Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: an update.

Why, WHY do wasps like my house so much? You can go outside at any given time and find one or more mud-daubers' nests in progress, either right on the bricks or along the windows. What is this? Is there a sign on my house, written in Waspish, that says "Sceliphron caementarium welcome here"?

I just knocked down an enormous, multi-celled nest yesterday on the back porch. As I was doing so, several larvae fell out and some insect-like things I took to be dead wasps. That's funny, I thought. So they build a nest and climb into it and die? Fortunately for me I did not discover until more than 24 hours later that, no, those were not mama mud-daubers. They were spiders. S.P.I.D.E.R.S. Apparently the wasps paralyze spiders and then stuff them into the nursery for junior to feed upon at a later date.

God, I love nature. [/shudder]

By the way, that's the kind of decorating tip I'd really like to see on Martha Stewart's new show. Your baby could be the only kid in town with a room packed with arachnids. Just think what a conversation starter! Of course, most of the conversations would consist of, "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!" and a lot of running and shrieking, but that's the price you pay for being avant garde.

Man, what was with Julie Chen's outfit tonight on Big Brother? That dress looked like something you'd wear if your prom was being held at the Shady Rest Funeral Home. Mortuary chic. And, if that wasn't bad enough, she topped it off with a necklace from the Wilma Flintstone collection.

Julie....fire your stylist, stat!

So there is this class at OU and the subject, believe it or not, is the Beatles.

Guess who gets to take the class?

Oh yeah, that's right -- I DO, baby!

I have known about the existence of said class for several years, ever since I started going to see 1964: the Tribute on their yearly visit to OU in the winter. But, being neither a current nor prospective student of the school, I had no expectations of ever being able to take the class.

Then, last week, I got the wild idea to ask the professor if I could simply sit in on the class without being an enrolled student. I got his name and email address from OU Information, emailed him, and damned if he didn't say yes! He has been extremely kind and accommodating and I apparently did not frighten him with my enthusiasm, which is a plus.

The class is only held in the spring so I have a little while to wait, but that's okay. I'm sure it will go by fast. Plus I sort of need to resolve the whole "no transportation" issue before I can worry about driving up to Norman and back a couple times a week. Probably a lot of people would not consider driving 140 miles, roundtrip, to take one class, but it's worth it to me. I'd drive further than that! I don't guess the class will be more than twice a week so that isn't too much trouble. I figure I will go to class then get myself a bite to eat afterward and make each trip a nice little "me time" getaway. I have emailed the professor to ask if he knows which days the class will be held yet. I will go no matter when it takes place, but it would be totally serendipitous if it just happened to be on Tuesday/Thursday (the days when both kids will be in school all day). I'm not finicky, though. I am just beyond excited to have the opportunity to participate!

*I am so, so tired of summer. I hate being hot. I hate going to get in the car when it's been sitting outside and burning my hand on the five-thousand-degree door handle. I hate not wanting to be outside for any more time than is strictly necessary to get from Point A to Point B. I hate having to show my fat legs because it's too hot to wear long pants all the time. And I really, really hate sweating. Fall cannot get here fast enough, in my opinion. I know lots of people love summer but I think it's for the birds. Give me a nice, cool, breezy day where I can spend a few hours outside without breaking a sweat and I'm a happy camper. Bonus if it's cool enough that I can be wearing long sleeves the entire time and still not get overheated.

I have a new favorite picture of Paul.

I don't know about the "popular" and "charming" bits but I'd have to agree with the rest of the assessment.

Well, you've got to hand it to the producers of Big Brother 6. Just when you thought they couldn't possibly come up with a twist more anti-climactic than last summer's "Project DNA" they go and prove you wrong. Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you "America's Choice" as the new title holder in the neverending battle for "least impactful and most pointless twist in a reality show."

If they really had any guts and even a modicum of creativity, they would've attached a proviso to the original idea that America would be allowed to select a houseguest to re-enter the house. It would have stated, "The houseguest who wins America's Choice and re-enters the house also automatically receives immunity for the week and cannot be evicted." You know, give the returning fellow a chance to really shake things up and cause problems.

But, no. The Powers That Be, in their infinite wisdom (?), came to the decision that simply allowing the winner to walk back in the front door was enough of a bone to throw to the viewing audience and that no further action was necessary. As a result, we have yet another ho-hum "surprise twist" that started out as a really good idea but then failed quite spectacularly, spiraling to earth in a blaze of good intentions, crashing into the ratings basement.

So long, Kaysar. We hardly knew ye. You were my favorite; I voted for you to return. You should've kept your finger on that button, though. Never trust overbaked troll dolls masquerading as cheerleaders.

I'm getting verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves.

Here's a topic: Could I be any lazier?

Discuss!

(Hopefully I will be more bloggingly-inclined this week!)

Tomorrow I officially become the mother of a kindergartener.

It occurred to me that I should add a link to the archive page of my first blog, over at Diaryland, where I hung out for a year before I got my own domain. So, if you missed those entries the first time around, head over and check them out. There's some fun stuff over there.

The link can be found under "Archives" on the right side of this page or you can click this link.

I sincerely doubt that this is possible, but if there's anyone who still doesn't have a Gmail account, and would like one, or who already has one and would like another, give me a shout. I have many invitations to share. Leave a comment with your email address in it that you would like the invitation sent.

I am so tired of the screaming.

My rear end touches a chair and, within five minutes, someone is screaming and/or crying. Either it's a dispute over a toy, or someone wants something he/she can't get to, or John-Zachary has hurt himself....again. That child cannot go through a day without injuring himself at least every 90 minutes or so. Is it that boys play harder than girls? Or are they just more sensitive at this age? Madalyn never hurt herself -- or she never cried about it, if she did.

It's official; they've won. They've worn me down over the past three months and now I'm allowing things I wouldn't normally allow just to keep them quiet. School? It is needing to start....SOON.

It never ceases to amaze me how completely and utterly socially dysfunctional I am.

It seems as though at the advanced age of 30 (and three-quarters) I should be able to hold down a fairly lengthy conversation, or at least make a passable stab at it. But, no, unless you engage me about the Beatles, or California, pretty much all you're going to get out of me is a lot of head-bobbing and smiling and not much in the way of actual words.

I will meet someone in person and manage to force out, at the most, three sentences. And then I will go home and proceed to carry on a lively conversation with that same person via email or a message board. This seems slightly abnormal.

I don't really understand it, either, because, at any given time, I have 147 different things on my mind, 146 of which vanish completely from my brain as soon as a conversation is initiated. The one item I'm left with is usually something along the lines of "I like sandwiches" or "My feet are sweaty." It's like, one minute my brain is buzzing with the frenetic energy of Robin Williams mainlining espresso, then someone speaks to me and all of a sudden I'm Rainman. (But I'm an excellent driver.)

So, anyway, this is a shout-out to anyone who has tried to engage me in conversation and run headlong into a dead-end. It's nothing personal, honest. You may rest assured that I go home afterward and am kicking myself for the rest of the day for freezing up. Next time you have something to say to me, it would help immensely if you could email me a detailed outline of the topics you intend to cover, preferably three to five days before the actual conversation is to take place. I'm quite sure that if I have some sort of advance warning I can prepare a script that I can follow and appear darned near normal. Certainly that's not too much to ask, is it?

I had been using Internet Explorer for years without ever wondering if there was anything better out there. A couple months ago I was unable to save some animated gifs and was told the problem was IE. The person who told me that recommended Firefox so I downloaded it. Can I just say....it doth rock?

I haven't had any of the problems I had with IE since I started using Firefox. I got my animated gifs with no problem. When I installed it, it imported all my bookmarks and history from IE so I didn't have to start from scratch. This was a big bonus because I have TONS of bookmarks. If Firefox hadn't imported them for me I'd probably still be using IE most of the time, because I am THAT lazy.

Another cool feature is you can put a certain number of bookmarks right on your toolbar, so for the ultra lazy, like myself, there's no pesky pulling down of menus and scrolling to the desired address. Just a click on the tool bar and off you go.

Oh, and have I mentioned the search engine right in the tool bar? There's a little window to which you can add numerous different search engines. Type in what you are looking for, pull down the menu, select the search engine, and bang -- off you go. I have Google, Amazon, Ebay, Dictionary.com, Wikipedia, IMDb and Ask Jeeves on mine. It is so stinkin' handy I can't even stand it.

And then there's the fact that you can change Firefox's skin. For someone like me, who spends most of her waking hours staring at the computer screen, this is a big plus. I currently have a theme called "Pimpzilla" going. The buttons? Look like bling. Big, shiny, gold-and-diamond bling that sparkle when you run your cursor over them. It is tres cool.

The only downside I can think of is that some things do not support Firefox. But that can be easily remedied by keeping IE for those times when you find something that Firefox can't view. These things are few and far between, from what I've been able to ascertain.

So, are you sold yet? If you want to get Firefox, or just want to learn more, I invite you to please do so by clicking the handy little Firefox button over on the right of the page, under "Links" or go here: Get Firefox.