Happy Birthday to Ed. Happy Birthday to Ed. Happy Birthday Dear E-ed, Happy Birthday to Ed. :-) Since the Nintendo Gamecube doesn't come out until November 18th, Joey and I gave him a taupe Bill Blass microfiber jacket and a Tom Clancy novel with the rest of the gift to come on November 18th (or whenever we can get our hands on one of those gamecubes).

Tonight was Parent Night at Joey's school. I enjoyed chatting with her teacher--she is very nice. I'm going to be the Room Mom. Well, actually, I'll be the Room Co-Mom. And I'll be helping with Reading Groups on Thursdays. I'm very much looking forward to it. I like Joey's teacher very much. I'm going to also help her design an art curriculum for the class. At least an art history curriculum. Yay!

And now a big THANKS to Ellen, Tricia and Maxie for the suggestions on how to make spelling less painful for our family. I especially like the sugar idea. I think Joey will like that, too. We'll give them all a try over time, I'm sure. We played a game today where I wrote the words out and also misspelled them 3 times and she had to choose the corrected spelling out of the 4 options. She liked it and got all but one right, and it was one of the challenge words, so it was harder.

I went to the produce stand and bought a bunch of local peaches some perfectly ripe pears and some incredibly crunchy tart-sweet Jonagold apples. They are all delicious and I will so miss the wonderful fresh local produce in a month or two when it is all gone. Until them, I'm gorging on it. C'est delicieux.

I am so looking forward to our family gathering tomorrow. Joey is very excited that I'm making my now-famous smoked baby back ribs and baked beans. She told me yesterday that they are her favorite food, tied with sushi. What a kid, eh?

Tonight, before Parent's Night, I listened to the President's address. I liked it. I thought he said some really great things. He certainly had support from congress. Hillary should be careful about rolling her eyes and clapping sarcastically, though, when there might be a camera around. I really choked up when he talked about the police officer's badge. So I'm a sucker for stuff like that. Blame it on PMS. I swear I detected a little bit of tears in his eyes when he talked about it, too.

And that is all I can think of to write about tonight.

--L