Hey Phoenix: Eat Some Pizza and Support the MDA (and therefore SMA research)

NYPD Pizza this Thursday is enlisting the help of the Phoenix Police Department to wait tables, and your tips will be donated to the MDA.
http://www.evliving.com/2009/03/10/4210/fight-muscular-dystrophy/

The MDA "buy a shamrock for $1" campaign ends one week from today. My twins benefit from real financial aid from the MDA, so now you that that's where your money goes. Maybe my babies should be poster children for the MDA. Indeed, they are cute enough. But anyway. I digress.

I bought my MDA shamrock at a Honeybaked Ham store this week, of all places, but I know all the grocery stores are selling them, too.

So if you like your cops walking up with a pizza instead of a traffic ticket, join us at 20th Street and Camelback at NYPD Pizza on 3/12, from 4-9pm. Or, just swing by and drop some money in the tip jar that I'm sure they'll have out. (And I suspect that there is more than one NYPD Pizza participating in this, but I'm not sure...)

Thanks to everyone for their support! Go buy a shamrock!

Backyard fun, and what I think is a brown recluse spider.

Caution, there is a photo of an icky spider at the end of this post. You've been warned.

What a cool afternoon we had today. Lots of backyard playtime. I'm thrilled with the new swing we got for the babies. Now that outdoor toys are appearing on store shelves, I was able to find this swing for them. It offers more upper body support than the bucket swing. Now I sort of wish I bought two of them instead of just one.

Chris' new custom grill finally arrived. Some famous BBQ grill maker in the South manufactured it. Chris would be annoyed if I can't remember the name.... hmmm, oh well. Anyway, it certainly does look nice. It's like our old grill, but on steroids. It has a big smoke box, and the iron is really thick, so when he smokes meats he won't have to wake up as often as night to add to the fire.

Some Jenna fun:

And finally, the spider photo. Do you think this is a brown recluse? We live right by some buttes and a wash/desert scrub, but we've mercifully been devoid of most bugs, snakes, scorpions, spiders, or other critters. Though we found one brown recluse last year, and now this one. It was on the garage door, right next to the key pad. It's like the thing had a death wish. I couldn't miss it. I might have accidentally brushed it with my hand if I'd been looking somewhere else when I approached the pin pad to open the garage door. Yeeps! So, any spider experts follow this blog? Weigh in, please.

A Blessed Day

I'm blogging to you now from the gorgeous green grass, in the shade, in my backyard. There are a few whispy clouds in the sky, nothing more than some smears of white against the baby blue sky. The sun shines--making my back hot, as I'm wearing a black shirt--and it's about 84 degrees here outside, with a little breeze.

Lauren is next to me, laying on a blanket and watching the birds and planes cross over her in the sky. Jenna is sitting next to her eating an apple. Kyle is eating mandarin oranges with his daddy on the back porch, in his outgrown baby walker. We're listening to Fishing In the Dark on my iPod, along with a little freeway traffic and some prop planes landing and taking off at the municipal airport a couple miles away.

Laundry is waiting. Decluttering everywhere and dirty bathrooms are waiting. Paying bills and shredding a tall pile of paper is waiting. Refueling our cars for the week is waiting. Making brownies for dessert tonight is waiting. Who cares? This is what it's all about. What a blessed, blessed day.