Smally's Second Life

Here is the great and fearless (or stupid) kitty cat, Smalls.

Today she stayed out all day and didn't come in to eat.

We were worried and thought that it wasn't like Smally not to want some treats.

By the end of the day we called for her and walked around that block looking.

We even made LOST CAT posters and printed them out.

Just then, Mr. Chris thought to hop the fence and look in the abanboned house next door.

Sure enough, she came limping out and didn't even want to be held.

At least she's safe at home now and resting up, Poor Kitty.

My Raccoon Visitor

Here is our friendly nieghborhood raccoon at my side window (that, as you see, looks out to a fence about 10 inches away).

It was a Tuesday night and I was with my Stitch 'N Bitch friends in the living room when I heard some scratching at the back door. Smally was outside, so I thought it was her wanting to get inside, but there was no little cat waiting. Again I heard the scratching and flicked the lights on and saw Mr. Raccoon staring at me in the window.
I have never seen a raccoon that up close before and touched the window with my fingers. He placed his little raccoon hand on mine - too cute!

Merry Christmas

Christmas is not far off...

Enduring the CSET

First of all, test taking requires skill and I do not think it is the best way to assess one’s academic ability and knowledge, let alone their professional demeanor. I want to be an elementary school teacher. I feel I am smart enough (hello, I have a college degree – those do not grow on trees!), I also have the intuition and patience it takes to commandeer mass amounts of students at one time. From talking to different people, that is not innate to most adult, college educated individuals. Most people find other people’s kids annoying and would rather lose an arm then be stuck with 30 of them for 6 hours a day.
So why take these review tests? I mean, you should have had a grasp of general education when you graduated high school. Not only do I want to teach, and have to take the tests, (the CBEST as well!) I have to pay fees for each of them! What craziness! My family already paid my tuition and I graduated with honors – wasn’t that enough? The CSET cost over $200! It’s like I’m paying to be tortured by snobby Academics. Someone is making money off the fact that California needs teachers and taking it from poor grad-school hopefuls, like myself.
Okay – enough of being on my prissy soap box. This morning started at 6am. I made sure to have eggs and coffee and a shower. I was out the door with plenty of time to get to SFSU dressed in the recommended layers and soft-soled shoes. I go by SFSU’s exit on the 280 south everyday on my commute to work, but today I chose to follow NES’s driving directions. BAD IDEA! So I stayed on the 101 south and never found the 19 Avenue Exit and ended up in Burlingame! I was beyond mortified. I needed to be there at 7:30am on the dot. So I get off at one exit and could not find the 280 north only the 280 south. On the freeway still going south and agitated I call Chris, who wakes up to talk to me, now in tears. The next exit leads me to magically find North and I get to the campus right at 7:30! So I am running to the parking ticket machine to pay for my spot and one machine spits out my fiver, but, thank the LORD, the other machine takes it just fine.
Off to the races – now I am running around SFSU trying to find the HH building on my printed out map. When I get there there is no evidence of the CSET taking place. Looking at my test ticket thingy I totally misread the building and now running for building HSS.
Praise God, they let me in and I think the only people annoyed was everyone taking the test. I am usually one of those organized early birds looking down on the late, messed up life, kind of people. J Today I was a messed up person, but I got there and took the test!
The test in and of itself was complete “bollocks” (or “waste of time” for children under the age of 18 – my husband is polluting my vocabulary with British swear words!). I think I understood most of the questions. But the last written answer on Subtest II totally threw me and I thought the chart was not clearly marked. At first I wrote the NES test correctors a piece of my angered mind as my answer! And then after I calmed down while taking Subtest III, I had plenty of time to go back, erase my original “answear” and give the problem a shot. I hope they give credit for intelligent almost-the-right answers because I had forgotten the formula for probability. Bummer. But I was glad I could erase my previous written tirade about their ridiculous test and give it an intelligent try
Man, I hope the five hours of headache inducing test taking gains me a career in teaching other people’s kids.

Sun in the City

Hello Everyone! Happy spring time - I thought it would never get here. The spring brought many events, such as the fact that I got my butt in gear and applied to SFSU's Graduate school. I hope to get my multiple subject/special education teaching credentials together in one program! I get excited just writing about. We have decided to stay in San Francisco at the apartment we first rented. Chris still does not like that place too much - too many moths.
Also, Grandma Boots suffered a large stroke in her left frontal lobe and is now temporarily in a healthcare facility. Plans are in the works to find her a more familiar home to receive 24 hour care - maybe even in Mom's house!
May 6th was my birthday and we had a little party in Grandma's room and I think my favorite part was watching Grandma sing "Happy Birthday" to me! You have to understand that her speaking ability has greatly diminished even before this stroke. She cannot put whole sentences together and she was able to sing that whole song. This picture was taken this last Thanksgiving hosted in her Carmel home. We love you Gramma!
What does 26 supposed to feel like - well a lot like 25, I guess. No big thang except it is "my" day for a day. Chris did very well at spoiling me and I went out with Mom and Mike as well.
Talking about "birth" days - Lara had her baby, yay! Little baby Harper is doing just fine and was born weighing 8lbs. 4ozs. Visit their website for some awesome pics and videos!

Big Brudda

I'm sorry, but I cannot take credit for the title because it comes from homestarrunner.com and the Strongbad email about "Lil' Brudda." Let me know if you find the exact email that it's on.
About "brudda's" - I have one and he's pretty cool, so before I forget again or life gets in the way; here is his personal blog. Mike is the best ol' brudda around! He is an animator and a pretty good one. Here is his production blog for Time and Time Again, his latest and greatest project! Yay!

Mike is cool and Mike is great
When dinner is made he's never late
He likes his latte's and his capachinos, too
When it comes to makin' coffee's he ain't be no FOO!
Love you Micheal!

Isn't Work Fun?

Hello Everyone! Here is Mr. Chris hard at work. I (Christy) have this week off and it has been less than fun. My car's in the shop again (play those violins darn-it!), and I have this funky flu thing, but other than that I'm just bored. I know it's childish to be bored, but I can't do a whole lot without tranportation and living in the suburbs.
On to other positive things: Chris wears goggles - can you see the lines on his face in this picture?
Also, I have a few favorite things to share. Number #1 is Cute Overload. A blog devoted to all things adorable. This has been recommended to me by Brother Mike. And even guy approved. I stick to showing Mr. Chris the pictures of the cats and kittens exclusively.
For your laugh-out-loud reading enjoyment I highly recommend David Sedaris' many memoirs. My favorite so far is Me Talk Pretty One Day.
For those SNL fans or just people who like funny music, please check this rap link out - The Chronic (What?) cles of Narnia!
About our Christmas trip to Cambridge - it rocked. We had a shopping day in London, and adventure in Wales (Did you know they have this crazy language? It was like visiting another country with all their signs in another language.) We also got some good Mum time in and some relaxation. On Christmas day we sent some time with the family and played hours of video games with the nieces and nephews (I wanted to type cousins because all my cousins are their age.).

A new Malone family member!

We're very happy to announce that there is finally going to be a new member of the Malone family! Drumroll... It's Smally! Christy very bravely asked our neighbours if we could adopt their cat and they agreed!

Pumpkin Update

Here's what happened to our Half Moon Bay Pumpkins. High Five!

Wookie

I spotted this wookie on our porch the other morning. 'WRAGH!' in wookie means 'I have just regurgitated some saliva/grass stuff onto you porch'.

Half Moon Bay

We went to Half Moon bay to visit a pumpkin patch last weekend. Word has it that local celebrities 50 Cent, Ja Rule and the gay one out of Will and Grace all buy their pumpkins at the patch we visited. Apparently 50 Cent enjoys making pumpkin pie for his homies after he's finished 'carving out a phat dope new stankin pumpkin style in da club'. Go 50 in the house indeed!!!

Hey! Think you can see really well? Do you?! Well try and spot Christy in the picture if you're so good at seeing (click it and zoom in). If you do spot her can you see her eyes are all funny? (Not like you with your clever eyes). We laughed when we saw how funny her eyes looked, maybe you will too! Or maybe not.

At about this time I would like to quote a few lines from 50 Cents latest release ' I love @#$%*&@ pumpkins' :

Go Go Go Go Go Go Go Go Go Go Go Go Go Go

Pumpkins are fresh, but don't mess with mines
In da club rhyming, I sometimes forget my lines
I lost my watch, excuse me but whats da times?
What's his name outta Will and Grace better not touch my behinds

In da patch yo, I'm in da patch
I'm in da patch yo, in da patch
I'm in da patch yo, in da patch
Gonna go home and bake a fresh pumpkin pie batch

Maybe next year we will see you at the pumpkin patch, you never know who you may see there... (I would bet either Christy in between some pumpkins or 50 Cent).

Baby Nation

Is another Baby-boom happening or is it just my imagination? Maybe in rural California there’s nothing better to do than copulate. Or family rearing is the newest hobby of most of the people I work around and have as friends. To give you a few examples: I’m presently knitting a baby’s blanket for my sister-in-law, Kirsty, who is due shortly. Trebeca, a close friend, just had a healthy baby girl – Go Talia!!!

At the elementary school I work at you’d think you can catch pregnancy like the common cold the way those mom’s pop out those kids! Like, this one little first grader, his mom had a 12-pounder three weeks ago! Armed with a adorable photo, this boy told the whole class how they had to “rip him out!” This explanation came complete with hand motions, making me laugh out loud, yet cringe at the same time. I mean, think about it folks, having a 12 pound baby is like giving birth to two babies at one time. Ouch.
I have to say it is a very beautiful baby; complete with chubby cheeks and thunder thighs (I mean it looks like it’s 3 months old!).
Chris did do something for the first time yesterday; HE was the one pointing out a baby to ME in Safeway and not the other way around. This baby was exceptionally cute and had ears that stuck out, so Chris felt they had a connection; Monkey ears.
The kicker in this baby-based blog is that TODAY my best friend Lara called and told me she was preggers, too! Something has to be in the water. She claims a romantic trip to Italy did the trick.
All I have to say is that I’ll never be out of a job as long as it’s working with the little people, ah, I mean the kids. Love, Christy

17 mile drive beach

Mums/moms in the city

And then came Mum

At the beginning of the trip we took both the M.I.L's to the City and did the tourist thing. That was nice. My mom is a very cheerful and talkative - making a great hostess. Chris' mom also was taken to the Wincester Mystery House and then we made the drive to Carmel to visit Grandmama.
On the second week of her visit, Chris and I took Heather back to our home in Chico. Our "duplers," Luke and Beth, were away on vacation, so Heather had their place all to herself. It was nice being back in our own house as well. Chris did do most of the tourist things with his mum while I had to continue on with my swim instructing and tutoring. We had fun time seeing a Circus and at Lassen Park. Life goes on with hot weather, looking for more work, and just having a blast with Mr. Chris (he's a bestest!).

Volcano

We took a drive to Lassen Volcanic Park today, which is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Lassens ancestral stratovolcano Mount Tehama was envisioned to be some 11 miles wide at its base before collapsing. It's a shame its caldera was breached and no lake formed, but thats bloody Plate Tectonics for you.

We got very excited because there was snow there (check the pics below), they also had some cool hot springs(!), which were releasing a strong smell of sulphur into the air (or maybe that was from last nights curry).

Mrs Chris gets excited

Mr Chris gets excited

Jedi Knight

If I were a Jedi knight
And somebody started a fight
I'd laugh and say alright
Then Jedi mind trick them 'I don't want to fight'

If I were a Jedi knight
And it was late at night
And somebody mocked my height
I'd jedi mind trick them 'this jedi is not small, I've made an oversight'

If I were a Jedi knight
And I booked an international flight (economy class)
But when I sat down in those small seats my pants were to tight
I'd alter them to make them more comfortable by using my sabre-light

If I were a Jedi knight
And I lost my voting right (Due to having moved to a different county to that in which I normally voted, and then having waited to long to register an out of county vote)
I'd get very uptight
And not be very polite (until I realised it was my own silly fault, then I'd apologise just like Yoda would have taught me)

If I were a Jedi Knight
And got a mosquito bite
Whilst fixing my ultraviolet light (for wiping Eproms)
I'd go crazy nuts on that mosquito, then feel a little contrite (not the Jedi way)

Smally - The neighbourhood cat

This cat visits us on the regular. When it rains she likes to collect as many worms as possible and put them on our doorstep - er thanks Smally.