All About Angie

Happy Anniversary!

Today is my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary. As is my custom these days, I’m pulling out the photos.

These two people are my mom and dad:

These two people are also my mom and dad (before they were my mom and dad):

Cute, eh? And please don’t say something to the effect of “Wow. Doesn’t Angie look so much like her dad?” I can’t say that I haven’t heard that before. But anything you want to say about my mother’s hair, I’m sure would be appropriate. OK, just kidding, Mom!

They met when they were 4 and 5 years old. My dad came over to my mom’s house to pick up my mom’s brother (his friend) to walk to school. She was playing in her oatmeal. He teased her about it and the rest is history. Silly boys!

Here is my dad in his youth (with face and mischievous look very reminiscent of a certain little red-head I know):

My mom in her youth (baring an ever-so-slight resemblance to a certain almost-1st grader I know):

My dad moved around a lot (his step-dad was in the army), but my mom always lived in the same town. Even now. They dated awhile and eventually decided to get married.

Here is one of their engagement pictures:

“I’m gonna get you, Sucka!” OR “WANTED: for armed bank robbery”

Here’s a happier one:

On August 17, 1968, they were married in the same small town in Oklahoma that I grew up in. And of course I don’t have a wedding picture of the happy couple to post. If I did, it would go right here.

Three years and a few months later, they said “good-bye” to their sane and boring life and welcomed me into their family. This picture of us with my grandparents was taken in the summer of 1972. (Trivia time — My husband wasn’t even born yet!)

The 70s hit full-tilt a few years later:

Couple years later, we got an elf:

Ok, ok, she’s really my sister (Hi, Carrie!). But she makes a really cute elf!

And here is our family of four, circa 1979:

And here we all are, Thanksgiving 2007:

For 40 years, my parents have been happily married. I think they’ve had a great time being with each other and the rest of us. My dad is retired and has beautiful flowers and a great garden. He also likes to do volunteer work and drink coffee with his buds. My mom is still working, but enjoys quilt-making and playing the piano (and is pretty good at it). Together, they enjoy traveling and going ballroom dancing. And they LOVE their 5 grandchildren fiercely!

There’s only one thing left to say to the Wittemans…..

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!

And many more……

The (Hopeful) End of a Saga, Which Shall Not Be Completely Elaborated Upon Here

Let’s play an interactive story game, ok? The story involves a used car dealership and its “service” department. I’ll post the pictures and you can figure out the details (or some variation thereof). Ready to play? Here it comes:

(It’s sitting on a garbage can, in case it’s difficult to tell)

And here is the last picture:

The only picture missing is the last one of the main character at the bottom of the nasty garbage can. It was too graphic for the likes of this blog.

Now. Who can guess what happened? Extra points for flagrant use of appropriate adjectives. Heh.

Outspoken much? Nah.

Pictures. Again.

Well, I’m back at it. Posting pictures in the hopes that you won’t notice I’ve been ignoring my little piece of cyberspace. But I know you are smarter than that. I don’t know what is up with my neglect. I think I’m feeling uninspired. Uncreative. Call it what you want. I’m struggling. Too many other things seeking my time, my energy, my efforts. Ugh.

Well, enough of that. Let’s see what interesting things have been downloaded from the ole camera recently…

Here’s a lizard that Mark caught (presumably so we could starve it to death, like everything else we catch), but then let go, at my urging (”He won’t last a day in our custody. Do you know what this particular lizard eats?”). Thank you, Mark. My conscience is saved.

A few weeks ago, I gathered with a group of ladies to make plans concerning the Women’s Ministry at our church. After we made important decisions, we played a game. Perhaps you’ve heard of it…it involves a guitar and heroes. Oh, and a band. Here’s ours (We rock!):

Here’s my score (That’s “Band Savior”, to you):

How I can get 96% and only have a “17 note streak” is beyond me.

This is a pistachio among the clothes of his former friends:

And the Game That Never Ends:

Food and drink, anyone?

Thirsty? Like mint, lime, club soda and a sugar syrup?

You can see that I’m taking more and more pictures of food. I’m really enjoying the logistics of food pictures.

We went to the cemetery last week to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Mark’s mom’s going home. We put flowers in the vase and John had us recite the verses to the song “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go”, since the last two lines are on the headstone (”And from the ground there blossoms red/Life that shall endless be“). It was really moving, even for me.

(It was about 104 degrees Farenheit about this time. I’m surprised the camera/flowers/everything didn’t melt.)

And here is someone tickling the statue’s feet. Silly children!

So that’s that. Stay tuned for Story Time! It’s a doozie!

Here’s Something We’re Thinking About Today

This.

And this (Thanks J!).

News, News

I’m sorry to have been gone so long, my friends. I was waiting for the end of school, so I would have something juicy to write about. I am sorry to disappoint, but apparently, the summer is pretty dry. And it has almost been an entire month. And even more since the last entry. You could say that I’m feeling creatively unproductive. More about that in another post.

However, we do have some news. The minivan we used to drive now lives with someone else–at least, that’s what we’ve told the kids. It’s not a lie, not really. Somewhere, our old van is frolicking among …well…somewhere. Maybe. The point is, it does not live with us anymore. Its reliability has been seriously questioned over the course of the last 9 months, so it had to go. Our new ride is almost the same make/model/whatever. Except newer (notice I did not say “new”. Because that would be a gross error on my part.). And it’s blue. With a fraction of the number of miles on it. And it has power sliding doors. I thought that this feature alone would float my boat for a long time. But…not so much. I mean, it’s a nice feature. And maybe I’ll think more highly of it when school rolls around and I have to go through the carpool line. But I don’t feel like I can just grab the handle and toss the kids in it. I certainly don’t want to break it. You know, it being new and all. I mean, “newer”.

In fact, something exciting did happen to me the other day while I was in the newer van. It reminded me of this previous momentous event. Here is proof from my newer van (I think I must be neurotic the way I take pictures of my odometer all the time) or maybe proof that I should give it up and watch the road:

Also, as history seems to be repeating itself, another blast from the past showed up at our door this morning. Luke and I went out to water our “garden (ha ha ha, pardon my laughter)” and I noticed something weird about the Rue (it’s a plant). Something was crawling on it. AIGH!! It’s Freckles! He’s back! But wait! It gets better! There are TWO Freckleses. Or, perhaps more accurately, Freckles’ great great great great great great grandchildren. I brought one inside (named “Bob”) in a jar and left the other (named “Beautiful” by Luke) outside. Bob was happily munching away on the Rue when I last saw him. We’ll see how long he lives. Heh.

The final item I am including in this post is the sad and sorry fact that I am a juice waster and keyboard destroyer. I was trying to be healthy when I bought a small bottle of pomegranate juice. When I poured myself a glass this afternoon, who knew that most of the contents would end up in my computer keyboard? Ugh. I tried to save the keyboard by squirting in between the keys with the dust-squirty stuff in a can, but it’s just plain sticky. There are probably too many or not enough spaces in between words thoroughout this post. And to top it all off, something is wrong with the spell checker, so I don’t even know if I spelled the word “thoroughout” correctly. Cry for me.
So that’s the scoop from here for now. I have more to post, but I’m not sure if it will make its way out of my head anytime soon.

[Open note to Kristi: I know! But look! I posted something!]

One of THOSE Days…

So since 9:30 this morning, I have successfully:

1. Washed 5 loads of laundry,

2. Dried 5 loads of laundry*,

3. Unloaded the dishwasher twice,

4. Loaded said dishwasher once (I tried!),

5. Went to the grocery store,

6. Picked up children from school,

7. Learned of the Book Fair at school,

8. Visited Book Fair at school,

9. Resisted more than 25 pleas each of “Buy me this!” at Book Fair,

10. And took children to Sonic for SURPRISE! Happy Hour Drinks (Mark had An Important Conference Call, Please Take The Children Somewhere Else For At Least An Hour).

Now this is where it heads downhill…

11. While whoopin’ it up at Sonic, I must have left my brain in my Dr. Pepper marinade for too long, because I forgot all about what happens every Tuesday. Every stinking week. The girls have gymnastics. Ugh. I completely forgot.

(Pretend this is a blank space between these two paragraphs, because I have typed HTML code into this space for a new paragraph at least 45 times continuously and every time, the silly Wordpress or Firefox or TinyMCE or whatever deletes it. Ugh. Have you noticed that “Ugh.” is my new mantra? What is up with that?!!)
12. We dashed home to find gymnastics clothes, because we still had a fighting chance to get there (a little late, but get there, at least). I shot into the laundry room because I knew the gymnastics clothes were in the dryer, but when I got to the dryer, I could not find them anywhere. Ugh. Mark was still on the phone, so the kids were waiting in the hot sweaty garage in the car. I dashed into their room to get their “old gymnastics clothes”. When I showed up in the garage, one of the children informed me that “Those are too small! My underwear sticks out of those!”. It was then that I admitted complete defeat. Ugh again. So I will have to call for a makeup class. (And when I say that in my head, it sounds as if my children will go to a class to learn to apply lipstick and rouge. No. “Makeup” as in “You forgetful mother, you forgot to take your kids to gymnastics class. You know, the one that costs money? Yah, that one.” I’m sure you know this, but…no need to make assumptions, right? We’re all friends here.)

13. On top on everything else, I had neglected to plan for dinner. Oh, I have the entire rest of the week planned, but for some wild and unknown reason, Tuesday night is blank. Hm. Luckily for us, I found Pizza Hut Reader BOOK IT! Coupons in the bottom of my purse smooshed between a check I haven’t cashed yet (ha ha) and a granola bar that has the thickness of a postage stamp (how old is that thing, anyway?). So after Mark concluded his Important Conference Call, we made a delectable trip to Pizza Hut/Taco Bell where I paid $7.55 for 5 of us to eat dinner. Not bad. Thank goodness my kids can read!

I guess this afternoon proves that I’m the Slacker Mom. But look at the morning–Numbers 1 through 10! I wish I had taken pictures! Ask the washer! He’ll tell ya!

*In the spirit of being brutally honest, I need to inform you that there are approximately 5 loads of clean laundry on my living room couches waiting for me to fold them. ::clears throat::

Validation

Anyone else out there the oldest child in your family?

FINALLY!! A bit of research that makes sense…. The Plight of the Older Sibling

It’s about time MSNBC.com has something worth reporting…..

The Last of the Rash…I Promise.

Here it is, what you’ve all been waiting for, to be sure:

Picture taken on Friday, May 16. Two weeks after exposure and one week after cortizone/steroid treatment began. Ironically enough, this picture was taken at the same park that diseased me (but far on the other side of the park where there are only frisbee golf baskets and open fields and none of those awful man-eating plants). Not too bad, eh? It’s still VERY itchy, but not too horrible. I’m going to make this my final poison ivy saga installment. It’s starting to cramp my style.
Thanks for checking up on me! More about fluff later!

UPDATE!!!

The Rash of Doom has indeed made a journey. My camera battery has died and I have not charged it yet, or I would show you the pathways of rashness. Good news! My camera is alive! Pictures forthcoming! I know you are relieved!
The title says “UPDATE!!” all happy-like, so I will give you the shortened version (there is a long version, believe me).

I put a call in to my doctor to get an appointment yesterday morning. At 3 minutes until 11am, almost an hour after I called, the nurse called me back to tell me that if I could be there by 11, I could have “the only appointment the doctor has open today.” Ha ha! I live at least 20 minutes away, so I knew this was impossible. PLUS! I still had in my charge, Luke, as well as a friend’s son, who I was watching part of the day for her. And if you think taking 2 small boys under 4 to a perfectly civil doctor’s office is a good idea, you have not exposed yourself to the grim realities of such an endeavor. Horrifying even to the most experienced! For the record, taking 3 children (even if they are all mine) between the ages of 4 and 8 is also no picnic, but I didn’t want to put off any beneficial doctor visit for fear of my entire arm needing amputation or some such extreme measure. Remember, I possess a flair for the dramatic.

Here is my arm Friday evening, probably at its worst. Ick. It was spontaneously oozing and even bleeding at times. Grossy gross. Truly.

To make the story shorter than it really is (ha!), I’ll just tell you that a dear friend called and offered to watch the 2 boys if I would go and get the Rash of Doom taken care of. So I “web-checked in” (online, that is) at the local urgent care clinic and was told of an hour long wait. Which was fine, because I still needed to take the boys over to the kind friend to watch them. (In all honesty, the kind friend had a babysitter watching her own child, because she was working on her computer, for reasons which do not matter for this discussion. I wanted to document this just in case the babysitter or any of her relatives are reading this. Heh. So, the babysitter actually offered to watch the kids, but in my friend’s house. Is this making any sense? I thought not. Read on. If you dare.) So much for the “shortened version”.

So, I delivered the boys and while driving back towards the clinic, they called and said the doctor was ready. I think, in actuality, this translates to “The doctor has now finished with the patient that is 43 people in front of you in line. Please come in and wait for an amazingly long length of time. But at least we have flat screen TVs in every waiting room and intriguing, yet inane, movies like “The Kid” with Bruce Willis playing on them. Thank you for entering yourself into our ever-expanding cue of exasperated patients.” And so it was.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, I made it there and “live-checked-in”. And waited. Then they moved me to the Actual Examination Room. And waited. Then the nurse came in and inspected me. And then I waited another long time. Then the doctor (who looked all of 23 years old sopping wet) examined me and the diagnosis was made. Poison ivy! Surprise! But a “really bad case.” Then I waited some more. Then the nurse came in and shot me in an undisclosed location with steroid-juice. Then I waited some more. And the nurse came back and gave me a prescription for steroids. Since I was still oozing, I asked her if I should wrap it in a bandage. To which she replied, “I’ll go and ask her real quick.” Uh… How about if I just follow you out of this time warp, thanks?

In the end, there was indescribable amounts of waiting, but I got the meds and now, 3 days later, it looks much much better and I don’t think amputation is necessary. It still itches, but I’m ok with that.

Here is what my arm looks like today, May 12. It looks extremely creepy, but it’s “drying out” and on the mend.

So! All this to say, many, many thanks to my internet friends who suggested I visit the doctor. You were very helpful and I’m glad I have people who can share their experiences with me. Thanks!

The Journey of a Rash

Sounds like some sci-fi phenomenon, eh?

Nope. Just me. Being my friendly, happy, neurotic self.

Take a look at these pictures (have I ever told you how much I love my camera? It does ALL the dirty work.)….and just so you know, I’m putting them below the “More” line. They’re kinda gross. Well, no, to be perfectly honest, they’re really icky. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!
Continue reading The Journey of a Rash…