The Spin CycleSeptember 2012 - The Spin Cycle

Archive for September 2012

Goodbyes

By Sue · Comments (56) · September 27th, 2012

First: A bit of business…

The winner of the Tomy Chuggington Stack Track Giveaway is:

1) Danielle M: dgood————

Congratulations, Danielle. I’ve emailed you to obtain shipping address information. I hope you enjoy your Stack Tracks as much as we have.

And now…Back to our regularly scheduled post:

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”What’s a liver?” The Small One asked, tears in his eyes.

I walked over to my youngest son and rubbed his back as I spoke. ”It’s one of your internal organs. It does lots of things. One of its jobs is to move waste through your body. I think. Biology has never been my specialty, hon.”

“Oh, it’s biology?” He brightened, scraped back his chair, and scampered away from the kitchen table. ”Hang on! I’ll be riiiight baaaaack!” His voice trailed off as he ascended the stairs to his room.

That left The Twins and me to blink at one another through our own watery eyes as we ate our cereal under an almost tangible cloud of despair.

“Will it hurt?” Twin B whispered. The three of us looked at Macy the Geriatric Weimaraner together.

She was reclined on her side, head resting upon the carpet. We knew that she could not hear…hadn’t been able to in months…but we spoke in hushed tones nonetheless.

I shook my head. ”It’s a very peaceful procedure.”

“Okay.” The Small One panted, settling down at the table once again, his cartoon illustrated biology book in his hands. ”Let’s see.” He consulted the contents, thumbed through the pages, located the one featuring an irregularly shaped blob with a smiling face, feet, and hands. A white vacuum cleaner was grasped in one of the hands. He began to read aloud. ”The liver is a wobbly workaholic who cleans up after the rest of the body. This hothouse of activity generates heat for the body. It just beats the brain as the body’s heaviest organ.”

He furrowed his brow, shrugged, and flipped feverishly through the rest of the book. His sorrow was temporarily and mercifully eclipsed by his fascination with all things scientific. ”Guys! Checkitout! Everything in your body’s in here. Everything: Heart…brain…nose…ear…stomach…”

The Twins and I slipped away from the table, laid down on the floor, and began to pet Macy, tracing our hands over the bony landscape of her 12 and a half year old body, which had dropped ten pounds in the last several weeks. Our tears flowed freely now and matted the fur around her neck as we nuzzled her.

She slept on.

“Touch…hormones…” The Small One continued, clearly on a roll now. ”…egg…sperm…baby in wahmb…”

I swiveled my head around sharply and craned my neck to see what he was reading. Baby in womb. Fabulous. Yet another dicey conversation on the horizon.

The Twins sniggered, rolled their puffy, bloodshot eyes, and looked at me knowingly.

Thankful for the levity of the moment, I grabbed a tissue, blew my nose, shooed The Small One upstairs to get dressed, and told The Twins that they needed to say their goodbyes before catching the bus to middle school.

And they did.

As they backed away, Twin A held out her phone and snapped a picture.

Then they walked out the door and toward the bus stop, shoulder to shoulder, blond heads bowed together. It took me a moment to realize that they were hunched over Twin A’s phone. The sneaky girl had smuggled it out the door with her, which was against protocol on school mornings.

And I was too drained to care.

An hour later, The Small One was gone as well.

Two hours later, so was Macy. As my groom and I walked out of the veterenarian’s office, holding her empty harness and leash between us, our phones pinged simultaneously.

We looked at each other, and then at our identical text messages:

C U in Heaven

Linking with Things I Can’t Say

Comments (56)

Tomy’s Chuggington Stack Track: Review and Giveaway

By Sue · Comments (102) · September 20th, 2012

When the folks at Tomy approached me about reviewing their newest die-cast line of tracks, I was somewhat hesitant.

For although my youngest son, The Small One, is a tremendous train fan, the Tomy line presented a bit of a conflict of interest.

You see, my family and I have always collected wooden train sets.

And now…

Die-cast tracks?

Not our bag, baby.

But we were willing to give it a go, for the sake of ~~free toys~~ research.

So Tomy sent us Brewster’s Big City Adventure, Koko’s Icy Escapade, and the Icy Escapade Expansion Pack.

The Small One was so mesmerized that his hair actually stood on end, friends.

I kid…I kid. The child sports the best bedhead west of the Alleghenies.

But he was impressed.

Stack Your Track! The packaging read. Build Higher!

I had my doubts. Every parent of a train fanatic knows that what goes up must come crashing down, with much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the part of said fanatic.

But we had to give them a fair shake. So after a quick change of clothing and taking a ~~backhoe~~ comb to The Small One’s hair, we got down to business.

The first thing that struck me was the fact that The Small One wanted no assistance with his project.

Whatsoever.

“I’ve got this, Mom,” he chirped.

And indeed he did. He decided to follow the building directions to start with. They were very user-friendly…all sequential diagrams that could easily be followed by children younger than my son. He put together Brewster’s Big City Adventure in about 15 minutes.

Turns out that the die-cast design of tightly interlocking pieces is the key to taking track layouts to a whole new level.

Literally.

And that was just the beginning, friends. With Brewster’s Adventure completed, The Small One pounced upon the Koko’s Icy Escapade set. After following the instructions and setting it up next to the Brewster set…

…He got creative and hooked the two together.

It was a snap. Again…literally. He actually dragged one completed set over to the other when he was ready to attach them.

I had never, in all my years of wooden track elitism, seen a set so sturdy and durable.

And neither had Twin B, who wanted in on the action. After working together to modify the layout a third time, the boys decided to make the set really, really high.

And for those of you with an extra sense of adventure, I highly recommend…

…the Whoopie Cushion Landing Pad (not included).

It pains me to think that I had been practicing Wooden Track Snobbery. For no good reason whatsoever.

I’m so ashamed.

And I will tell anyone who will listen that I am now a believer in Tomy’s Chuggington Stack Track.

And what about you, friends?

Would you be interested in giving Stack Track a whirl?

Well, fortunately, Tomy is offering yet another set, Wilson’s Wild Ride, to give away to one of my readers.

Wilson’s Wild Ride

Giveaway Rules:

Each comment left on this post, from now until Thursday, September 27th, will be considered an entry. The winner will be chosen by random electronic drawing and announced in a post on that date. Multiple entries (up to five) per person are encouraged. To enter, do one or more of the following. Verify each action with a separate comment here.

1. Follow my blog and leave a comment telling me what appeals to you about Tomy’s Chuggington Stack Track line. Their entire line may be viewed here.

2. ”Like” The Spin Cycle on Facebook.

3. ”Like” Tomy on Facebook and share this giveaway on your wall.

4. Follow The Spin Cycle on Twitter and tweet this giveaway.

5. Follow Tomy on Twitter.

Good luck, friends!

Disclosure Statement:

I was provided with Tomy’s Chuggington Stack Track in order to complete this post. All opinions are my own. Only residents of the United States and Canada are eligible for entry.

Comments (102)

The Giving that Keeps on Giving

By Sue · Comments (22) · September 13th, 2012

It was one of those mornings where everything was going exactly as it should.

Don’t you just love those?

The Cherubs had arisen all by themselves, ate their breakfasts with little fuss and boarded their respective school busses, right on schedule.

I had the kitchen tidied up from the morning tornado in practically no time and changed from my pajamas into my workout wear in a flash.

I locked up Macy the Geriatric Weimaraner in her private suite, where she could do minimal harm, save for the occasional Leaky Bladder Syndrome Episode, at which I am exceptionally adept with dealing.

I even remembered to put the twelve bags full of clothing and two boxes of books on the front porch for the donation truck to pick up. Of this, I was exceptionally proud. I had, on more than one occasion, forgotten to do so, necessitating their return to the garage for another week and raising the ire of my groom.

But not today.

Today, I carefully placed all of the sorted and labeled bags and boxes on the porch. Perfectionist that I am, I fussed with them a bit so that they would be symmetrically arranged between my decorative hurricane candle holders and the white rocking chairs which were permanent fixtures at the entryway.

What? Charitable giving is not a haphazard affair, in my book.

Anyway. Satisfied that the donations were as symmetrical as they’d ever be, I hopped into the Jeep and drove off to my Friday Pilates Reformer class, congratulating myself on what a tight ship I was running.

And an hour and a half later, I returned, my high self-image only slightly tarnished by the physical torture that I had endured. My spirits brightened as I rounded the bend and caught sight of my porch, which had evidently been visited by the donation truck.

I parked the Jeep in the garage, took a moment to marvel at the space within that was now free of the bags and boxes that it had held for more than a month, and meandered back out to the porch for one last look-see.

Twelve bags? Gone.

Two boxes? Gone.

Hurricane candle holders and white rocking chairs? Gone and gone.

Uhhhhh…come again?

I did an immediate double-take and stared at my porch, my eyes narrowed to slits.

What the?

I had been completely cleaned out.

Unbelievable.

I blinked and reflected on the manner in which I had left the donations. In my mind, the bagging and boxing left little to the imagination as to what should be taken and what should be left.

I mean, my potted plants were still on the front steps leading up to the porch. Was I supposed to be thankful that they were not swept up with the rest?

Was I expected to sing the Hallelujah Chorus at the fact that the windows overlooking the front porch were still nestled in their panes?

Thank goodness it was not a Saturday and The Cherubs had not been lolling about in the rockers as they are so fond of doing. I shudder to think of the scene that might have ensued if they had been.

So now, friends, I am engaged in a seemingly endless game of phone tag with the donation pickup service in what appears to be a hopeless quest to reclaim my goods.

Will they be returned? Only time will tell. I await a phone call this afternoon that should definitively tell me what the freakin’ frack has happened to my stuff.

Wish me well, won’t you?

*******UPDATE********

For the dramatic conclusion to this story, visit my Facebook page.

Comments (22)

Let’s Talk Glamping

By Sue · Comments (28) · September 6th, 2012

We spent the majority of Labor Day weekend without Twin B, who went on a camping trip with five of his best buds. They were chaperoned by one of the other boys’ parents, who ~~clearly must have been sniffing glue when they~~ generously offered to take the motley crew and see to their safety and happiness for three days.

He had a fabulous time.

And I’m so glad.

Because I don’t plan to take the boy camping if I can get away with it and still keep my Good Mom Card.

It’s not so much that I have something against camping, per se…

It’s just that I really, really enjoy not camping.

Turning on a faucet. Snapping open my Mac Book at will. Laying my head down to sleep at night without giving so much as a thought to what other kinds of critters, seen or unseen, may or may not be laying their varmint-y heads down mere inches from mine.

The topic came up while my groom and I were out to dinner with some friends last Friday night. We were engaged in a lively debate about the pros and cons associated with ~~playing hobo~~ the great outdoors, and one friend chimed in with: ”Well, a coworker of mine just went glamping…have you ever thought about doing that?”

I admitted that I had not, the main reason being that I had never heard of such a thing.

Have you?

To my ears, it sounded like an affliction: ”Oy…I’ve had this awful glamping that just won’t clear up no matter how long I soak in the tub or how much of that cream I use.”

But it is not an affliction, friends.

My friend went on to tell me that it’s like camping, but with modern conveniences. Glamorous + Camping = Glamping. Supposedly, it’s all the rage in hoity-toity-circles.

I was intrigued.

Who doesn’t want to be hoity-toity?

A fact-finding mission was most definitely in order.

So the next day, I Googled glamping. And this is what I found.

*cue Barry White soundtrack*

Why had this concept never crossed my radar in the past?

The interwebs are chock-full of glamping opportunities galore.

Color me enlightened. And totally Jonesing for a little glamping action.

In fact, it started me to thinking that just about any concept – no matter how commonplace or unexotic it may be – could probably be glammed up with a little creativity…

And, of course, a strategically placed gl-.

Let’s try it, shall we?

*Again with the Barry White*

I present for your consideration: