Fun and games

Because being home with everyone is not enough of an adventure, our washing machine decided to throw in a little fun and games, as they say in “Father Goose”, one of my all-time favorite movies. I’ve been a Cary Grant fan for forever, and his role as a feisty curmudgeon opposite the proper Leslie Caron is just fabulous. We quote from it a lot throughout my family. Since you're home anyway, might as well watch it. 

Anyway, our washer and dryer are on our upper floor, so lest you panic and think there was a leak, or worse, a flood, that was not the kind of dramatics we experienced. No, this was more of a slow death. For months now it has sounded like an industrial washer, chugging and shuddering away as though it wanted to burst its seams. I did a small load of whites a few days ago and it was fine, perhaps a little smoky smelling when I pulled them out, nothing to write home about. The next load was a probably slightly-too-large load of darks. I remember thinking that I wasn’t hearing a lot of chugging and rattling and vibrating and the usual living-on-the-edge sound effects we’ve gotten used to.

When I pulled the load out, I noticed that they were still quite wet. Very wet. Hmm, let’s try the spin cycle and get some more water out.

Beep beep beep!

Spin cycle apparently finished while I’d been tied up monitoring who was on which device for what class, ad nauseum, I checked again.

Very wet. Wringable. Slightly dirty water.

Okay, the lighter stuff goes into the dryer and the sopping wet stuff comes with me. To the clothesline we go! Commence literal drip drying to start, and since it was 70 degrees, everything was probably 75% dry by the time I took them back in to pop them in the dryer.

However, now we have this:

So God bless my engineer husband who doesn’t mind taking things apart in his spare time. He had already ordered new bearings weeks ago in anticipation of this event, and he’s been working between meetings in our poor, sad probably 14 year old friend. Pretty sure we bought this set when we moved into The Best Nest when I was pregnant with Liam. No shame, faithful appliance, no shame. 

I had a different project today from the usual playing in the dirt since it is much less warm and much more windy. Like 25 miles an hour winds. Not a huge fan of being outside in it. Even the dogs are protesting. So I worked on a bookshelf that had been vomiting. Now our book nook is tidied up and will hopefully stay that way for a hot minute. I discovered an entire bin worth of books I haven’t read yet, so I better get crackin’!

Spring fever

I keep hearing Michael Franks singing in my head about, "April is not the cruelest month..." but my brain keeps changing it to "Feb-ru-ary's the cruelest month..."

How can it not be spring yet? I have been drinking kegs of coffee and tons of tea and yes, the light is changing, but we still have a month of winter to go! Grrrrr! Mommee, I know you believe March is the longest, but I adamantly maintain that this ridiculous month is never-ending! It just c.r.a.w.l.s. past......... and then backs up to run you over again. 

Since returning to school from Christmas break on January 9th, the kids have had two delays which stayed delays and seven snow days. Damon has had eight, because last Wednesday the big kids went but the younger kids had to stay home due to worsening conditions. I think there's been a total of two weeks in which the kids have had school all day, every day, and one of those weeks Carrie stayed home sick for a day. Am I complaining? I think I'm complaining.

Last Monday, they had scheduled no school for Presidents' Day, the fireplace guys were here working every day of the week, and we all had karate. Tuesday, they went to school and Carrie had karate and staff training that evening. Wednesday was the day only the big kids had school, but everyone had karate that night. Thursday I was getting my IV meds during the late morning and early afternoon and Liam had a band concert that evening. Friday, blessedly everyone had school (including me, as I'm back to having first graders read to me in the hallway of the elementary school for my third year running) but Carrie didn't go because she and Dada headed off to winter camp for the weekend. I had a meeting in the afternoon, and had the boys by myself all weekend. We watched "Father Goose" on Saturday and went to church yesterday. We hardly saw Dada at all last week because he was helping lead some training at work. Saturday, I washed the walls, wiped down the furniture, then vacuumed and mopped the "library" to get rid of the stone dust which was covering everything. Damon especially loves having that room mostly open and empty because he can slide across the hardwood floor, not in his socks as his sister does, but whole body slides. Mopping was a matter of survival if he wasn't to repollinate the entire house with stone dust.

The fact that I wrote, "thank you that Feb is almost over" twice in my journaling today is telling. Zita left for two weeks in India, Janet is spending all month long in Arizona, some people went to winter camp, another friend left last week for Arizona also... clearly it is time to either go stir crazy or get out of Dodge.

So what am I doing? Perusing seeds. That's right. I realized I'm already behind schedule and am picking out garden and flower seeds. I'm also picking up sticks and limbs that are down after our ridiculous winds the last two days. Bosley keeps eyeing them as I set them by the fireplace, and I keep reminding him to not even think about it. Thankfully our power stayed on throughout and our spiffy new fireplace is working well. I don't think I can even call it spiffy as it is way fancier than that; I like it even more than I expected to! I can't wait to get the holes drilled for the curtain rods to go back up, move furniture where it belongs, and call it good. 

Usually when I'm busy I feel like time passes faster. Last week I felt like a single parent and the time just did not get the memo that it was supposed to speed up. Where is that groundhog? Someone get a message to him that spring, not summer, had better hurry it up before some of us end up on the news!

Why must Wednesdays masquerade as Mondays?

So here we are, officially day 3 of summer vacation. Let me give you a brief glimpse of what I can see from my spot at the kitchen table.

Damon is facing backwards onto the back of our rocking armchair. He's spying on a bunny in the front yard who is happily nibbling away at the grass Carrie mowed last night.  I'm hoping Damon doesn't rock himself right out the window. He's also keeping an eye out for the garbage and recycling trucks patrolling the neighborhood. He looks like he wants to be sleeping by the way he's rocking, but I don't know what time he got up this morning.....

Liam is poking his way through his cinnamon toast crunch. He claims he has no idea what time they got up because he didn't look at the clock. He could very possibly be at the table all morning as he's playing with the plastic gemstone ring he picked out at Carrie's orthodontist appointment. It's flaming pink.

Carrie appeared briefly to announce that, "Triskal peed on the floor" and "itreallysmellsBAD", then had her rice crispies and skittered back down to the basement. Pretty sure she's got her computer down there and that she's trying to escape the smell. Naturally we've had the first real rain for awhile, and everything is damp, and the wind is blowing straight in the front windows across the wet spot and into the rest of the house. Blech.

What's that saying about life is what happens when you're making other plans? That's been us so far, haha.

Monday morning at 9 we were supposed to meet up with friends to go strawberry picking. Our fearless leader called as we were minutes away (because I'd actually already driven past it and didn't see the sign) to say that she WAS there already and there was nobody else. She found a worker and inquired where everyone was and was informed, "oh, the strawberries aren't ready yet." Yeah? Woulda been nice to have that information on your website. "Sorry." Bah.

So we went to a playground, since it was 9 AM and we were up, breakfasted, and dressed. Then we hit the 577 Foundation where we checked out their biodome and book room and outdoor musical instruments, etc. Definitely taking PaPa the next time he comes to visit.

Yesterday brought karate for the big kids while Damon and I hit the credit union (well, tranferred money not broke into) and the nursery to replenish our sunflower and thistle seed supply, Carrie's orthodontist appointment in which they placed spacers between her teeth to make room for the impending braces, and then a library trip all before lunch.

This morning brought dog pee in the living room. I can't wait to see what happens next.

I know we're cleaning this pigsty today since the floor looks like someone spread confetti made out of tissues, dead leaves, school papers, colored pencils, library books, a marble, and a plastic Easter egg. And that's just in the 3 foot radius that I'll encounter once I step down off my chair.

Tonight we'll be heading out with our favorite realtor to view two houses. Before you start panicking, we're just looking. These places we'll see tonight have land, which Dada says  "they're not making any more of", so we like to look into possibilites for the future. I do find it incredibly funny that we just heard a wonderful, sensible, thoughtful talk about money by Rick Warren this past weekend, including how you should make it work for you instead of the other way around and how money is a test to see if you'll be faithful in small things......... and then we go house hunting, which is practically the most expensive thing you could do. Ha!

I have to say that I've really been enjoying the birds this spring, perhaps more than any spring previous. This winter was so dreadful, blah blah blah, *insert tirade here*, that the colors and happy chirps are so very welcome. I like to hear the goldfinches and their squeaky-hinge calls and the more clockwork noises of the starlings (even though they're funny looking and I'm not particularly fond of them) and the incessant chatter of the sparrows. We've had white crowned sparrows show up this spring, which were new to us, but I haven't seen them in the last two weeks. I've heard the pair of cardinals who hang out in our neighborhood, and saw Mama cardinal a few days ago, and the kids have been laughing at the stupid mourning doves and robins strolling down the driveways instead of flying. I had a dove run up the driveway in front of our car and dash into the bushes and THEN explode upwards in a flurry of feathers after we'd already passed him. We've seen lots of soaring-around birds, but haven't found any being-still-so-you-can't-see-me watching birds for days. Today they'd be skulking around in damp, frizzed out feathers. I wonder if humidity affects feathers the way it does hair. I look like Merida from Brave.

My coffee mug is down to the dregs, which means, as Carrie giggles to me, "my coconut is empty." If you have no idea what that means, get a copy of "Father Goose" from your library and enjoy classic Cary Grant and Leslie Caron. One of my all time favorites.

PS Got a letter from Uncle Rob at boot camp- all's well and he's hanging in there! He's wishing for care packages of homemade chocolate ice cream and would be willing to do pushups until his arms fell off for it.