While many people love spring, I'm fairly ambivalent. I suffer from seasonal allergies that have only recently been controllable (thank you OTC Claritin-generic) and usually start suffering in February.

However, with young kids, I'm making the effort to get them out of the house more, which means I have to get out of the house more, as well. So, since I'm not into running around with them (yet), I've been either reading or knitting.

Yes, knitting. I've gotten back into that. I was knitting before the 5 yr old was born, but had such terrible carpal tunnel with that pregnancy that I couldn't continue. Then, 20 months later, the 3 year old came along. Finally, though, they're old enough so that I can sit for 10-20 minutes at a time, and not have to wait on them, so I need something to do with my hands that isn't in front of a computer.

It's amazing how popular knitting is online. Who needs knitting books anymore? Just google free knitting patters, or knitting blogs, or yarn and see what is out there. I confess, I did purchase one book. Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Without Tears, and I wish I'd read this years ago, when she was alive. Anyhoo, I've done two doll blankets at the request of the kids, and I've now got a sweater for the 3 year old in progress, and one semi started for the five year old. I'll see if I can get the digital camera fired up and post pics, like other knitting bloggers.

This is the way we waste the day,
waste the day,
waste the day.

This is the day we waste the day
stuck in a meeting

This is the way we stay awake,
stay awake,
stay awake.

This is the way we stay awake
making silly songs.

I was futzing around, and bought StarDock's Object Desktop. So, of course I'm playing with skins, customizing the look of my pc. Here's' what I have at the moment. It's kind of mac like, and the window title is in a weird font, so I may be changing it.

My mother took the littel gels for the morning, lunch and nap. So what am I doing? I'm putting xubuntu on an ancient winbook laptop, then I'll be wiping and re-installing windows on my sister's PC. All this is definitely laundry avoidance.

The little laptop will bring the number of running PCs in the house to 5. Teenager's, my old one which is for the littel gels, mine, hubby's, little laptop. Also, I have the work laptop in a docking station at the moment. But right now it's off, so it doesn't count. If this install goes well, I have another old machine I may tackle, and see if I can put together a little linux network to play with. I want to get some experience with the LAMP stack - Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. And the software cost is perfect - zilch.

Teenager will be home by 5, and I may ask her to post something as a test. Be warned.

The Daily Question at our place is "what's for dinner?" With two little ones, a teenager, a diabetic dad, and a mom who tries to accomodate them all, it gets to be a challenge. Tonite, the littel gels are going to be eating beans and hotdogs. I'll prolly nuke a can of green beans, just to get something green in there.

Hubby will prolly do his own thing for dinner. The teenager, well, who knows? So, I'll prolly eat whatever is left of the beans and dogs to minimize leftovers, and fill in with something healthy if I can. I'm borderline type 2 diabetic, so I try to keep it healthy, but I don't sweat the small dgressions.

Yes, I know we need to get organized. But right now, there are two diverse meal requirements, and three finicky eaters, two of which aren't even consistently finicky. Something they liked one time, when served again the next week, they'll pick at. And versy vicy.

So, what's for dinner at your house?

Certain phrases have crept into usage in the last twenty five years or so that annoy the heck out of me. Here's a list.

That said / That being said / Having said all that - whatever happened to However, or So?

Not! / Psych! - these are just plain annoying.

My bad - okay, maybe I'm culturally biased, but the bad grammar here just really p***es me off.

Where it's at / Where are you at - Thou shalt not end a sentence with a preposition. Either leave off the at, or change the word to Located / Standing / sitting?

I'm sure I'm not politically correct in accepting all of today's speech patterns, but I was taught to always strive for perfect grammar, both at home and at school, so when I hear these phrases in a business meeting, sheesh.

NoNags for members regularly hosts user submitted funny pics on its site. I'm using one of these to test the pic capability.

This sentence should be below the pic.

This is will be yet another referrence post and links will be updated as progress allows. Happy Browsing!

My Domains

I know it's supposed to be calm, but I've got the two five year olds and the two three year olds here, with just me and the dog. What fun. Breakfast is over, and they've finally had enough TV, so they're coloring. I'll start contacting parents at 10. We're having some weather, so I'll let them have a bit of kidless morning, then call them to come get their kidlies.

Bedtime was interesting. 3 yr old cousin was the most difficult. She tossed and turned and turned and tossed, and finally fell asleep between 10:45 and 11 pm. 5 yr olds fell asleep on the family room sleeper sofa after I turned the TV off at 11, but that was to be expected.

Everyone was up by 7. I expect good naps today.

I was able to put dasBlog up today (since you're reading this), so they haven't been too bad. They've now migrated to the other room where they're playing with the kitchen toys.

Ingredients

• 1.5 lbs ground meat
• 1 cup uncooked rice
• 2 cans tomato soup
• 1 tablespoon minced onion
• 1 tablespoon salt
• half can water
• quarter cup bread crumbs

Instructions

Mix 1 can soup, half can water to remainder of ingredients. Shape into balls and place in casserole dish. Pour remaining can of soup over meatballs, cover, and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour. We served with broccoli and carrots.