Colleen Taylor’s Weblog

wow, it’s amazing how a 2-week break in the school routine can throw a kid off. After 2 full weeks of spring break, Mason was none-too-pleased to be returning to school this morning.

his biggest struggle with school is paying attention, so I can only imagine how long it will take for him to get back into the swing of things… yikes!

remember the days when you were excited to get more than a couple emails a week?  my mailbox is so crammed with junk these days I almost don’t have the energy to dig for the good stuff… junkmail really sucks!!!  Even gmail can’t filter it all out… and I LOVE gmail!  I think they offer the absolute BEST webmail service out there… but those spammers are crafty! 

I think I get more ads for VIAGARA than Hef… and last I checked, I don’t have a penis!  In fact, since I’m separated from my husband, I don’t even have one by association… oh the cruel irony!

anyone shop at Trader Joe’s?  anyone?  Bueller?  It’s one of my favorite places to shop… not just because the staff is always SUPER nice to me (maybe they’re being fake, but I can’t tell!) but because they sell small packages of food that can still feed a family of 4… unlike Costco where the package sizes are SO big you could eat the same thing for a month and still have to throw some away…

so, a friend of mine recommended that I try Trader Joe’s turkey meatballs… they are sooooooo yummy! (especially for those of us who don’t eat much beef).  They obviously look a little different than (brown) beef meatballs… they are almost white in color.  They come pre-cooked so you just have to warm them up right in the sauce or in a pan with a little olive oil… super easy.

I made them for my boys a couple of nights ago and they loved them… and if they pass that test, they get my stamp of approval, for sure.  Mason said: “Mommy, these are really yummy!  I didn’t even know turkeys had balls!”  I laughed so hard I almost choked.

if I were a key… where would I be?  I KNOW we’ve all lost our keys at least once in life, but does it have to happen to me so often?  this is a bummer.

I even have  hook by the door that I am diligent about hanging them on when I enter my house… so where the heck to do keys get off to?  

I probably wouldn’t care so much if a new key didn’t cost $75 these days!  Mine has some kind of computer chip inside of it so I can’t just go to the ‘key-cutter’ and get a spare… drat!

This is my A.P.B. – where are you, keys?  If you come back to me, I promise never to misplace you again!

so, it’s easter sunday… and the boys and I have made our rounds to several ‘egg-hunts’.  and each and every egg they collected contianed, you guessed it… CANDY!  Now, I’m not knockin’ a little easter chocolate and a few jelly beans, but come on, people!  Some originality here would be nice. 

I try to switch it up a little each year and do something different… something that requires kids to use their brains a little… I’ll admit this year I went a little overboard, but all in the name of a lower dental-bill in a month or 2…

my son collects LEGOs (probably because I happen to love them… so, okay I collect LEGOs in my kid’s name… but that’s not my point).  He’s got a bunch of Lego Knights which the pieces fit quite nicely inside those small plastic eggs.  So, before the egg-hunt, I give him a picture of the character he has to build and he has to collect all of the eggs with the pieces he’s looking for and build the knight in order to get his easter basket (which I fill with other non-candy items)  his little brother (who’s only 4) has to build something less complicated with his pieces. 

one thing I’ve noticed that is fascinating is that these 2 boys who would normally STRANGLE each other for touching the other’s toys, actually team up and help each other find the missing pieces and build their toy… it’s a beautiful thing, really.  I have friends that do a ‘treasure-hunt’ style egg-hunt, where they hide clues in each egg to find the next one… which is pretty cool too.  Everyone gets their treat at the end and they have to work as a team to get it.  just some good ideas I thought were worth sharing if you’re tired of all the candy.

so, just a little followup on Tony… while his operation was a success in terms of removing the entire tumor, the biopsy revealed a very aggressive form of cancer that will require intense radiation and chemo… he is in for a difficult recovery period, to say the least. 

So, if you have some ‘good vibes’ to spare, please send them his way… he is a brilliant man, a loving father and grandfather and MUCH, MUCH too young to be taken away.  He is a fighter (100% Irish to boot!) and we all know he can beat this… but a little help can never hurt!

I’ve been holding off on purchasing a new camera for a couple years now… simply because I know before it arrives on my doorstep, there will be 6 new versions of it that are better than mine and less expensive… and after all, I have been hanging onto my Sony Mavica now for some 7 years (at 2.1 megapixels, it is WAY under-gunned) but still took a beautiful shot… it’s all in the lens, my friends!  Yes, the megapixels  DO matter, but I’ve got a pocket-sized Casio that is 7 megapixels and doesn’t hold a candle to that Sony.

plus, the Sony wrote the images to a mini disc, so they exist somewhere besides the computer you copy them to… which comes in really handy if your hard drive crashes and you don’t have a backup (that’s happened to me too!)  That led me to ‘train’ myself to burn a CD EVERY time I empty my memory card so I always have the original photo to work from.  (I recommend making 2 backups, but that’s just me)

Anyway, being a photo major in college, it was beginning to get a bit shameful that I was carrying around this less-than-spectacular camera for so long… so with all due respect, I started looking for it’s replacement.  It wasn’t long before I fell in love with the Canon EOS Rebel XTi.  I had owned a Canon Rebel film camera in college, and remember LOVING the way it felt in my hands… it’s digital cousin did not disappoint.  With all the bells and whistles of MUCH more expensive cameras, it has 10 megapixels worth of fire-power… more than enough to last me for years!

isn’t she perty?  

the best part was the price… I bought it online at www.getitdigital.com  -  a company based on the east coast.  The customer service was amazing, which is a HUGE part of the buying experience for me.  I’d pay extra for that    but in this case, I didn’t have to!

now I know how CRAZY kids are about this Pokemon thing… I’ve seen it first hand!  My six-year old couldn’t get enough of these cards a couple months back… so as a reward for everything from good grades to good behavior, I would shell out a couple bucks so he could add to his collection.

now that Easter is coming, I always like to get the boys something that isn’t made of pure sugar (considering it is ME who will probably end up eating it), so I stocked up weeks ago on these little Pokemon ‘gems’ to put in his basket. 

you know what’s coming next… surprise!  “Pokemon isn’t cool anymore, Mom… duh!  Well, they’re not dumb enough to let my little brother within 10 feet of them, but I don’t want any more of them… now I want Bakugan.”

what the heck is a Bakugan?  I swear sometimes he’s making this stuff up

i realize that in my last couple posts, I have really painted a ‘not-so-pretty’ picture of my littlest blessing… I’ll call him Isaac.  fitting, since that is his name… Hebrew for laughter.  and I have to say, that name fits him like a glove. 

he makes me laugh… a LOT.  sure, the laughs are sprinkled between the panic, the wincing, the mild and not-so-mild heart palputations and all the rest, but he is mostly a joy. and sometimes I forget that…

so, my neighbor’s daughter, Elaine, who is about my age, lost her 7-year-old son in a car accident a few months back.  I had never met her before, but have been close with her mom since she moved in across the street last year…

well, yesterday Elaine knocked on my door, just as I was finishing cleaning up Isaac’s latest mess, and he was about to destroy something else… I was about to lose it.  She and I only talked for a few minutes but I was floored by her strength.  I can’t even imagine this woman’s grief, yet just a few words with her put things in perspective for me so fast…

while I can’t promise I’ll never complain about the ‘messes’ of motherhood… I will say that today I’m grateful to have them…. and Isaac is more than happy to oblige

if I have to tell you why… then it’s already too late