she wasn't good but she had good intentions

I am LATE - and I hate it since one of my biggest quirks in terms of manners is all about timeliness. The worst thing about being late is that it seems to imply that the other person's time is not as important as yours, and it drives me crazy to be late....but I've been lazy, and hope this 4-fer will catch me up and put me back in Jen's good graces :-)

Over the last one month +, Jen's Spin Cycle has had some great topics: quirks, time, celebrity, manners, and most recently, mistakes (you can check out the great spins for each of these by clicking the links)

I have been thinking about them all and sort of formulating my own spins on the topics, just haven't made it to the writing phase on any one - today's the day. I'm going to put four together into one, and maybe even try to sneak celebrity into it ;-)

As far as quirks go, I can hang right in there with the quirkiest! I'm partial to letters and numbers and have a few organizing things that I try to subdue so as not to be too far out there ;-) Of course, I already mentioned the time/manners/quirk vortex of timeliness....if you look in my dishwasher, you'll see my pitiful attempts at streamlining the unloading efforts...any time I can add numbers to 13, I consider it serendipitous (tho I guess if I'm looking for them, it may not count)...as an only child, I made up all sorts of word games and loved palindromes - I even found a website that is for people like me, so it must not be too quirky, right? Many an hour was whiled away trying to make words 'equal'...by assigning number values to letters (a=1, b=2, etc), I would work to make entire sentences have equal value between the words. Ummmm :blush:

My favorite quirky musician is Lyle Lovett - She's Hot To Go (I always wanted that Ugly From The Front shirt, but was never brave enough), Here I Am, etc. etc. etc.

Time is a funny thing - I never seem to have enough these days, but still try to cherish every minute. Some of the best time I've spent lately may appear to be wasted to others, is not very productive, but is full of love and memories. Schedules have consumed my life the last few years, and it's a real pleasure to let time pass at a more natural pace these days. The truest truism of parenting has been that 'time flies'

Some favorite time songs: Brad Paisley's Time Well Wasted, Lyle Lovett's Closing Time, Clint Black's Killin' Time, Lindsey Buckinghams' Time Precious Time, Rolling Stones' Time Is On My Side, Vaughan Brothers' Tick Tock, Jim Croce's Time In A Bottle, Dr. Hook's Years From Now

Manners have consumed a lot of our parenting efforts these last years, and they seem to be sticking so far....I've upped the ante since Jen posted about manners, and we've been working on transitioning requests to 'may I....' They're getting it. Jack's favorite manners have to do with people (ladies first is a constant for him) while Harry's tend to focus on the wording (precisely phrasing things) and the rules ('you have to say...') are constants for him. My own worst manner blunder is interrupting...again with the seeming like your agenda is more important, which is truly not the case for me - the thoughts are just so fleeting and I have trouble controlling the impulse. So to all of you whom I've interrupted, please know that I'm making an effort :blush:

I don't really know any songs about manners, but did find Third World's Manners and ran across Bad Manners' Lip Up, Fatty, which reminded me of my old bosses' forays into cool slang...

We all make mistakes and hopefully learn from them. Before I met my Prince Charming, I made the mistake of marrying someone who was not right for me...luckily, we figured it out quickly, but not before a plant almost died. I'd received it as a college graduation gift and it slowly began to lose leaves, getting down to one remaining leaf the week that my ex and I parted ways. After he left, the air seemed cleared and the plant began to rebound. Just before marrying Dean, I had to divide it because it had gotten so abundant. This is one of the THREE planters that have grown from that single leaf....

...I take it as a good sign ;-)

Some favorite mistake songs: Lyle's Her First Mistake, Brad Paisley's Make A Mistake, Sheryl Crow's My Favorite Mistake, and another I can't remember at the moment (Queen, maybe?)

I have looked for the picture I have of Barry Gibb with a good friend circa 1978, but alas I can't find it - that's as close as I get to celebrity....it was a REALLY big deal back then!

Some favoriate celebrity songs: Brad Paisley's Celebrity, 3 Dog Night's Celebrate and my all-time favorite 'celebrity' quote: Billy Joel - 'a star is just a ball of gas'

Hope you're able to stop by some of the spins, and maybe even give it a whirl yourself some week :-)

Lyle Lovett's Good Intentions

A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing

Some days are just wonderful in terms of seeing all the hard work paying off - they patiently sat while I was in line....playing nicely together

and Harry was the helpful superstar of the day, and very proud of opening the door for me, clearing the table, and generally being a sweetheart!

Jack was in full creative mode today, attempting to create a robot arm, as seen here:

Slinky is great, even the orange plastic version

Slinky jingle from 1962, longest running jingle in history

There's something women like about a pickup man

My boys are flirts, it's true, but Harry upped his game over the weekend. We were at one of our favorite restaurants, where the children of the owner often visit with us and share some of the waitressing chores. The 10-year-old lovely gets this line from Harry: "I'm gonna grow up to be a man and you'll grow up to be a lady" with these big flirty eyes and right up in her grill. His dad egged him on a bit, and he ended up asking her to go out with him ::-) My days are limited :sigh:

Here he is just after winking at the photographer during our recent photo session - sheesh! Our first trip to the beach when they were about 15 months was the first sign of his serious flirt with older ladies - anyone with white hair received major eyelash flutters. He used to really gravitate toward any lady in the room who seemed to be a wallflower, you know the type who might not typically get attention - he always zeroed in on them while Jack went for the more obvious. I guess a 10-year-old isn't exactly ancient, but he has always had a thing for the older lady!

They are both brushing up on their manly manners, and Jack was overheard in the bathroom tonite telling me that I should go first "because I know ladies always go first"....the woman beside us started chuckling and would probably have gone on a date with him, if he'd asked ;-)

Happy New Year to you all! I think I'm going to have to stop December with 50 posts - egad!

He's Funny That Way

I've been computer-less for the last few days (Dean's work computer blew up while he was on a trip and he was headed down for their t-ball game so I got a computer-vaca!) and need to work thru pix, but had to post Harry's funny for the day. He really is getting that dead-pan down ;)

At lunch today, he was being very polite and I said:

M: Harry, you have such good manners!
H: Thank you, Mommy, you have such good lady-ers!

LOL

Happy week!

Billie Holiday

Telephone M(e)n

Yikes, this one was as raunchy as I remembered - I was only 11 when this song came out in 1977 (egad, I'm old!) - Meri Wilson

I was driving down the road yesterday and this is what I hear:

Jack: Excuxe me, Mommy, please be quiet so we can talk on the phone. It will be about 10 minutes, then we can play with you again.

Followed by both of them talking on the 'car phones' Aunt Jackie got them a few years ago - it was a sweet conversation....tho not quite 10 minutes - they are boys, after all ;-)

Make New Friends, But Keep The Old

They have been so into meeting and greeting these last few weeks - and today they added a bunch of goodbye stuff that was adorable. They met a nice boy who was 5, and after playing Hide-n-Go-Seek for a while it was time to leave. Jack says "It was nice to meet you, Owen. We had fun playing with you. Next time you see me, just say 'Hi, Jack, wanna play?'" then Harry says "You're a good friend and I want to play with you again next time." It was really sweet, and I was pretty proud of the way they played and their manners :wub:

We also had a great time at their good friend Darius' 4th birthday party last week. Everyone got to play at a great new Inflatable Playplace in our area....

Jack and Harry SlipSlidin'Away

(yikes, how OLD am I to remember that song?!)

Sam, Ryan and Darius playing

Harry climbing one of the 'walls'

Jack making friends with an inflatable giraffe

Our good friends visiting from NC - Evan, Ryan and Miss Heidi, we miss you!

Jack will hate this, but I thought Miss Keisha would like to know how much of a hit the goody bags were at our house ;-) Thank you!


And the boys got a chance to give their buddy Ryan a grand goodbye hug!

And though Tom Petty may disagree, Hopper O'Hare knew that "having friends was even better than being King!" :-) Thanx, friends!