All quiet on the flist front, but apparently I've got a lot to babble about.

[aome]

Whoa. Where did everybody go? Before I left the house this evening, there had been exactly ONE post to my flist in the past 48 hours. Since then there have been five additional posts, from two comms and a single flistee. Is everyone on vacation?

Two had her half-birthday slumber party last night, the first actual slumber party (as opposed to a

Comments

[lachan]

Wouldn't it be an incentive for MiniPlu to take her Black Belt test together with Two, being able to attend the same classes afterwards?
Why wait for you?
Her reluctance must run deep if she prefers to wait for you to come to Black Belt level tests.

Also, I am very curious: do you leave your kids at home alone by now? without babysitter?
It just occured to me that MiniPlu is babysitting, hence, alone at somebody's elses home, looking after smaller kids/infants, when she herself haven't been left alone at her own home yet? Ist this the case?

Maybe I missed this fact that by now, you can leave your daughters at home alone for a longer span of time, too, but, it made me wonder..... :)

[aome]

I've been leaving MiniPlu at home for an hour or two at a time, during the day, since she turned 10. She's not as comfortable once it gets dark, although that's thankfully pretty late in the summer. I COULD leave Two with her, but unless I'm just running out for 15 mins, I usually don't, because I don't want to come back to a war zone. :-P MiniPlu is fine with being by herself at home for up to a couple of hours, and she's okay with babysitting someone on her own, but she doesn't want to GO anywhere by herself. Like ... walking a block up the street by herself, to go to a neighbor's house. And don't even think about riding her bike by herself to go anywhere. I remember loving the freedom as a kid, but she doesn't want it.

But she's fine with babysitting, because she's not GOING anywhere.

[loupnoir]

Thanks for the Temeraire review. I kind of lost interest at least two books back. Probably read too many in a row. That's always a killer for me, and I know it, but I just can't stop. I'll have to see if the library has the later books.

I finally got my computer back on Friday, and since then, it feels like I've been buried in Audubon work. I took on the local chapter's website a few weeks ago, redesigned it, and I gather they must like the redesign since the officers keep sending me stuff. Still don't have all the updates online.

Other than that, all of my time is taken up by the garden redo project. We just passed the halfway mark and with one small bed as the exception, everything else is pre-cast concrete beds. It's the sorting through of our dirt that takes for freaking ever, but it will be worth it if we don't have that invasive grass or the nasty blackberry or the sheep sorrel or the stachys in our veggie and flower beds.

[aome]

I can't even imagine how heavy concrete beds must be! But I'm jealous that you might have weed-free veggie patches. It's a never-ending battle for me, and I have to wait for it to rain to loosen up the dirt. (Ok, I don't HAVE to wait, but it works a lot better.)

I'm with you - I can't really read multiple books in the same series, all together. I remember that was true way back when I was reading the Clan of the Cave Bear books for the first time; I'd start the next one, all eager, but just couldn't get into it. I'd walk away for awhile, then come back and be able to read - and enjoy - it just fine. (Well, except for the last two books, which just stank. :P)

How's it going with Trouble?

[hamsterwoman]

Wow, I didn't realize that Two was so close to black-belt testing! Even if it's not late fall, I can definitely see why she would be excited to maybe get her belt ahead of her older sister

[aome]

I think the chances of her testing in late fall after only getting her cho-dan-bo belt in late July are pretty slim, but she's definitely excited by the prospect. She's just not crazy about putting in the actual WORK of practicing. :P I wish, sometimes, that I had joined when the girls had, or soon after, so I'd be a higher rank and could go to the black belt classes with them, to encourage them. As it is, all I can do is be the chauffeur.

Btw, the Roman figures I thought I'd found at Toys R Us turned out to be Viking - mis-labeled on the website or something, so I didn't get that. Instead I picked up two Iron Man figures to go with the book. Am going to try to get that in the mail tomorrow, if possible, along with your gift.