Hackers

Decisions, decisions...

I'm sitting here finishing up some work and trying to get laundry done before vacation. Chad is at Costco to get food for dinner and a few other small things. (In retrospect, this was probably a bad idea since I'm sure he'll come home with a bunch of stuff that we'll never be able to eat before we leave on Saturday. He has been there for over an hour.) Janice and Nick are at the mall looking for some swim trunks since Nick lost 25 pounds training for the fire department tests and can't fit into any of his old clothes.

Lucy, on the other hand, is perplexed. She cannot decide between chasing around a tennis ball or a squeaky ball. To be honest, she'd like to cart around both, but there's only room in her mouth for one.

Wouldn't it be great if all of life's decisions were that tame?

Say cheese

My new camera has arrived. (Thank you, Lucy, for destroying my old one. I never really liked it anyway.)

Here are a few snapshots from last night to provide a bit of perspective on a random night at our house and my fancy new photo-taking abilities. This was right after the Desperate Housewives season finale which Janice and I salivated over and Chad completely ignored.

1) Chad, all dressed up because he just got home from a work dinner (who the heck schedules Sunday night dinners!?!).

2) Janice debuting her funky/trendy/short(!) new 'do. (Plus the ten inches of hair that they lopped off in a ponytail.)

It's kind of weird that you send off ten inches of your hair to a random address. I'm not sure I'd want to work in the mailroom there.

3) Lucy watching all of us get ready for bed. She's not happy because she knows what happens next. (She gets in her crate and doesn't get to play with anyone for eight hours.)

Snip, snip...

Since Janice moved to DC, she has been growing out her hair. She had it all chopped off tonight and donated to Pantene Beautiful Lengths, which creates free wigs for women undergoing cancer treatments.

The good news is that she went to our tried-and-true hairstylist Brennan. We love him. He cuts all the Tolley girls' hair. The last time I was in there, Brennan was already stressing out about this appointment of Janice's. He thought it would be traumatic for her. (I'm guessing he was right!)

Here is a before and after of the whacking. It's cute, isn't it?

I'm really hoping she's not freaking out!

Holy heat wave

I'm in Sonoma, CA for the next three days for work. Holy cow it is hot here. When Chad and I were here in the middle of August on vacation it was not this hot. I am not complaining because it's not like I'm here to relax, plus all of the evening events have been moved inside. But this is unreal!

Here is our current weather report:

And, contrary to popular belief, when it is this hot, it doesn't really "cool down" at night.

Three simple words

I'm coming to the quick conclusion that there is nothing I hate dealing with more than people who pretend that they know what they're talking about when they really have no idea.

If I ask you a question, and you don't know the answer, don't make up something that sounds good and might be accurate. This is inevitably going to lead me down the wrong road and create a lot more problems than it solved.

Just say, "I don't know" so I can ask someone else. How hard is that?

And for heaven's sake, if you do feed me a line of baloney and I call you on it, please just admit it and let's move on.

**Disclaimer: This posting was not provoked by any incident

in particular and is not about my husband.**

Two by two

We've had five inches of rain in the last 24 hours, maybe more. It seems to have let up for the moment, but I think we're going to get another wallop tonight. Streets are flooded, basements are filled (not ours, fortunately), and the water is running out of places to flow.

Of course, Lucy loves this. Keeping her dry has been a constant battle. Here she is immersing herself in a flooded ditch by a neighbor's fence.

Does anyone know where I could buy an Ark?