Way to go, Ms. Clouseau

How do I say this cutely - I poured an entire large coffee from Tim Hortons on my creamy khaki capris clad lap about half way through the 90 min. drive to my ceilidh (fiddle concert) last night. Good job. I thought I could just send the dancer that is always there home to get me a pair of pants to borrow, but Chris thought it better to check local clothes merchants first. So I ended up having to pick up a pair of semi-strange denim highwaters for $25. Not something I would normally do, but I was in a pinch, as my entire underside was a tad bit coffeefied, I was headed on stage in like 20 minutes, and most other options in this tourist trap were upwards of $100, most of them slight little summer dresses or -Ack! - shorts! Heaven help us, my white legs in shorts... let's not go there. SOME of us are not blessed with Maori colouring. :)

Ms. Clouseau is of course a reference to the accident prone Jacques Clouseau in the Pink Panther detective movies from the 70's.

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I always thought those people were weird who could rhyme off incredibly detailed information about sports history/trivia, like who pitched for what team, what game, what year and their stats.

Then I realized I'm basically like that for fiddle stuff. I have scared people on more than one occasion. I'm wicked at playing "Name That Fiddler" within a certain stylistic spectrum. I trip people out when I tell them who is playing piano or fiddle on some home tape I have never heard, and what year it likely was. So I guess I'm a higher ranking geek than I knew.

Hey, can you get a cookie for that? I should look into it. I would love a cookie.

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Anna has started a delightful new game of quizzing/drilling me on Irish vocabulary! I love it, and think it is hilarious too. She will go on for Quite a goodly time asking, "What is fridge in Iwish? What is window in Iwish? What is couch in Iwish?" etc. indefinitely, til I get a sizeable unsolicited, but much appreciated review session of every noun she can think of. Isn't that funny or is it just me?

Oh foolish girl...

I stood still in the middle of my kitchen with an anticipitory excitement: Free time! Could it be??? I was in shellshocked disbelief for a moment. So - what will I do??? Daring not to waste a crumb, I quickly decided what the funnest thing at the moment would be.

I put on the kettle for a pot of hot starbucks coffee, a gift from a beautiful friend, -thank you! - and ran to my closet to fish out the afghan I had been working on before someone else came and decided to occupy my hands for 16 hours of the day. Not that I begrudge said person, but still.

I french-pressed my coffee, poured the fresh cream, got my crochet hook and strolled very pleased over to the table to sit with Anna, and sip my hot joe.

heard in the distance :

**waaa! waaa!**

She woke up.

Oh well.

There was a beautiful moment of grown up, relaxed quiet and indulgence. But then after some nursing, of COURSE, there is always nursing, she had such big smiles and coos for us, I knew this was much better than any old afghan. And I still got to sit and sip my coffee while she had her num nums. Yay for baby smiles! They are the best.

In other news, the ceilidhs are going great. They totally recharge my batteries. I guess I have come to a point in my playing or reached a level where it doesn't take as much to maintain the performance level. Certainly a couple years ago, I would never have been able to play these with as little practice as I have had. Whether it is God's pure grace, or I just got better, I'm doing way better than expected. Another yay!

Surgery recovery was remarkable. I'm great. Disgusting tasting chinese herbs are making nursing comfortable and enjoyable. Yay! Niamh is sleeping well at night. Daytime naps are another story... although God gave us swings to save us from the Valley of the Shadow of Desperation. I am doing better at speaking Irish to the girls, which makes me feel like much less of a slacker.

Hey - by any chance - are there any employers in the Dallas/Ft.Worth area reading this who would like to hire my dad? He needs a job.

Though we have been having tons of rain, about which locals are complaining profusely, I am SO enjoying the summer! All I need is green. Jenni is happy with green.

So as not to leave you without a picture, this is a proud Anna last week, displaying her work : writing her name for the first time. I didn't even know she was working on it. She just walked over and showed me. "Yook, Mommy, I wote my name!" And she had. What a girl.

Aahh... the life of a Holstein....

akin to my own current life.

Minus all the grass.

Today is Chris' birthday! Happy Birthday, Sweety! Not that he reads this. I made him one of our favourite dishes. Everyone who samples it decides it is one of their favourites as well. It is a family recipe called Roman Round pie. If anyone wants the recipe, I can email copies out. It really is excellent.

So we had yummy food, as is a-priori in my opinion for a birthday, and Chris spent the morning at a barn-raising : his own! He is working on building a barn. Big project, but he is the man for the job. Handy, as I mentioned before.

A funny thing I can mention is this : if anyone is flying WestJet in the next month, may I recommend you leaf through the seat-back magazine that will be in front of you? I'm in it!!! My bro and sis-in-law were recently on WestJet and as they were leafing , stopped short and said , Hey! That's Jen! And it was! How crazy is that? It is a picture of me at one of my ceilidhs with a brief telling of my from-Kansas-City story. Of course, not a Jenni-approved picture, not what I would call flattering, but so funny! Totally unexpected, I had no idea I was going to be in a magazine. Not that one anyway. Certainly no one got my permission!
So there ya go.

That's the stories for now.
Happy summer, everybody!

For the image deprived.

This was taken in the hospital by my sis-in-law.

Will get around to saying something later. If you want to know what is going on with me, you can revisit the post from June 17th.

Oh yes. More infections. I got a Sabbath in between and that's it. One the other. Crazy and annoying. Oh, and painful. But hey. I have a beautiful punkin' to admire while I peer through squinty aching eyes. And now she will smile, and what is cooler than that??