it's one of my favorite things

Public restrooms are a necessary evil. Potty-training children require them at all times. I've been to three already today: the police station (the library wasn't open yet), The Gap, and Target. I think my girls like to use the public bathrooms for the soap, which is disgusting on a different level. You know the smell: gross.

My top ten favorite smells:

1. a bookstore
2. a new book
3. cookies baking in an oven
4. an ocean breeze
5. hazelnut
6. the mountains
7. eucalyptus trees
8. basil
9. thyme
10. wassail

Tamp it to the max with Tampax

Last night I woke up from a terribly leaky dream about my lady plague. So naturally, I ran to the bathroom and discovered I was fine. Swine dream.

In an unrelated story about plugs, Aaron is one of two brand managers for his Business Unit (mountain states + Tx & Louisiana). As of Friday, Aaron was over the mountain states. On Monday he found out the other brand manager had been fired and that Aaron now covers the entire BU except for Dallas. This = more travelling + stress + a minor threat that we may be encouraged to move to Texas. We love where we're at, so we're prematurely stressing this. . . or at least, I am. I embrace change but not now; we love Denver. I just hope they hire someone.

swarm! swarm!

That's how I feel today: swarmed. My mind can't keep track of everything that's happening today; so things just keep flying at me and I rush to swat at them--swing and a miss.

you mean there's no such thing as moon cats?

Aaron has officially been placed in Netflix time out. His last three strikes in crappy movie picks:

1. watchmen
2. transporter 3!!!
3. transformers the Animated Cartoon series

beatings. I don't even want to get the mail anymore. seriously, beatings.

final thoughts

After last week, today feels pretty good. Nothing was demanding; I caught up on all the laundry, walked over to the reservoir with the girls, made dinner from scratch (including bread), and even squeezed in a bike ride with Lore. Now I'm finishing up my story (forever in the making) and almost ready to query.

I blame the gorgeous weather.

I am invincible!

I did it and it worked: 3-day potty training. I'm a believer and a success story. I'm not going to lie, the first day was incredibly rough: 17 dirty panties later and not a drop of pee made it in the toilet. By 7p, I put her in a diaper for bed and my sanity. The next day, she said, "Potty." I ran her to the potty and she went. It has been four days since that first success and we've only had two accidents. Incredible. And she tells me and then she runs to the potty. I help her on because I don't have her on a special kid seat. (I trained Ava straight onto a regular toilet and it is working with Morgan too.) So now I am officially done with diapers.

Aaron's lobbying for a dog. I need to stay strong. A dog would complicate my life too much.

are those the panties that your mom laid out for you

My latest fantasies are web related:

Screen-ed: a website dedicated to reading the school textbooks and outlining any thing that may raise concerns for parents. I like to think it is the Screen-It for textbooks. Parents can read a review of their child's textbook and know about any red-flag chapters their child might read. So that the parents can discuss/focus on these chapters with the kids when they get to them. (my holdup: time and I don't have the books and too much diversity in book selection even within the state.)

[untitled]: A fusion of starfall.com, sight words, rocket math and number games smooshed into a very flashy fun game site for kids. This is a particularly attractive fantasy business right now because it can help my day-to-day life of supplementing the kids' education. It consumes most of my shower time and I'm constantly tempted to start it. And I would love to improve my flash skills. Active X is a retarded language, it is amazing to me that Macromedia has been able to stave off competition. There's a lot to be said for first-to-market. (my holdup: time.) I'm tempted to storyboard the whole site right now. I'm not kidding. It would be so easy if I didn't have to sleep. swine sleeping.

Seriously, Aaron is lucky. What wife fantasizes about business ventures? Power nerds like me...jealous?