Last week we bit the bullet and bought a family plus one membership to the Creative Discovery Museum. I figured it would be a good place to take Fuller when the weather gets too hot for the playground, and a fun place to have play dates.

In fact, we were supposed to have a play date today, but my friend Heather got held up at the doctor’s office. But even with out our friends Heather and Jonas, Fuller and I still went to “the museum.”

I started calling it “the museum” and now Fuller says, “Us-ee-um?” I hope that doesn’t mean that all museums have to be just like the Creative Discovery Museum!

We are going again tomorrow, to meet Heather and Jonas, but when I told Fuller we would go tomorrow, he was ready to get in the car and leave that moment. Nevermind that the museum was closed.

I think we are going to have a lot of fun there this summer.

Today I finished a bonafide book. I book I read just for fun. I book that took several days for me to finish, but that is because of the two year old who kept asking me, “Wha do-in Momma? Wha do-in?”

I finished Between, Georgia, by Joshilyn Jackson. When I finished the book, I had tears in my eyes and felt relieved at the outcome. It was something that needed to happen, but the road it took to get there was a bit much for me and made me cry.

But what really moved me was a message from the author in the back of the book, “A door of one’s own.” She wrote about how having a door to close and a room of her own to write in was a very important part of her writing process. She tells how her daughter’s birth kicked her out of her office and trying to make the rest of the house work for her, but moving is what gave Joshilyn that room of her own again.

Well, I don’t have a room of my own, but I can relate to the restlessness of trying to work and getting distracted by the goings on of the house. Let me type one sentence and then open a piece of mail. I’ll type something else and then get called away by a wailing child. The unrest of the messy kitchen distracts my fingers from the keyboard to the dishwasher.

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Well, that didn’t last too long.

In the long line of household appliances and mechanical things to break, the VentoZip scooter is the latest tragedy. It was sold for parts to the repair shop that we took it too. Something about the oil line not working and the engine locking up is what sent it to its grave.

The VentoZip was a fine scooter. I rode it around the neighborhood and to the local market a few times. It was just unfortunate that this type of thing had to happen. It was going to help cut our gas bill way down, and be a source of enjoyment for a few years to come.

Since this is our second scooter in two years (the arrest warrant is still out on the guy who hit Damon), we have decided to table the scooter desire until later in life. It would be sweet to replace it with a another TNG, Honda Metropolitan, or even a Vespa, but we just don’t have the money for any of those right now.

But I did stop and drool over the Honda Metropolitan on display at Nightfall Friday night. And I always stare longingly at other scooters as they go by on the streets (Chattanooga is becoming a scooter town). I notice our friends who have zip around St. Elmo and admit I am a bit jealous- Josiah’s unmistakable Mint Green Stella, Estar’s Raspberry TNG, Cindy’s yellow TNG (that looks exactly like our first scooter- people still think that it is me going down the street when it is her). There is an orange scooter in town that really makes me jealous, since orange is my favorite color.

Maybe again, someday, we can have the scooter lifestyle that many of our friends are enjoying these days. But now, we will stick to the bus, bike, and walk route to save gas money. And it seems to be working.

Since it was just our little family for Memorial Day, I wanted to make a special meal, resembling something celebratory. Holidays call for special meals, right?

I bought steaks earlier in the week, corn on the cob, seasoned fries, and Sister Schubert’s yeast rolls. And yesterday I consulted with my “simple cookbook” (aka my mom) to see exactly how to cook the corn, since I had never done it.

I marinated the steaks for a few hours and then turned on the grill to heat it up nice and hot.

Ya’ll, no one ever taught me how to use a grill and quite frankly, I think I stink at it. The steaks were edible, but your mouth got a bit of a workout chewing. The corn was fine, because I did what my mom told me and a zapped them in the microwave before putting them on the grill. I totally forgot about the seasoned fries (Damon’s favorite), so I put some Pringles on the table. And I didn’t screw up the Sister Schubert’s, so there is a point for me.

Maybe I tried too hard, but I think from now on, I might ask Damon to grill the meat and let me focus on the rest of the meal.

An appropriate title for this would be “Don’t forget your sunscreen.” Good grief, I can’t believe I did that. It still hurts now, and it is on both shoulders.

We have had a pretty quiet long weekend at home. We had two plans for this weekend, but both didn’t happen, so instead we stayed here. Gas prices were the main reason that our plans didn’t work out. But now that we are in the final hour of the long weekend, I am glad that we stayed home.

On Saturday our neighborhood had a yard sale and I took to the sidewalks checking out the wares. That is how I got my sunburn. Amazingly, Fuller didn’t get burned. He was sitting in the jogging stroller, properly covered up, so he was spared the pain that I am in.

Damon got a few projects complete, including fixing the washing machine. Now we just have to put the laundry area back together and I can finish the laundry for another week.

And Fuller just had fun. He played in and around his kiddie pool, rode his bike, and ate a lot of cheese. We also noticed two new phrases in his vernacular: “See ya!” and “Why?”

So, a pretty low key weekend. I did go to the National Cemetery today, which you can read about here. Maybe we will have a low key week.

Our laundry play date today was with Amelia, her Mommy and little brother. A fun fact about Amelia is that she was born on the same day as Fuller. After observing her today I kind of think of her as the female version of Fuller: she is very independent, tough and rough, and very loud.

Fuller and Amelia had a fun time together, showing off their vocals in a various shouting matches. And when I would hear a loud shriek I would immediately turn to scold Fuller, but have to stop because I couldn’t tell if it was Fuller or Amelia.

And that is when I realized, my son screams like a girl.

It has made me giggle all day.

This summer the Police are coming back together to tour the world starting on Sunday in Vancouver and ending in November in Tornoto. In between they will hit the USA, Paris, and Manchester.

To help promote the tour and bring up memories of first dates, proms, and breaking up, Universal Music Group is releasing a new 2-CD Police Set. The Police CD has 28 classic tracks and a vintage pull out poster for the fans.

This would be cool to have to add to my Police collection. Which consists of no police cds at all.

The band got together the year after I was born and took a never-ending sabbatical before I became a desirable demographic for the record companies. Yet they are so ingrained in the culture that I somehow know their songs. I find them enjoyable and think I should have some of their songs in my CD shelves.

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Today Fuller is going to get something he has been wanting all week- a playmate. And I am going to get to accomplish a little bit of the laundry at the same time.

We are having a laundry play date!

Our washing machine is still broken. We decided to attempt fixing it. If this doesn’t work we will probably replace it all together.

We had an appliance repairman come and diagnose the problem. Now we have the part and Damon will replace it this weekend.

In the meantime I have a growing pile of laundry.

I ran into a friend yesterday and when I told her of my plight she immediately offered for Fuller and me to go to her house to do laundry. (I have really nice friends, several people have offered for me to use their machines.)

So now we add to our list of play dates, the laundry play date. This will be fun!

In the afternoons, while Fuller naps, I usually have several tasks happening at once. The dishwasher might be running, a load of laundry could be washing, I would probably be on the internet blogging or reading, and with our new blockbuster all access pass, I could probably be watching a movie. And I usually use Fuller’s nap time to let the roomba do its thing.

As I have mentioned before, the roomba has really helped our family be better about the messes in our house these days. We pick up the shoes and socks, get Fuller to put away his toys, and set the roomba to “clean.” It gives me a bit of peace with how I exist with my house.

The only time we have issues with the roomba is when we set it to run in the dining room. We move all the chairs out of the way, but there are cords along the wall that it seems to b drawn toward. In fact, it will go straight for the cords and then start “humping” them. It isn’t anything you haven’t seen on National Geographic, but still, it has a job to do, and flirting with the DSL cable and desk lamp wire are not part of getting the job done.

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Our friends, Scott and Pam, recently taught their son how to ride a bike and one of the steps they took seemed like something we could do for Fuller.

“3. Removed the pedals and lowered seat so his feet could touch ground.”

Fuller has long outgrown his coaster bike, but he loves ride on toys. The green tractor he inherited from a neighbor is too small as well. So I thought maybe we could find a small two wheeler and take off the pedals.

After the vet yesterday we took a trip to the thrift store to look at their bicycles. We were pleasantly surprised to find a 12 inch bike that Fuller was eager to sit on an try to pedal. We didn’t really get the hang of the pedaling and he is still a bit small to sit on the seal and push with his feet. So, we created a “redneck” coaster bike that Fuller loves.

Damon took off the pedals, chain mechanism, and the seat. Then he covered the area where the seat would go with padding and duct tape. We put Fuller’s new helmet on him (his head is too small for the old yellow one) and Fuller took off around the yard.

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