinner this year. Plymouth is approx 30 miles south of Boston. It took us 2 1/2 hours to drive that!!!! Holy smokes! There are a TON of people all over Massachusetts! It's very cute and pretty, but there are people everywhere!

This is Rob enjoying some driving tips from me. When I was in my classes, Beryl was nice enough to give him driving tips in my absence. After all, having Neverlost in the rental car is not enough. All that gal does is recaculate the route and say which way to turn, she totally ignores lanes, speed, smoothness, etc! So last week we had a rental car that barely fit 5. This week I'm in So Cal by myself and they gave me a 7 passenger Highlander. Oh well, that's better than the H3 -- what a joke! The H3 is a total disaster. It's got all the disadvantages of a Suburban w/ the comfort of a Civic!

Rob and Jeremy are imitating the statue in this photo. This is outside the Old North Church where Paul Revere & friends hung the warning lanterns. By the way, Paul Revere looks amazingly like Jack Black -- just in case any casting directors are reading........

The Old North Church still operates as a church, complete with the old funky pews! Each of the pews has a little brass plaque showing the sponser -- lots of historic names there. It also has the first organ in the new world.

We walked along the freedom trail. It's amazing how much of the old Boston survives. The other freaky thing is that there is about twice a much land in Boston now as there was when the colonists started building there. They leveled the hills and used them to fill in the harbor. They also used trash & whatever. The entire airport is on landfill. And a whole bunch of really, really tall buildings. I tried not to think about that as I was sitting in the basement of one of those buildings for 2 days........

This is the mystery retro photo.................shouldn't be too hard, since there weren't that many little boys born close together. I have a prize for the first one to post the right answer!

Chowder, Crab Cakes & Lobster Rolls, Oh My!!!!

We made it to Boston and the Crab Cakes are better than I had imagined possible! Rob & Grandma are sampling Clam Chowder every chance they get. I had a giant, fabulous Lobster Roll in Salem. Yes, THAT Salem!!! Everything is so old! And so close together! And flat!

During the Witch Museum program, Jeremy held on to me for dear life. Then when we left, he said that it wasn't scary at all! I had to download photos today because I've got a gazillion photos of really cute really old houses that Beryl thought were adorable. "Oooh, look over there", "Oh, get a photo of that one!", "Oh, how quaint!" I don't think the plane trip was nearly as bad as she expected, so she just might be getting the travel bug! Maybe 70 is the new 50.

I've Been Found!!!

I know that at least one of my elderly nieces checks out my blog looking for old photos. By old photos she means the 80's, which is really NOT old. Old is clearly from the 70's! Anyway my long lost friend Steph found me!!!! Yaaaa!!!!! This is Steph at Girl's Camp in a French mood. This is unusual, since she was usually in an English mood.

I also dug up a photo of me w/ Steph's Mom. She always had the BEST hair! Anyway, I'm way excited that Steph found me after 20 years!!!! We're trying to figure out a peach expedition, since she lives near a peach source.

Last Saturday was a big day -- Peter was baptized! Yaaa! We also got up at the crack of dawn to see the balloons. The crack of dawn is anything earlier than 9 am, but this time we were out of the house by 6! All of us!!! Anyway, the balloons just sat around because there was absolutely no wind for about half an hour. It was hilarious -- a bunch of giant balloons all bunched up together like ginormous grapes. Then when the breeze picked up a bit, it went West instead of East so the balloons started going the wrong way!

Peter doesn't like cake or ice cream. Ice cream is too cold and squishy and the frosting on cake is too squishy. He has texture issues w/ squishy things. In past years, I've made some pretty elaborate cakes. At one of his parties, Rachel asked me if Rob made the cake or we bought it......I'm choosing to take that as a compliment. Anyway, so this year, I thought it was silly to make a cake for a birthday boy who doesn't like cake. So, we made an Indiana Jonesish Rice Krispie birthday structure. Tasted good but looks funky. I used marshmallow fluff for the glue. There were a couple of treasure boxes filled w/ caramel chips. The cousins only found their way into one of those.....insert evil laughter here.........Grandma Snyder made a tiki statue that looked like a lava sculpture Rob's Grandma got in Hawaii around the beginning of time. Rob made a giant boulder and other assorted pieces. I made the 8 looking thingy. I probably should have thought out the structure a little better -- Rice Krispie Treats are not as structurally sound as they look -- the 8 kept tipping and sagging. And the marshmallow fluff glue dripped everywhere! It's hard to see in the photo, but trust me, it tasted good. I think most of it has been eaten now -- and NOT by me!!!

Peter had a great weekend! He loved getting baptized, seeing all the cousins & getting tons of attention at Primary. He gave a talk on Sunday too!

Life Moves Too Fast!!!

I feel like I'm driving the Red October through Red Route 1 straight for Thor's Twins....."too fast, Katrina, too fast!!!" Why is there less than a month of summer left already? How did my Peter Peanut get to be 8? And did Jeremy really grow 3 inches in the last week? At least they had navigation charts on the Red October! (hum men's chorus music here......)

Rob has been working with Peter on his final Wolf requirements. For their outdoor cooking requirement, Peter cooked steak & hot dogs! They were darn good! Spiderman helped Mom supervise the operation. Actually Dad was supervising, so Spiderman must have been managing. That makes me Vice President, which works out fine because Vice Presidents never have to do any real work.....

Hey -- we are going to Boston in a couple of weeks -- anyone been there? Got any ideas about stuff to do? I've got software training for a couple of days, but I'll have a couple of days to see sights. Hopefully Rob & Beryl won't get lost or tossed in the harbor while I'm in the blasted training classes.....

I don't want to disappoint, so I do have a gripe for the week. Actually, I've got several this week, but I don't feel like writing about all of them. So here's the funny one. We found this magic flooring -- it's inexpensive, looks good and easy to install. Plus it just came out in a couple of new textures/colors that look really, really good. So, we thought we'd get that for the basement. This is the same flooring of the mother-in-law relay post. We put in all the flooring we got in Utah and needed more. Our HD was supposed to have it in last week on the 15th, then the 21st, then 22nd.....then they said we might want to go to Cheyenne or Gillette! Crazy -- yup! So yesterday we got up WAY too early & took off for Gillette sometime before sunrise, bought two pallets of the magic floor, loaded it up in the car (NOT the gas guzzling suburban) and got home about 9:30 am. The folks in Gillette were nice enough to knock $50 off the price, since our store could have had HD transfer the magic flooring down here at no cost to us! Anyway so we've got all the magic floor we need now -- it is really, really fabulous! So, our HD needs to keep the magic floor in stock and learn how to do a store transfer for gosh sakes!

I tried to get Jeremy to do some Kung Fu poses, but apparently SpiderMan doesn't do that. Oh, if you are wondering, these photos were NOT all taken on the same day. Right now Jeremy is usually Spiderman or Batman, sometimes with a light saber. After all, the light saber is the weapon of choice for the modern superhero, no matter what the comic books say!

Are We There Yet?

So, last Tuesday we had the great Mother-in-law relay!!! Rob's brother brought Beryl up to Salt Lake & we drove down on Tuesday to pick her up. The idea was that on Wednesday we'd have a nice leisurely trip back. We did make it down right on time Tuesday, had dinner w/ Nate & Amy, the boys swam in the pool at the hotel & we picked up Beryl late Tuesday.

Wednesday, we slept in a bit. I was up late working on some reports that had to be emailed by 8 am. We ate breakfast downstairs & made it out of the hotel by 10am. Since we were staying downtown, we thought we'd drive past the Temple. Then since we were there, we thought we'd get out and walk around a bit. Oh and our Home Depot was out of the flooring we wanted for the basement, so I looked up a store close to the 15 so we could stop there. Apparently, our flooring choice is very popular & they only had one box. But they told Rob of another store that had tons, not TOO far away.....so the flooring thing ended up taking an hour +. By this time, everyone was hungry for lunch, so we stopped for lunch. Then, we headed north on the 15, because I wanted to get some cherries & maybe raspberries. We did find some of both -- Yaaa!!! By then we were almost to Logan. On the map, it looks pretty easy to keep going North, catch the 30 and get into Wyoming through Kemmerer. If they hadn't been doing construction all over that route, it might not have been too bad. By the time we got into Wyoming around 5:00, Beryl wanted to know if we were close! Once we got onto the normal route, we made pretty good time. Rob thought raspberries were going everywhere -- only partly true! Just when we were at the Goose Egg, this giant deer appeared in the middle of the road! Beryl woke up to the car swerving & Rob swearing. Luckily, the deer went to the other side of the rode (and probably got squished by the semi coming the other way). We finally made it home about midnight. So that's 14 hours for a 7 hour drive, all without any mechanical difficulties or weather delays! Oh, and we took my little greet hornet, so it was nice & cozy all 14 hours!

Friday am we golfed, bright & early! Here's some sounds effects: Rob -- "Where did it go?", "Where did that one go?", "Where is Jeremy's driver?", "Splash", "This isn't my ball out here!", "I'll never find it!", "I'm going to start using Jeremy's balls since I'm out", "Splash". We made it through 9 holes, but I've only included sound effects for the first 4 holes. It's really easy to tell when Peter hits a good one -- you hear this little "hee, hee, hee".

I've also decided that I'm not required to post current photos. So this time, I just picked a couple that go along w/ the car theme.