America~ I've got talent

What to know what it is?

Cooking. And it's a real special talent.

Tonight I burned spaghetti

Spaghetti.

Not baked pasta

Nothing in the oven.

Boil-on-top-of-the-stove spaghetti.

Put it in water on top of the stove and (heck, if I was paying attention to the time this wouldn't happen, so I don't know how long it took) I was beconned back to the kitchen by smoke and an awful burning smell.

The water had all boiled away and left me with charred, blackened spaghetti stuck to the bottom of the pan.

But that, my friends- takes special talent- so feel free to nominate me for that show about talent.
I got loads of it.

But with that joyful news, I'm leaving my kitchen a smelly disaster and packing up the kids who are eating batch #2 of spaghetti (somehow even the spaghetti on top had a particular smoked flavor that they didn't care for) so we can go watch fireworks at legoland tonight.

Larry's on the last 2 days before a big product demonstration, so we won't see him until after that's done, so instead of sitting around feeling bad that we're not having his company, we're going to have lots of fun he wishes he had, too. Today was the VBS ending ceremony with bounce houses, barbecue hot dogs and balloons... they were giving away backpacks of school supplies, but I thought it looked like they didn't have enough, so we waiting til the end and they were out of them.

I don't think they were something that Sonia would have picked out if she was shopping, but she was disappointed that they ran out, so we stopped by the mall looking for a bday present inspiration for Larry since I didn't plan well enough in advance to order it online.. and we got her a "Cinderella" backpack- just like she 'always wanted' - a million time better than the really cheesy cheap ones they were giving away.

But.. as of tonight I'm going to send them both to the one day a week school. Larry and I decided that they do really need more interaction with kids and learning 'socially acceptable' behaviours and I could use the 1 day a week break from homeschooling and the nonstop bickering.

So. Right now that's the plan. But Joey didn't want a new backpack, he was perfectly happy with his last-year backpack. So I bought him a new shirt. He was quite happy with that since he's noticed that he gets hand-me-downs more than new clothes- he's usually pretty easy going about it, but Sonia's such a gifts-driven kid that she's ALWAYS clamouring for a new outfit and he doesn't. So when he gets something new, he's pretty happy about it.

And he's really happy to be leaving for fireworks soon..

And I'm happy that God gave me coffee.. off to fix a cup.