Blathering on

 Sometimes I really do forget I have a blog. Other times it's just a busy life season. Once in awhile it's both!

In the month of May, I've had about half a dozen physical therapy appointments and an OT check in on top of wrapping up the school year. Thing Three performed in both a band concert and the Memorial Day parade. I've had two follow up appointments from last year's docs, some dry needling, made a trip to my hometown for a weekend, snuggled babies at church, wrapped up one preschool class with a zoo field trip and an evening spring program, and this week is Thing Three's last week of school while I try to fit in all the online training I need to have done before the end of June. There was also a visit to a retirement home with the preK crowd in addition to my school fighting off yet another wave of germs. Yeesh. No wonder I'm tired!

Arm/shoulder-wise, things are... meh. I'm wearing my compression glove and sleeve daily, I'm doing my PT exercises more often than not, I'm still seeing more swelling than I'd like, but this may just be my new normal. I don't know how we're to know if the vein stayed open since the venogram without imaging, but none has been ordered yet and the follow up appointment isn't until the middle of next month. I'm wearing the reductor kit at night while I sleep, pumping in my cool Darth Vader vest and sleeve* daily and now have a mushroom-shaped pad? pocket? pouch? thing that I wear with the stalk end tucked inside a compression bra and the shroomy end sticking into my armpit. The thinking is that it will help bust up some scar tissue and increase range of motion by loosening all that up. Jury is still out. I've worn it to bed twice. I think I'll try alternating that with the reductor kit since when I do the kit then my hand is swollen in the morning but if I do nothing then this tightness isn't going to be helped even passively... I don't know. I now better understand being over something even while in the midst of going through something!

* Funny story- I was also issued a pair of shorts that attach to the pump because it's easier to order them and get it all at once than to add pieces later. I figured I'd never need the shorts, but whatever. Then I spent an afternoon vigorously yanking out honeysuckle bushes, including one extra hard yank which landed me on my "butt-ducks" as our kids used to say. I'd already been only a foot off the ground because I was using my legs in a squat instead of my back, but I still sat there laughing at myself for a minute. The next day, my butt-ducks and rear thighs were so tight and whiny that I thought, "hey! I can use the shorts!" So for two days that's what I did and, boy, if you've never had your butt-ducks rhythmically squeezed and released, it's really something. I don't know what, but it's something! I can just hear my Grammy and Gramps laughing at me!

I have little news to report on progress made in the basement since the death of the sump pump. We are looking at tile flooring because we know it's only a matter of time before the new sump pump also croaks and we have zero desire to rip out carpet and padding yet again. For the tile we have a first and second choice, we think. We have not taken measurements yet. We also have paint swatches since we were never wild about the color down there in the first place and it's been... well... this fall will be our 12th year here, I think, so we figured we might as well paint before we do the floor.

None of that was on the Bingo card for 2026. In fact, I have paint swatches taped up in the foyer because that's the room I'd painted most recently and it has held up the least well. When I showed Dada my colors, he sniggered and said it was exactly what was already on the walls and that at least I was consistent. I'd be offended except for the fact that he's right; they are almost identical. *sigh*

Thing Two made it home safely from his welding training this semester and has become a bump on a chair at the tall table. His basement bunker is out of the picture, so even though he's still not getting fresh air or sunshine, he's at least visible. Until he turns sideways, anyway, and then he disappears. He's so skinny! Miracles happen every day, and the proof is that my 20 year old Honda, Pepe the Pilot, survived the entire excursion of getting him to and from class daily through winter in Cleveland, involving both extremely rutted back roads and freeways of crazy drivers. Thank you for all the diligent prayers- they worked!

Thing One is working two jobs and having the typical summertime computer issues of something deciding to quit working and never mind that it has 8 years of art on it. Pshaw. Why should it boot up and do its job? This is in addition to whatever maintenance issues the jobs themselves run into. I believe the quote I heard was, "why is it whenever something happens we always have to tear out a wall??" Apparently when someone puts a coffee pot under a leak and then never checks it again... well, let's just say that we have all been introduced to our friend Gravity and that it doesn't bode well. Otherwise, having fun with the housemates and living the dream.

And we still have Boooooosley, who turned 9 on Cinco de Mayo, is no smarter than when we brought him home at 4 months old, and will probably live forever. Loudly. Ridiculous.

I hope all of you experience a GENTLE transition from spring to summer- goodness knows we all have whiplash here from Ohio being wishy-washy at best about what season it thinks it is- and that the end of the school year brings a routine in which you can breathe, and I don't just mean allergy relief. Take good care of you and revive your spirits. 

Friday funny

One of the other teachers comes into preschool to do art projects when her own students are having a special class like PE or music. The red paper with the black C for cat was the example, but it was not shown to the preschoolers. 

They were given verbal directions.

Maybe that's how Salvador Dali got his start...

*    *    *

The kids were told to color three apples: one red, one yellow, and one green. I received several which were varying shades of red/orange (okay), very pink (hmm), and most definitely blue (BLUE!) 

One of our students who didn't use red, yellow, or green looked right at me as I assessed her blue, purple, and magenta apples and asked, without batting an eye, "isn't that hilarious?"

*   *   *

Take your teacher friends out for ice cream and let them tell tales. You'll be hard pressed to hear funnier stories. Have a good weekend, everyone!

 

"'The time has come,' the Walrus said, To talk of many things:"

 "Of shoes- and ships- and sealing-wax- 

of cabbages- and kings-

and why the sea is boiling hot-

and whether pigs have wings.'"

So says Lewis carroll's "The walrus and the carpenter" which actually does not occur in his "Alice in wonderland" despite being in the animated disney version, which is also why it took me awhile to find it because i was looking in the wrong place. i digress. this isn't about me.

these are the words that have been banging around in my head for a long time. somehow, and i blame may for being the craziest month, i never posted about thing one's birthday last year. or the year before. i don't know how that happened as i know i have photos that were supposed to go on here of the cakes and the smiles and the sunglasses and and... heck! i'm so sorry. my deepest apologies. 

so, thing one, the one who made me a mama, whew. 

how can you be 21 and legal now? 

you came out hollering and the nurse said, "wooooooweeeeeeeeeeee, do you have a temper! where did you get that!?" dada and i looked at each other and shrugged. no idea. but i'm glad for it, because you were a tiny puddin'pop, small and mighty. you turned into someone who knows how to stand up for yourself and others, who gets fired up when people are treated badly, who drags others to get the help they need. i know you say you're not the mom friend, but you kind of are. we are proud of you.

we love your art, especially now that you don't draw on the walls (as much) and we see the joy it brings you when you get it right. we love that you sing along in the car on road trips. we love that you empty the dishwasher unasked. we love that you get excited about skull shaped ice cubes. okay, everyone in the family loves those, but it doesn't negate the fact that we like that it tickles you. we love, and are constantly surprised, when we turn around and you've snuck up right behind us. we love that you are an individual and that you don't merge just to do what everyone else is doing and we love love love that you don't follow along with others' dumb choices "just because we're adults and we can." so proud. you have no idea. nooooo idea!

we love that you're learning to cook and that you're getting better at cleaning up afterwards. we love your patience with these awful dogs. we love your zero tolerance of siblings in your room but the fact that you'll still share the twizzlers. we love that you dive in to help, whether it's hauling puppies down a hall for a stranger or ninja-ing food pantry items around with pap. thank you for being kind and respectful, especially with those who you can tell are having issues, whatever they  may be. you are a treasure and a delight. we love being your parents. thanks for blessing us.

happeeeeeeeeeeeeeee birffffdaaaaaaaaaaaay toooooooo yooooouuuuuuuuuuuu!

Autumn roundup

What've we been up to during the radio silence?

This kid turned 15, but that's another post altogether.

The garden went completely nuts with tomatoes so I had to make soup, many times. And since I save chicken bones in the freezer until they threaten to take over, I had the opportunity to make bone broth. 

I also found a red lentil dal recipe with zucchini that turned out amaaaaazing and I can't wait to make it again! Even Zita approved, so that's high praise, hehe.

Yes, we are Those People who've been caring for a sourdough starter throughout the pandemic, and can I just tell you that sourdough pancakes are wonderful?! The boys declared them, "too eggy" and refuse to eat them. Dada is back on a low carb diet, so guess who reaps the rewards of yumminess!? Helloooooo elastic waistbands.

In order to combat the expanding waistline, especially as all I see when I look down is belly because m'boobs are gone, I've been doing a fair amount of indoor cycling, yoga, and, ta-da, I bought running shoes! I know, right? You're all gasping in disbelief. Well, you better sit down for real, because I've actually run four times. Two of those times were by myself! We won't talk about my time or how I plot my route so that someone will find me in case I die, but I'm proud of myself. I am definitely a fair weather runner, though, so who knows if there will be anymore 2020 runs as it is now almost 9:30 in the morning and only 31 degrees. Not happenin'.

We had about four absolutely gorgeous, back up in the 70s, days in a row. I keep lamenting, "why don't we live in a place where the temps are like this all year round?" Dada laughs at me. I can't help myself. It's just so gorgeous and splendid to be able to be outside without the multiple layers that are coming!

Well, of course, this is Ohio, thus we have a screwball day thrown in there, too. 

So we've been up to a little of this, (see Damon?)

which led to a lot of that.

Damon was cajoled into dragging many, many tarp-loads of leaves to the curb with the excuse that he could count that as phys ed minutes for the log he's supposed to be keeping. Our teachers declared that since everyone is spending so much time online, they'd prefer special classes to be outside or otherwise offline. So we've done yard work, yard work, and more yard work. I'd much rather rake leaves than shovel snow, though I know that's coming. Most of our days working out there yielded tarpfuls of crispy, crunchy, light, dry leaves, for which I was thankful. There was still complaining, but less than there would have been otherwise, for sure, by all parties involved!

School has been chugging along with the expected good and bad days. Our district has been remote from the get-go and decided to stay that way for the indefinite future. A certain someone got ahead and then "forgot" to check their to-do list for three days and unsurprisingly ended up behind, someone else has had multiple close calls with due dates for projects that hadn't been thoroughly inspected before the due date and thus causes panic on the part of the parents. I don't know why, as it's not our grades, but I think that's been so deeply ingrained by this point that there's no turning back. Another certain someone is aggravated that nearly identical projects are being assigned for both art classes though one had been described as the end-all-and-be-all of art classes and deliberate scheduling had been taken all four years to get into said class. And so it goes. As Anne of Green Gables mused in a letter to Marilla, "the sun will go on rising and setting whether or not I pass geometry," or something very, very close to that. 

 

Holy smokes

So this Thing turned seventeen. It is always amazing to me how we feel like we've had her forever while simultaneously wondering how in the world she's so old. 

Still a huge fan of all things dog. Including the cute, stupid one, above. 

Missing karate a lot. Understatement of the year, probably. 

Cleaned out her room, which involves tossing everything she doesn't feel like owning anymore into the hallway for the rest of us to fight over sort out dispose of deal with. Now there is tons of space and you can see the floor!

Our friend Connie's son is a chef and he offered to cook her amazing birthday dinner:

Rarely are teenagers easy, but we have been particularly blessed with this one overall. As they say in The Shack, "I'm particularly fond of that one." Small children often gravitate towards her (or did, back when we could gather) as do dogs. Thankfully, she no longer colors on the walls, but most other surfaces are still fair game, including her light switch plate. As seen in previous posts, proportion especially has improved dramatically, and I'm occasionally asked to stop what I'm doing to model holding something or am otherwise posed for a quick sketch. Running on Vampire Time, we usually see a black- or very, very dark gray-clad creature hulking over a bowl of whatever sweet cereal we have and a glass of chocolate milk in the early afternoon. Apparently vampires are sugar based. I suspect we are not alone in this, and I for one am kind of glad for the staggered schedules, at least while we are sharing resources, and especially as Damon has what feels like three times the work the big kids do. 

There is a lot of mumbling, though, so here's a very public "I'm sorry" to my own mother for giving her grief about not hearing me because I was mumbling as a teenager, at least according to her. Sorry, Mom. There's lot of "what?" going on around here, which makes me think of my cousin David as a small person, trying everything in his power to get anyone within hollering distance to say, "what" just so he could exalt, "you said the woooooord, you said the woooooord!" My aunt and uncle got awfully creative in their answers. 

"I didn't have any exams..."

"Did they tell you there wouldn't be any exams or did you just miss them all?"

"No, I didn't miss them. I get notifications so I'd know about them... but I made it onto the leaderboard (of my game)!"

If anyone asks how 2020 is going, that sound you hear is a facepalm...

Anyway, happy birthday to the one who made us Parental Units. Sorry about your luck, haha! Sorry we couldn't have hordes of your friends over even though you prefer your friend circles like your food: not overlapping. Still wish more of them could have helped you celebrate as I know they care about you. We are pretty crazy about you. 

*insert the crazy, noisy kisses I give you*

*insert the "eeeeeee, deeeesgusting" you squeal*

Love you. Happy birthday. 

deeeeeeeeesgusting

Life imitating art, again

Even the elementary school teachers are getting into the recreating famous paintings craze, so Damon chose The Scream by Edward Munch: 

Took a little finagling as our sunroom table is covered in, well, just about anything you could imagine from knife sharpening tools to oatmeal cream pie wrappers to sunglasses to art supplies. 

Liam wants to know why the guy is screaming. I say too much time stuck in the house. Anybody else have a vote?

Life imitating art

Thing 1 has two art classes this semester. This assignment was to recreate a painting. She chose "Saint George and the Dragon" by an unknown French artist. 

With some peanut butter bribery, Bosley was willing to be the Dragon. Honey got to be the Noble Steed. Yes, that's me in the pink footie pajamas, towel with crown, and trying not to giggle in the background. And our blue-clad Saint George, equipped with shield and spear, fought a ferocious battle...

until the cameraman called Honey's name and she wandered right out from under Saint George and everything went to pot.

We think it went pretty well!

Motivation for a Monday

Thing 1 decided to share some art with this viewing audience. This original was done about three years ago:

                                     

The retooling occurred last week:

The lesson is, for whatever your craft, whatever your passion, whatever you’re trying to survive right now, don’t give up. Keep working, because it will get better, times will get better, you will get better. 

Don’t give up!

It's beginning to look a lot like SPRINGTIME!

Once again, the photos loaded wherever they darn well pleased, so bear with me through the chaos. 

Speaking of chaos, yes, it really is two in the morning. We experienced some storms tonight and our Great Pyrenees is a Great Big Chicken when it comes to storms. She takes it upon herself to move furniture and pace and pant, and when a large dog moves furniture and paces and pants, you know it. And you get up. Especially when you have pots of dirt sitting around inside like so many sitting ducks. But that's another story. 

Here's a side view of the shed showing how badly it needs a new roof. The lower side is not too bad. The very top, however, is another story. 

I know some of y'all have gorgeous harbingers of spring like tulips and crocuses and hyacinths. I get these cuties with the delicate pink veins running through them. One of their nicknames is Fairy Spud. I think that's adorable! 

Because Dada tills up the dirt in the back forty garden every year, I have to remove anybody who started growing on their own lest they get turned under. I had five of these guys, yellow mulleins, who needed rescued so I transplanted them along the drainage ditch/creek that is our back border. Someone evidently thinks he is delicious- look at all those nibbles in his leaves! We've seen a lot of deer lately, and there are tiny fuzzy baby bunnies being hidden in our strawberry patch, which seems like a dream place to grow up to me! However, we've also seen several small snakes. I am glad they're here, especially close to the garden, but that also puts them close to the baby bunnies whom I am hoping do not turn into snacks. 

Also, snakes, I would greatly appreciate it if you would please eat ticks and whatever was eating my tomatoes last year- a vole, perhaps? Thanks. ~Management

Here's the back garden with the ditch beyond it. You can just see the edge of the fence around the strawberry patch to the right. The dying cherry tree is on the left. It gives us about 7 cherries a year, haha. 

Mentally slide this photo of a trench in between the other trench pictures, because it's the middle shot. Since we live in what used to be the Great Black Swamp, some of our areas are rather, well, swampy. Dada, being an engineer, decided to help things out a little and dug a small trench to help our lowest lying area to drain to the back ditch. 

And because he's an engineer, when I asked for two openings in our already existing fence this year, he made me these snazzy closures that are just like big buttons! I'm so tickled! We used to have one large opening in the side of the garden closest to the house. Last year for whatever reason we had an opening facing the ditch as well and I found it very convenient for filling my watering can in the ditch instead of hoofing it all the way around every time. Made me appreciate  not having to run to a river daily for water and count the rest of my blessings as well. 

Dada's bane and one of my great delights:

We ran out of winter and didn't get our apple trees pruned so they look terrible but they're starting to bud, so they will be gorgeous with blossoms pretty soon. We are going to have to go crazy with trimming in winter 2020-2021. Ugh. 

I still have more dirt to play with, so yesterday it was All Pots on Deck. Some of these will hopefully be lemongrass, basil, chives, marigolds, delphiniums, and a mix of annuals that came in a seed packet claiming to be terrific for cut flowers. I guess we'll see if anybody comes up. Some of these guys are inside on the bar right now and some I tucked up against the back wall of the garage in the small garden outside as I knew we'd be having storms. Didn't want anyone getting tipped off the table...

Deer hoof prints

Drat, this is the last photo of the three trench pictures. Apparently they wanted me to show you them in reverse, haha, with the water going uphill from the ditch back into the swampy woods:

 This one followed me around while I took all the other photos and had been out galavanting around with Dada doing nature Art for one of her classes. 

"Take my picture. Take my picture. Take my picture." 

Consider it taken, kid.

Carrie finds a new favorite

Dada and I have known about the adorable art shop downtown for awhile, but we only recently took Carrie in to check it out. Predictably, she was scurrying from end to end and back again, flapping her hands in excitement, and cooing over many of the supplies she could test out. I think it's safe to say her Christmas wish list might have gotten a bit longer.

She was delighted that there was an entire room just of canvases. She found pens that she wanted and shelves of sketch pads and paints in all kinds of glorious colors... yep, she is her mother's daughter. If you need gift ideas for her, just let me know how much you'd like the gift card to be. 

Art show 2017

Last month the boys had their ice cream social/ spring concert/ ice cream social. The school looked fabulous with everyone's art covering just about every available surface:

I took way more pictures than necessary, but everything was fascinating and I'm so impressed at what kids care capable of. Kudos to their art teacher for presenting artists to learn from and emulate:

I forgot to check if these were inspired by a particular artist or not, but I guess you can ask the boys if you're interested:

I took photos of lessons my kids didn't even do:

The first graders had compared and contrasted the life of Abraham Lincoln with their own. Here are their top hat projects:

It still strikes me as odd that the kids are not required to participate in the concert aspect. We had one kid who was super excited to play Star Wars music on the xylophones with his class and one kid who wanted to watch his classmates do their dance but not join in.

Liam is in the striped brown shirt in the middle of the picture. Sadly, he was squatting down low in the other shots so this is the best one. The gym was completely packed and folks were standing out in the hallways trying to hear.

I am glad we went to Liam's last elementary spring shindig. It will be strange next year to only go for one child!