SERIOUSLY?

Sorry to be gone for so long, but y’all are going to love this: I have/had strep throat AGAIN! And yes, it’s totally my fault. About halfway through my course of antibiotics I forgot to take them for about two days (I don’t know why, perhaps I have other things occupying my mind;) and when I remembered I thought…ah, it’s no big deal. But apparently it IS a big deal because I came down with it a second time in 2 weeks. Pretty amazing even for me.

(The doctor thinks perhaps the strain I have is penicillin resistant and has put me on a new course of antibiotics. He is also still amazed that I am the only one in the family to have it.)

And in other news, Jenny of The Bloggess and Min of MamaDrama have joined forces in a new blog called Good Mom/Bad Mom - which is just as funny as you would expect, so check it out!

(and Jenny has these "magic" technorati powers and knows whenever anyone talks about her, so say only good things otherwise she will sic her cat killing vet on you:).

Graffiti, an art form?

Here Amy's sending people to me to see how my walking is going and I was out for a week with strep and birthday:). But I have gone 123.45 miles since February 4th.

I have come to appreciate graffiti as an art form. And a kick ass art form at that.

Here in Warsaw there is one really L O N G wall on Puławska that the graffiti artists use to showcase their work. I don't know the process of getting the wall, but I know since the last time I was here (2004), all of the panels have changed except the one with the horses. Unfortunately, the vandals, who just enjoy painting their names and nonsensical things, come along and "ruin" the graffiti artists' art as well.

Today I went shopping for socks. I have always owned cotton socks. Plain, white, cotton socks. This was a throwback from my childhood, because my parents only ever bought me the plain, white, cotton socks so I continued with that tradition. Recently I read that cotton socks can contribute to blisters and was like, "DUH!" that's why I get blisters when I walk/run (I pretty much ALWAYS have blisters). So I had to go buy some non cotton socks. Not a real big problem because I'm not sure you can find pure cotton socks here. But can someone please explain to me the colors?

Cutesy...

Unfortunately, I have for you a cutesy story today.

Pamela played Easter Bunny yesterday while the rest of us were at church. In so doing, she also, knowing her brothers would LOVE it - made them a treasure map of where the eggs were. How adorable is that?

And, in another semi funny story: Pamela served at the Easter Vigil on Saturday, so I went along - she'd need a ride home:). There were approximately 50 people there, which is quite low for our church which is packed on Sundays. At the end of mass, Father

Wiesław said thank you to the altar servers, the readers, the choir, the people who did the flowers, and "those who came without their spouses because their spouses had to stay home and watch the children". I looked around and was like "Hmm, that's me." I mean how much more specific could he be? "I'd like to thank Kylie for coming."

Afterwards, I was all like, "Hey, father! Thanks for the shout out! Peace out!"

Happy Easter!

Fun searching for eggs.

The Easter Bunny:). (She and I went to the Easter Vigil, so she played Easter bunny during church this morning.)

Blaise's first egg.

Hope you all have a happy Easter, if you celebrate. If you don't, have a fabulous Sunday:).

No such thing

So last night we went to Le Cedre (which is my favorite restaurant) for dinner for my birthday.

Here's Blaise and I:Yes, I'm wearing the scarf I painted as a headband. I don't wear scarves normally, so this is what I chose to do with it, especially since I trimmed my own bangs too short:). And yes, that is red wine, which I gave up for Lent (along with Diet Coke, which has been KILLING me) but it WAS my birthday! It kind of sucks when your birthday always falls during Lent.

But my crafty stuff recently has been these:

I've been listening to CraftyPod and she mentioned paper beads, so I just had to find out how to do that. Not that I'm that into beads (I do have a few from my time in Ghana, but I don't do anything with them - they sit in my stash waiting to find their purpose), but I thought that it would be something interesting to do while I watch 3 boys play in the bathtub (so that they don't kill themselves). I am totally into paper though, so this works for me! And, they're very cool ('cause they're super lightweight) on layouts and cards, so win-win!

Go shorty, it's my birthday!

And this:THIS IS THE BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT EVAH! (I don't have it yet, because it didn't arrive in time...but soon:).

I'm feeling much better (antibiotics are a miracle drug), thanks for all the well wishes! Oh, and strep throat is the best diet EVAH! I lost 8 pounds in 3 days - guess that's what happens when swallowing feels like it's ripping your throat apart.

That's all I have time for today, but stay posted 'cause I have a couple funny stories to share and some crafty stuff to share too;).

It's Freaking Snowing!

Sorry that I've been missing, I have strep throat (which is in itself a funny story, but will have to wait until I feel better). I'll go back to laying on the couch and watching bad TV in a few minutes, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I haven't forgotten you.

A picture for you today.
March 8th is International Women's Day and Toby's teacher had us all paint silk scarves for ourselves. The above is my painted scarf. The letters are my children's initials and a poor attempt at covering up my mistakes (in hindsight I should have just left the mistakes).

I'm on antibiotics and I hope to be back up to blogging and blog hopping tomorrow.

Giant Freaks!

Okay, I'd seen these ones around town and today I actually drove out of my way to take the pictures. I laughed out loud at these ones. You don't need a translation as it doesn't matter what the sign actually says, but do you get the impression from these signs that Poles are a race of giants?
It's really hard to see in the second one, because I had to take this photo from across the street while driving (gasp) but the line at her neck says 6'0" (this blonde has got to be at least 6'7", is there a woman out there who is that tall?).

My sister is 5'11" and says she feels like a drag queen when she wears heels...imagine what this woman feels like:).

My son, the Hulk

I feel pretty wordless this week, so here's another couple of pics for you.



Seth hid a green marker in the van and because he sits all the way in the back seat and behind me, I can't see him. On the way home from school he apparently thought it would be better to be green. I guess he didn't know that "It's Not Easy Being Green".

Signs, signs, Everywhere a sign!

Yesterday I started out thinking that I would go out and take 12 pictures on the 12th. In doing so, I found all my favorite signs. So today, since I'm feeling silly, here's my favorite signs on my normal 40+ miles a day commute (not reducing my carbon footprint all that much).

This is an ad for a TV show. The name translates to 39 and a Half. This ad alone made me very interested in this show. It's actually a pretty interesting show, even if it is all in Polish and I only understand about half;).

This ad just confuses me. My best translation of this is "Beware (of) me Father" or perhaps "I should beware, Father". Really, totally confusing. I'm working on getting a Polish friend to give me a better translation and perhaps it will make more sense. But Pamela and I figure it's for a clothing line called Virginity. Just a really weird sign. Updated: It means "Keep an eye on me, Father" which makes much more sense, but is still weird.

This one is one of many shops around town that sell "Cheap Clothing". I don't know if they have actual names or if they are a chain of "Cheap Clothing". I've never been in, but I'm actually quite interested. In some of them the price is based on how much it weighs. Which sounds fun, and if I ever had a "partner in crime" as my friend Patty says, I'd TOTALLY check these places out.

This is my ABSOLUTE favorite sign. It's a road sign and it says that there's construction on Puławska (a major artery) from 29 Feb. - 30 June. It says there's a detour on either Sikorskiego or Sobieskiego, but it's where this one is located that makes me love it so much. It's on my way to Seth's school, and because of this sign, my commute time is cut by 30-45 minutes each day. It TOTALLY rocks!

And I got two packages yesterday. One from JoAnn's:

And one from Lisa, Toby's godmother and one of my best friends:

She spoils us all rotten and we LOVE her for it:). I think Toby knows her handwriting because when he saw the package he REALLY wanted to see what was in it. Forget that stupid JoAnn's box, this has got to have candy in it (although he was eager for books really).

And in the last two days I've broken 100 miles in my virtual walk! I'm still behind (that week off killed me) but I'm catching up!

Wordless Wednesday

Why don't you get a job?

It cracks me up that you all like my pink boxing gloves. I like them too, and the kids and I have fun playing with them (although I have banished them to the closet for now because when they are in sight the two older boys put them on and beat each other up with them).

This comment from Amy had me laughing and thinking:

"I LOVE your pink boxing gloves...too fun...he thinks your a bad ass...LOL"

The part that got me thinking was the "bad ass". Am I a bad ass? No, I'm pretty much a wuss. I can't tell people off, I can't criticize anyone, I suck as a leader, heck, I can't even ask Toby's preschool to refund the money for the time that he wasn't there (2 weeks missed for surgery). The worst she can tell me is no, but for some reason I can't bear to hear it.

I skipped the Lenten retreat on Saturday because I chickened out. I can't go into a room with people I don't know without a tremendous amount of anxiety, which usually makes me not try new things.

I could so totally become agoraphobic, especially with the life we live. And then I would sit in my house and blog all day...hey...

And speaking of fear, here's me on the motorcycle going out for a ride (we went down to the Shell station and back):

So it's very cool that Dylan thinks I'm a badass, 'cause I SO don't think I am:).

Shadowboxer

So when Dylan and Toby were gone he called me one day and told me "I got you a present. It's a surprise!"

When they got back, he says "Do you want to see what I got you?" I said yes, of course.

So here it is:
What do you think he's trying to say?

And, because I'm going to pick on him for a bit, the night he and Toby returned, I made turkey burgers for dinner. He said, "Wow! Real meat? What's the occasion?" For those of you who know my husband, you know that he "doesn't eat meat" and he'll go into his whole spiel about how he doesn't eat it and why, and every lent when our family talks about what we're giving up he responds "I give up meat all year. It's my sacrifice." This year, I started making a LOT of vegetarian dishes (I'm not all that crazy about meat myself, but I do eat it), and Mr. Vegetarian has been complaining about it. He'll run down to the store (or send Pamela) and get kabanosy (a dried skinny Polish sausage of sorts), so that he can have his meat fix.

I love him anyway:).

*in all fairness to him, he does eat meat, but only poultry and fish, no red meat or pork. But he is nowhere NEAR vegetarian.

Toby - New and Improved Version!

They're back!

After a 15 hour train trip, 10 days away, a surgery and a 2 hour flight, they're back! When I picked Toby and Dylan up at the airport, Toby jumped into my arms and we just hugged and hugged (even though he's the middle boy and no one really cares about the middle child;). When I finally strapped Toby into his car seat, Dylan looked at me and said "Do I get a hug?" I said, "Ah, you're secondary. This is my baby!"

And this is the new and improved Toby. His new features: instead of not actually being able to hear you, he now IGNORES you (but you can tell because he smiles while he does it)! When asked why he insists on being so loud, he responds that it's because of his ears. Same as the old features: smiles like a goof when you take a photo of him:).

I'm going to the commissary. Who's coming with me?

I went to the mailroom today and I ran into the supervisor who asked me, "Hey, did you get your package?" I was like, "I'm just coming to get them." and he said "The one that went missing, I think it's here." (We had a package just disappear and Dylan had been hounding this guy. As an aside, I SO want his job!:)

So I go to the window and talk to the Polish guy behind the counter. It went something like this:

Him: "Prosze." (Basically "May I help you?")
Me (in English): "There's a package for me. Hrncir (phoentically Hern Sir, you know you were wondering;)
Him (after checking the packages): "No."
Me: "W. told me there was a package."
Him (checking again): "No, sorry."
Me (looking over at the packages, recognizing a company that I ordered from): "What about that white package over there."
Him: "No, that's for Hern Cheer."
Me: "Yeah, that's me." giggling "Sorry, I mispronounced my name."
Him (laughing): "Prosze bardzo, Do widzenia." (You're very welcome. See you later.)

The joke in this is that because it is a Czech last name (another Slavic language) he is actually pronouncing it correctly. But because it's my husband's name and his family is from the States, we pronounce it differently.

So Pamela's confirmation dress came. We need to do some altering (take in the bodice a bit and shorten it to about mid calf) but here's the "before" picture.
Oh, and don't worry, I won't actually ban the girl who set off my alarm from my house:). I still find it amusing to imagine her face when that alarm went off.

*edited to correct spelling.

It's a sick house! - insert music here

I've been playing around with my blog name. I wanted something more creative than who we are and where we are (no to mention that I always get a little freaked out when someone in Warsaw leaves me a comment, which is funny because I think Amy and Trevor think I'm stalking them;).

I think I have decided on "I've been everywhere" which is, at least the best known version in the States, the title of a Johnny Cash song. Americans have probably heard it on the Quality Inn or Best Western commercials. A little bit of trivia, it's actually an Australian song, the names were changed throughout other countries, but it started out in Australia! GO AUSSIES!:)

My kids are all sick, all the ones that are here at least. While this usually makes my job a little bit easier, it is also inevitable that I will get the sickness. I will be the last one, of course.

We had a scare over the weekend. Pamela had some friends over and they were watching "The Shining" (yes, I do know what a bad mother this makes me, but it kept them fairly quiet and out of my hair). I set the alarm and went to bed. At about midnight, the alarm went off. Now, when the alarm goes off it alerts the embassy and the local guards, usually we set it off accidentally by opening a door or window without disarming the system (or walking around in the attic, but who does that really??). The girls were freaked out. Then shortly after I disarmed the alarm and convinced the embassy and the local guards that we were really alright, our chime that tells us when a door or window opens went off twice (indicating that the door was opened and then closed). The next morning, after a horrid night of sleep due to the unexpected alarm and the horrible winds, I suspected that one of the girls had done it to freak the other girls out (they were watching a scary movie) and then got the shock of her life when the alarm went off. Once I got a chance to talk with Pamela without the other girls, she described all the events and one of the girls was not in the room with them each time something weird happened. So obviously it was one of the girls.

My only dilemma here (because I found it hysterically funny imagining what this girl had done when the alarm went off) is whether she should be allowed at my house again. It disrupted my sleep, which is really my biggest problem with it.

See ya later, from the sick house!