Photo Friday

Yep, that would be the SOLD sign for the new house.

 

Their second first day of school, hehe.

 

You find things in the oddest places when you move...

 

A forlorn Newfie in the background. Buckeyes in the foreground.

 

Scrumdiddlieumptious cookies from our neighbors

 

White breasted nuthatch above, goldfinch below

 

Stinkbug. He tried to climb up into my jeans =/

 

A cattail from out back. Fortunately we got him outside before he finished poofing seeds!

 

Home sweet home, Lalaith Havens. Lalaith is Elvish for "laughter", something we have plenty of around here.

Happy Halloween!

 

No, your eyes do not deceive you. That would be a picture. HOORAY! HIP HIP HOORAY!

 

Today is Halloween and is Liam's 9th birthday. My yellow-loving, vegetable-hating, Lego-obsessed, Angry Bird and Star Wars fan Liam is nine.

 

He is so creative and sensitive and fun and I hope you guys get a chance to really celebrate him. Perhaps you could munch some Halloween candy in his honor. =)

 

He's at school right now, amidst the parade and party that his class is having, surrounded by new friends and not forgotten by his old ones. His previous class mailed him an entire manilla envelope stuffed with handmade birthday cards featuring the minions and Minecraft and every Halloweeny image imaginable. He lit up like the zoo at Christmas.

 

We did the birthday singing and cake eating and present opening yesterday. I thought he was going to combust. He was so excited to get Battleship and the mini Lego Millenium Falcon that he was up before 6:30 this morning and had the whole thing assembled before I staggered downstairs to supervise the getting ready for school. He's also excited about Trick or Treating in our old neighborhood tonight, even though it's raining, and he is thrilled that we're having pizza, his favorite, for dinner before we go looting.

 

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's... waitaminute, that's a cloud nine Liam!

 

Happy birthday, buddy. You are so loved. And Happy Halloween to everyone out there. May your candy be especially delicious this year!

Last day of eight

I was giggling about a scene from "Finding Nemo" this morning while waiting for Liam's bus. It's one of my favorite scenes because Nemo is bursting with excitement about the first day of school. He's swimming in circles around Marlin, his dad, who is still asleep, and he's exclaiming nonstop, "first day of school, oh boy, I'm so excited, first day of school, first day of school, first day of school, oh boy, oh wow, first day of school!" Meanwhile, Marlin stirs and mutters, "I don't wanna go to school," and Nemo just about erupts. "Not you, Dad, ME! First day of school!"

I was doing the same litany this morning to Liam with, "last day of eight, oh boy,  oh boy, I'm so excited, last day of eight!"

Tomorrow our Liam the Lionhearted will turn nine.

NINE!

In the midst of all the costume craziness (we don't have all ours yet) and the school parties (Damon's today, Liam's tomorrow) and the encroaching cold and falling leaves and spider/zombie/ghost/Jack o lantern decor sprouting everywhere, our sweet boy has a birthday.

Last year I had the brilliant idea to celebrate it the day before, since actual Halloween day with kids is insane. There are the aforementioned school parties, possible homework, the mad costume scramble, and Trick or Treat is from six until eight, at which point you've gotta get home, sort candy, crow over candy, show off candy, be shoehorned into pj's and reminded twenty times to brush teeth that just got coated in candy...

so WHEN exactly are you supposed to A) have dinner and B) celebrate a birthday?

Tonight we'll have crock pot beef (not that he likes it, but I have too much to do to actually "cook" now) and a cake that is decorated as a purple minion from Despicable Me 2. Liam loves the minions. So do I, I must confess, but I was surprised to hear he wanted the purple, spazzing, freak out minion . Especially when he's loved yellow his entire life. Whatever. It's your birthday, kid.

Tomorrow we'll just pick up some pizza, like every other family in America, and have that before the descending madness of Halloween hits like a tsunami.

At any rate, now that I'm done with my Count Chocula cereal (hey, being a mom DOES have perks sometimes), I better go tackle all the Stuff that the Dratted Kitchen Fairy didn't before Grandmama comes, takes one look around, and gets back in her car to get outta Dodge.

Happy Halloween, everybody! Happy last day of eight, Liam!

How can it be the end of October?

What have we been up to?

Hmm. Let's start with today. We got the big kids out the door onto their respective buses, one at 7:10 and the next at 8:05. I fed the dog, including giving her the daily medications she requires to not be peeing all over the new house, since she's pushing 9 years old and all that.  We went to moms' Bible study, with the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon baked french toast in hand (Google that and start drooling). We then had lunch in the car while dropping off the library books and driving to preschool.

Did I mention Pepe now has 111,200+ miles on him, poor thing? The annual OBX drive has added lots of those, as well as the trip to Disney last summer, but I'm pretty sure the bulk of them have been sneaking on (like cookies to thighs) during the almost-daily trips between the old homestead and the new one. We're either there for the Y, like last night, or for karate, like later tonight, or working on the old house, like always and forever, amen. 

Anyway, then I got groceries all by myself (the sound you hear are moms everywhere sighing in envy) and I put them away by myself and I ate my lunch by myself. I threw a load of laundry in, cast one assessing glance across the kitchen, decided I really should do the dishes that are in the sink, since I am going to need them to make dinner later, but headed over here to blog instead.

Since there's only been one blog post this month, and all. You know.

But last week, Damon rode a school bus for the first time when his preschool class visited the Pumpkin Peddler. They got to ride the bus, have cider and donuts, pick a pumpkin, go on a hayride, and then ride the bus back to school. Woohoo! I even got to go with him. Poor kid almost fell asleep on the way back to preschool, but we all had a pretty good time.

Damon also asked Jesus into his heart last week during one of our many trips to preschool. As Dada says, "table for five in Heaven" for this crew. I'm so thankful for his tender little heart. Be sure to ask him about it!

Liam's been doing really well on the papers which come home in flurries from school. He's had more than one perfect spelling test and has gotten all the required points on his weekly word work, or more. One week he got an extra 10 points for his effort. He's super excited about his birthday this Friday, and the rest of us are nowhere near ready, let me tell you. How is it possible we'll have a 9 year old in the house again? Good gravy!

Miss Carrie has been rejoicing in the leaves. Specifically in the large pile of them which she raked and which she wants nobody else to dive into, look at, or touch. She is loving fall and claims to be getting straight A's and is, at the same time, missing her friends from her old school.

She went to an auction this weekend with Dada and our friend Chris. Seems she enjoyed checking out all the Stuff, which worries me slightly as our family genetics tend to run towards pack-ratted-ness. Packrattedness? Hmm, I like the hyphens better. At any rate, it sounds way better than hoarders. *Shiver*

Dada had been in Zanesville all last week and the bigwigs at work were in town the week before, so we really haven't seen too much of him, sadly. This week is better. We're back into more of a groove.

Grandmama is coming Thursday to play with us this weekend, and Trick or Treat is happening, Liam's birthday is happening, and school parties are happening, and YIKES there's a lot to do. Once again, the Dratted Kitchen Fairy has yet to show up, so I must be off! May your Halloween be delightfully spooky in all the right ways!

Scatterbrain

Eggs.

I always think of something to blog when I'm nowhere near the laptop and then nothing comes to mind when I sit down to actually do anything about it. Tonight, I'm actually sprawled across the loveseat in our library, our fireplace room, our living room, our hardwood floor room.

I like library the best. It's the first time I can think of that I've had a vision for a room. The loveseat is in the middle of one wall with matching bookshelves on both sides. The center of the room has a small, circular, double-tiered coffee table. The far wall has a black leather chair under each of the two windows and our big chair is in between. I even know where our art will go once we get the hammers and nails and hooks out from wherever they've gone into hiding during the move. The corner hutch that Pap made for us is- gasp- in a corner and has one spider plant and one Christmas cactus on top of it. There's a basket of throws, a basket of library books, a basket of kid books, a wire trash can filled with CDs, an empty CD display case, a small milk crate of CDs, and a CD player, unplugged, in the corner between the fireplace and a window behind a black chair. There is a single flame in the fireplace, ha! Woohoooooo!

There's even some items scattered along the mantel: matching candles from a wedding of friends, ceramic seagulls suspended from wires which used to reside at my grandparents' house (I think), a decorative pumpkin admonishing us to "Share the Harvest", a small owl from Grandmama, and an elegant glass cross from Uncle Rob and Aunt Jana.

There's another spider plant and a... um... portos(?) plant on one of the bookshelves. The kind that creeps around and can grow up walls if you leave it alone. The deep green and shiny leaves. Well, if you water it. Mine's looking dusty and curly and parched.

Anyway, we've survived this week into Tuesday evening. This morning was Muffins for Moms at Liam's school, so we had to get Carrie off to the bus and get ready enough to go have muffins and peruse the book fair. Did I mention I'd already baked a fritatta for my moms' Bible study which met after the book fair? And Damon had to get to preschool. And the after school the big kids had karate and homework. Thankfully I'd stuck a roast in the crock pot first thing this morning. I even threw in colorful carrots from our old garden. What's that you say? Yes, carrots come in colors other than orange. Tonight we had purply ones tossed in. Last night I'd used up the orange ones in the potato soup recipe from Aunt Chris. I think there's a single cream-colored one left, which always makes me think of the book Bunnicula, which I'm reading to Liam when we have a few minutes. It's written by the family dog when his family finds a bunny in the movie theater while they're watching Dracula. They also own a cat. I figured it would be perfect for Halloween, as the cat is convinced the bunny is a vampire. Suspiciously white-looking vegetables keep turning up, looking like they've been sucked dry...

Yesterday was a typical Monday. The weekend was busy with church and karate and Dada going to an auction and the kids home from school Friday for their fall break. We went to the Y in the morning, then to Mama Rita's, then we met up with a new mom friend of mine at a coffee shop/ bookstore, and in the evening we hit a pumpkin farm with another family from our small group. After consuming way too many fresh donuts, the corn maze, the hay ride, and general running around, we headed to their house for more running around and fireside goodies. Nice weekend!

PaPa, Grandmama, Hinrew and Muggin are all in Florida this week. I'm a teensy bit jealous, especially when the kids ignore what I'm telling them. I have to say, though, that the trees are absolutely gorgeous and it's not even their peak yet. I generally don't like fall because I hate despise loathe absolutely can not stand winter (I get grumpy when I'm cold) and fall means winter is coming. But. This year I'm trying hard to be thankful for small things, and the trees here at our new home are definitely helping. One half of the trees are almost completely naked already because of the crazy wind and storms we've had blow through in the last week. The huge oaks (there's at least two of them) are just now deciding to start turning colors. We're going to have leaves for YEARS.

So I guess you can keep Florida. I love trees.

I'd probably be singing a different song if it hadn't been 72 degrees today. Indian Summer, I'm sure, but I'll take it. It was 58 when I came home from karate at about 7:30 tonight. I ran around all day in my sandals and jean skirt and a light shirt over a tank top. As Gramps would say, "yippieeeeeeee!"

Alas, the Kitchen Fairy hasn't shown up, never mind the fact that I've already run the dishwasher once today. Whoever keeps cooking really needs to clean up after themselves. =P

Have a wonderful night, and happy birthday to Aunt Sherri!

Living life from the pantry

I discovered a good place to count my blessings.

The pantry.

You guys, I was wandering around our new house thinking that I was hungry but I wasn't sure what for. I ended up in the pantry because that's where the food is (one can't stand in the refrigerator and this one who hates cold certainly can not). I wasn't seeing anything that struck my fancy. I thought something along the lines of,

"Hmph. All this food and nothing I want."

And then I looked around again, really looked, and thought,

"I am so incredibly ungrateful. I am standing in a pantry. A pantry, a room I've never had in any of the other houses I've lived in. A room dedicated to storing food. A room! How many people from around the world would be blown away by the amount of blessings right here in this room? Food. To cook. To eat. To nourish!"

Holy smokes.

Talk about blessed. Talk about cups runnething over. Ha, what a great word! An entire room dedicated to blessings.

Amazing.

Now I know where I can go when I'm feeling sorry for myself and need to snap out of it. I can go look around my pantry and count my blessings and give myself the mental smack I need to refocus on my amazing life instead of the fact that there are no chips.

We should bring back the pantry.

What's your pantry? How many blessings do you have in there, all inventoried and lined up and shoved in and heaping over?

Since I plan on being truly thankful by Thanksgiving, I'm going to be on the lookout for blessings. My life is full of them. Perhaps yours is, too. I'm betting it's fuller than you think.

It may not be that you have surplus food. Maybe money is tight this month or every month and you have a hard time making it to the end with enough to fill your appetites or the growing ones/ never-full ones of your children. Maybe you or a loved one has a chronic illness that limits the life you can live in very real ways. Maybe you haven't achieved what you set out to reach.

None of us are perfect, or even close. But our blessings far outweigh our burdens. Every morning there is a sunrise. Every evening there is a sunset. With a little imagination, we can see that our colorful world is amazing. Imagine if every bug was the same kind of bug, or there were only one type of tree or one kind of flower. Nature is filled with all different kinds of all of those. We're not stuck listening to the same birdsong. Heck, birds sing. They don't have to. They could just poop on the laundry and eat all the crops, but no, they add color and music to our lives.  The trees that are making incredibly huge messes right now with apples, pinecones, buckeyes, and walnuts are gorgeous with changing colors. Just take a minute, just 60 seconds, to watch the sun shining through them, or notice how the colors change if it's a gray day.

Perhaps if we all shift our perceptions with the shift in season, we'll find some of our overlooked blessings.

And no, I'm not going to want to hear this same lecture back at me once winter rolls around, but at least I'll try it. I'll try to relish the quietness of snow (at least something near my house is quiet, certainly none of the occupants are) and the differences in the angle of the sun, provided we see it ever. See? There was a conscious choice to be positive.

I'm going to try to take what I find in the pantry and pepper my life with it. If I'm to be salt and light, I need to have the right focus, which should not be on me.

In a few minutes, I have to go pick up our youngest blessing. He's had a full day already, and the big kids still have karate later, which means another trip in the car and back. I need the grace to deal with a tired out, "not tired, not sleepy, Mama" little guy in a way that isn't snappish or rough even though I, too, would love to skip the whole deal entirely and go to bed early. I'm going to choose to be a blessing to him and to be patient, to give us extra time to get everything done and the dinner we need and the snacks will also need and the books and the love and the laughter.

And if I can't? It'll be back to the pantry I go...

"Eh heh. I said 'eh heh'."

Yesterday after all the kids were home from school, and we represent three different ones now- yoi, Damon had the blues about something or other. In an attempt to cheer him up, I started the following conversation.

"Do you know what I had to do all by myself today?"

"What?"

"I had to get groceries all by myself. I kept saying, "Damon, could you put- oh, never mind. You're at preschool." "Damon, could you please get a box of- oh, you're not here." "Damon, could you hand me a- oh, that's right. You're having fun at school." "

Carrie, who'd been listening the whole time, tilted her head in pity and was about to add an, "aww, poor-" but she didn't get it in in time.

Damon, that precious little darling, started to smile, looked at me, and said, "Ha ha."

!!!

Status Update

At least, I guess this is a status update, ha. I've had several things happen throughout the move which I'd wanted to blog about, but now that I sit down in relative peace I can't remember any of them. So we'll start with:

Preschool has begun for the Damonator. He loves it. Every day he wants to know when he goes. He likes to be reminded, "after lunch." He knows that he goes Monday through Thursday, and then he takes a break and goes back the next Monday. So far they've done a lot with the Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? The teachers even changed it into "Who Do You See?" and made books for each of the students with photos of classmates taken at orientation. Very cute way to learn names, I might add! He's over the moon about the small yellow trampoline with the handlebar that is in his room, and he loves snack. And the texture table. And the books. And the goodbye song at the end of the day. He loves school.

Liam the Lovebug has made some new friends thanks to Pokemon cards, though I was hoping we'd have skipped that particular fetish. Those were big when my cousin David was little. Who knew they'd endure? So not my thing. At any rate, his third grade teacher is very kind and calm and seems amused with him so far, which is wonderful. There have been a few skirmishes between boys, but I suppose that is to be expected with boys. He likes school and he loves to read, so I am counting my blessings big time.

Carrie is thrilled- thrilled- to be in school though she's not a fan of the early mornings. The first day she rode the bus she had to be on it by 6:45 AM! My heavens! They've since tweaked the route and she is now boarding at about 7:10, which is way better for our anti-earlybird. This morning she was blinking owlishly and mumbling about setting her alarm for 6:20 instead of 6:15. I told her she could set it for 6:30 if she'd move her butt once she got up, but she better keep it at 6:15 for a buffer if she's going to just sit and stare at her cereal bowl. We already do all that night-before stuff like getting out clothes for the next day, lunchbox at the ready if they're going to pack a lunch, backpack loaded, etc. Since she doesn't do hair/makeup/earrings/accessories, you'd think she'd be rolling out of bed at 6:45, but what can you do? You can throw a horse INTO the water trough, but you can't make it drink................

Dada says his commute (hehe) is almost exactly the same as it was from Beaverton to Portland all those many moons ago. I think that's funny! He's glad to be back from England where he spent all last week, and we're getting Stuff accomplished around the new house. Friday night the Richards crew came over and we had a small fire in our fire pit. Nina was spinning around in the yard, blissed out, and saying that perhaps because of this house she won't be afraid of bugs anymore. She had asked previously why we'd had to move, and I'd replied that we'd found our dream house. She toured it excitedly and claimed, "it is totally your dream house! I can see why you moved!" So that was gratifying, hehe. I think they'll be frequent visitors.

Dada cleaned out our gutters one weekend evening, which is going to be an ongoing battle until we can get leaf/ice guards on them. The kids have been collecting bins and buckets of buckeyes, and more buckeyes. We saw our first chipmunk yesterday and have been watching squirrels since we moved in. I've heard blue jays and cardinals and one woodpecker. Muggin needs to come over with her bird books and glasses so we can see who our neighbors are!

After the kids went to bed, we positioned and began filling two bookshelves in the living room. It was exciting to see old friends come out of boxes into their places of honor. I love books and would fill the whole house with them. We have a set of shelves in the "old lady room" (dubbed because of the wine colored carpet with roses on it) for kid books and a set in the "library" for grown ups, which include Stephen King, Max Lucado, Anne Rice, George R.R. Martin, Tolkien, Stieg Larsson, and plenty of others. I was giggling at how we have True Love by Robert Fulghum and the Princess Bride very close to The Road... you can't get much different in tastes or genres! I'm SO excited to see it come together. And yes, I know those are all supposed to be underlined, but I just don't feel like it...

Anyway, must go get some more Stuff accomplished before my dentist appointment and our library trip and lunch and preschool drop off. We're getting swamped with kid paperwork including photo package ordering forms, but I think since we have such a woodsy setting here at the new house that we'll just capture them in their element and have them printed ourselves. Have a wonderful week!

Lightbulb moment

I've never believed people who say that moving stinks.

Other than our first few moves, my hubby's company has always moved us and all our possessions from Hither to Yon. This time, though, we're doing it ourselves.

With three kids.

And a dog.

And an entire houseful of stuff.

Yoi.

First off, those of you with no kids but who visit others' homes where there ARE children, will just have to use your wondeful imaginations and dream up the sheer amount of Stuff that homes with kids acquire. It's ridiculous. Ridiculous! The toys, the clothes, the stuff to put the toys IN, the books, the stickers, the writing and drawing utensils, the LEGOS, oy vey. How can the smallest people accumulate so.much.stuff?!

Second, packing yourself while there are children around is like trying to clean in the middle of a tornado. Everything you pack and stack will have a child getting into it the minute your back is turned. And if they're not undoing what you've packed, they're picking fights with each other. The kind of fights that you need to stop what you're doing, again, and intervene in... usually with penalty of bodily harm involved.

Third, more often than not, whatever you need and/or are looking for is at the house where you are not. I needed brown sugar this morning to bake for moms' group. I couldn't find it anywhere and I know I have some. Thank goodness for friends and neighbors who can lend some sugar in an hour of need.

Fourth, always arrange to have the carpets cleaned a month before you know you'll be moving. I'm winking here, though you can't see it. Tomorrow the carpets will be cleaned in the new house, which means that the carpeted floors all need to be bare so we can get the Empty House Discount. Which means that all trips to the new house came to a grinding halt as far as getting furniture out of the old house goes.

Great, I'll just put the kitchen together. Noooo problem. Except that for once I'd like to have shelf liners and I had enough to line three shelves. And the grocery store didn't have any. So we'll have to check more stores tonight while the big kids are at karate.

Which brings me to dinner. Which I must make. But not before I attempt bodily harm on the children who are picking fights, again.

Can I just stick them all in boxes, too? They like bubble wrap!

#IBC (Hurricane of Humanity)

Hoooo boy, get comfy. Once again, the problem is where to begin? My thoughts have been swirling around for days and I swear they're still not any more organized for all the thought that's going into this post.

Three words. Ice Bucket Challenge.

Those of you on Facebook are already getting up and leaving the computer, because you're afraid of getting wet again. Or are hoping against hope your friends will all somehow overlook you and you won't be nominated for a lapful of ice water. Or don't want to hear any bashing of any kind about the ALS challenge.

I get it. Believe me, I am right there with you.

But there is simply so much to talk about with it. Let's start with the obvious: it is raising a TON of money for ALS research, and we can all agree that that is a wonderful thing. Yay!

Wait, maybe I need to back up. I don't watch the news. And some of you are not on Facebook, so you're not seeing video clip after clip of people dumping ice water on themselves because a friend has called them out after they themselves have been self-doused. Apparently the rules are simple. Either you donate $10 to ALS research and dump a bucket of ice water on yourself, or you donate $100 and stay dry.

Hmm.

Here's another sticky part of it. My perceptive hubby stated, "sometimes peer pressure masquerades as a good cause." I am seeing an awful lot of kids either helping dump the water or getting water on themselves and challenging other friends and family members to do the same. Where is the line about, "well, I'm doing this because it raises money and awareness for a good cause" and "well, I'm doing this because so and so nominated me and I can't back out because then I'll have to pay money and ..." You see what I mean? How do we teach our kids to avoid peer pressure and stand up for themselves if grown adults are plastering social media with an adult version of peer pressure?

What's next? Is there going to be a live goldfish swallowing contest to raise money for Alzheimer's? Is everyone going to start shaving their heads for cancer research? Is Joe Schmo going to have a contest to raise money for him so that he can stay dry but still give HIS $100 to ALS?

I got to thinking about hurricanes. I don't know anything about them, having never experienced one, but I know that the edges bring rain. I was wondering if some of those outermost clouds peel off and end up doing their own thing. Some of my friends have decided to do that. They've deactivated their Facebook accounts so that, in theory, nobody can nominate them, and so that they don't have to see a news feed of a million ice bucket video clips. Is the peer pressure like the eye of a hurricane, leaving destruction in its wake as it sucks everything into itself? Those who leave Facebook, are they suddenly outcasts because they won't go along with the crowd? I know some of them are going to experience ribbing for not just sucking it up and doing it. Is it going to bother them? Are they going to be guilted into paying the $100?

And what if, and I'm cringing here, because I have already heard nastiness about criticism for the challenge, ALS doesn't affect you or your loved ones, but something else has grabbed ahold of your family tree and is trying to throttle it? Strings of cancers, alcohol abuse, etc. can also ruin lives. What if you'd rather have your money help stop those? Who is keeping track of all this anyway? And is it really even anyone's business who you give $10, $100, whatever to?

I can just hear my mother's answer to that one.

How do you go along with the spirit of the thing, yet stay true to yourself and your beliefs? How do you use enough grace to stand alone to say, "this is what I believe and this is what I'm doing what I'm doing"?

Another tentacle of this whole thing is the water itself. Not that long ago our area went without being able to use water from our taps. Is it responsible of us to be dumping it over our heads, essentially wasting it all? I have a friend in California who said, "I'll donate for it, but I'm not doing the water part." I thought it was the perfect solution.

I'd mentioned before that we just bought a house. Who knows what the $100 would go towards if I stay dry: closing costs, inspections, new furniture, etc.  It makes me wonder who will go without something they themselves need because they feel guilty about not playing by the rules. Or like my husband remarks, "you worry too much. Nobody's going to pay who doesn't want to pay." But my heart hopes for that honor code, that people WOULD stick to what they say they'll do.

Just when I thought everyone and their mother had done the challenge, and I'd escaped, I was nominated. Today is the day I need to decide what to do. And I am still waffling.

I love how the whole thing started. I love that friends took up a banner for Pete Frates and did this thing out of love. That's how life SHOULD work. We should love extravagantly and largely and crazily. It enriches the lives of those around us and our own. It fights selfishness. It keeps our hearts open and free.

I have  three four favorite ice bucket video clips. The first is my brother's. He took the time to tie in the fact that ALS robs your body of its ability to do simple tasks, like lifting a bucket of ice water. He promoted this link Live Like Lou in his video so people could get more information. I liked my friend Joe's clip, who did the challenge willingly and then, when asked who he'd like to nominate, said, "nobody. The friend on friend violence ends with me." I thought Benedict Cumberbatch did a hilarious job with his, and you can see it here for a good giggle. And to my friend who nominated me, when it was time to douse herself she doused her sister instead. Too funny. She did do another take and ended up cold and wet. All in fun.

Okay, back to the water crisis. I saw a photo today of a bunch of people doing the challenge together captioned "America" with a photo below it displaying a small black child sipping water from a lid of a water bottle that claimed "Africa" and it broke my heart. I know we are often wasteful as a nation, but to see it like that in a simple picture was awful. Are we really wasting such a precious resource? Shameful.

And yet it's for a good cause. What is one bucket of water? How many companies were caught gouging prices for bottled water during our water crisis? We'd have paid a lot more than the usual few dollars a case. What must it be like all the time in arid areas? My friends will think I'm no fun and that I can't be relied on to accept a challenge. Should that even matter? Who cares? This isn't junior high anymore. Was peer pressure okay then? It sure isn't now in junior high.

Can you hear the small angel and the small devil arguing on both sides of my head like in the cartoons? Where do I really belong in the hurricane of humanity, at least on this issue? Will I be an outlying cloud? Will I be pulled into the eye? Will I go with the flow whether I want to or not?

I wonder what clouds think.

What would you do?

Kahlua is a breakfast drink, right?

Mornings around here are... what do the British say? A wee bit of Pandelerium, something I'm pretty sure Jeff Foxworthy coined. I may have mentioned it before. Envision a three ring circus featuring Care Bear in one ring, Liam in the other, and Damon in the third while I, whipless, try to maintain order and magically keep all school supplies and requirements straight for each child. Some moms probably can do this effortlessly as they have organized selves and organized children, or at least one or the other.

We've got nothin'.

Care Bear has a tendency to, shall we say, "spread" in that her things literally will be scattered between Hither and Yon. Her binder will be on the kitchen table, her laptop and earbuds will be on the big chair, the bag she's supposed to be presenting from will be not full of the required items and will be found hanging on the back of the kitchen chair. Her lunch will be spread across the kitchen counter. Her water bottle might be in the freezer, might be in the fridge, might be on the counter, might still be in her backpack from yesterday. Her backpack will actually be hanging on the doorknob where it belongs, or closeby on the floor. Someone really should yell, "ROUNDUP" and see how long it takes her to get everything she needs. That would be an interesting experiment, actually...

"I want to kiss you on your butt." I'll come back to that.

And then there's Liam. Third grade parents had homework due today. "In a million words or less, tell me about your third grader." If I posted what I wrote, I'd certainly have to change names to protect the guilty, but suffice it to say that there were vivid descriptions of a certain third grader brandishing a peanut buttery knife through the kitchen when he was supposed to be making his lunch. Kind of like what is happening right now. He is lamenting his torn hot dog bun in a voice that sounds exactly like Woody from Toy Story when he thinks all hope is gone. And now half of the hot dog bun is on the floor. And he hasn't brushed his teeth yet.

Guess what time his alarm is set for? Seven. Guess what time he was up today? 6:35. Before his sister has left for the junior high bus. There is no way I am going to be able to get these guys all ready and out the door with my sanity intact if they all get up together. I am a very firm believer in divide and conquer.

Oh yes, butt kissing. Not that kind. The earlier quote was from the Damonater, to Dada, who was trying to get out the door to work unmolested. Epic fail. Carrie was already gone, but Liam had a hold of his retractable ID (his "zippy", as it's known around here) and Damon was clinging to the other side of him. Dada is standing in one spot, boys on the front and back of him, holding a smoothie in one hand up high, his work backpack dangling off one shoulder. "I've got your zippy, HA ha!" "I want to kiss you in the butt!" "Bye Dada!" "Bye Dada!" "Bye Dada!" "Bye Dada!" "I've got your zippy!" "I want to kiss you!"

He escaped.

I'm still here.

Liam's on take two of his sandwich. He just now had me open the jelly.

I've had 1/3 of my cup of coffee, that I made at about 6:30. It's now 7:59. Liam's getting excess peanut butter off of the knife. Fortunately, he's already dressed. So is Damon, as we've all been walking to the elementary school bus stop together.

Which means I should go. First, I'll splash some lots of Kahlua into my coffee cup. There's room for it now.

Vacation roundup

Eggs Eggs Eggs Eggs Eggs Eggs Eggs Eggs

Okieeeeedokieeeee, where was I?  One of my Creative Writing professors in college suggested we write. Every day. Even if it was only what we'd eaten for breakfast. We were to keep a tiny notebook in our bag/purse/back pocket/somewhere on our person so that we could write every single day about something. She was firmly convinced that if we wrote every day, "something will break through the eggs. So do your eggs eggs eggseggseggs." I think of her often when I sit down to attempt to blog.

Right now, the problem isn't lack of material. The problem is that I don't have any idea where to start because we've been to the beach and back, school has begun, and we've bought a house.

Woah!

I know, right? Eep. You see my dilemma.

Okay, beach it is, I guess. We packed up our beach stuff (and may I just toot my own horn here and say we packed MUCH less than in previous years, yay us) and began our multiple hour trip to the ocean. We left on a Thursday evening and dropped off Triskal (no beach for you) at the farm. She's still there with Grandma Barb and Pap. Anyway, we continued on into Pittsburgh to stay the night with Aunt Jana, Neva and Noah. We headed out in the morning the same time they took off for a trip to Kennywood. It was fun to give some love to everyone and earn small smiles from little Noah. He's almost two already! *sigh*

We sat in traffic for what felt like half of our natural lives once we were south of DC. Yes, it was a Friday. The interesting thing was that we noticed on the way home (also on a Friday) that they were sittingsittingsitting in the exact same place a week later. Horrors, to think that some people sit there every single Friday! Eek.

Once past that mess, we made it down to the OBX (Outer Banks, NC, for those of you scratching your heads) relatively smoothly. I had to endure comments from the back seat like, "what would happen if the ocean started leaking into here" as we tunneled under the water on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. Those of you who know me very well know that I'm not a big fan of depths, and I really don't like the idea of being under water with idiot human drivers with a huge possibility of error to cause a disastrous accident. It gives me the shivers. Since I can suck it up with the best of them, that's what I did, gritting my teeth and taking big breaths once we got out of the tunnel.

Once at the OBX, we took over my aunt and uncle's house and got everyone settled. The kids were thrilled to see Dutch, their Elkhound, and Annie, their German Shepherd. Dutchie is pretty old and we weren't sure he'd still be there to greet us. His left hip is in pretty bad shape, and while we were there Annie really favored her left hip and leg, so that really put a crimp in her ball playing that she so loves. Poor Annie. She'd bring us her football with so much hope in her sweet face, but it just hurt our hearts to see her gimping after a few tosses. She'd play until her legs all fell off if you'd keep throwing that football. Such sweet dogs.

We spent most of our time at the ocean. We didn't go to the Sound this year, as there had been a 12 foot alligator killed in that general area soon before we arrived. Apparently he'd been run over, doing axle damage- naturally, by someone who hadn't known he'd been around for 50-80 years and was often seen in the area. Poor old thing. Just the same, aunt Lainie was not big on the idea of letting us loose over there just yet. The ocean was very cooperative, as the weather was, and it was only stormy one morning before we went. We did a good job this year of just taking it easy, waking when we woke, not really planning anything, just doings things as they came. Carrie got brave on a boogie board, even Liam and Damon tried them out with Dada, nobody got burnt, and Muggin and I collected seashells and sunbeams to our hearts' content. It was a blissful week of sun and sand and smiles.

David, my cousin, joined us for mini golf one evening, and the kids just loved that. We had a great time laughing at each other and cheering or crying out in dismay over the putts. We even ate our fair share of Booty Treats, which featured shaved ice and mini melts (think Dippin' Dots) and ice cream. The kids can never get enough.

On the way back home, we spent a night at Uncle Rob's new house in Maryland. Now that he's an official Navy Sea Chanter, they'll all be relocating. I believe we may have been his very first house guests. It was great to check out their new place and go to breakfast at a fun diner close by. I'm glad we could keep him company while his family was still in Pittsburgh, even if it was only for a night and a breakfast.

We made it home and have worked our way through the sandy laundry, the new swimsuits from the Swimsuit Magpie Aunt Lainie, and the stay quiet in the car toys, but haven't sorted out our seashells yet.

School started yesterday and both big kids had terrific days. So far they like their teachers and seeing their friends. Carrie spent a few times running around through her schedule at the junior high and practicing opening her locker before schools started, so she was pretty confident on the first day. She even made a new friend who'd dropped his colored pencils all over the stairwell, much to his mortification. I love that girl's helpful heart.

Liam will be home any minute from Day 2, so I'll have to leave house news for another post. Perhaps tomorrow. Damon is missing the big kids while they're gone. I'm trying to keep him busy. He just about talked my ears off today. Tonight is karate and shoe shopping since Liam's outgrown his tennies. Have a great night!

#EmptyGlassCity

We are on our second day of "do not use the water" advice. I do find it completely ironic that the kids and I spent the entire day on Friday at Maumee Bay, having the time of our lives with several other moms and all their kids. We had joked about the kids glowing, but had no idea that first thing the next morning all the stores in the area would be bought out of bottled water. Crazy times. Whoever coined the "#emptyglasscity" slogan should have copyrighted it fast.

There have been a lot of jokes about not showering, and how we can all stink together, and stories of people checking on neighbors and volunteering to distribute water and neighbors letting other neighbors know when a shipment of water arrives at a nearby store. Sadly, there have also been stories of people hogging resources and scuffling over what we all take for granted every day.

They are claiming that it is okay to shower in, as long as you keep your mouth closed. A doctor friend of mine advised against washing laundry right now, saying that we'll get rashes. We're not to boil the water; apparently that increases the potency of the toxins they've found in the water. The powers that be seem to hold off on telling us results of tests they've sent away for. They announce that we'll be told at a certain time, the certain time rolls around, and then we're told we'll be informed later.

I mentioned to Dada that perhaps they have the problem solved already and they're just using this set of circumstances to further plan and adapt in case of a situation where there really IS no water. We're blessed that we have power. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be without both, though thankfully it isn't anywhere near as hot as it could be. Dealing with this right at 80 degrees is one thing, but if it hit 92 or something, it would be unbearable.

We are coping fine. We picked up water yesterday. Nobody has showered since Friday night. I've always wanted to try dreadlocks- now might be a good time!

The dishes have piled up alarmingly, but they will wait. We have paper supplies from the Christmas in July party that happened last weekend instead of this weekend, thank goodness.

It is humbling to think about places in our world where this is a regular aspect of real life. Where simple things like showers are luxuries. Where running to a faucet and having clean water come out is a remote possiblity, not a privilege we assume is a right.

My mother, for years, has fretted over the Southwest and their water situation. It strikes me as odd that we are on top of a Great Lake and have no water when there are entire desert communities who manage to find what they need every day. Life is strange. I'm not to first to recite, "water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink."

Knocking wood, so far so good. We're healthy and the inconvenience has given us a chance to reflect and be thankful that this is not our life usually. I guess the hashtag should really be #blessedbeyondmeasure and we should all take some steps to be more responsible stewards. It's easy to throw the farming communities under the bus by saying it's all runoff from them and their practices, but while they are part of the problem the blame is not solely theirs. We need to have a much broader perspective. City council people need to plan for the well-being of their great grandchildren and not just settle for the cheapest bid to accomplish x,y, or z. Nobody is too small to help. Recycle. Plant trees. Pick up your own mess, and perhaps someone else's. Reuse. Don't be suckered; use your brain and ask yourself if you really need to buy every new thing that comes along. This experience should be a wake up call, not a pity party. Be part of the solutions, whether you're here in the #emptyGlassCity or in your own slice of heaven on earth.  

Detritus

I'm huddled around my coffee mug because I'm freezing and it's the last day of July. My phone's weather app is not uplifting, as it displays 9 of the next 10 days in the forecast with some variation of a cloud and rain and lightning bolts. Phooey.

Anyhoo, I'm also surrounded by party detritus. Still. Last Saturday we had a Christmas in July party, the first one we've had since 2010. Then, we had an 8 week old baby. This time, we had a hubby out of town for the two weeks preceding the party. Good times.

The indoor icicle lights are still up, and might just stay up until Christmas Valentine's Day (hey, I'm trying to be realistic here) though the tree is down. Yes, we put up the Christmas tree. I had the kids decorate it. They did pretty well. They were less than enthusiastic about taking it back down, but I got to sneak off to the Y and let the returned hubby take charge of that part. So Triskal has her bed back, there are two opened bottles of wine, three tubs of outdoor icicle lights, a stack of waiting-to-be-put-away serving bowls, and a palm tree shaped veggie tray on the mostly clean kitchen counter.

There are two bags of lemons on the kitchen counter as well. I found a recipe for homemade lemonade to which one then adds ice cubes made from watermelon puree. Sounds fine, right? It's excellent. We got a little overzealous with the lemons we thought we'd need, though, so either I need to make some more (but there's no room in the fridge) or freeze the lemon juice. DOES lemon juice freeze? Anyone?

Okay, step awaaaaay from the lemonade. The crock pots are all cleaned and dried and actually were clean and dried before midnight on the same day of the party.

ON THE SAME DAY AS THE PARTY! Do you know how amazing that is? The CROCK POTS!

Drat, just noticed the stockings are still up. I suppose that's okay. The actual for-real-people-mailed-them Christmas cards are still up, too. They are taped to the inside of the TV cabinet, so I forget about them until we open it up. Goodness, everyone's grown in the 7 months since Christmas happened!

Counting ourselves, we had just shy of 30 people here for the party. It was a nice number, and I think those who came had a good time. There was far too much food, and we'll be eating meatballs for the rest of 2014, but the cookies were a big hit and so was the lemonade. A friend made and brought his famous dumplings to share, which has been WONDERFUL to have as leftovers. Almost all the buffalo chicken dip from two crock pots was consumed. Most of the cheese cubes disappeared, but apparently people aren't huge Triscuit fans. The punch was yummy, but Liam was irate that we had the nerve to put the rainbow sherbet in. Never mind that's what we bought said rainbow sherbet FOR. He wanted to eat it alone. Tough beans, kid.

The weather had been sketchy and even dared to thunder at us, but other than a few very gentle sprinkles that people didn't even leave their outside chairs for, it was comfortable and dry-ish. There were kids in trees and Triskal got lots of love and there were kids in the basement and Triskal got more love and there were kids upstairs and... you get the idea.

Would I do it again? Certainly. With sweet hubby out of town beforehand? Absolutely not. There's a funny going around on Facebook of a triangle with phrases at the corners. One says, "happy kids" while another says, "your sanity" and the last one says, "clean house." The directions say, "pick two." It pretty much sums up the two weeks leading to our party. The boys fought like... like... cats and dogs, maybe. One minute they'd be thick as thieves and the next they'd be screaming at each other and someone would come crying, and it wouldn't always be the same someone. I was told once by a friend that company "is coming for dinner, not inspection" and I hold those words firmly in my psyche. People are not going to care about the state of your kitchen counter. They are going to care if you run out of cookies.

We had Samoas, thanks to the Girl Scouts, and I made chocolate chip cookies, Gingersnaps, sugar cookies (the kids decorated them, as usual) and pepperminty sugar cookies that we call St. Pat's Swirlies. It's sugar cookie dough that you divide in half. Half you add peppermint extract and green food coloring to, and for Christmas I add red food coloring to the other half. Roll 'em out, make 'em flat, place on top of the other, roll up jelly roll style and bake. Ta da!

And two batches of homemade chocolate ice cream. That's always a hit.

Basically, we should just invite every diabetic in need of sugar over to our house when we throw these parties.

Did I mention the lemonade?

We even were blessed with Christmas presents this year! Our sweet friend gave us a red peppermint candle and a green cucumber melon candle. How sweet and how perfect!

Time to get Thing One up. She got her braces on her cute little smile on Tuesday. I have to get some breakfast in her before karate, so I must go. Must, must! Have a wonderful rest of the week! Merry Christmas!  

Characters on a Clothesline

In some ways, I am very much like my mother. I've learned a lot about being a good steward from her. In preschool I won second place in a recycling contest, and that was way before communities were passing out recycling bins to every household.  She helped teach me to turn off lights that weren't being used, to put on a sweater when I was cold instead of messing with the thermostat, and to draw all over the backs of papers as well instead of throwing it out and getting a new one. 

I also inherited her love of line-dried clothes.

It drives my husband bananas.

But they smell SO good, and sunshine and wind are free, so why not!?

Fortunately, our Home Owners Association hasn't noticed or found anything in our bylaws saying that I can't. They have plenty to say on other issues, but that's another rant entirely.

Unfortunately, our young trees are too far apart to support practical, high clotheslines. I have lines strung from the top rails of our chest-high fence in the corner of our yard, and I confess, one is tied to the outside hardware of our fireplace. It looks pretty hillbilly, but I get to have wonderful smelling clothes and the neighbors get to snicker at our skivvies.

Which is exactly why my husband is mortified.

I do actually try to be discreet and hide them between rows of much longer and better covering clothes. But I had to laugh today as I hung Angry Birds underwear belonging to the boys. They were right next to skivvies displaying the LEGO movie characters, and Thomas the Train, and Cars, and Buzz Lightyear.

I thought about birds sitting on wires and how appropriate it is to have Angry Birds on my clotheslines. My clothesline is too low to the ground. I'd be angry, too. Especially when the Resident Newfie strolls through and gets hairs on everything. I hike them up as high as I can, but you can only do so much without a 6 foot fence.

So guess what my sweet husband found at an auction? One of those holder-upper-forked-clothesline-raising-things. I'm sure they have an official name, like "prop", but that's not nearly as fun to type. I was ecstatic as I'd told him excitedly about how my Grammy used several of those on HER wonderfully high clothesline.

It's a standard size, so he said it's going to need to be shortened a bit for my short clothesline, but I'm delighted nevertheless. And that's another fun word that we don't use enough. Nevertheless. I'm going to try to work that into more conversations...

Anyway, I'd told my hubby that the neighbors may laugh at our unmentionables if they must, and that's okay because everyone has unmentionables. I tried to reassure him that they'd be worried if I hung out everything BUT unmentionables. "Heavens, don't they wear them over there? Steer clear of THAT house. We're not going to associate with their kind."

He wasn't buying it. But he loves me enough to buy a clothesline-raiser-upper-thingie for my Angry Birds and all.

So. What goes on YOUR clothesline?

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By the way, there's a new post up on the Telling It Like It Is blog. It's watermelony.