And Speaking of Spell Check ...

Did you know that if you type larda** on an iPhone, it auto-corrects to Kardashian? True story!! It doesn't do that on an Android, and it's not doing that on my iPad. To be honest, I don't know if it ever did that on an iPad (I never tried it on an iPad), but it I've personally witnessed it on an iPhones. This was a widely known auto-correct, so it's possible that "someone" got wind of it and complained to Apple. I'm curious ... if you have an iPhone, try it, and let me know if it still does this.

Google Spell Check

Sometimes I Google a word when I'm unsure of how to spell it and sometimes I just wait for spell checker to catch it. Thursday's blog, "Camouflage", is just such an example. I typed "camoflauge", and Google offered me two choices ... Camouflage or Guacamole.

Guacamole? Really? Has anyone ever typed "camoflauge" when they really meant "guacamole"?

It's Not What It Looks Like

But it still made my heart stop!

There is an ongoing war between Thing 2 and Thing 3. Thing 2 claims Thing 3 leaves his hair in the sink after he shaves. Thing 3 says Thing 2 leaves her hair in the bathtub after a shower. I shared a bathroom with those kids for many, many years, and both of those statements are true. They're getting better about cleaning up after themselves, but they aren't completely healed. I'm not sure if they do it in retaliation or laziness. I suspect it's mostly laziness ... with a smirk-inducing side of revenge. They are easily able to turn a blind eye the messes they make ... while loudly complaining about the messes the other made.

I went into the kid's bathroom the other day after work. The shower curtain was open, which drives me nuts. As I was pulling it closed, I spied what I thought was a mouse in the bathtub and froze. I turned on the light, moving as slowly as possible, while contemplating how I was going to trap that thing. Several questions ran through my mind: Is the bottom of the tub was flat enough to trap a mouse underneath a bowl? Can mice climb up the slick side of a bathtub? And, most importantly, what are the odds that filthy thing could somehow reach ME as I tried to trap it???

Fortunately, I never had to find out! Once the light was on, I leaned a little closer and realized it was a hair wad. [Insert BIG sigh of relief here!] Thing 2 might be an adult now, but she came this close to being grounded!! [Insert a mental imagine my thumb and pointer finger very close together here!]

Camouflage

I Have a Very Strange Toilet

Not only is it a very odd color, I've never seen one that flushes like this! My critique of this design is two-fold:

1. You cannot sit a pretty basket on the back to hold extra toilet paper.
2. If the toilet continues to run, you can't just lift the lid and see why because the flushing mechanism is attached to it ... and all you've succeeded in seeing is watching the toilet flush ... again. Since the tank can't fill up with the lid off, you have to put the lid back on and hope whatever you did fixed whatever was wrong.

I know ... first-world problems ... wah. If that's all I have to complain about, I should count my lucky stars, right?

I am grateful that I have my own (child-free) bathroom (which means it's always clean). But, I recently had to replace the flapper. Have you ever gone to buy a flapper? There are about a thousand different "universal" ones to choose from at the hardware store.

Once I finally decided on which one to buy, I had to install it. That was fun! You have to straddle the toilet backwards and hold the lid close enough to the chain to allow you to hook to it ... in a space where your position means you are blocking any potential light source ... and since you need one hand (minimum!) to hook the chain and one hand to hold the lid, there's no hand left to hold a flashlight. I have plans to renovate my bathroom (someday), and a new toilet will be my first purchase.

Sign in the Break Room

fyi ... I work for a school corporation!

A Pileated Woodpecker Visited Me

I looked out my bedroom window and saw a woodpecker, working on a tree. My windows were closed, and they filter sound very well, so I didn't hear it. Had I not looked out my window, I would never have know it was there. I called out to Thing 2 to come see it, and we watched it quite a while,.

Pileated Woodpeckers are the largest species of woodpeckers. They're fascinating to watch. I'd love to know how they can bang their heads against a tree that hard and not get a headache!

I was videoing the bird when Thing 2 came back in, talking. I stopped that video and started another (below). If you listen very closely, you can hear her fiance belch far off in the background around the 10 second mark!

He's Growing Up TOO Fast

I took this picture a couple of weeks ago, the first time my grandson sat in his high chair. He looked so cute! He's still a wobbly "sitter", but it won't be long before he no longer loses his balance when he sits unassisted ... and then he'll be trying to crawl. I'm enjoying each stage of his development, and I love watching him learn new things, but a part of me will always miss that tiny baby who wanted nothing more than to lay in my arms and snuggle.

An Anguished Goodbye

Yesterday, I found out my brother-in-law had passed away, and my heart has been heavy ever since. Per his wishes, he's being cremated with no memorial. As much as I would like to say a final farewell to him, I'm glad there is no memorial. He was never much on pomp and circumstance, and he would have hated having one. He loved being outdoors, roaming around the acres and acres of land on their property. I imagine, at some point, they'll sprinkle his ashes on the land he loved so much, and he'll become part of the forest ... just like he always wanted.

They were married for 40 years, and have two grown sons. I'm sure they had their arguments over the years, but they loved each other deeply. They were best friends. They shared the kind of love most people can only dream of. My heart aches for my sister and her boys. She is beside herself with grief, and it hurts that there is absolutely nothing I can do to help ease her pain.

Ever since my son's accident, I am acutely aware that the last time you saw someone may be the last time you see them. I do my best to live my life in a way that let's the people in my life know how much I love them. I think I do a pretty good job, but I'm going to try to do even better.

There's a song by Tim McGraw called "Live Like You Were Dying". In it, a man is diagnosed with something, and someone asks him, after receiving the news, "Man, what'd ya do?". The chorus then lists all the things he did  ... the things that he'd always wanted to do and he never thought he had time for. The song went on to say he loved deeper, spoke sweeter, and forgave those he had previously been unable to forgive. He treated every day as a gift and lived life to the fullest.

My brother-in-law always lived by those principals. He spent his life doing the things he loved. Unlike most of us, he didn't fret about what he didn't have ... he was simply thankful for all he did have. He's one of the few people that didn't need a terminal illness to appreciate life ... and he spent all his days living like he was dying. I think everyone would be a lot happier if they lived like they were dying ... and my brother-in-law did. What a gift. What a legacy. What a calming memory to leave your family.

April Fool's Day

I've never really been a fan of practical jokes. A lot of them seem mean ... not funny. There are several shows on television about practical jokes. The kids think they're funny, but I struggle to see the humor. Silly practical jokes are okay, but the ones where they make someone think something bad is about to happen or has just occurred, that's not funny.

I'm sure I've pranked the kids over the years, but that would be the exception, not the rule ... and I can't think of any I pulled. This morning on the news, they showed some "cute" pranks to play on kids. One was to scrape the creme from the inside of an Oreo and replace it with white toothpaste. Another was to prepare their favorite bowl of cereal the night before, then put it in the freezer so that it looked like a regular bowl of cereal, but it was frozen solid.

If my mom had given me Oreo's with toothpaste instead of creme, I would have cried! It's just plain mean to offer a kid a treat that's inedible ... and ruin perfectly good cookies in the process. The cereal trick would be the only one of those two I would be even consider trying, but I can't see myself doing that, either ... even on April Fool's Day.

For those of you who enjoy pranks, I hope you get fooled good today. And for those of you, like myself, who think pranks are mean ... I hope you make it through the day joke/prank free!