I Just Go Around Breaking Stuff. But I'm Trying to Confine My Special Breaking Talents JUST to the Kitchen and not to the Road.

My boy had his first ever high school final in Hebrew last week. I had just asked him whether or not he felt adequately prepared and his answer was

Yes but...the only thing hard about Hebrew is...ummmm...y'know...the words

I had to laugh, even though I knew what he meant (that vocabulary was harder than conjugating verbs). But still, isn't learning the words the hardest part of learning any foreign language?!?

I'd like to make fun of this sign more, but...forgetting to pay rent is something I'd might actually do. Otherwise, I'm thinking most people who don't pay the rent probably do it because they don't have the money. Right?
Here's the car I wrecked, the poor thing:
Yes, it was my fault. No I wasn't careful enough, which is confusing to me. Because I was actually telling myself to be very careful right at that very moment. But either I forgot to listen to myself, or I just wasn't quite careful enough.

I was wondering if I should blur out the license plate for privacy and stuff, but then I remembered that the license plate ended up in someone's front yard near the intersection.

At any rate, I'm sure the yield sign I neglected to give all the respect it was due wasn't anywhere near as confusing as this:

I'm actually sort of impressed. One can rarely ever go east AND west at the exact same time!

Not only that, but you can more or less pick any direction and still end up on both highway 521 AND highway 36 going either east, or east and west at the same time. Don't even worry about north and you're bound to get exactly where you're going. Probably.

Last but not least, I had this conversation with The Guy this week at the tail end of a conversation in which I had already listed a multitude of minor failures on my part:

Me - "...and I broke a glass in the kitchen."
The Guy - "Was it one of the good glasses?"
Me - "No. It was one of those glasses you got for me to break."

So see?!? If I can just contain myself to the kitchen, The-Guy is already well prepared. Anyway, happy holidays to all! Hopefully everyone is surviving them quite nicely and even enjoying themselves!

I'm FINE! But still, I think two car accidents by the second trimester of pregnancy is really more than enough

Even though I'm only a few months along here, I've already been in two car accidents (one minor, the other quite possibly requiring a new car). In addition, I've already been kind enough to expose this new baby to fifth's disease, more varieties of the common cold than you can shake a stick at, ringworm, at least two different stomach viruses, and evacuation from a building because of the carbon monoxide levels. It's been fun so far.

As for the old babies, my boy turns 14 today! Here he is back when a slice of pizza was as big as his head:

And on his first birthday:


In totally unrelated news, I haven't really gotten too many sign pictures. Despite the fact that I haven't posted forever, I only have this one measly little sign. It's the Kumon guy.


Kumon is a tutoring place and apparently they do so much homework that the poor little logo guy can't even manage to smile. But at least they don't try and trick the kids into thinking they're going to have fun while they learn.

So happy birthday to my boy & hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season so far!

I'm Hoping to Miss the Next Puke-A-Thon

I've heard that some people enjoy being pregnant. I've even heard that pregnant people "glow". Not me. I just puke.

In fact, I'm so good at the getting sick part that The-Guy mentioned we needed more words for the different types of vomit, kind of like Eskimos are supposed to have all those different kinds of words for snow.

Luckily (with the help of medication) I think I'm starting to get over the constant vomit part. I'm even starting to be able to brush my teeth without puking.

I've even managed to snap a couple of pictures. Here's an advertisement for an apartment complex near the Houston Galleria:
So in other words, "Live here if your mama taught you wrong."

And speaking of teaching right and wrong, here's a daycare where you can send your kids if you want them to go to Harvard, but don't want then to learn to spell:

So that's it for now. Hope everyone is having a good week!

I'm Trying to Make a New Person Out of Anti-Nausea Medication and Frozen Pizza

I'm trying to make a new person out of anti-nausea medication and frozen pizza. So, if you've been wondering why I've been slow to post, it's because I've been too busy throwing up.

This looks like a gray lump, but it's actually a baby picture:

I figured out that the less something looks like actual food, the more likely I am to be able to keep it down. In fact, there were a couple days there when I was relying on Ramen noodles as my sole source of nutrition.


But then it occurred to me, whatever is in the anti-nausea medication couldn't possibly be any worse for the baby than whatever is in that flavor packet that goes into the Ramen noodles.

So I started consistently taking the anti-nausea medication and now I've been able to expand my menu to include frozen pizza.

That's why it's been quiet around here...I've seen good signs, but been too tired and/or sick to lift my camera out of my purse. But I'm starting to feel like I might actually survive, so hopefully I'll be back into posting.

Hope everyone had a good week!

Unlock the Chicken

Hello long lost blog! What are my excuses for ignoring you so? Mostly not worth listing. Some are worth listing, but I'll list them later.

This actually came out of my very own pantry. We bought it, because like half the stuff in our pantry, it was on sale.

Besides, whenever I think of luxury, the first thing that comes to mind is ALWAYS cold breakfast cereal:

Don't you find that to be the case? Although, despite the silly name, it really wasn't bad as cold breakfast cereal goes.

Sometimes it's just the order of the signs that is so silly. I mean, who even knew that chicken, fish or beef needed to be repaired or unlocked?


These colors looked a lot prettier before I took them through my dirty car windshield:


Here are some birds. These would also look much better minus the dirty car windshield, but...that's not how I took the picture.

That's it! Happy week everyone! Or...month...as the case has been lately.

Bail Bonds Go with Everything

Once upon a time when my brother was maybe 5 and I was around 7, my mom & dad left us with friends for the weekend. This family ground their own wheat to make the flour to make whole wheat bread, and they showed us how to milk...I'm pretty sure it was a goat and not a cow...for the milk for breakfast. My point is, refined white sugar and surely Little Debbie type snack cakes were not a staple in this family's diet.

So anyway, the parents come in to ask us if we like oatmeal for breakfast.

Oatmeal? What's oatmeal? My brother and I turned to each other.

We didn't know oatmeal.

But we DID know oatmeal cookies. More specifically we knew the Little Debbie type of oatmeal cookie with the yummy white cream in the middle.

I stopped at three different stores today and never found these kind of oatmeal cookies, so I had to borrow a picture here:

My brother and I decided that obviously if the brown things on the outside were the "cookie", the white creamy icing on the inside must be the "oatmeal". Oatmeal. Cookie. Made sense to us. And what kid doesn't like pure sugar for breakfast? Yes! Some of that white creamy icing sounds like the breakfast of champions! We had obviously hit the jackpot.

We assured the unsuspecting parents we definitely liked oatmeal, only to refuse to eat the hot unsweetened bowl of mush which was served to us, the same gluey stuff had turned our own mother against oatmeal for life.

I tell you this because if your own child or a child you have known has clamored for a food that was later refused, there may have been a similar misunderstanding.

The only other information I really have to share this week is that bail bonds go with everything. Apparently.

Bail bonds and tacos, for example:


(I apologize for the lousy picture, but it's hard to take at night from a moving vehicle. I assure you that the last word is the bail "bonds" though.)

Next up, bail bonds and a hair cut. Bail bonds and a hair cut kind of confused me at first, but I guess you want to look your best in court:


And that's about it, except for this sort of scary picture of my bipolar kitty:

He's not that scary in real life. Except for sometimes. Hope everyone is having a good week!

Update: To clarify any misunderstandings, we did NOT learn of the oatmeal cookies from our parents! I'm afraid we had previously learned of the snack cakes from other kids' lunches. I'm not sure of why we didn't learn of unsweetened, unflavored oatmeal from other kids' lunches...

How One of My Kids Might Have Turned Out Semi-Okay So Far Despite me.

Once upon a time that handsome teenage boy-o-mine in the sidebar used to be a cute baby that I apparently never listened to.The person next to him is the Sweet Pea, who more or less always demanded that you listen to her.

So one day I'm pulling out of the drive through ATM and I hear a little voice from the back seat,

"Ah LEDDER! Ah ledder Mama! Mama! It wote you ah LEDDER!!!! Aaaaah LEDDERRRRRRRR!"

I wondered what the baby was squawking about, but not enough to turn back around to see. If I HAD pulled back around to see, I would have found out that the letter he was talking about was the machine spitting back out my ATM card. But instead, I got a phone call from the bank later.

The second time we were at the grocery store. Kroger had bulk bins back then and I began my shopping trip by scooping out some kind of nuts or trail mix or whatever when I suddenly screamed and dropped my bag of bulk food. There were BUGS in the bin!

I recovered from the trauma, did the rest of my shopping, checked out, and suddenly realized I couldn't find my car keys. I searched the store, checking the aisles bemoaning our fate of obvious food poisoning as our milk, eggs, or whatever perishables I had in the cart got warmer and warmer.

In desperation, I asked the baby in the cart, "Jared, did you see what happened to my keys?" As if none of the frantic searching had even occurred, he calmly answered, "I think you put them by the peanuts."

I hadn't, in fact, "put them" by the peanuts. I had dropped them when I screamed. There they were right there on the floor by the bulk bins and we were free to go home in time not to spoil the food and end up in the hospital from rotten eggs.

Happily ever after. Except, I probably still don't listen to him enough.

I Guess I'm Out of Practice - I forgot to make a title for this post.

Hello world o' blog! If there is anyone left to read after I have ignored the blogging world for such a long time. Apparently I took a little unannounced blogging vacation.

Here's my new website idea: meet'ya-halfway.com. It would be for all those times your brother suggests meeting halfway between New York and Texas to go like, camping or something, and then you agree it would be awesome but neither of you ever does anything about it.

You'd just put in the two places you're coming from and find out the best spot to meet. And if there's more than one best spot, it could rate them based on places to see and things to do, or best restaurants or hotels or whatever.

So if someone could please be kind enough to invent that website...or point me to the one already invented...

Meanwhile, for pictures...the Sweet Pea has been keeping us busy at the orthopedic place as usual. Here she is getting an MRI of her wrist:
And I saw this shampoo at Target:
What does men's hair actually have to endure? I mean, women's hair gets curled and straightened and styled and teased and dried and constantly attacked by "product". But men's hair...I thought it led a relatively easy life of a trim or hair cut here or there. Maybe the occasional ball cap or something.

I hope everyone has had a good couple weeks while I've been not-blogging!

Well SOMEONE Has to Demolish Houston. Apparently.

It seems that Houston is being demolished:


What can I say? I guess it has to be done.

Other than that, there's not so much going on around here. Mostly I've been taking pictures of these nice people:


I've been taking some flower pictures too, as usual:
And teaching school and stuff. Hope everyone has had a nice week so far!

Daughter Goes On Special Blogging Assignment

I made a few references this summer to the Sweet Pea being out of town. When she got back, I was surprised to find out that...well...like mother like daughter! She had not only taken pictures just for Twipply Skwood, but was prepared to guest post:

Hello everyone out there in blog world! This is my only my second guest blog post ever, the first one being when I got a jellyfish sting on my arm when I was 12. I recently got back from the best summer trip ever in the whole world. It was called Ldor vDor, and for those of you who don’t speak Hebrew, that means generation to generation. My group went from pre-world war II settlements in Prague, Czech Republic, to touring concentration camps and ghettos in Poland, and finally to the beautiful Jewish homeland of Israel. The whole trip altogether was 5 full weeks. Five full weeks of 39 Jewish teenagers running around multiple airports with 4 counselors and a security guard (with a gun). I had a fantastic time and it was life changing and I learned about responsibility and whatnot.

Of course, as I was traveling through multiple countries, I kept an eye out for silly signs and foreign English fails for my mommy to use in her blog. Five weeks away from home and you would be surprised how many funny signs we came across. Especially in Poland.

In case anybody was wondering, it didn’t taste very good at all. Probably because it was Zartbitter.
We saw a random communist bus. I don’t know why.

In krakow, people fart on street signs

When we were leaving Poland to go to Israel, we had a 7 hour layover in Frankfurt airport. My group of friends wandered over to the bookstore to buy some foreign magazines to keep us entertained. At the store, we giggled at the names of towns to tour. This one pretty much speaks for itself.

Then we arrived in Israel. Israel is my favorite place in the whole world except for maybe my summer camp. Not only because it is the land of my ancestors and all historical, but also because in Israel, hummus is very convienient. You know you are in Israel when hummus comes in pudding cups at gas stations.

And last but not least, while we were touring Tel Aviv and learning about the city’s historical roots, we came across this sign.

Translation: 31 Penis street.

40 teenagers walking past this street made for a lot picture taking. We got a lot of stares from the locals, because in Israel, it means something totally different and completely appropriate.

I hope you enjoyed my silly Israel pictures. I have pretty and scenic and memorable ones too of course, but these are the ones I brought just for my mom's blog. I plan to go again next year and hope to bring you more!

Texas is Exploding in Wildfires and Cookie Monster T-Shirts. And mattresses.

Hello blogging world! Contrary to all appearances, I haven't forgotten about you! It's just that school started. And also, I had to get the Sweet Pea an x-ray of her damaged-ligament wrist.

And we had to go see Robert Earl Keen

And we had to go camping and then the roads were closed so we couldn't get home without driving all over parts of Texas that we had never, ever seen (where for some unknown reason many adults were wearing Cookie Monster t-shirts).

And I had to take pictures of these mattresses littering the pavement:

This guy was upset that I took pictures. Then he told me he needed me to delete them and I was all, "Okay".

So I deleted two. But then I kept two. Because sorry, but when you throw mattresses all over the place, tourists are going to want to take pictures!

He should know that! He's a motel owner...or something. Anyway...aside from spending 27 hundred hours on the phone with the carbonite back up people (they're very nice), that's mostly what I've done.

Except for take this picture of a gummy chicken leg.

Because everyone needs one of those.

Yet Another Reminder that Satan Controls All Fun

Jesus is practically BEGGING me to alienate every last Christian that I know. Apparently. Actually, I'm probably not limiting myself to alienating Christians, but what can I do when this sign is only a few traffic lights from my house?

At any rate, anyone remember how satan controls all fun? I think the person who thought up that church sign got fired, because every time I pass by that church these days, it says something boring like, "Visit us on Sunday!"

Or maybe the guy who thought up that sign just moved to a different church. Like maybe this church, where original thought for the day reads as so:


I call it "original" because I thought that people who interpret God's words for the masses steered away from what could possibly be misconstrued as innuendo. But I could be wrong. And after all, giving away and selling are nothing alike whatsoever.

The sign flips back and forth between that and this:


I guess that's for when people get confused by the whole "used and abused" theme and wonder what kind of establishment they've stumbled upon.

On that happy note, school started for teachers last week and yesterday was the first day of school for the kids, so that more or less explains my recent disappearance. A guest post by my Sweet Pea is in the works, but I have to wait until she's home to post.

Little Known Occupational Hazzard Revealed: photographers in imminent danger of impaling themselves with their own fingers

Hi ho hi ho and stuff...summer vacation ends next week. And so that means not carrying around my good camera. And that means lower quality pictures from random bathrooms:


But that's okay. Because apparently cameras are REALLY REALLY dangerous:


Here are a last few pictures before I go back to the land of point and shoot. These crawfish look just a tad formal to be serving up crap, don't they?


The Texas weather has been even more so. Apparently:


But you know what the really great thing is about borrowing weather from hell? Normally people are not allowed to roller blade on the golf course. But I went out rollerblading when it was a kajillion and a half degrees, and there was absolutely not one single golfing soul (saved OR condemned) to kick me off the golf course.

On the whole "hi ho and back to work we go" subject, I planted sunflowers with my class back in April or May. Here's what one of them looks like now:

So that's about it. Next week it's back to work. Happy weekend all!

It's all happiness and friendliness and niceness until someone jumps off a bridge...

We went driving around southern Texas last weekend, which is why my blog post had to post itself. Corpus Christi, Palacios, Victoria, Rockport, Port Aransas...they didn't seem to have quite as many crazy signs as Houston, but it was very, very pretty.

And they are HAPPY down there! Practically ecstatic, really.

The hairdressers are happy:


The plumbers are happy:


In Rockport, there was happy pill art:


(ok, I'm not sure how many of those are actual happy pills, but I'm calling them that to suit my purposes)

Even the tacos were laughing!!!


And there was friendliness too:


(They weren't actually all that friendly if you stopped in to ask directions.)


With all all that happiness and friendliness, it's a wonder they had to remind people not to commit suicide.


But, that's the way it was! Happy, mostly friendly, extremely beautiful, and with only the occasional reminder that you might choose at any moment to jump off a bridge.

Happy, friendly, non-bridge-jumping weekend everyone!