I get annoyed at the most picayune stuff. 

Case in point:  Why the deuce don't the people who design food
packaging put the pour spout on the TOP of the box, rather than an inch
down one side?

Take a box of Sugar In The Raw as an example.  Yesterday morning I tried and tried and tried
to get every crystal out of the box and into the sugar bowl, twisting
and tilting the box every which way, but finally declared defeat and
tossed it out with perfectly good, though unattainable, sugar still
inside.

Bet there was a good quarter teaspoon at a minimum . . . maybe even as much as a half a teaspoon . . . trapped inside. 

Hey, they aren't giving that
stuff away, you know.  Now, were the spout to be on the top of the
box, I'll bet I could get darn near everything out. 

Oh dear!  Sending me to Babies R Us. 

Cruel, that's what it was.  Cruel!  So many adorable outfits for ALL my poppets. 

However, I managed to hold myself down to $30, buying two gowns with
elastic bottoms, a package of ruffly-bottomed diaper covers, a pair of
ruffled socks, and an outfit I simply couldn't pass up, under the
circumstances:

A little girl's sailor set.  Isn't it perfect? 

And I spoke to Alex a few minutes ago, and he was taking his girls and headin' home! 

[grimly]  Tell you what, one has got to be SO careful.

There is doubtless a reason bogus emails from eBay, Paypal, etc. are sent overnight.  I'm not at my Best & Brightest early in the morning, that's for sure.

This morning when I opened my email there was a perplexing message from
Paypal, telling me some man named Peter Philbin had sent me $52:

Couldn't think of any reason anyone should be sending me $52, never
mind some guy of whom I'd never heard.  There was a link to "View
the details of this transaction online" which I went ahead and
clicked.  It sent me to what surely appeared to be a Paypal login
screen, so I entered my password.

It was running slow and nothing was happening, so I hit the "Stop" button.  Then it was time to take Dmitry to school.

While on the way, I finally woke up sufficiently to think "Anne, you
are very, very stupid."  It finally dawned on me that likely
wasn't legitimate, and I'd sleepily handed over my Paypal
password.  Mercy Maud, was I anxious to dump the kid and get home!

Went to Paypal and logged in.  First attempt it said my password wasn't valid.

Oh, NO!!!  

Tried again, and this time it worked. 

Quickly reset my password.  Also noted there was no $52 payment to
my account.  The last transaction was on the 15th, for the vintage
layette pattern Cindy located for me (has a kimono in it!). 
Whew! 

What's unnerving, however, is that when I got the email from Paypal
saying my password had been changed, it was from "service@paypal.com"
just exactly like the bogus email.  Oh, and it WAS bogus . . .
forwarded that message to spoof@paypal.com and they confirmed it wasn't
from them.

The thieves are gettin' sneakier and sneakier. 

Pictures are here at last!

Isn't she the darlingest poppet you ever saw?

Yesterday Dmitry was pleased to show me his report card when I picked him up.

He passed everything in the third quarter! 

Of course, this is with the teachers making allowances for him and his
language difficulty, but still . . . it's the first time he's passed all
his classes.    They were all low 70's, which he did
comment upon, as one of his friends received all 95's and 100's. 
Pointed out the difference between where he was when he began last
August and where he is now.  Huge difference!

Don got home latish last night, and after getting changed and basically
squared away, he poked his head into Dmitry's room, asking to see the
report card.  Dmitry was already in bed, but hopped out, wrapped
himself in his comforter, and padded out into the kitchen, determined
Pops should see it, even though it was in his backpack in the car,
which was put away in the garage (he didn't have any homework last
night).  He was beaming as Don praised him for his accomplishment. 

It was sweet. 

Well, dang.  Alex just called, and it turns out Hannah is jaundiced, so she'll need to stay over another night. 

What's up with all the jaundice these days?  Maybe I was simply
unaware as none of my babies ever had it, but it seems as if it's far
more prevalent than it used to be.  Kirstin's bro-and-sis-in-law
just had a baby boy earlier this month, and he
has developed jaundice too.  Alex said someone else he knows
recently had a baby that was jaundiced.  Is it my imagination, or
is this ailment more common than it once was?

And they had a rough night last night, with Hannah crying and
crying.  Finally about 3 in the morning Alex called the nurse to
have baby taken to the nursery (the nursing staff had offered
regularly, but Alex and Beth were determined to care for her
themselves) so he and Beth could get some sleep themselves;  he discovered her ankle ID band had fallen off
(she's lost weight) and he ran after the nurse to give it to her. 
He says he caught up with them about 100' feet down the hall.

Hannah was sound asleep. 

I pointed out to him this morning it was doubtless the rolling motion
of the bassinet being trundled down the hall that put her out, and it
shouldn't be taken as Editorial Comment on Hannah's part.  Very
likely she'll be one of those babies who can be quieted by a ride in the car. 

New parents!  Bless their hearts.

They haven't got a clue. 

Poor Don!  The life of a salesman..... 

He had a one o'clock appointment in Killeen this afternoon, and he left
early, planning to get there well ahead of time so he could set up the
demo without feeling pressured.

Those fancy demo things can be tricky.

Best laid plans!  He got there in good time, but then was kept
waiting and waiting, so by the time he was able to get into the
conference room where the demo was to be held it was Time, and everyone
trooped in, sat down, and proceeded to watch him get it set up.

Didn't work.  

Tweaked it.  Still didn't work.  Mind, this is par for the
course with these dumb things, which is why he likes to get there early
to set it up.  Finally had to call Hugh in Dallas and together
they managed to get it working properly, but not before 45 minutes had
gone by and one woman had given up and left. 

He said once he got going it all went well, and apparently they liked what they saw, but it was awfully frustrating. 

That's the nicest place, and I do believe it will have my shipping custom from here on out.

Since Alex and Beth preferred to not know the sex of the baby until she was born, they probably haven't had "girl" stuff.

Well, Gran took care of that.  Went to Target today and found lots of cute things. 

Except gowns.  Everything is either a "onesie" (a truly dumb name
for something if e'er there was one) or a sleeper or the like.  No
gowns with the drawstring bottom.  No little kimonos with the 3/4
sleeves and two snaps on the front.  How on earth are you supposed
to have a fighting chance of changing baby's diaper without waking her
up?  With a gown, this can be done.

I know, for I've done it . . .
many times, in fact.  But you have to pull little legs out and
cram little legs back in, and the kid's gonna be wide awake in short
order.  Strange!  I'd have crawled over gravel to have
disposable diapers with refastenable tapes (when my older kids were
babies, once the adhesive touched the diaper, that was IT . . . many a
diaper was fastened with masking tape because of this), but now they're
here, the wonderful gowns have disappeared.  

However, I digress.  So here I was with my sack o' goodies for
Hannah Alyse and needing to get 'em sent off.  Instead of going to
the post office as is my wont, I remembered the Box & Ship place to
the east of Minyard's.  Mercy Maud, but that was terrific! 
The man who owns it had cut a box down for me last fall, and remembered
me.  I handed over the bag, he took down the relevant addresses, I
paid $14, and he took it from there.  He'll pack it, address it,
and send it off, hopefully to arrive by Friday, though it might be
Monday.

That was marvelously easy, and we had a nice discussion about baby girls (his daughter is a year old).

My friend, DAVID Bayly (oops! ), has pointed out on his and his brother's blog
that with Terri Schiavo's time most certainly running out, and
obviously no help coming from the sorry excuse for a judge who has her
case, it's up to the president now.

He's right as rain, is David.

I've emailed the president, saying that seeing as how he claims Christ
as his Savior, and he possesses the power and authority to stop this
vicious, premeditated murder from occurring, he should sieze this
opportunity to stand up for the LORD and act as His arm of
righteousness.  (Don't get a lot of chance to write Old
Testament-y, and love it when I can.)

Please storm Heaven with your prayers and President Bush (president@whitehouse.gov
) with
emails!  Plus, David suggests emailing or calling our
congressional reps, to boot.  He says in a comment:  "Senator
Frist has brought legislation for Terri directly to the Senate floor
bypassing the Senate's committee process."  So there's something
there to support.

I've emailed my congressional representative and both senators
(actually, I faxed a letter to one of 'em).  To find how to
contact them, here are two sites:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

http://www.house.gov/writerep/

It's crunch time for Terri. 

She's HERE!!!!

Alex and Beth had their baby....a 9 lb, 8 oz. girl named Hannah.

Poor Beth was in labor since Saturday night. 

Praise the LORD, she and baby are fine.