WW - Whooooooo's Lookin' at You?

(c) 2009 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

5 Lists of 5 Things

(c) 2009 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Things my 4 1/2 year old daughter has read on her own this week:

• hot
• fat milk*
• low fat (on cereal box)
• fox
• And while looking at the word "time" in Pajama Time, she said, "Oh, that e is a silent e."

(I'd say we're raising a reader around here!)

Things Penguin has said lately:

• New. Egg! New. Egg!
• Fall out!
• No Hoppa! ... Oh, man.
  
• Na-na fix!
• No! O-tay butt!**
  

Translations of what Penguin's said lately:

• Mommy, please read me this great Good Egg book! [Thanks again, Mary Beth!]
• Hey, Mom, I just sort-of accidentally climbed out of my crib! [And at about the same age her sister did, too...]
  
• Swiper, no swiping! Swiper, no swiping! Swiper, no swiping! .... Oh, man!
  
• Hey, sister of mine, could you help me out with this problem I have? OR Hey, Mom, my nice sister just helped me with a problem I had!
• No! I don't want my diaper changed! My bottom is just fine, thank you very much!
  

Things I need to do this week:

• start doing The Shred again
• make Penguin's 2nd birthday cake & wrap her presents (When did she get so big?!?!?!)
  
• sign up for summer session dance class
• bring bag of stuff to Goodwill
• write baptismal gift thank yous
  

Things I'm currently fearing:

• Jillian Michaels
• the scale
• how long it's been since I last did the 30-Day Shred
• swimsuits
• doing push-ups
  

*the line above it was "2% reduced" which makes it all make sense.
** spelling of OK made more phonetic, 'cuz I think it's cuter as o-tay anyway. :)

WW - Guess Who's Not a Heathen Anymore? (with bonus new cousin photo)

(c) 2009 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

(And here's a bonus "Kisses for the New Baby Cousin" photo!)

Open Letter to a Northern State

(c) 2009 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Dear Wisconsin,
I don't know if you have an official state calendar, but in case you didn't know, it's April. That's a spring month. We don't need this anymore.


Sincerely,
A Resident

WW - Happy Easter! Yay, egg hunts!

(c) 2009 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Hullo & Catching Up

(c) 2009 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Hullo. Wow, look at that - it's been almost an entire week since I last posted. Huh. You'd think I was busy catching up on other people's blogs, twittering, and, oh, maybe trying to fit a million books and a thousand toys into our now-painted-and-plastered office.

Good news - almost all toys and such out of the living room and the sunroom and into the office. Bad news - office closet in desperate need of taking everything out and rearranging/reorganizing/decluttering. But hey, one step at a time, right?

Also, we will be doing a whirlwind trip back to MN this weekend to (finally) get Penguin baptized. Leaving here Fri after work, returning late on Sunday.

I should be packing for trip, but it's quiet time/naptime, so that's a good excuse to be on computer.

...oh, wait... baby monitor says my playtime is done - Penguin's up.

Not so wordless this Wednesday

(c) 2009 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

Sorry, folks, no Wordless Wednesday today. Mr. Kluges's folks were here from Friday afternoon until this morning. Much work was done up in the attic & in the office. The office is still in a state of craziness - with everything from it in the sun room, the living room (Hello, toys everywhere!), or stacked on the buffet or side table in the dining room. The real computer is one of those things stacked up out of the way, so I don't have the ability to download the new pix I've taken or to access any old ones. (I'm borrowing Mr. Kluges's work laptop to post here and at Recipeeps today since he's home to continue working on house stuff.)

So you'll just have to imagine for now Grampa Jem scrunched down in the attic, trying to work in about one foot of space way out under the eaves, or Gramma Yori, painting the ceiling above the stairs with her paint roller on a superlong extended pole, or Mr. Kluges sitting on top of a ladder, plastering the ceiling overhead.

Hopefully I can post pictures later this week, especially since I tried this tie-dyeing with old silk ties trick and it worked ok! Fun, but it seemed like it took forever to wait for the eggs to be done so I could see them!

We're going to do what now?

(c) 2009 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

I'm done with my BD class through Park & Rec since we had our recital a couple of week ago. But, our instructor and a few of us who have had class for two years together have been meeting as a troupe for an hour after class. We work on more advanced moves, additional choreography, zills, etc. We're planning on continuing to meet on our Wednesday evenings throughout the summer.

However, rather rent the dance studio this month, and meet there since we wouldn't already be there for class, we decided to go to a drum circle in a nearby town and dance with them. (We do otherwise pay a reduced rate to rent the space for the hour after class is done.) Our instructor had attended it before, and the drum circle recently performed with a BD workshop that had been in town.

One slight problem, for/with me anyway...

...I don't dance in public.

"But, didn't you just do a dance recital?", you may be thinking. "Like, in a big auditorium for lots of people three different times?"

Well, yes, I did, but that wasn't "dancing," it was "performing." Completely different. We had a routine, we'd practiced (and practiced and practiced), I knew it looked cool, etc.

It's not that I mind being up in front of people. I don't in the least. I did speech tournaments for years in HS; I performed on stage in HS and college; I taught. Heck, I was even interviewed live for a local TC morning news show and (not live) on CNN about an new internet communication tool we were using in our school. (I was on the tech committee and it was the company pushing visibility for the product. They've since gone under, but if you search CNN by my maiden name, you'll find it.)

Those sorts of things - no problem. But DANCING? In front of PEOPLE?

Yeah, um, I think I've got something else to do that day. Maybe I'll just stand over here by the wall.

Seriously, dancing in front of other people terrifies me. At weddings, going out in college, even at this welcoming community drum circle, I'm just horribly uncomfortable with it.

And I know exactly why, not that that helps. I'm afraid of looking stupid.

I'm not good with failure or looking dumb or not doing something well in front of other people. Combine that with going to a very, very small school, where at dances everybody sat on the bleachers ('cuz dances were always in the gym) and laughed at how silly the people dancing looked. Add to the mix the fact that I'm not naturally a graceful person and, yeah, you get a formula nearly guaranteed to produce a wallflower.


But we went. And I did dance some. I also did a little drumming and a fair amount of zills towards the end.

Oh, was it ever outside my comfort zone. Even in a welcoming, supportive environment, with the rest of my troupe, it was just Not My Thing to dance in front of other people.


We're going again next week - in fact for the whole month. I know/hope that having done it once, it'll be easier next time, but yeah, I think I'll just have to chalk this experience up under "Expanding My Horizons" and "Challenge Yourself To Do Something You Think You Can't."

WW - Could y'all change your mental pictures of me to this one?

(c) 2009 Ms. Huis Herself at musenmutter.blogspot.com

('Cuz I think it's the most flattering one I've ever taken. )

(It's the costume from my community ed. dance class recital.)

(And, no, I don't think words in parentheses count against wordlessness. *grin*)