Just a quick hi to anyone who might be popping in since I haven't written in a while. There's just not much going on right now. We're on hold on the yard thing till tomorrow at least and maybe through till next week. But hopefully I can post more yard pictures soon and I can sleep again at night. I wasn't cut out for this home-ownership craziness. >:(

Kids are doing well. They got new computer games and have sort of temporarily forgotten about me, but it's exciting to see Polly doing so well already. She's really good at the memory card game and using the mouse is getting a lot less frustrating for her and she's starting to have more fun with it. And as for Romy, I let her go to pokemon.com yesterday and she spent FOREVER looking up weird creatures with weird names until I thought I'd die. Good thing, though, is it's a surprisingly good way to learn about search engines. She got really good at typing just a few letters in order to find the ones she couldn't spell on her own. You try spelling Jirachi, I couldn't. But there was a will and a way, and now she's a net-searching pro. So, yeah, I never thought I'd say this, but yay for Pokemon.

As for Dane, we got Netflix after considering it forever now. We spend enough on late fines that it shouldn't affect our budget at all, either -- haha grrrrr. But we just got our first three movies -- Hitchhiker's Guide, I Heart Huckabees and Eraserhead. Dane's never seen Eraserhead and he's sooooo excited. Too bad, though, cause I'm making him watch Hitchhiker's with me tonight. If I wait one more day I'll pop. -- And yes, Romy, I really will pop. No joke.

Well, I took sort of a break there from keeping up on this thing, but the good news is we've just been crazy busy around here getting our yard put in finally. Yay!So notice there are no pictures of the backyard, but the front looks great and as you can see from the picture, the girls approve. They even love the slope of it and roll down "the hill" over and over till they get very tired and sleep like rocks. :) Got our money's worth right there.

Well, we're keeping her in Kindergarten. Turns out everyone in the world but me and my mom think she should stay right where she is. So now I would have to fight the world to get her moved up and she's already showing signs of stress over the whole thing so I'm dropping it. I told Dane we'll be dealing with it all over again next year. Mark my words.

I do have some faith in her teacher to keep her interested in school, though. She's been sending Romy's backpack home full of fun books (and notes I don't get -- grrr). But week two and they're still working on the letter M. I asked Romy after school what she learned that day and she said "nothing. we talked about M again" and said again with that tone. You know the tone.

Anyway, I'm grumpy. I think this is wrong for her, but these things have a way of working themselves out, I suppose. I just wanted to get her where she belonged right away instead of waiting for some arbitrary thing to happen so other people can see in her what I see. I mean, come on, she's five and reading at a third-grade level!!! What do they want from the kid? They say she's not mature enough for first grade and that she may not be able to catch up on the math stuff. But seriously, she can do math, she's just never been taught math. I could do that in a week, and mature? I mean, I went to first grade. Hell, there were kids in second and third grades that PEED THEMSELVES!! Were they mature???!!!?!!? But oh, Romy's not mature enough because she's nervous about all of these grownups making decisions about her life without talking to her or even knowing her at all. That would make me nervous too, damn it.

OK, sorry. So I'm mad. I'll write something cheery tomorrow.

Just had to post a picture of this little get-up before I ship it off to Page(Michelle) for her new baby boy due in the beginning of December. She and I have been friends since high school, and I actually toyed with the idea of posting an old picture of the two of us, but it turns out in almost 20 years now we've never managed to both look OK in the same picture. (Oh my god has it really been that long???)

So anyway, picture or no picture I love Page, and good luck to her and to Deane, and just basically yay for black baby clothes! :)

Finally time to write again after a wild and crazy weekend. My parents came down from Seattle (Port Ludlow) to visit us (the grandkids). I probably should have taken the camera for at least one of the three days, but oh well. :)

We saw the Jordans yesterday, and they let Dane smoke some trout in the much-talked-about Big Green Egg. But again there, no camera.

So I'm failing in my duties here, but at least I'm still writing, right? I should at least get credit for still writing more than once a week. Yay for me.

Anyway, not much coming up this week but Romy meets with the school psychologist Thursday and Friday, and then Dane and I talk with the principal and teacher after she's been officially tested and everything. Most likely, though, she'll start first grade sometime next week. Hope I'm ready by then. ;)

Well, happy Labor Day to all from the Startups (me). Poor Dane's out laboring today, but hopefully he'll be home pretty soon. I did make a nice family dinner, but he sort of missed it and will have to do some microwaving. I managed to save him the last of the beers, though, and made him a scary-looking strawberry struesel, so that's festive and, hey, I tried.