Mumbo Jumbo

Wow, has it been awhile or what! Oopsie. Oh internet, I do love you... a bit too much. That is my excuse & I'm stickin' to it.

Monday I did something that I had studied for 6 years for. I lobbied my State Senator (for long-term health care). I spent the morning at the Capitol in St. Paul. Had a semi-private tour because my meeting time was later than others in our group. It'd been years since I'd been there. Mom did her civic duty & brought my brother and I down when we were in 5th & 9th grades (or there about). I remembered more than I thought. I satisfied my inner-political nerd-ness... for a day! It was fun. It was interesting. It made me realize that running for office isn't out of the realm of my reality. I could be a politician. I could easily like it. And people would swear at me & I'd probably swear back & not be re-elected! Would that be so bad either? Nope.

Since I've blogged last, Ks 1 & 2 have started karate lessons. Such great fun to watch them grow in their technique and knowledge. So wonderful that lessons learned there directly transfer to our home, school & life. Wonderful that kids are 'bribed' into acting well to do better in karate - and it WORKS! Who knew? Morgan has traveled through the following belts: white, gold, green & is presently a purple belt. Alec is a 'Mighty Dragon'. This is a class for younger kids (3-5). The belts are all while with different colored stripes through the middle that show his skill level. His belts have been: white, white w/yellow stripe, white w/green stripe, and he is presently white w/purple stripe. We have just discussed him moving to the normal belt program, which he'd enter as a yellow belt - and will probably happen in May or June. Morgan will attend a few sparring classes to see if she likes that. Not so sure full-contact will be for her - even if she's all padded up. I can easily see Alec enjoying this - really - 'Hey Alec, you can hit & kick people, go for it!' "All RIGHT!!" Yep - that'll be an easy sell. Now the big question will be if MOM can handle her kids in the sparring class... I haven't decided yet, but I am thinking I'll need to leave while class is in session.

An entire SLEW of blog posts was missed in January when we dog-sat for my parents yellow lab, Jett. He arrived December 24th. We had him just over a month. The kids loved loved loved it. They bonded well with Jett. That's a great thing because with the summer coming, it'll make the cabin time easier. They know each other well. Morgan would take Jett for her own if all the adults agreed. Which they definitely will NOT. Jett proceeded to move into & take over our mud/laundry room. If he walked by a toy or lego on the floor, it went in his mouth. So I wasn't about to make the kids clean up everything ALL the time. Nor was I about to buy my kids new toys. I'm not that crazy! So the laundry room was Mr. Jett's. We have an end table in there to set stuff on. He chewed it up. We have a full size deep freezer in there. He chewed up the freezer knob that was duct-taped in place (to prevent children from turning it off). He ate 3 pieces of duct tape before he quit. Uuuummmmm, fiber! He chewed up a rug. Good thing it was an old one that needed replacement anyway. This was all while having chew toys at his disposal 100% of the time. So WHY? I dunno. Jett attempted to do some landscaping in our front yard. Other than the au natural furtilizer left in the midst of our shrubbery, he pruned all the shrubs he would walk past. We had some new lilacs a year ago & I really wasn't sure they'd make it through Jett. But they all have leaves on that just peaked through last week - so relief there! 1 day, he tried to pull other established shrubs out of the ground by grabbing onto a few branches & pulling with all his might a la tug-o-war. This was the day he learned some massive respect for H. We won't detail Jett's punishment for the entire www to see. But if you want to know, gimmie a call. It wasn't pretty. However we didn't have this issue afterward. Bottom line, H & I were past-ready to have Jett go home. His last 3 days with us were perfect & he was a little gentleman. When the parents came to take Jett home - we had tears. All the kids were so upset & crying their eyes out. I told them "Look, Jett is just going HOME. It isn't like he's dying & you'll never see him again! Get OVER it!" Well, live & learn. Should not have mentioned dying. Because then the whole thing was 'We'll never see Jazzie - she's dead - why did she die?' and on and tears and on and tears and on and tears... (Jazzie was my parents' last yellow lab that died from Lyme's Disease last summer.) Needless to say, it'd been a little past their bedtime & they needed to get to bed ASAP.

So what's next? A lot. I've saved a few items for another day. When will that be? Your guess is as good as mine!