The Schmidt House

Based upon the prediction from the "Goof on the Roof", as DLS calls him, we Minnesotans are going to be waking up to a bit more snow. Hopefully we do better than these poor souls in Portland. When I watch this I can't help but think of those little cars from the game "Life". That is what the vehicles look like to me. Oh, watch out here comes marriage - BAM, children - BAM, unemployment - BAM. Would you like to buy some insurance for your house or more importantly for your car after those college loans are paid off? I read somewhere the first driver running into everything in sight was actually an elderly man. His airbag went off after the first hit and couldn't see nor tell the difference between the brake and the gas. Yeah, kinda guessed that.

I love my dog, but really, is this necessary? For a mere $757 plus tax and shipping you too can have the Bedside Platform Dog Bed...

I received the following note from my friend Jen last night. She was doing a bit of genealogy research saw the little blurb in the Wausau Daily Record and thought of me (she knows how bummed I've been about being out of tennis). I had a good laugh. So I was at Ridgedale library looking at microfilm today, searching for obits for Tom's gr-grandparents and thought of you when I saw the attached. They say if it's in print it has to be true. If so, you've got a couple good years left.... Jen

We hosted AE's 9 th birthday sleepover this weekend. Seven friends arrived Saturday night when the snow was beginning to fly, by the time they left on Sunday a.m. we had over a foot of snow. The girls were completely oblivious there was a storm going on outside because they were giggling, dancing, eating and playing. They had a great time having their caricatures done. Each of the girls chose their favorite activity, we had lots of soccer, basketball, ballet and swimming. We even had time for a group portrait. All of the party goers are really very sweet little girls. I love this age, they are really showing their personalities, which are so funny. We didn't have one spat or tear shed (amazing considering they didn't get to sleep until after 2:30 a.m) - just lots and lots of fun.

Tuesdays afternoons are a battle zone at our house. It is piano day. You would think I would learn - what goes around comes around. I used to make my mother's life a living hell not wanting to practice and now our daughter is doing the same. She has got to be the most stubborn person I know, oh wait she is the second most stubborn person. The home office is numero uno. We have the perfect set up, our piano teacher is a wonderful neighbor who lives down the street. He is incredibly patient and kind to the children, way better than the old biddy, Mrs. Morgan, I took lessons from. We have given her chance tickets, celebrated milestones and let her earn cash for playing, still she wants nothing to do with piano "lessons". Sure she plays the piano all of the time, however they are her own compositions. Often I will think she is practicing her new stuff, but it is her originals she is playing over and over again. I usually discover this when we sit down to review on Tuesdays an

I saw this and thought of you after your post last week. I must say I had a good laugh.

Right now our house looks pretty good. Since we had the birthday party this weekend and family birthday party next weekend we got it all ship shape. Now the challenging part will be maintenance. Housekeeping is not my favorite task, nor something I have chosen to excel in. Whenever the house looks like this I always say to myself, "I swear I am not ever going to let it become a mess again." I have yet to keep this promise, usually by day three it looks like a bomb has gone off and I lose all interest after JG sticks American cheese to the sliding glass door and the dog licks it off. I don't think I really knew how much I loved my cleaning lady before I became the "full-time" cleaning lady. I have entertained the thought of hiring a new cleaning lady, but it would cut into the tennis budget, so I have yet to give in no matter how much I loathe scrubbing toilets. DLS and I discussed the cleaning dilemma yesterday, he too acknowledged we all need to pick up and do

My sister called tonight to tell me she went to mass yesterday at ZE and HE's school to celebrate Ash Wednesday. During the homily Father spoke to the kids about love. At one point he asked the parish, "Does anyone have an example of love?" A little boy in HE's class raised his hand very energetically, pick me, pick me. Father turned to him and asked, "What is your idea of love?" The boy said so proud for all to hear, "Two people in a hot tub."

JG has been talking about a sticker all morning. I thought he was referencing some stickers he received from Valentine's Day, however I was wrong. I didn't ask for details like when did you last see the sticker? Where did you get the sticker? I found out what sticker he had lost. JG went to the bathroom and asked me to come in and examine his end product. "Mommy, do you see my sticker?" "What? Where?" I asked confused. "You know the sticker from my apple," JG told me rather disgusted. "Your apple? You ate the sticker on the apple?" "Yeah. It went in my tummy now I want to find it," JG said excited. "You said everything that goes in my tummy comes out in the potty." We didn't look for the sticker to JG's disappointment. We instead went over and peeled one off of an apple in the basket. All better now.

JG has decided he wants his own blog. He wants to call it, JG Uses the Puter (computer). On his blog he will have Game Cube tips, Game Boy complaints, Pokemon stuff and updates on play dates with his friends. He also will have a special section for Speedy to tell how much he loves JG. Here is JG's first post: cgtuioweeejp 345776985214. I am four my birthday is March. Tomorrow I want to play hockey. I feated the Empire with 3PO and R2. Does anyone know how old R2 is? I think he is three and 3P0 is four like me. That's it. I want lunch.

I woke up this morning to a dog covered in chocolate syrup. JG said he has no idea how it happened, however when I put the Hershey's back in the fridge there was dog hair all over it. I don't think I want to know what happened. I am now going to bed and took a look at the flowers AE received for Valentine's Day from DLS. I was thinking I should toss them out in the morning, they are looking a little tired. I then noticed a Hot Wheels car perched in the roses. JG informed me there was an accident, but everyone was ok.

JG and DLS were sitting on the couch last night sharing the last box of conversation hearts JG received for Valentine's Day. When they were finished JG turned to DLS and asked him, "Daddy, do they make hearts with anything you want to say?" "Like what?" "Maybe, sorry I kicked you yesterday."

The following was posted on the WSoPC site today: "Take the PCIQ Tuesday, February 20th 2007! If you missed the 2007 World Series of Pop Culture PCIQ test last Wednesday, you have another chance!" Translation: "Our lawyers told us we have to let everyone have another chance because we received 24,193 complaints at VH1 because our website stinks." Wondering if I should give it another shot?

We Schmidts had a lovely visit at the Nelson's today. It is so much fun when Shelly is home from work and we hang out not doing much of anything except catching up. Here are some of the numbers from today: Zero meltdowns. Can you believe it? The kids got along and we had no tears. A first. One change of pants for Shel since SN peed on her. He is doing really well with the potty training though, just a little fine tuning needed. Two hotel rooms booked for girls' weekend. Ladies, I will forward the details. Three episodes of Thomas the Tank Engine watched by SN. He is so funny when it is finished he lets everyone know. "Thomas, done. Thomas done. Thomas done...." over and over and over and over. Four almost hairballs hacked up by our friend Brutus here to the left. Brutus is Shelly's cousins' dog and he is not quiet. Every time he felt the need he would scare the daylights out of both Shelly and me with this amazing gutteral sound. He looks like he is having a

We are on the last day of a four day weekend thanks to President's Day. It seems like the kids have had quite a few days off lately for one district meeting or another. All I know is it is going to be a very long day with the Schmidt kids. They woke up antagonizing one another and JG screaming, screaming and screaming. Little man seriously screams like a girl, it is this high pitched shrill and he just doesn't let up. AE doesn't seem to mind the assault on her eardrums because she just keeps dishing out whatever JG is screaming about. We are time out #2 and it isn't even 9:30. We are going over to Shel's house at 11:00 for lunch and to share our joy with others, hopefully it isn't contagious.

I am going to sleep well tonight. I just checked travel.state.gov and the Schmidt's passports are en route expected to arrive this week. Thank goodness we didn't take the woman at the front desk's doomsday advice and have them expedited. Hey Eeyore (front desk optimist) I will use my extra $300 for Pina Coladas on the beach with my friend Lori and we will send a big toast to you in the tundra.

So, obviously I am need of a change. I don't do well when things stay the same all of the time. I am desperate to find a different skin for this blog, one that truly represents the Schmidts and the chaos which ensues daily. For now we will have dots, light airy dots. It makes me think of Spring or the hope of it coming soon. This look will more than likely change because I am not happy all of the links are on the left side. Kind of like having to drive on the other side of the road.

Another YouTube gem. This is really a couple of very sweet little videos. I think I want to get a Scottie dog someday, especially a Wheaton Scottie like Kenzie . According to my favorite site Wikipedia Scotties very loving, but can also be particularly stubborn. So in other words they would fit into the Schmidt house perfectly. You may have seen Kenzie on Good Morning America , but there is also a recent Valentine's video as well. Enjoy! I know the kids and I have. Valentine's Day Update from Kenzie and her brother Boone.

This morning JG and I were snuggling, he comes in with his turtle Speedy every morning. JG: Mommy, Speedy and I don't want to go to Mexico. Me: Why? JG: I not know. Just cause. Me: We are going to have fun in Mexico. There is a long pause. JG sits and stares at Speedy and Speedy stares glossy eyed at JG. JG: Mommy, do they have hot tubs in Mexico? Me: Yes, honey I they have hot tubs. JG: OK we will go. We really like hot tubs. Glad we got the hot tub issue addressed. Wonder what the next amenity question from JG and Speedy will be?

This being housebound is no fun, however I have more than enough time to check out YouTube as you may have figured out. JG, his buddy NB and I found this today. It kept them laughing for a good half hour. Nothing entertains little boys more than bodily functions.

We got our new vacuum cleaner last night. The home office was kind enough to pick one up along with our PF Chang's takeout. Take out Chinese on Valentine's is a tradition. Anyhoo, as you can see from the photo we basically sucked up an entire Pomeranian in our upstairs family room. I don't know if I should be embarrassed or pleased. I mean we just vacuumed on Monday with the Hoover and I knew it wasn't picking up everything, but this is ridiculous. The home office was so impressed with the Animal he went downstairs and vacuumed up another canine in the family room down there. I am still trying to figure out all of the gadgets on the machine. I seriously cannot figure out how to attach the stair cleaner. It is really funky how the thing is put together, efficient, but funky. I also for the life of me cannot figure out the directions. I dislike how all European companies, Dyson (UK), IKEA (Sweden) just show you pictures. I always thought I was a visual person, but I am b

The World Series of Pop Culture sucks. I went out to the website at 5:55 p.m. as instructed and was able to get in however it kept erroring out when I submitted my info. Then when you tried to get in the page was not available until the ten minute registration window was long gone. So I thought, no biggie there was another test at 9:00. Once again I sat down five minutes early with multiple windows open to make damn sure I was going to get on. Lo and behold I got in and was doing famously through five of the six categories when the thing kicked me out on the first question in analogies. All I got was: Mookie Blaylock is to Pearl Jam as... THAT'S IT! I was booted out and couldn't get back in because the 10 minute window was up. The only chance I have is if I miraculously make the top 5% with 10 wrong questions. Yeah, that is probably not going to happen. Deep cleansing breath. When that screen went away I seriously had flashbacks of taking the ACT and thinking I showed up late.

JG & AE's latest favorite courtesy of YouTube.

I have been unhappy with our vacuum for quite some time now, it has been good to us for seven years, but I think it is just plain tired. The first indication of fatigue is the fact that our house seriously looks like a dog has blown up in it, the dog hair will not go away no matter how many times you go over the same spot and change out the vacuum bag. The Hoover has been through three dogs, two resident kids, numerous neighborhood kids, popcorn, raspberry smoothies, pulverised packing peanuts, play-doh, more popcorn, the furry child eating an entire box of Easy Mac in the living room. Did I mention popcorn kernels? Oh, and how could I forget - one husband. JG even sucked a screwdriver up in the hose once which got lodged in the machine and I managed to get it out. We have got our money's worth out of the old friend and it is time to say goodbye. So I decided I would buy myself a Valentine's Day gift - a new vacuum - so romantic, but wanted so very badly. I have been doing res

The concert last night was great, very laid back. AE liked it to a point, unfortunetly she was ready to go about half way through the concert. John Mayer played one of her favorites, "Waiting For the World to Change" third and from then on she lost interest. Thank goodness I bought her a bag of popcorn to keep her occupied. We will have to reassess if we are going to do another concert other than "High School Musical" or Hillary Duff any time soon. I guess John Mayer and Jessica Simpson made an appearance at Bunker's . Mr. Mayer even got up and played with the band of the night, "Dr. Mambo's Combo". I think it would have been great if G.B. Leighton had been there, but they are usually Wednesday nights. I used to go down to see G.B. Leighton quite a bit with friends and co-workers before kids. We were at Bunker's once in the middle of a thunderstorm and all of the electricity went out, that isn't fun to be in the pitch dark with 200 intoxi

Tonight AE and I are going to see John Mayer with Mat Kearney opening. I bought the tickets eons ago and am excited to take my daughter to her first official big person show. AE did go to 'N Sync (yes, I begrudgingly admit I went to see Justin Timberlake when he was but a Brillo haired teen) when she was something like three years old. My sister and I took the girls because my niece ZP was so in love with Lance Bass, oh if we knew then what we do now... Anyhow I digress. So, AE is very excited and so am I. I really like John Mayer even though he is dating Jessica Simpson. By the way, he has a very funny blog , he doesn't update it all that often as of late, but some of his earlier posts are hilarious. Very dry sense of humor. Mayer is also a big fan of "The Office". For the Holiday episode, "A Beni-hana Christmas", John's song "Your Body is a Wonderland" was sung by Michael Scott during karaoke. He let them use the song only if they gave him a

Why can I not break this vicious lateness circle I am in? I really don't think I am ever going to change - Galarneault time is in the genes. Wonder how many times I have said, "We gotta go guys, we are late."? Gotta go must be at skating in a half hour, little man and I are both in our jammies and look a mess. This boot thing makes me move even slower, need to add at least five minutes for hobbling. Sigh.

Loving this song right now, "Lazy Eye" by Silversun Pickups. They are coming to the Northrup on April 6th, I would love to go. Very Smashing Pumpkinish, they even have a female bass player. Let's just hope the lead singer doesn't turn out to be nutty like Billy Corgan. The video is great, bit like a Junior High dance, however the music at this teenage soiree was way cooler than any dance I went to in Gillette, Wyoming circa 1984.

The kids have been watching this video and laughing all afternoon. Their favorite is the last little doggie. They are now trying to teach our furry child how to say, "I see a squirrel." Don't think it's going to happen.

They are having an online test to qualify for The World Series of Pop Culture . I think I am going to give it a shot. I've got enough useless info in this head - might as well use it for something. It says on the website they are going to pick 50 contestants randomly from the top 5% test takers. So, when you really get down to it it all comes down to chance, luck or accident whichever you prefer.

Yesterday I did something I feel really good about. I helped my aunt find her best friend from elementary school she hasn't talked to in 44 years. For years when my aunt talked about Marilyn, she would always end with saying, "I would really like to find her, but I don't know where to start." Well, yesterday we started and stopped in about three hours thanks to the amazing invention called the Internet . Marilyn moved from Pine City in the 1950s to Sioux Falls and had a common maiden name which is next to impossible to find someone as there were 22,500 hits for her name on Google.com. Finally I was able to track her down through Classmates.com and Ancestry.com from South Dakota, Texas, New Jersey and finally ending up in southeast Iowa. My aunt called Marilyn last night for a long overdue talk and are going to meet very soon. The best part is Marilyn even invited me.

This little gem comes from a Carson, CA city council meeting. It is unbelievable there are people out there who would put on a show like this after being tapped on the head with some paper. How will the over the top drama queen ever show her face in public again? It is pretty funny though.

I am sidelined for at least six weeks. No tennis - no good. My bad wheel turned into immobile wheel today thanks to an air cast. Not the most attractive accessory. I had been trying to continue playing with the plantar fasciitis guess I figured it was going to be around for awhile so might as well deal with it. This plan actually worked out for the best because when I was playing on Thursday there was this loud pop in the bottom of my foot. Suddenly my heel felt better, so I thought, "Maybe it released all of the bad heel juju into the rest of my foot." Well, it was something like that. Evidently I tore a ligament in my foot which the doctor told me is really the best thing that could have happened. The reason why is it cured the plantar fasciitis. Plus the recovery time for the ligament thing is about six weeks versus potentially months or years with the other. So all in all I guess it was a good thing to tear a ligament. I am bummed because I can't do any exercise for t

There have been many, many funny moments on The Office , however there is not one episode I loved more than "The Injury". Michael proceeds to injure himself at home cooking a little breakfast. Dwight tries to save him and ends up hurting himself more than Michael. It was classic. Dwight rushes out to save Michael and runs his super sporty Trans Am into a pole and gets a concussion. He then drives off forgetting his bumper. Dwight manages to get Michael back to Dunder Mifflin, however then needs to be taken to the hospital himself. So Jim, Michael and Dwight pile into Meredith's (the drunk) mini-van and away they go. During the drive Dwight finds Meredith's stash and bottoms up. The funniest part is Jim sprays him with the plant mister to keep him conscious. Plus there is the classic line, "You can't fire me, I don't work in this van."

I went out to dinner the other evening with some of my best girlfriends. These five women and I started work together many ages ago and have joked for years we are one another's part-time friends because when we first met we all had lives outside of work. Somewhere along the way we really became full-time friends since half of us stay home and the rest (minus one) no longer work at the company where we started our "professional careers". They are frequent readers of the Schmidt blog (even though they don't comment but in person) they were kidding I never blog about them, so here you go girls a corny poem just for you! Ode To My Part-Time Friends Oh, so many years ago, When friends we first became. Our hairstyles, we've had many, But we are still the same. Nik is still the one who tells you like it is, Sue remains so sweet - a mother now of twins. Susie is a two boy mom working downtown in a tower, Amy's still a size zero and teaches little P hockey girl power.

I was awoken this morning to a little whisper. JG: Mommy, do I get to go to the you seem 'em today? Me: No honey. You get to go to the museum tomorrow. JG: Oh. Mommy you said it wrong. It is YOU-SEE-'EM cause you get to see stuff. Get it?

At Karen's suggestion I took a look at BabelFish.com and translated the Japanese into English. Here is the gut busting title: THE CAT AND THE FOOT WARMER. That's it the cat and the foot warmer. I am even more confused. Why would you look at a video entitled, "The Cat and the Foot Warmer"? I know I looked at it, but that was when it was a bunch of symbols versus "The Cat and the Foot Warmer". I can guarantee I wouldn't have chosen to watch that. No wonder I was so confused when I lived in Japan, I guess I just didn't get what really made them happy - now I know. Cats and warm feet.

I have been perusing YouTube the past couple of days. Some people want to share very strange things with their fellow man. Like the video below. I don't get it. I watched it and it is a cat sitting, just sitting. I am not a cat owner, never have been, so maybe I am missing the point. Obviously it is Japanese and I don't understand the title, maybe it is funny. If the title is funny the humor is lost on me. To me it is just plain weird. Either way 45,508 people on the Earth have spent 118 seconds of their life watching this cat sit just sit there. This video has resulted in 5,369,944 seconds or 89,499 minutes or 1,491 hours lost forever and ever and ever. Like I said, I just don't get it.

Today little man and I were driving to tennis when the roads were still not so good. There were accidents everywhere, I couldn't believe how many there were in just a ten mile stretch. I pointed out another fender bender to JG. JG looked at a car in the ditch facing the wrong direction and said, "Mom you not so good, but you are better than them. You drive the right way."

Today I was the going home carpool parent for the four year old boys. I love their conversations, they are the best. We began the ride discussing what they learned today. The boys had a guest speaker, one of the classmate's mother is a dentist, and they made a tooth in art (with very messy oatmeal and rice). We were in the middle of discussing the parts of the tooth when we stopped at a light. Next to us was a very large garbage truck and out of nowhere little MO took notice. "Holy crap that is the biggest car I ever seen! Look at that," MO exclaimed pointing at the gold truck with Randy's Sanitation on the side. JG and MW looked in awe and all they could get out was, "Whoa." I explained the big car was really a garbage truck and it came to our house each week to pick up our trash. They began talking about garbage and let's just say the conversation the rest of the way home went downhill from there. By the time we dropped off the last child the topic of

Last night I was talking to a friend about The Office (the best comedy on TV) and we were laughing about our favorite scenes ever. These are a few of mine.

Today on the news, 'CCO's weatherboy said it could drop to -15 Sunday night. The forecast reminded me of a woman I encountered a few months ago while checking out at Target. She asked me some questions about children's warm weather apparel. "We just moved here from Los Angeles," she stated. "Do you think these boots will be warm enough for my son this winter?" The tag on the boots said they would withstand -10 degrees. "Yeah, those will be fine. We don't get too many days where it is colder than 10 below." She looked surprised. "It really gets to be 10 below here." "Yes, sometimes," I responded. "I think the coldest it ever got in Minnesota is something like -60, but that was way way up north. Here in the Cities it maybe will get to be -10 below once or twice a year." "Oh really," she looked scared. "I thought that was a joke." No joke lady, welcome to Minnesota. Wonder if she knows it is go

Today JG was having his lunch, corn dogs and bananas. He ended up with ketchup all over his face and asked for a napkin. I was in the process of grabbing a paper towel when the phone rang. I stopped to answer the phone and got a little sidetracked. While I was on the phone, JG decided to take his messy face cleanup into his own hands. I watched our son call our dog over, tell her to get closer and then let Mia lick all of the ketchup off his face. He then told me, "I don't need a napkin anymore Mommy."