Team Gray!

The Fairy World of Home

Angela — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:03:53 +0000

After a mid-April break, things have been rolling at the fairy world of home. We have introduced at least one new character, if not two. Also, a debate broke out over how to name the garden help. Any opinions?

4/30: Everyone somewhat worried that shopping dervish will eat the day. She thinks it’ll all work put in the end.

Tuesday, the beginning of the laundry week. Laundry elf reporting for duty!

5/1: Laundry elf spreads the love, er work around.

Dryer limping along w a little tinkering from laundry elf. And still working on day 1’s clothes approaching day 3.

5/2: Kitchen sprite is thrilled w her new trainee. Or would that be paduan? Acolyte?

5/6: Workout fiend attempted to take over yesterday. Laundry elf asserted herself. Out of order. represent.

5/7: Garden troll was all set to subdue the yard but one step inside, laundry elf took over.

It is one of those days where help is needed all around. Bunnies and minions are sorting and folding today…

…and meanwhile, a committee met to rename teaching gnome to troll, and garden troll to gnome—for alliterative reasons, of course.

Garden gnome is no joke! Thought we’d never get done w the weeding, pruning, raking, bagging, mowing…

That was short. By popular demand, the teacher returns to being a gnome, and the gardener a troll. Who better to say u kids get off my lawn?

5/9: And the twinkles continue…#(piano)teachinggnome

5/10: Teaching gnome: who has been teaching you that you’ve reached 7th grade w/out learning the schwa? #tongueincheek

5/12: Mothers Day belongs to garden troll. Garden troll ate the day. That’s a ghost thing! (good, not ghost! Fat fingering or autocorrect?)

Garden troll told the old ppl, “Get off my lawn!” Or Happy Mothers Day. Same difference.

Running with Children

Angela — Tue, 07 May 2013 02:21:40 +0000

It was a running kind of weekend. First the kid’s one mile run, and then a 5k for me.

But I didn’t run that for me. I ran it for them.

If I ever have a doubt about that, I can remember Chanya in her race.Here’s this 5 year old little girl who still sucks two fingers when she’s unsure of herself. I held her hand for the beginning and middle of the race. She needed that. But when I let go of her hand, she took off! She was radiant, sprinting to the finish line, after having run a whole mile.

That’s when I knew it was a good thing for me to run the 5k.

When I saw the pride in my husband’s eyes, I knew why I’d signed up. When I hugged my kids afterward, I knew I wanted to keep running.

Luckily for us, the summer running season has just begun.

Week 25 at School

Angela — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 22:50:03 +0000

Imagine a mythical week when three different grade children had 3 different spelling lists, each labeled week 25. I say mythical, because this was neither week 25, nor did all three children have list 25 at the same time. If they had, their sentences together could create this narrative:

The superintendent got acclamation for the lassitude of his culinary sojourn. At the awards ceremony, the superintendent spoke an incomplete syllable before his speech would encroach into ellipse. The ceremony was preceded by a short vaudeville show. The vaudeville playwright put substantive gentility in his comparatively silly show. Afterwards, the superintendent stopped for a bite to eat on the way home to his estate. It is a contradiction to have a reticent chauffeur drop you off at a luncheonette, no matter how heavenly. His baronial estate was palatial, with a ridiculous heathen statue of carbuncle. The superintendent’s wife was eccentric, and raved over the statue. In winter, she took her cactus garden to market.

A birdcage sat next to the carbuncle statue. It housed the superintendent’s beloved parakeet, Princess. The excitable parakeet suffered from the nebulous trauma of a stomachache. The vet prescribed many drugs. The resistible patient wanted to expunge her drugs from the pharmacy, so Princess must regurgitate into her owner’s sombrero. The superintendent’s wife didn’t love this habit, but she knew that until you change, continuity is welcome. The vet told her, “As a postscript to your postoperative skepticism, relegate the tincture.” Those wacky veterinarians!

The estate abutted a working dude ranch. Its head cowboy made a reasonable estimation of the reach of his lasso. The ranch cellar was full of produce, preserves, and pickles. It is always logical to take a basket to the cellar.

The Fairy World of Home

Angela — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:09:09 +0000

There is more that goes on in the Fairy World of Home than gets tweeted. Those are just the highlights. It’s also mostly what I’ve got. You snooze, you lose, Mrs blogger!

4/17:
Laundry elf wastes no chance to practice her trade on the way out the door. #laundryroombygarage

Meanwhile, laundry elf is busy.

4/18:
Laundry elf loves the thrill of a clean clothes deadline. Teaching gnome deludes herself into thinking she’s done for the day.

Oh, that laundry deadline? MET. Laundry elf= smug
(After which, Laundry Elf proceeded to fall a day or two behind. But who’s counting?)

4/21:
Laundry elf feeling victorious for fixing the dryer. Or tightening the door hinge. Same difference.

The Fairy World of Home

Angela — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 16:14:33 +0000

In which, I stretch out the time between posts to give myself time to tweet more. During this time, we received a house guest, who has not left, nor are there plans for her to leave. Most of us like her, so that’s good.

April 5: Laundry elf gracious this week sharing her room w the cat. #donttellheritsnottemporary

April 9: Oh yeah. Laundry. #jadedelf

Laundry elf becoming as predictable as nutritionist pixie w her weekly menus and whatnot. #goodthing

April 12: Laundry Elf was on top of it all week. She smugly states now that it’s all over.

Teaching gnome was feeling the pinch and it was her day off before she knew it. But she still has grading and planning and all that jazz.

April 16: The myth of one stop shopping dies a slow death. —shopping dervish

Laundry elf took a break for THE RUNNING AROUND to ensue, forgetting something.,.

…and when shopping dervish returned with TIDE, Laundry Elf couldn’t believe there were dry clothes in the washer, hence the new TIDE.

Last Week at School

Angela — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:13:05 +0000

When the wholesome middleweight was injured during the bicentennial, he received a prescription for bionics. This charismatic sentinel was responsible for the restoration of calm in the midst of the hysteria over a plutonium leak. His zealous apprentice must vindicate his former master, whose nemesis pushed him over a precipice. If you analyze the data regarding this, you will find it improbable to get louder. It is silent as a spider. I had a premonition about an influential but pliable tarantula with no acquittance. That spider climbed on someone’s placenta tree, tainting it, in her opinion. It is a morose sign of neurosis to plant a placenta in a fallible attempt at immortality in the splendor of a tree.
In discussing the parade that runs past the house, I heard you describe the slowest, bigger, unlikely runner ever. That’s not neighborly, though, It is neighborly to pay others’ tuition, and without mitigation you can demobilize wicked plans without needing to italicize your words. It’s also not neighborly, how I feel, but I am jealous of your legacy mahogany furniture; I don’t understand your degenerate ambivalences. It better get hotter on the highest shelf of the tallest bookcase. That reminds me of a corrupt judge I just read about. With flippancy, the judge practiced nepotism when he hired his son as a bailiff, who, in an act of legal sacrilege, was then accessible to the inner workings of the court.

The Fairy World of Home

Angela — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 02:39:19 +0000

Last week, there was a lot of activity on one day. And other stuff happened besides this:
March 28:
Laundry elf muses she wasn’t this far behind last week, and the washer broke then! She is not amused.

Teaching gnome understands that the SCHEDULE ate this week. Catchup to ensue in earnest.

Laundry elf miffed because WE’RE BEHIND, PPL, and what’s that I hear upstairs? Someone’s taking a shower?
#largefamilyproblems

It’s a good thing I have hours to divide circles on the computer. Not. #teachinggnome (this post was accompanied by an instagram picture of computer screen graphics.

All this being late has made it seriously grumpy at the fairy world of home.

Last Week at School: Two Stories for the Post of One

Angela — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:09:19 +0000

In an aside, just the 5th and 7th graders had dictation last week. The third grader reviewed his list from the previous week.

Some of the spelling words this week were religious, thus this story:

The apostle Peter explained that Jesus died as a substitution for our deplorable and indefensible deeds, acting as a cleanser for our souls; then He experienced resurrection. Afterward, the High Priest exclaimed, “The conspiracy grows to encompass all, and after I incarcerate you, do not try to levitate in our cell or break the door fastener.” This left as question as to whether the High Priest believed in Jesus or not. This double-mindedness had begun years before. As a rabbinical student, the he had a discursive style of speech when panicky or discussing intricate psychological matters.

While other spelling words were more scientific/medical in nature, yielding this picture:

The astronaut wanted to subsidize the turboelectric schema while it was still conceptual. It is ostensible that the occlusion in her pituitary gland could depreciate her means of sustenance. During that period, the astronaut said, “I found a vertical stalagmite and a stalactite in the façade of a cave on the estate.”
This northern estate was where the unscrupulous consultant tried to alleviate his hemorrhoid, but it would only regenerate. He charted the growth of a piranha by micrometer changes in its thorax with an empirical method on a sleigh.

The Fairy World of Home

Angela — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 01:38:58 +0000

Last week in the Fairy World of Home, the week started with the washing machine breaking and ended with two birthdays. In the middle, it seemed like everyone was sick. Somehow, everyone worked together to keep the home running smoothly. We also hear about Laundry Elf’s husband for the first time.

3/16: Laundry elf and teaching gnome are both aware that the mistress’s mother and daughter prefer gnomes. Tension to ensue. (note: though my daughter and I prefer gnomes, ‘sprite’ is the name that most often comes to mind).

‘Wax paper butter wrappers are the bane if my existence’—Kitchen Sprite
March 19:
Laundry elf is suffering from idle hands what with the washer incapacitated. #notenoughtohandwashthough #whataconcept

‘G’ is a ‘C’ with a goatee, teaching gnome told an unconvinced child. #handwitingdrillswereenlightened

March 20: Laundry elf would like to thank whoever came up with the brilliant idea of her rinsing and handwringing that load from broken drier.

Ok. Laundry elf so discombobulated that she called the drier broken. That would be the washer. #fail

It’s a detestable sick day when the well kids don’t want to work near ‘the bowl’. #couldntpayteachinggnomeenough #momsworkneverdone

Laundry elf beyond thrilled w her awesome hubby who diagnosed and fixed washer in no time and little money. #gushing

Music to my ears—the washer my husband fixed. #laundryelf

Nothing makes you appreciate laundry more than when you thought your washer was dead and your husband fixes it. #laundryelf

March 21:
….and you can do laundry in the background of every day…—laundry elf doth drone on.

March 23:
What Laundry Elf? Laundry Elf: “What?” #latenightlaudryfail

March 24:
Kitchen sprite stumbles to the kitchen to make breakfast at hrrrumph o’clock and is soon surrounded by pixies. #manyhandsmakelightwork

18

Angela — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:37:23 +0000

I remember the snowstorm of 18 years ago. It was preceeded by 70 degree (in March!) days. Today, while everyone is complaining about the lackluster start of spring, I smile, remembering my newborn son.

That baby is still in there, somewhere. In that deep-voiced, goatee sporting, driving man. That little boy, the youngest for 5 years, and a big brother now for almost 13.

You lit up your sisters’ faces with your birthday smile and warm hugs. Your little brother thrilled to have put a smile on your face.

You make your parents proud to bursting.

Happy Birthday, Xavier! We look forward to the next chapter in your exciting life.