pizza promotion

Last week a flier on my windshield was my opening in the universe.  It said cheap pizza.

So Friday night the girls and I set out on what wouldn't have been an adventure for a normal person with a basic understanding of  local streets, nor for anyone with average parking abilities. I don't fall in to those categories so when I finally found the destined place,with it's promotional search light and all, I had to have my nine year old help me back our monster of a van out of the did-someone-from-Beijing-design-this sized parking lot in defeat and park elsewhere. We marched back, lifting Caitlin over snow drifts, skirting sheets of black ice, shivering in the cold because, as I always say, parking as far away as possible extends your life expectancy, and what's more, someone was offering free stuff.

Friday night was the opening of the new Pizza Pie Cafe Express.  They sell five dollar pepperoni pizzas, and in honor of the Grand Opening, it was buy one get one free.  Two-fifty a pizza!  Plus free kettle corn. There's Caitlin with our Friday spoils.

And Friday was movie night,of course.  Did I mention that I love Jack Black?  The boys ordered Be Kind Rewind from net flicks  Sam entertained the little boys with the popcorn popper. He's a good brother.  They are all good big brothers and I am grateful for that.

Saturday I thought I'd make a difference in the pantry.

Still thinking...

But Sam and I did make some progress in the area of goal setting. We've decided, and here I am publicly announcing it, to set a goal to run/walk everyday for six months...with some allowance for repentance, of course. We will plan a trip to Universal Studios Hollywood to reward ourselves, and to celebrate the boys' love for all-things-acted- filmed-edited...so I'd better start running-earning- saving...

We've been here for many months now and for many months I've looked out and thought about running in the park in summer sunshine, or the crunchy crispness of fall, and here was the day I chose to get out....

 I have to embrace this aspect of January to help me over come my S.A.D.

So Saturday night I tentatively brought up the possibility of returning to Pizza Pie cafe Express for another night of pizza pick-up adventure.  Was met with cheers and off we went.  This time everyone joined me, since they all wanted their own kettle corn.  Free stuff is worth a trip across town.  The big kids all took a turn spinning a big wheel for prize coupons.  We walked away with our four pizzas for ten dollars and about forty dollars worth of pizza coupons as well.  I felt so resourceful!

If only pizza could be used as currency for all the necessities of life.

I run?

Last week was getting used to keeping up with this house again...and not really keeping up so well, but loving the feeling that we were trying our best.

Wednesday was my last chance to preserve my self-respect. I was trying to have the house looking decent by Thursday afternoon, because Xiao Chen was coming back to watch the little ones. That was all about my pride, of course.

Wednesday morning some of the Relief Society sisters came over at nine-thirty to sing together. I was still trying to make the guest bathroom presentable, still trying satisfy Grant's DVD watching whims, and still wondering if I had time to provide refreshments (surely not at that point) all while attempting to be attentive to the group leader. I had to apologize for my odd behavior. "In five minutes I'm going to walk out of the house with Cindy the dog," I said.

"Is it our company?" Paula asked.

It was pet show and tell day at Caitlin's preschool. Here's a picture.

Thursday morning I cleaned like a beast, panted my way over to Katherine's house for playgroup, cried tears of joy when Katherine served real guacamole, made the kids leave a bit early and reluctantly, greeted Xiao Chen, then headed of to ISB. I don't like having time restraints on Thursday, but I am always grateful to have the chance to spend time at school. It was Kyle's music class marimba presentation. I even got a chance to play.

Thursday night the family all pitched in on the clean-up. I was walking the recycling out to the bins and looked in our big front window to see Rob teaching Mary and Olivia how to vacuum. More tears of joy.

Talk about tears. How many times have I seen the Terry Fox documentary? It still makes me emotional. I've been grateful that ISB makes it a priority to teach the kids about important causes. Last year I agreed to run the Terry Fox run with Mary, almost eight months pregnant. That wasn't a great idea. She still remembers the humiliation that we came in very last.

Here are Olivia and her best friend Sora, and another with Bethany in the stands among her classmates.

This year the run was scheduled for the last week of September, but they had to reschedule. The pollution level was too high. The second date was Friday, October 16th. I guess they decided to make it more efficient by having all the lower elementary grades run together at the same time for twenty minutes. I like it. Much less humiliating to the slow among us.

Here I am trying to pretend like I'm only slow because I'm holding a toddler. That didn't last long. Grant wiggled down and shot off like a natural.

I brought Grant because he loves to run. He ran two and a half laps with a big smile on his face. Is it just my laziness or is a half a mile plus a lot for a two year old? When the running time was up he asked "I run?"

Friday night we had a fairly successful homemade pizza making. We still need more experimentation.