goings on, for the record

Granpops and Bebe are visiting, taking kids swimming and on little adventures (we've gotta get more pictures before they go!!!); colds and stomach flus have been floating around, sabotaging Emmett's much anticipated sleepover; lots of house projects are moving along, rainbarrels,and gutters, painting, clothes line, looking into solar panels etc; nana is on "baby watch" every minute of every weekend waiting for a new elephant to be born at the Wild Animal Park and loving it; Matt has been to the doctor for his feet and is readying himself for FOOT SURGERY, sometime in the next 3 months while also committing himself to Bikram Yoga, yes, sweaty yoga (he's there right now!) and on top of it all, he works 70 hours a week, always connected to that life-sucker, the Blackberry; Mac is rehearsing for Pippi, full force; carpooling and school stuff keeps me busy and guessing everyday, "what, where and who???"; We have all been completely stumped by the two Rubik's Cubes that seem to show up all over the house. No one here can solve it. (We're not so smart afterall!); It hailed during that huge storm and Silas just loved it. Couldn't convince him it wasn't snow; Silas has been jumping on the trampoline and playing FARM with his friends, thank god for that backyard; Emmett and I have been playing Mancala and we are finally reading BRISIGR out loud with Mac too; Discovered recently that a small bowl of ground coffee is the only thing that gets rid of the smell of rotten milk in the car or chicken poo in the closet or barf etc...it is the miracle air freshener; I had to put bird netting around the chicken pen so the hawks that are circling don't get lucky; I have a refrigerator full of good food but for some reason the thought of cooking AGAIN makes me wanna .... fast.

Gotta pay attention around here, things are moving pretty fast and it's easy to just feel busy and
forget to 'smell the flowers'....so I think I'll go get a cup of tea and feed the chickens. Doing my best.

I am too exhausted to blog much, but...

I have been newly inspired by Obama's 'state of the union'...but we all know the man can speak...
Even more than that speech...WAY MORE SO is his 'question and answer time' with all the Republicans in the house, that HE asked to be televised. It is very telling and I think everyone should watch it.
These are the teabaggers and moderate republicans alike asking all their most pointed questions (very respectfully, I will add) and Obama's answers.

Maybe, just maybe, things will turn around?? (oh yeah, I forgot for a second...USA is owned by corporations so that's highly unlikely....but still....)

Check out the video here, I think in it's entirety. If not, find it because it's worth it.

Washington DC

I was sent to Washington DC for a meeting. I was there to provide "ground truth" to a bunch of bureaucrats making a training manual on Unified Commands. If that wasn't surreal enough, I stayed at the Willard International, a very famous hotel, where the term lobbyist came from. I'm serious, look it up. Anyway, I walked around a little. I only went to one museum, the Holocaust Museum. What else would I do. What else could I do. Some photos from Rome....
Matt