A prodigal finds a new home

I don't know about your kitchen, if you are like us in acquiring a variety of mugs or if you prefer your coffee accoutrements to match, but this is some of our collection. 

The far right one, asking "now where did I put my coffee" is from my camp friend, Kimmy. Boy, does she know me or what? The back of it reads, "Wallet? Phone? Keys?" 

The far left one is from Square One Art, which takes kid art and turns it into all sorts of fun items like flags, mouse pads, magnets, mugs, etc. Damon drew the giraffe and I adored it so I bought one for me and his giraffe-obsessed aunt Muggin. 

The "BEWARE, not a morning person" one was an off-to-college-with-you gift from my mother. It's survived a bazillion moves and I haven't busted it yet, unlike the Lion King one she also sent to college with me.

The pink one declaring, "You are a courageous woman" came from my sweet sister-in-law, Jana, during chemo. I had many mugs of hot tea through the chemo process and each time I used it I felt so loved.

The insulated mug with the candy hearts with sayings all over them is from my dear friend Kathy whom I've had the privilege of praying with for, wow, around 15 years now!

And the one beside that with the cherry blossom is a tea infuser, the first one we've added to our collection as we've discovered how much fun one can have with loose teas. Zita has a matching one, completely coincidentally, which makes me laugh!

No, the above photo is not how much coffee I consume in the morning, thank you very much. I just wanted to show off my new coffee mug and his friends. See the little guy, second from right, with the blue stripes? He's a prodigal mug. 

Dada and I were on a Trash Bash, which is exactly what it sounds like: we live in Ohio where the wind gets a bit full of itself and often recyclables which were in fact tossed into the proper recycling bin blow back out and go adventuring unsupervised. Therefore, there is plenty of trash in the farm fields, yards, and ditches around our corner of Ohio. It looks terrible and hurts my hobbit/wood elf heart. 

Dada, who loves me and has earned his mansion in heaven for putting up with my Shenanigans all these years, agreed to help me clean some of it up since we were out walking anyway. 

I hereby interrupt the original story to brag on this man a little bit. Through a lot of self-denial and self-discipline as well as a bunch of exercise, he has lost over thirty pounds this winter! I'm so proud of his dedication, especially in quarantine, especially in a house where there are Oreos. And ice cream. His personal Kryptonite. Way to go, babe! You are doing great!

So we were on one of our walks and had three grocery bags full of recyclables, some assorted pieces of trash, two glass beer bottles, and I spied a poor, sad coffee cup in the dirt. Did he fall of the roof of someone's truck as they accelerated past the intersection? Did he take a tumble from a tractor? How did he get here? 

Well, I couldn't just leave the little guy there, so I brought him home, gave him a good soak, a quick scrub, and a run through the dishwasher. When he was shiny and clean I poured some fresh, hot coffee into him to test him out and voila, he has a new home and a purpose. And friends. Now, where to put him?

As we were lugging home all of our trash/treasures, I kid you not, we spotted a bald eagle soaring over the field across the street from us. I jiggled the bags and chirped how none of this stuff we were hauling would now end up in the bald eagle or in his prey, and I think that's just about the best thanks we could possibly have gotten!

Yes, we drink out of Mason jars around here. Yes, that's a rubber Duckie in with our glassware. Have I blogged about that already? Hmmm. I'll have to investigate while you wait in suspense! 

 

Spring has begun!

 The time for seeds has begun!

I get so excited. We have catalogs laying about, bags of dirt in the house and on the deck, trays patiently waiting to be filled and seed packets. Many, many seed packets. Some circa 2011, haha!

Sunday we took advantage of the sun and relatively low wind so I could make a mess on the deck. I played in the dirt, and now have one tray of lettuce seeds and two trays of tomato seeds. I also have what I hope will become an herb garden precariously perched on a windowsill downstairs.

I'm sure there will be more. I'll keep you posted, but as of Friday, I have three brave lettuce seedlings, two tarragon (a new one for us), five thyme and one basil! Yippie!

Mid-March moments

We celebrated Grandma Barb's birthday with chocolate donuts, which we all knew she would appreciate. They hopped into my cart at the store the day before her birthday, so I blame her. She was a huge chocolate fan, often smuggling me Dove chocolates, and hiding M&M's in her pockets. She's been gone five years already and we often giggle about her love of bananas, which bordered on addiction, how she would have gotten a kick out of the things the kids say and do, and how I hear her voice in my head when I ask, "how's everybody doing today?" Gone but not forgotten, for sure. Happy birthday, Grandma Barb.

And because I do have a wee bit of Irish in me, I felt I should represent for St. Patrick's Day:

And, heaven help me, I decided to clean out the boys' closets and dresser. I told Zita to send in a search party if she didn't hear from me again in a timely fashion. 

Holy Moses, does this kid have a lot of clothes! For someone who has been in pajamas for the majority of the last eleven months, I was blown away by how much he has. These pictures are all from Damon's closet!
 

I made a ton of progress. We have a large box to give to a friend with slightly smaller guys than ours, and bags to head to goodwill. That Cuisinart box in the background was full of clothes for him to wear in fall of 2020, but as I've stated already, he stayed in pajamas because we didn't go anywhere, so I never even opened it. I'm fairly certain none of it will fit him in the fall/winter of 2021 because the kid got LONG. Things tend to get boxed up around here and then hang out a week or two before making it to their final destination, so if you of anyone who needs size 10-12 shirts, long or short sleeves, let me know!

I should have taken pictures of Liam's dresser drawers. We discovered a long time ago that rolling his clothes works better than folding them, but during the pandemic he's also been in mostly pajamas and has taken to just yeeting stuff in the drawer any which way. The drawers have never closed well anyway, so they just yawn open and patiently receive whatever he's trying to jam in there. Well, I discovered that he had shoved dress shirts in there as well, and was not pleased. First of all, those suckers are long sleeved and take up more room, and second, I do not iron. Ever. He assured me the wrinkles will fall back out now that they're hung up, and let's be honest, we're not going anywhere for awhile that he would need them, but still. To quote a friend and fellow karate mom, "the child isn't right!" 

Anyway, we got his dresser mostly sorted but did not even attempt to deal with the huge bin of rolled up clothes that has been lurking in his closet. Divide and conquer. If he'd just quit growing, that would help. Looks like he's grown two inches in the last year and that's just eyeballing it. Yiiiiiikes. Good thing it's almost shorts season because I don't know how we'll keep him in pants otherwise...

That middle child

This kid, in his new glasses, and attitude. 

 

He announced to me that he'd broken his retainer. Parents of kids who've endured orthodontia just got a cramp in their wallets. So we did what one does; we headed to the orthodontist. The technician examined it and thoughtfully suggested we contact the dentist as she saw evidence of Liam grinding/clenching his teeth in his sleep and intuited that he could use a night guard. I thought it was both professional and sweet of her as she could easily have said, "sure, we'll just make him a new one and charge you the $185." However, this route means that while we will pay for the night guard, he only has to get an impression (everyone's favorite thing, right?) taken once instead of twice and we're not paying for two appliances that will essentially do the same thing. In May he would have transitioned to only nighttime wear anyway, so her suggestion was very much appreciated. 

I contacted our dentists' office and he now has an appointment with them on Monday to get set up for his night guard. In the meantime, he's wearing a sports mouth guard while he sleeps, which isn't ideal, but will protect from the grinding/clenching that he's apparently inherited. (Innocent whistling around my night guard over here, haha.)

I would like to know where this man-child came from and what he did with my pudgy, smiley baby, though...

 

Not to be outdone

This kid saw me taking Liam's pictures and informed me that I had to post this photo as a comparison when he saw his post-hoodie hair. Can you believe he's almost done with fifth grade? Time is crazy.

 

The Mom of the Year once again goes to...

 Anyone but me. Not it.

The shift back to in-person school has been not without challenges. I'm not going to blame or point fingers. I'm just sayin', "it's been a bit tricky."

Initially we'd been told that Mondays would be deep cleaning days and therefore no students were to report. Fine. Block A kids would attend Tuesdays and Wednesdays, Block B kids were to report Thursdays and Fridays. Also fine. I got my planner out, color coded things, assumed I knew what to expect, and off we went.

Except.

First week of school the high school announced, "uh, ACTs are scheduled for Tuesday, so um, let's send the Block A kids on Monday and Wednesday." Okiedokie. Sounds reasonable. Very first day of school is now the day before the very first day of school was scheduled. Got it. No problem.

Thing 3 has his gifted class to finagle into things as well. His day to attend is Tuesday. At a different elementary school than where he attends regular school. So he's to take his normal school bus to his school, catch a different one to the other school, do his thing, take two buses home.

The first bus never showed that Tuesday, the ACT day, so I took him straight to the other school after a quick conversation with our office. No problem. It's ten minutes away, no big. It's the first week, there's a new bus driver, there's always wonkiness the first week. 

The rest of the week proceeds fine, the second week seems flawless, time for thinking we've found our groove and...

Nope.

Teachers are getting their second shots on Friday. This means that the Block A kids will go Monday and Tuesday, Block B kids will go Wednesday and Thursday. Okay, got it. No problem.

Wrong.

There was also an email about the gifted schedule shifting, even though normally that is a Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday schedule, sent on Friday. Guess who didn't check and/or missed the email saying Thing 3 was supposed to report on Monday?

*sigh* That'd be me. Poor kid was up, dressed, had eaten, and had snuggled in to work on his remote stuff when I get a call from the office. It's my sweet friend, all chipper and sympathetic. "Is Damon going to gifted today?" 

Me: ...

Also me: ... um, yep, yep, I can run him over there right now...

*Grabs clothes (since the child is still in pajamas), packs up computer/charger/headphones/snack, grabs keys/wallet/purse/sunglasses*

"Mama, we need masks..."

Yep! Got those too. 

Off we go, deposit said child after apologizing and trying to calm him back down because now he's freaking about the work he's supposed to be doing remotely but can't work on because he'll be in his gifted class. 

Just another example of why everyone needs to take a deep breath and be kind to each other. Maybe his gifted teacher and my sweet office friend both think my brain is full of cornflakes, I know it feels that way sometimes, but we are trying, haha! Be kind to everyone you meet- they may be having a cornflake morning!

End of February

 Our typical Ohio weather (read: bizarre) had us frizzering back to back with 63 degrees the next day. Today it didn't hit 40 and the wind has been hovering around 20 mph. 

However, our clouds are fun! 

Grandmama says it looks like Siberia, hehe.

Most of our snow is gone, and good riddance, but I'm not naive enough to think it'll be gone for good. We still have all of March to go. 

In other news, we've confirmed that the killdeer and red-winged blackbirds are back from wherever they winter. I get excited when I hear them and even more so when I see them. I guess Spring IS on the way!

The Murphy bed

Before:

Our downstairs guest bedroom has become Dada's office since he now works from home. We found various tables around the house and got them in there months ago so he'd have someplace to put his computer with multiple monitors, his microscopes, and so forth. There was also a night stand, a rocking chair (which Pap made) and a corner hutch (also made by Pap). Dada has plenty of boxes of broken glass mailed to him in the hopes that he can determine the hows and whys of the breakage. He'd gotten good at yeeting (okay, not really) stuff onto the bed, but somehow the idea of a space-saving Murphy bed surfaced, and Pap went to work. As is often the case with home improvements, it turned into a whole-house project: 

Right about here was the part where there was some grumbling about it not fitting and "maybe we need to saw some off" and "maybe we need to try ____ ," at which point I beat feet elsewhere and tried not to panic at the thought of it becoming a Farmhouse Project and thus having our house torn up for the foreseeable future. 

 There were some breaks in the work, like for Damon's first day of real school since last March. Pap and Precious escorted him to the bus stop, but though we waited for 20 minutes the bus didn't show and he needed to get to another elementary school for his gifted class that day, so I took him. We had preschool flashbacks as it's the same route we took way back then. I got him there on time, the bus brought him home, and later in the week everybody seemed to know where to be when. We'll see how it works out tomorrow when we do it again...

You can see the ironing board on the far left. It had been kept under the bed as I don't iron. Not sure where to put it now!

Below: This is the back of the corner hutch, which has been relocated to the Old Lady Room, taking the corner where the Teething Chair used to reside. Why do we call it that? There are teeth marks all along the arms from where Hinrew was just tall enough to gnaw on them when he was small. 

The rocking chair that Pap made is still sitting beside the kitchen, but at least it's not in there anymore like it was when I rounded the corner and lo and behold there was Pap, taking a break, rocking away while reading a book in the middle of the kitchen floor! We are making progress.

I was prepping to make homemade Pioneer Woman meatballs when the guys brought an air compressor through from the garage, cord and all. Things were a little bit nuts for awhile, but they cleaned up after themselves and the meatballs were made and devoured. I think they lasted two days. Might be a record.

Ta da! Newly installed Murphy bed and Teething Chair in its new corner. I told Pap he needed to sleep in it at least once to make sure it wouldn't close up on anyone, like my mother, like they do in the cartoons. He just laughed. I hope that means he's confident in his carpentry skills, haha! Time will tell! 

Maybe it'll be a good hiding place for me the next time I need to escape... I'll have to think about that.

                                               After:

Just don't try to open it expecting to get to Narnia. We have a closet for that. 

A post of random

 I very much enjoy posts of random. I don't have to worry about whether the photos are going to load in the proper order or anything. I just type using stream of consciousness, which  is fun when it's just you but annoying as heck when you're trying to read someone else's. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, anyone? Ick. Not my cup of tea. 

But speaking of tea, I've been having many, many scones with mine! We have partaken in the "must have a sourdough starter during a pandemic" craze and our starter has been around longer than some people's relationships. Therefore, I've named it Maurice a la Steve Miller Band's "The Joker":

"Some people call me the space cowboy, yeah, some call me the gangster of love, some people call me Maurice 'cause I speak of the pompatus of love..." 

I don't even know what that means. And spellcheck underlined it. Hmmm. 

Anyway, Maurice has been diligently fed and watered for months. I don't even remember when we got him. We had sourdough pancakes for weeks until I was the only one not tired of them, the boys declaring them "too eggy". So I started hunting other recipes. I made a sourdough banana bread, but I was the only one to eat that and it got buried in the back of the fridge so I had to throw it out. Then I found chocolate chip sourdough scones and they are fun! I've even started to change up the chocolate chips for other flavors or combinations. Some have butterscotch and white chocolate chips. Some are dark chocolate. The "black and white ones" are white chocolate with either semi sweet or dark chocolate. I freeze a lot of them and give away a bunch. Our mail carrier has had one, I took a tray to the guys at the Honda dealership when they fixed up two of our vehicles, I've taken some to neighbors, sent some home with Pap, etc. 

I've also fallen in love with a new comfort food: dal. It's red lentils, mustard seeds, cumin seeds, turmeric, zucchini, onions, and so on. As you can see, I figured I better designate an "I'm cooking with turmeric" spoon lest they ALL turn yellow.

So, so yummy. A small brown birdie told me it's very forgiving and that it can be doubled or even tripled, so I have doubled it and have been pleased. The kids won't touch it, but I can't get enough. So satisfying.

This kid. He had just put on his Old Spice Swagger deodorant, which is pretty darn close to any Axe body wash in scent power if you ask me; he snagged my sunglasses of the bar and vogues, "Now I'm officially called a Swagger!" Cracks me up every day.

We are still trying to be responsible about keeping our social bubble small, so we ordered in for Valentine's Day and kept things low-key. We did order a new set of sheets because we've been married over twenty years now and you know how sheets and towels start to get ratty looking. Dada ordered a red set from, get this, Sheets & Giggles. They are super soft, environmentally friendly eucalyptus, and we love them. However, they are also red and I feel like they shout, "welcome to the Den of Iniquity!" I keep sniggering as I make the bed, but they are comfy! So here's the shameless plug: if you, too, would like to have your own Den of Iniquity, (they have other lovely colors besides red) check out Sheets & Giggles and see for yourself.

I experienced a virtual women's retreat, which was lovely, and I can honestly say that I think perhaps it was the first time I've ever had a donut for communion... that's just how it worked out!

Feel free to capture this one yourself:

Damon had a dessert fail:

You can caption this one, too. Audience participation time!

My lovely birthday earrings from Becky. Check out all the beautiful options at Made for Freedom and read about how they are helping women rescued from sexual slavery find meaningful employment.

I'm not even sure what's happening here, probably just a "smile for Grandmama" photo op. It looks like pancakes (not sourdough) so I'm thinking Fat Tuesday, perhaps? Liam's old robe was suddenly like 4 inches too small in all directions so we found him a new one at goodwill and I am not sure that he's taken it off. Let's just say that boy is loving remote schooling. He very much enjoys the not getting up at 6 to be on the bus at 7. He still disappears when he turns sideways, but at least he does it in a snazzy bathrobe, haha!

Bespectacled

 It was the boys’ turn to see the eye doctor, haha, and the visit went about as you’d expect. Liam’s eyes at age fifteen and a half have changed just enough to warrant a new pair of glasses, which will probably come in sometime this week, while Damon at age ten and a half, who desperately wants glasses, still has excellent vision. Liam keeps telling Damon that he doesn't want glasses, especially now with masks, but the child will not be deterred.

Therefore, with the obscene amounts of screen time going on around here, and not just the online learning being to blame, we felt justified in getting a pair of nonprescription glasses with the blue light filtering treatment on them, especially as he sits with his nose maybe a foot from the screen, which is also not recommended. Someone came home happy as a clam! Yay for all-around wins.

Liam, post-dilation

I'll keep you posted; more pictures to come once Liam's new ones arrive.