Top 5 Crazy Quotes from the New Next-Door Neighbor

1. Is it OK if I feed your dogs biscuits and gravy?

2. Oh don't worry, I pet your dog everyday after you leave for work, he won't bite me, (sound of the Bug mauling off her hand) oh he's not biting that hard, oh that's a little hard.

3. Oh am I standing in poison ivy?

4. Go ahead (her daughter's name), pet him! Daughter (after witnessing her mother's mauling): no, he hates me! ( at least she has some sense)

5. We may drink our beer and fight out on the deck, but we like to keep to ourselves.

Can you say "Privacy Fence?"

All for now,
Nugget

Hey Where is the Lexapro Vendor?!

My eyelid has been twitching on and off for the last three days. It hasn't done that since grad school. Today, it twitched almost continuously.

Why? Tonight we took the Little Nugget to her first professional baseball game. We went with family, Hubby Nugget's younger brother, sister-in-law and sisters, and their kids, and a few extra kids to boot. In all, there were 20 of us! Things went well at first, fun was had by all! The stadium has been newly renovated and looks fabulous! I hadn't been there for...geez...almost 20 years, so it was great!

Lovely view of our new scenery!

Little Nugget and cousin K were a little bewildered at first!

Cousins K and A hammed it up, as expected!

Oh super-sweet pic of the Monkey and myself!

Cheering on the home team! K looks a little bored!

Cousins A, A and K!

All the happy faces were had during the first inning or two, then it unravelled. It was dollar night, so of course the food lines were INSANE. And not a hot dog vendor to be had in the stands. The Aunts headed down to concessions to procure nourishment for the young'uns, and they were never seen again. Seriously. They literally stood in line for a freakin dollar hot dog THE WHOLE GAME! And what choice did they have? You're not allowed to bring food in for your brood, so you HAVE to get it there. Not good planning on behalf of the management.

OK this is a bad sign. Beware the impending clusterfuck, and the reason for my involuntary muscle spasms. I am usually uber-ocd-plannergirl, and am prepared for ANY possible Nugget situation. And of course I didn't know what to expect, hence the twitching. Let's just say it was warranted. No snacks for Monkey=unhappy Monkey. So that's problem number one.

Problem number two, as witnessed above in the picture of the Sweet Babygirl, when she proclaimed "I done," and hopped off her chair. This literally means "I'm done" and foretells of impending doom for whatever you had planned to do. Seems the fireworks and the spooky announcer voice booming from apparently out of nowhere freaked the Babygirl a bit.

While we knew we wouldn't be there for the whole game, we wanted to stretch it a bit longer, at least until some of the adults returned thereby restoring the ratio of adults to children to a somewhat manageable amount. By this time, Little Nugget was in the I-need-my-pie-and-something-to-snuggle-with-mode, pictured above. More fireworks were ignited, and then came the waterworks. Monkey toyed with meltdown mode for another two innings. She would stop briefly, only to be set off again, lather, rinse, repeat.

Brother-in-law G, a saintly man, assured us that he'd be OK staying with 10+ kids until the aunties returned, and at the end of the 5th inning, we took him up on it. So we headed out to the parking lot, and Hubby Nugget gets a phone call from the aunties! They were only half-way through the line!!!!!

By the end, I doubt my eyelid was the only one twitching!

All for now,

Nugget

A Good Day to be a Lazy Turd

Team Nugget slept in today, didn't even get dressed until noon. Not even strong coffee can rouse us from our grogginess.

Camping was postponed due to medical emergency, D had a reaction to either a virus or prescribed medication and ended up in the hospital yesterday, so we wish the family H a speedy recovery! And as it turns out, it's been rainy all weekend anyway, so it probably just wasn't in the cards this time. Little Nugget will have to wait for her first camping experience just a little bit longer.

So instead, Team Nugget is engaged in a massive spring cleaning campaign, organizing and such. In the garage Hubby Nugget built a fabulous recycling center and abode for our soon-to-be-acquired composting worms. I'm still working on a collective name for our new Team Nugget mascots of topsoil-creating goodness. I will keep you posted, I'm sure you're on pins and needles!

I cleaned the living room, picked up toys, put away things, then moved to Little Nugget's bedroom, did the same, then back out to the living room where she had messed it up again, then back to her bedroom, where she had messed it up again, repeat, repeat, repeat. The final time she managed to sneak out a crayon and mark up the living room. Good times! Anyone know how to get crayon off carpet? Luckily it's not too visible, it might wear off on it's own. If not we'll just put an ottoman over it. :-)

All for now, time to make lunch!
Nugget

Socialpalooza!

Sorry I haven't been around lately, but it seems I have gotten myself overloaded on social networking sites. Two blogs: Team Nugget and one for work; Two Twitter accounts: Team Nugget and one for the Bug (he has more followers than me!); and now Facebook, which has been occupying a lot of time at Chez Nugget (Hubby Nugget signed up for that one too). So when we're not goofin with the Little Nugget lately, we're catching up with old friends and just generally hangin out. Being social is exhausting! But like I told Hubby Nugget, we need to stay up-to-date so we won't end up like those people who don't know how to email (my boss)! We're doing it for the Sweet Babygirl.

And to those friends and family (especially my family) who haven't got on Facebook yet, sign up already! I'll be your friend!

That's all I've got for today, but I will have grand adventures to retell later, we're going camping tomorrow, Little Nugget's first time!!!! Should be *fun*!

Nugget

I just did spell check and it suggested "forsook" instead of Facebook, he-he!

A Haiku of Goodness...

Wonder Pets, she loves...
Teamwork as high opera
Hug a hedgie, hug

Geeks of the Midwest, Unite!

I am an art historian. Have I ever told you that? I don't remember. I know that I've alluded to my *useless degrees. (*I mean that in the best possible way. That is to say, art and art history are wonderful and interesting courses of study, but they rarely pay the bills.) Anyhoo, I seriously got burned out while pursuing the doctorate, and could no longer stomach the stuff. It just wasn't fun anymore, felt like work (same thing with reading...). Didn't step foot in a museum, except to have lunch with my Visual Resources peeps N & D (see you next week ladies!).

Fast forward to this week, and the annual gathering of regional art historians in a convention-like setting held this year in my fair town. I used to always go to this thing, back in the day when I had mad love for it. I even presented a paper once, in Chicago, 1998 ("Influences of the Decadent Movement in the Art Nouveau Jewelry of Rene Lalique".) That cracks me up, hard to believe that I presented a paper in front of a audience of almost 100 people (people with PhD's!!!)!!! But I can't remember the last one I went to, I just wasn't interested once I went into burn-out mode.

So last week, one of the professors in my department asked if I wanted to go since we're hosting it, I thought, "why not. I'm not paying for it. Plus I get a day out of the office."

You know what? I had fun. It was energizing! All the papers were interesting and I learned a few things I didn't know before. I saw a lot of friends and colleagues I hadn't seen in some time!
And as it turns out, one of my BFFs was presenting a paper! (Little stinker didn't say anything until the last minute!) It was a very good day.

And the best thing, I like art history again!

But no, I am not going back to school to finish the doctorate. You can't make me.

All for now,
Nugget