And another one bites the dust

Liam:  Bosley, if you don’t quit eating my pencils, there is going to be a problem.

Me: He got another one?!

Liam: Yes! I came down to find my eraser and nothing else!

Me: Ohhhh, buddy.

Liam: Buddy, if this continues. I am going to go to jail. And you won’t be around to see it, because I am going to kill you.

***

Firstborn comes down and quips: why dontcha just buy mechanical ones? It’ll kill him faster.

(Apologies to the Grandmama, but she is well aware of the width and depth of the stupidheadedness of this dog.

 “Get a rescue,” they said. “It’ll be fun,” they said. Hmph.)

Flowers, flowers everywhere

As you can see, I've got some things started from seeds, some from last year (here's looking at you, sage), and some I cheated and bought from a choir fundraiser. Now I just have to figure out where to put everybody!

I love flowers in sneaky places.

And this is my pie piece-shaped plot beside the front porch. Hello, baby begonias!

I'm not a huge fan of actual peony flowers, and I didn't plant these, but we inherited them with the house and I won't let Dada get rid of them because my Grammy had peonies when I was a kid and I was always fascinated that I never saw bees in them- only ants. These ones have ants, too, and I haven't looked into why yet. It's fun to wonder!

The deck in its various stages of potting, repotting, I-don't-know-where-to-put-these-yetting and why-aren't-you-growing.

This poor white begonia has been planted three times. A squirrel keeps digging it up, so I'll try a fourth time.

Dada said, "let's go look at seeds" which apparently was Guy for  "let's go fill up every gas can we own, buy a cartful of seedlings, and throw some seeds in said cart for good measure." 

*sigh*

And irises and dandelions. Saved the best for last. Yes, they're flowers. Dada, shush.

 

Psyched out

 Yay! Seedlings from seeds that I planted! Wahoo!

                      Then I pull out the tray a little farther.

                       Great. I’m growing shrooms. *sigh*

Y'all better be fervently hoping that feeding the world does not ever depend on me!

Quack, quack, waddle, waddle

 Damon had a baseball game scheduled for last night. It had rained off and on all day, and we were told that the Board president would make the call at 3:15. If no game, we had batting practice scheduled for an hour at an indoor facility. The firstborn would need picked up from work after the game. I was fervently hoping for a cancellation.

It was game on.

Of course it was. You knew it would be. 

So I popped a big umbrella into Pepe the Pilot, along with both my raincoat and a hooded wool coat, a camp chair was already in the back, and put on my waterproof pants and rainboots. 

I figured I was all set.

When I got there, I looked at the umbrella and thought, "that thing is huge. I'm going to block a lot of people's line of sight, and if I really need an umbrella that badly, surely they'll call the game for rain." So I left it in the car.

I put on the raincoat, thinking I didn't want to smell like a wet sheep in my wool coat, and that I'd have something warm and dry to put on or over the kid on the way home.

Assuming I'd stay drier in a chair I brought instead of on the wet bleachers, I set up my camp chair and figured if I stayed put, everything under me would stay dry.

You can see the puddle forming on the far side of the yellow curb. The field we were scheduled for had a huge puddle at first base already. The boys were testing the depth of the various ones around the dugout. I thought, "welcome to Mudball 2022."

The men in charge decided to switch fields. The handful of parents there loaded up their umbrellas and various other items and we meandered to the other field, which was positioned at a 90 degree angle to how we had been facing along the third base dugout at the original field. Now the not-quite-rain-but-decidedly-more-than-mist was blowing into the remnants of my eyelashes and face. Thankfully, it was still around 60 degrees and the wind wasn't nearly as bad as it has been other evenings. 

Well, let's just cut to the chase and say that my waterproof clothing... wasn't. Or the rain was steadfast enough to penetrate everything patiently. Incidentally, camp chairs are shaped like bowls and made of a fabric which sucks up and retains water. Guess who felt the equivalent of a kid's plastic IKEA cup of water being dumped into the bottom of my pants when I shifted positions? Yes, that's the face I made, too. 

The boys came out in their last inning with towels crammed under their hats. There had been amazingly few slides. Parents cracked up most of the times the pitcher picked up the ball, shook wet sand off his hands, rubbed the ball on his pants or on his towel or on whatever looked remotely close to dryish, then looked around in dismay for somewhere to stash said towel. You could see him thinking, "I don't want it in my back pocket, but I can't leave it in the soup that is the pitcher's mound..." 

The kids were terrific. I didn't hear a complaint out of them. There were some errors, as happens at this age, and it wasn't a high scoring game, but I think they had a good time anyway.

We made it home, both of us soaked to the skin, and Damon declaring, "I'm wearing three layers and my underwear is still wet!" I hear ya, buddy. My fingers were pruney and I wasn't even doing anything. I've actually stayed drier after being thrown into a swimming pool. 

But, being water resistant, we dried off and warmed up, I collected the firstborn and the baseball player conked out, warm and toasty in his jammies, full of toast. 

I think we will not be waterlogged by the time Friday's game rolls around...

Out with the old

 Liam has had the lunchbox on the left since elementary school. He's finishing up his sophomore year of high school. It's seen better days, to say the least. The firstborn cleaned out the bedroom (Mom, I can hear you rejoicing) and donated two mostly unused lunchboxes (yay, pandemic, no school for forever) to the kitchen island. They're stored in the pantry, but whatever. So the man child ambles along and does a dead stop. "Ooooh. Mine!" Promptly swipes it and begins removing tags. 

Hellooooooo, new lunchbox.

And farewell, good and faithful servant, who was dispatched straightaway to the trash bin outside and collected, fortunately without needing a Hazmat suit.

Yes, that is duct tape. Our children are nothing if not individuals.

Liam just wandered past, yet to start his school day, and exclaimed, "what!? You pitched it already?! I didn't even get to say goodbye. Wah!"

Munching

 This child drives me to distraction. I hear all this crinkling and rustling and chewing, and I’m thinking, “Honey Nut Cheerios don’t sound like that.” I look over and he's in the sunshine, on the exercise ball, devouring a sleeve of Ritz crackers while his bowl of Aldi Froot Loops (chosen by his little brother) sits.

"Liam, what are you doing?!"

The man child rumbles,

"M.u.n.c.h.i.n.g."

False alarm

 My clock radio (yes, I’m somewhat old-school) went off this morning at 5:30 and I sat up with a heart full of joy, convinced it was Saturday and that I could turn off the alarm and go back to bed.

Tuesday be like BWHAHAHAHA!

*sigh* A dozen more days of school. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.

Carb loaders

 I regularly have crouton thieves whenever I make my salads. I say “my salads” in part because I’m the only one who eats them, and in part because I make huge ones. I figure if you’re going to get all that stuff out and chop it all up, might as well make it worth your while, right?

Anyway, Thing Three is pretty fast and he snags croutons straight out of my bowl before I get the dressing on.

“Croutons fill me with joy,” he claims.

***

I came down the stairs and past the Old Lady Room. The crinkling sound of snack wrappers brought my head up and I see Thing Two in the armchair with the entire bag of croutons in his still-pajama-clad lap. He was calmly eating them straight out of the bag until I busted him! I told him if he wanted croutons that he needed to start liking salad.

***

Thing One lamented to me last night with a fake pout, “I like toast and I can’t stop- I have no self control!” I told the child to have some of the delicious and humongous strawberries, left the kitchen, and came back in to yet another slice of sourdough bread toasting! These People that I live with!

Train wreck

 I thought I was doing well, but Damon beat the pants off me when we played Ticket to Ride. The trains are all tipped over to show that I’d counted them, in case anyone was wondering. He beat me like 176 to 95 or 99. So proud of his strategy!

*sigh* Ohio.

 

Spring has sprung

Back to school and on time today. Lovely sunrise!

Just yesterday I’d said I didn’t see any violets or Virginia springbeauties and look who shows up!

 I hate weeding; I think we’ve established that. I feel terrible about the earthworms I uproot and how scary it must be to be going about your business and then thinking, “huh, nobody told me it was moving day.” I apologize the whole time I’m out there. 

Today was even worse as I was chuffing last year’s leaves and this year’s early growth of Creeping Charlie out of the garden behind the garage; I uncovered a leafy mound with fluff in it and had just enough time to think, “uh oh” before a baby bunny squirted out of the hole and zigged left. I thought, “oh dear,” and another one made a beeline right. A third one hopped along the open garage door and I whispered, “don’t go in, oh, don’t go in!” Sure enough, I had to scoop that baby up from between shelving and buckets and, well, you have a garage so just use your imagination. Thankfully I probably smelled like fresh earth as I’d been in it so I took the sweet baby back to the hole, apologizing,  swearing that I meant no harm, and telling them that they’ll get used to me the whole time. I didn’t see the Mama anywhere but she probably watched me from the safety underneath the trailer or the playhouse. I hope that first one scuttles back before it starts raining again. I’m so sorry!

When life gives you fog

Today started off with a two hour fog delay which turned into a "the fog is still too bad so now it's a stay at home" day. I took advantage of the morning mist since I had to take the trash out anyway and got some dewy spring pictures.

I just love morning light. And strings of drops on spiderwebs. And dew on flowers. The birds were out, but the closest lovely blue jay was being camera shy and the cardinals were too far out of range to capture. We have two white squirrels, believe it or not, as well as many brown and gray ones. I didn't see any bunnies this morning, but they probably saw me and went the other way. Honey stared at me like I'd lost my mind as I tramped around in the damp with my phone. I'm looking forward to the Virginia spring beauty, the violets, the buttercups, and the irises. I did take a picture of what I discovered was hairy bittercress but I wasn't sure anyone but me really wanted to see it, haha. We also have common yarrow growing out back, which reminds me of tiny ferns. I've got to get our seeds started! Eek!

 

You can tell we like to eat!

Since I know better than to advertise when Dada is out of town and I'm holding down the fort, these all waited awhile to get posted. He spent almost two weeks in Bogota, Colombia as March turned to April. A handful of his coworkers went with him, one a native of Bogota with family there. Therefore, Dada got taken to great places to eat!

Sweet Angela, whom I'd gotten to meet when we went together before, sent two adorable tiny mugs and saucers, and coffee flavored chewy candies which are excellent, home with Dada. I squealed in delight, of course, and have been using them every day. Un mug petit!

Breakfast at his hotel. I asked what was in the mug because it looked like potatoes. He said, "soup." I asked what was in it and he said, "soupy stuff." Sorry folks, I got nothin'! 

Angela and her brother Alejo, some of our wonderful family in South America!

Bernardo's lovely mom, Yvonne, had the guys over after they'd been stuffed by his inlaws' side of the family. Never too full for dessert!

Dinner some different night. I made the mistake of asking what the squiggles were and was informed, "calamari, and it was delicious!" Guess there's really not a lot of things they could have been had I thought about it...

Shopping for souvenirs. Trying to gauge sizes for the kids.

I have no idea what Mike Wizowski is doing in Bogota, but I'm glad Dada got a picture of him!

The above chandelier is in a salt mine! Isn't that incredible!?

Sweet breads at Yvonne's

Liam likes my new tiny mugs. Apparently they're not going to work well for warming his huge hands.

And the treats he brought back! Those Copelia cookies are amazing. Imagine a stroopwaffel had a kid with a Girl Scout Samoa cookie and that's pretty close to how delicious they are. I'm having a hard time showing restraint! 

And he brought me back the tub of dulce de leche, yum! Now all I need is some vanilla ice cream to dump drizzle it onto.

Thanks to those of you who prayed for traveling mercies for him. Other than a delay in Atlanta on the way home, everything else went very well! He made it home at about ten to four in the morning on Friday so we were all glad for a weekend to catch up on some rest!