One small step for Jen...

one giant leap for Manda-kind! Yes, I did it. I researched. I watched. I waited until the last possible moment and then SPRUNG into a bidding frenzy over at Ebay! I was fast! I was furious! And I *won* a large boxed set of Baby Einstein DVD's. Jen, stop laughing. I nearly had a heart attack!

Watching movies is a privilege in this house. I'm not a fan of parking the kids in front of the tube or computer for hours on end as it seems to stunt children's ability to entertain themselves by putting their imaginations to work. My parents never had to unplug and *make* us go outside when we were young. "I'm bored" was phrase my sisters and I had no concept of. We were master fort makers, frog catchers, and mouse hunters extraordinaire! Our favourite pastimes were pretending we were horses and playing our own little version of 'The Price is Right' (boy did that ever stick ;) ) wherein the correct retail value of a jar of brown sugar was "a-coc-ian" dollars - that's more than infinty you know - and a fork went for the astonishing sum of three million. Silliness as it was, I want to pass this heritage on down. So, for Joshy and Em the DVD's will break up the day rather than make it and they will be learning constructive things as they watch. I hope.

I got out of the house for a bit today. A guy from work invited Josh to bring us all out to see his massive pumpkins before he has them shipped to a contest. As it turned out, the guy wasn't at home when we got there so we decided to find something else to do instead. We had begun driving away from his house, which is just off of a dead end road out in the sticks, when a pick-up passed us going in the opposite direction. Josh didn't know what his vehicle looked like so we turned around to see if it was him. It was not. Instead, when we got back to his house we met his wife and youngest who had just gotten home. Josh pulled in to meet her and to ask her to pass along to her husband that we had stopped by and then we left.

Or not.

The starter had gone on the car. Dead end road. Out in the sticks. Josh went right to poking around underneath the hood, wishing he knew more about cars, and the kids and I got out and visited with the lady and her son. Of course they had a couple of cats which brutally attacked and chewed poor Joshy's leg off, or so it sounded by his terror-striken screaming when they came running up beside him to be petted. I had my camera along so I took a couple of pictures. I haven't uploaded them yet, but they are no doubt blurry due to 30 lb velcro boy climbing my leg. We have got to get some animals...in the neighbours back yard, so Joshy can see them every day and maybe get over his fear. :) Eventually, Josh remembered that you can start a stick shift by rolling or pushing it while engaging the clutch? Something like that. Yeah. So we were back in business. We headed over to Josh's parents' house. It was right on the way, thank the Lord. We couldn't have asked for a better breakdown. We borrow the van (THANKS MOM AND DAD!!), dropped the car off with the mechanic, and got home just in time to bake my peasant loaves. I thought they'd be over-risen because we were late, but they turned out great. You must try this recipe. It's the bottom one.

Wow, if you've read this far, I salute you for your perseverance! My bedtime has come and gone and I'm ready to hit the hay, but I really want a large piece of greasy, msg-loaded, non-healthy pizza right now. Meat lovers with Canadian bacon would be good or some of Tam's. She makes great white sauce and Hawaiian. Yumma! Ooh, or Ann's spicey Italian style! What kind do you like?