First, we had lunch at a diner where we’ve eaten before and enjoyed the food. Today the food was something close to awful. Cold fries and onion rings, overly-salted meat, a weird chemical-y taste on the chicken tenders. All of which didn’t stop us from having to pay the $40 bill. Bleah.

Then, as I was backing out of my spot in the parking garage, I was distracted and talking to one of the kids and forgot I was parked next to a giant concrete post. You see where this is going, right? I plowed right into the post with my door and knocked the sideview mirror off. There’s a pretty severe dent right under the mirror, about four inches wide from top to bottom. Pretty sure that one will be expensive to fix. But on the bright side, no one was injured and I destroyed no property that didn’t belong to me. And I have learned that when I am in a parking garage, I need to make sure the sun shades on the windows are down. I realized after the accident, when we’d all calmed down and I’d finished a phone conversation with Troy and I went to back out of the spot again, that with the sun shade up, it was dark enough in the parking garage that I couldn’t see the post out that window at all.

Since we were across the street from the store where I needed to pick up a photo order, I went ahead and did that. Then, after I’d carefully checked and re-checked my mirrors and over my shoulders, I reversed slowly out of my parking space and tapped a shopping cart that had rolled right into my path as I was backing up. It made Annalie declare that the day was cursed. (There was no damage to the back of the minivan or the cart, thank goodness.)

Roasted veggies for dinner, plus a chance to work out for the first time in days, an amazing season finale for Castle, and a great nerd twitter party with friends discussing which Hogwarts houses the Avengers, Commander Data and various others would be sorted into redeemed the day, though. Here’s to a less eventful Tuesday.

I was astonished when I realized that I hadn’t done a post of Annalie’s tweets for over a year. A YEAR. How did that happen? I have no idea. Let’s start fixing that, shall we?

MARCH 2011

“Oh! Sorry I didn’t brush my teeth yet. I got carried away with my imaginationings.”

“I know four things that catch fire: cars, forests, any kind of buildings–like restaurants or homes or movie theaters–and hair.”

“Ah, nothing’s better than a good burp.”

“She’s the cutest little thing. I could just eat her up like an ice cream cake.”

“Perhaps you would like some e-musement? I’d be happy to give you some.”

“Laughed their butts off? That’s impossible. No one can laugh THAT hard.”

“I think I’ll hula-hoop for a bit. It might calm my nerves.”

“My baby has beautiful blue eyes…just like yours truly.”

“Now I shall begin my quest for my village!”

“(in a deep voice) ‘You look wonderful, dipped in magical. You look golden, like you are made of love.’ (falsetto) ‘Why thank you, sir!’”

“When I add the friction between the fractions, should I use seconds, minutes, hours, or days?”

“When she grows up she’ll be just like her mom, a fierce predator! But even then she’ll still be my baby, Kitty Clover.”

“Soon everyone will be my butler, and I’ll be generous to everyone. Who’s nicer now!?”

“We have an escaper! I repeat, we have an escaper! Katy escaped!”

“Would you like to try my vegetable salad? It’s famous! It won Healthiest, Tastiest Salad at the county fair. I only use FRESH ingredients.”

“Yesterday in Sunday School we learned about shepherds and what they technically do.”

APRIL 2011

“A clean restaurant is a happy restaurant, I always say. Or at least I’ll start saying it now.”

“This looks like a job for…Super Sis!”

“I’ve been workin’ on my beatboxin’.”

“The recipe is: two buns, one burger, lettuce, a pickle, and exactly one thousand sesame seeds–no more, no less.”

“When I see a patch of green, green grass it makes me want to spin and jump and run on it.”

“I think I’ll go back in time and ask a genius scientist to invent Pokemon.”

“Circus peanuts are my only weakness.”

“Let’s blow UP this pop stand!”

“I don’t care if they’re called jellybeans. I’m gonna call them jelly EGGS.”

“That is one freaky vehicle. ”

“I’m just the cook and the waitress; I’m not the person who points the way and shouts the name of the Chicken Pot Clock.”

“We’re wasting time! And if we’re wasting time, we’re wasting wind.”

“Note to self: coconut shampoo does not taste as good as it smells.”

“Airplanes are not my preferred mode of travel. I prefer to travel on the ground. A nice, fun, relaxing trip in a car–that’s what I like.”

Outside my window there is a supermoon!

I am thinking about The Avengers. Troy and I just went to see it this evening (on opening day!) and it was really, really excellent. Joss Whedon knows how to direct an ensemble cast like no one else, man. Usually during action movies I get pretty bored during the action sequences, but I wasn’t bored for a single minute during this movie, which simultaneously felt like it flew by and went on far longer than 2 hours, 20 minutes. There were a couple of cameos that were a pleasant surprise, and I laughed out loud many times. When the end credits started I turned to Troy and said, “I wanna see that again.”

I am thankful for the fact that the big database Troy’s division was working on, the one that was causing him to work such ridiculously late hours and some weekends, has been turned over. Troy has been coming home in time for dinner most of this week, and it’s been fantastic. I know it won’t last, but I’m enjoying it while it does.

I am wearing dark gray yoga pants and this t-shirt. Why ARE there so many songs about arcs of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths between 380 and 750 nm in concentric bands formed by the refraction and reflection of solar energy off of moisture in the Earth’s atmosphere? (Though really…there aren’t that many.)

I am remembering that I really loved the TV show “The Incredible Hulk.”

I am going to the National Mall tomorrow. We thought it would be cool to take Aurora downtown and take photos of her in front of some national monuments and museums, so she’ll be able to see evidence that she visited D.C. when she’s older.

I am currently reading Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell. Well, re-reading it, really. It’s only been released in the UK so far, but it will be released in the U.S. and Canada next February. So if you think you’d like a book that’s funny and sad, sarcastic and sincere, and above all geeky—a book about two misfit high-schoolers who accidentally end up sitting on the school bus together every day and fall in love over X-Men and Watchmen comic books and mix tapes featuring The Cure and the Smiths—a book about falling in love the way you do when you’re 16 and it’s your first love and everything is desperate and hopeless and wildly hopeful—then stay tuned. I’ll be talking about E&P again in February, have no fear.

I am hoping that out cats will stop vomiting and peeing and pooping all over the place. But I know it’s a forlorn hope. They’re 16 and 10 years old. They’re gonna be throwing up on our carpets and peeing on our laundry and pooping right next to the litter box until they die, probably. Sigh.

On my mind: Uh…my mind is a blank for once. Fringe? We’re watching Part 1 of the Season 4 finale right now.

Noticing that I need a pedicure. And to use lotion on my hands more often.

Around the house things are getting rather messy. Three kids create so much more mess than two. I don’t even wanna think about what four kids would be doing.

In the kitchen, there is a bag of gumdrops. BRB.

One of my favorite things is the bouquet of orange ranunculus and pink tulips sitting on our mantel.

From my photo archive: our friends’ daughter holding a woolly caterpillar on a stick at the beach in April 2007.