For an explanation (and other winners) head on over to the MSNBC!

Didn’t I just finish college a few years ago?

Wait, no, there’s also those advanced degrees I hold….

And somehow a lot of my free time seems to have been devoted to a four-year-old and a seven-year-old who starts second grade this fall! Time is flying by.

And, given my recent change in employment status from tenure-track-professor to stay-at-home-mom, this seemed like a good post to share my results from the following quiz. Go ahead. Take it yourself and let us know, how do you rate as a 1930s wife?

Here’s my score:

20 As a 1930s wife, I am Very Poor (Failure) Take the test!

Oh well, after 12 years, I’m afraid not much is likely to change.

That means we’ve eaten out quite a bit. My four-year-old (self named DahDoo) has always had an interesting take on words and phrases….

So, we’re at Red Robin. DahDoo points to a photo on the kid’s menu. The waitress arrives and I order his request – grilled cheese. He screams indignantly, “No!!!” We all stare at him in confusion as he turns bright red. “I’m a boy! I want a boy cheese sandwich, not a girl cheese sandwich.

I’ve spent the last two days puzzling out why this site and another site required all of you to hit that refresh button so often. It was really annoying, so I’ll name names. Turns out it was our hosting site, HostGator and the even slower site was being hosted at GoDaddy. I’d like to thank all of you who let me know that you couldn’t see posts and comments quickly – thanks for sticking it out.

Now, I’m upgraded to 2.5 and running quickly. :

I can’t tell you how happy I am to be on a hosting site that runs WordPress so well

Now, however, I’m tempted to play. So, please don’t be surprised if you see the themes change – I’m feeling like trying a new template because this one is feeling a little cluttered. Something in a two column I think… I promise I won’t do it too much.

Here are the rules:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people and post a comment to the person who tagged you once you’ve posted your three sentences.

The closest book is Medically Important Fungi (my husbands, not mine). So, I’ll assume you meant the nearest fiction book. That happens to be The Singing Stones by Phyllis A. Whitney. Its pretty good so far..

“He closed his eyes as though he wanted to shut everything away, and he made no effort to answer his daughter. Paul wheeled him away, while Jilly stared after him darkly. “He doesn’t care!”

Okay. I’ll tag Carat, Cynthia, Mama Moose, Gina B, and nomadshan.

I know tags annoy some people, but this one was kinda fun. So, pass on the tag, or let it stop here – your choice.

…And Their Consequences

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We have a sweet black lab that we trained to a wireless fence.
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The basic principle behind the thing is that there is an underground wire around your property that is linked to an electrode on a collar they wear. When the dog gets too close, the collar beeps a warning. If the dog tries to cross the wire, it zaps her.
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Nira trained very quickly and the wireless fence was all we’d hoped it would be (except for an occasional broken wire). But then we moved.
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In our current house in Massachusetts, we have a fenced backyard (as in wood, no wire). Nira, however, trained really well.
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Shortly after we moved here, our cell phone service (Verizon) started sending us text messages in the middle of the night (3:30am). Our cell phones would then make a small electronic beep indicating a message awaited us. Poor Nira thought she was going to be zapped. At 3:46, precisely one minute after the first warning beep, she arrived at our bedroom door, quivering, tail between her legs. At 4:00am, the next beep occurred and Nira peed on the floor.
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I went downstairs to figure out what the problem was and made them mistake of letting her outside to calm down. Its 4:15am, cold outside, and the dog won’t come back inside she’s so scared…. Much coffee was consumed the next morning.
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The same events (thankfully without peeing on the rug) occurred over and over. As such, we have no text messaging service.
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Unfortunately, Nira also thinks that the cell phone is out to get her when it signals its battery is low. We’ve told these stories to family members, none of whom believed us, until last night.
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The kids were in bed and my husband and I were sitting in the living room chatting with my visiting in-laws. My cell phone beeps. Low battery. The dog appears from the other room where she was napping. I started to laugh. Watch this, I tell them. Minutes later, my phone sounds its ominous warning again. Nira leaps onto the sofa (she’s well trained and would otherwise not dare) and shoves her way behind me, burying her head and quivering.
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Nira’s a big, black dog (intimidating to those who don’t know them) and it was quite a sight. It was when we were done laughing that my in-laws admitted they hadn’t realized how terrified she really was until they’d seen it for themselves.
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It’s been two years since we left that wireless fence in Savannah, Georgia. Tomorrow, we’re putting a bid on another house in Connecticut. It has a wireless fence for dogs….