We Love It, Don't We?

Hot Bodies

2011-02-14T19:56:00.014-05:00

Beehive bodies. What did you think I was talking about?

It's that time of year when a young man's fancy turns to molten wax and gum rosin.

Mark has been building beehive components in the basement for the past month or so. It's noisy business and now our cellar is a fun maze of hive bodies and honey supers. With a nice fresh lumber scent.This year, instead of painting the woodenware, Mark is uber psyched about this wax dipping process which is supposed to be far superior in water and rot protection as well as less mess, less labor, more appeal for the bees :)

So! What this entails is bringing like a hundred plus pounds of wax, paraffin in this case, mixed with gum rosin to a simmer in your homemade propane fired dipping setup. (Rooster is optional.) Maintaining a temperature high enough to get the job done but below the flash point of both the ingredients, you submerge a box and let it cook for 12 minutes. And viola!

Ya, they look pretty much exactly the same afterward, but the water, it beads off like magic! And such a fresh piney turpentiney scent while they cook. A two-headed Babymomster. It even warmed up enough for the bees to come out for a cleansing flight. Bee poop everywhere!The new uncapping machine. We'll get to see it in action sometime in July, I reckon. I took a photo because it will never look this shiny again.Some wax blocks after coming out of the (also new, but no longer shiny) wax melting/cleaning tank.

It went through multiple "washings" which filled the cellar with a lovely warm honey toasty waxy scent.
Airplane ride!
And a visit to Lily's 3rd grade Valentine's Day party. Daddy didn't make it back from work in time to babysit so Leo came along and played Cupid.
And Lily won 1st place for best Valentine box. (I got 1st place for only one hot glue gun blister from its construction. But then I had to relinquish my title since I cussed when it happened.)Finally, no photo, but imagine a beautiful vase of roses from Mark delivered to me this morning for Valentine's Day. Even though I almost didn't answer the door for the flower guy.
Didn't he know I was doing the old Race For A Shower While The Baby's Sleeping thing?

Happy Valentine's Day to all and to all a good night.

Is That Normal?

2011-02-11T09:53:00.003-05:00

This poor neglected blog :( (My poor neglected pre-baby clothes...and hobbies, and brain, and etc etc etc)

But! There's a baby to show for it and he's cute. So. There it is.

Four months later and still settling in, I think we're getting our confidence back that we actually know how to care for an infant. 'Cause, you know, we've done this a couple 3 times before, you'd think it would be a piece of cake, or cheese, or whatever.

But we're a little goofy when it comes to our kids, maybe, and Mark was forever asking:

"Is that normal?"

And in my crazy, crazy, sleep-deprived, isolated, hormone-fluxed state, he'd get me wondering, too: Is that normal?

And of course it all is. With the baby, I mean. The crying, the sleeping, the pooping, the sneezing. It's all good.

Mama on the other hand? The crying, the sleeping, the pooping, the sneezing. Well, that's another zubject :)

So this is a baby step back to the blog and the like. I even uploaded photos! Ta-da!

I think we all know how this turned out:He cried the entire first half at the Super Bowl party. We went home to watch the Steelers finish losing.

Lil' Ayyyngel, on the beloved bee quilt:

Thanks, Patti!

Daddy couldn't wait to try this:

I think The Boy likes it!

Hopefully more soon, but I have a 3rd grade Valentine's Day party to go shower for! xoxo

Leopold Mark

2010-12-10T14:52:00.006-05:00

What's onomatopoeia for a balloon inflating? How about Phhhhhh....
Phhhhhh......Phhhhhhhhhhhhhh......Aannnd Pop!
Baby straight jacket.
Mother Hen.Baby spa day.I miss you all out there in blogland. :)

Gone Fishin', Fishin's Gone.

2010-07-06T02:51:00.004-04:00

I would have so fewer pie portraits without digital photography.....

Apple Blackberry. Good stuff.

So Lily got it in her head that she wanted to go fishing. It was a long haul to and through the holiday weekend, but Mark agreed to take her down to the pond after he grabbed a quick nap.

To help her pass the time while she was waiting I sent her on a worm digging mission. It's been pretty dry and she'd come back to me time after time empty-handed and with a little bead of sweat on her brow. Sad. So she and daddy had to make a worm run up to the gas station. Does your gas station carry worms?

A benefit of fishing at home is no special attire is required. You can wear your napping clothes.

She caught a baby bass. (All the fish are kind of babies still.) She said she wanted to eat him (because it is her mission in life to just say things to see what we'll say in return) but we told her it still has lots of growing to do and he was returned to the pond.And she caught a pretty little yellow perch which I didn't get a photo of because Mark was too traumatized by the hook being irretrievable and I was all flustered. The perch was sent back to the pond but its final fate is unknown.

No doubt Mark has had the uncooperative hook scenario more times than I can count. He's been fishing and hunting and trapping since he was a boy. But this time was different. We know these fish. And he was upset that the perch was injured, so he called 'No more fishing in the pond.'

No more fishing in the pond that was engineered and cultivated specifically for fishing. That was stocked with hundreds of dollars in fish, outfitted with a more-than-hundreds of dollars worth of fountain for aeration, that receives bimonthly servings of some mystery powders that help digest excess plant matter & provide minerals to the fish...Eh, whatever. I pretty much think of the fish as pets now, too. They come when you feed them, for pete's sake.

But that didn't eliminate Lily's urgent need to go fishing. She was just getting warmed up. So Mark took her to a local sportsman's (sportsmen's?) club he belongs to where they could fish for fish strangers.

Plus, this club is hillbilly enough that you can still wear your napping clothes and everyone is either 1. wearing the same outfit or 2. too drunk to notice.

We don't get out there enough, I tell ya...

On the way to the club:
See the mother deer and her 2 fawns?

Here is the Loch Ness Beaver:

I think the photo is just bad enough to give that Loch Ness monster vibe. There were actually 2 young beavers swimming and slapping their tails in the water in front of us. Pretty cute.

We left in a rush and only had 1 hook and bobber but Mark knew to scout around for cast off fishing gear in the pavilions and fire pits. He scored one more hook and bobber.

He set Lily up and coached her from a picnic bench. She caught a wee little blue gill. She fidgeted and chattered and missed lots of bites because she was staring off into space.

She wanted to try casting by herself and Mark let her try. She managed to wrap the line around the pavilion poles and the hook and its worm flew off into no man's land. Thank goodness for that found hook or fishing would've been over.

The sun was setting and the bats were flying. Mark said he was going to cast her line out into King Catfish Country.

And she got a bite.

From King Catfish:
Though I like to say it could be a Queen Catfish. It spit out the hook right at the shore and Mark had to catch it with his bare hands. Excitement!And Lily said she wanted to eat it (of course, because she must say it) but Mark had other plans.

We had no bucket of water to transport it in, but Mark said you can practically leave a catfish lay in the yard half a day and it will swim right away once you put it in the water. Not that you would want to...

But it turns out he was right. We live a mile or two away and after its car ride, King (or Queen) Catfish swam off with much vim and vigor as soon as it touched the water of our pond.

Welcome home, Catfish.

A Bee-utiful Thing

2010-07-04T15:00:00.003-04:00

How much do I love this lady? Even though she's been teasing me for a while with little bee and honey themed tidbits on her blog lately.
Tidbits like this:
Looks like a bee has been dancing all about here:

Ha! There she is! Isn't she cute?This is so cool:And this is a work of art: (YoYo the cat approves.)

A genuine Osage Bluff Quilter quilt! For Baby "B" Bedillion. It is magnificent and I have to resist carrying it around everywhere with me to show it off to everyone. My photos don't do it any justice and there are so many cool things on it.

Patti, you are a SWEETHEART!!!!!!! (You too, Blacksmith ! :) ) We thank you thank you thank you! It is a treasure!

Big Smooch & Big Hug,

The Bee-dillions

Baby Got Björk

2010-07-02T09:50:00.004-04:00

Poop Patch!

I picked Sam & Lil up from swimming at Mom's the other day and of course Sam immediately picked up on whatever music I'm playing ad nauseum in the car, because that's how I do. That day I happened to be rocking out to Björk's Greatest Hits and I insisted to Sam that the baby likes it. That's why I have to turn it up real loud so the baby can rock out too.

It also led to a discussion of Iceland and Björk's appeal and Greenland and its barrenness and just some general good-hearted disagreeing and making fun of mom. Good times.

Things I've said lately:

To these cats this morning when I caught them smooching and hugging. "You kids are crazy." Not "cats" or "kitties" but "kids" as in "people."
To Gentelman Jim, our resident yard bird Rooster, when I saw a third chicken in his harem (a boy chicken, too!): "Who's that chicken?" Not "what" but "who" as in "person."

To Mark while I sat and chatted with him at the market while a customer stood nearby unbeknownst to me: "My butthole still hurts." Don't get excited. I was generalizing the area of discomfort for comic effect. My, shall we say, saddle-area, has been having some major ligament pain combined with various baby-kicking of my innards in that general region, and I was over-sharing as I am wont to do, that's all.

Let's just be glad I clammed up and didn't try to clarify all that to the customer. It could only go downhill from "My butthole still hurts."

And these are only the things I've said out loud lately. Goodness knows what I'm saying inside this fun house of a brain.

Probably "Baby Got Björk" to the tune of this:

And now you are, too!!! :)

In No Particular Order

2010-06-28T13:12:00.002-04:00

A pig with no ears.
The Belly.
Bubbles saying hello.
The Cooker.

Chicken halves. All sold.
Since blogger and I go 'round and 'round over photo posting, feel free to peruse the rest over yonder. It also explains the ear-less pig.

It was nice to have the camera out again. Hecks, nice to be outside for non-softball related activities.

I took a 2 hour walk in the woods yesterday, the first time in a very long time, and nearly cried because I'd missed it so much. (Insert Mark rolling his eyes here. ) :)

I didn't even mind the bugs, sweat, scratches, poison ivy and getting lost/stuck for half an hour. I must be part Mowgli or Tarzan or something. All the trails are grown over and I was having to try to navigate deer paths. I was still glad to be there. Glad to take a cool shower when I got home, too.

Mark sold chicken halves on Saturday. His special sauce is the trick. I was lucky to get one for myself before they sold out.

I put Aggie on the bus (ah, motor coach, thankyouverymuch.) to camp Sunday. A lovely drive in Shadyside on a Sunday morning. The camp posts photos online everyday but I didn't see her in any yet. She got to go with her BFF and we watched them through the bus windows chomping at the bit to be on their way. Kinda doubt she'll be homesick at all this week.

Lily couldn't get herself to her grandparents' fast enough after Aggie left either. Said she wasn't sleeping in her bedroom alone. She took one outfit and her giant dry erase board. Just the necessities.

So Sam is our only child (well, plus Pellet, of course) this week, it seems. Last night we watched a movie, Defiance, which we all enjoyed. If you can take the violence of a war movie it was a good story. A true story! Then after the movie, I balanced the remote control on my belly and we watched the baby kick it around. Cute/gross!

I could share more pregnancy gross with you but I'll just save it. Only 'bout 17 weeks to go! Seven Teen Weeks To Go.... The countdown 'til I might get my brain back!

And Now There Will Be 3 People Not Putting The Seat Up In My House.

2010-06-07T19:44:00.002-04:00

Boys pulling triggers all over the place.

Sam's trophy. For pulling triggers. When I first met Mark, when he was even weirder than he is now ;) he had this thing he'd do when something excited him or made him happy. Could've been a good part of the story he was telling, could've been a good song on the radio, could've been an exceptionally tasty bite of whatever he was eating, but he'd always punctuate the event by 'pulling a trigger on it.'

With the fingers of one hand curled up just so, he'd pump that hand forward and pull it back in a recoil like the blast of a shot gun. Sometimes he'd say 'Bam!' but it definitely wasn't required. Sometimes something would warrant double or even triple triggers. Beware if something called for a trigger when he was driving. That usually included an involuntary tapping of the brakes. Mmmmm, whiplashy.

These days Mark doesn't really do the full trigger-pulling motion, but that doesn't change the definition of pulling a trigger or minimize it's use in our familiar conversation. In other words, it's a good thing.

Baby boy Bedillion pulling triggers. :)

Almost Halfway There!

2010-06-01T13:07:00.004-04:00

19 weeks today, I believe?
Rockin' the bump. Parking in the Expectant Mothers parking spaces if I have to. Ok, once I did that, but I totally qualified for that space and some jerk stole my regular people space.

New weird side effects:

-First time for the Mask of Pregnancy. It looks like I got tangled up with a curling iron, like when I'd occasionally burn my forehead trying to get my Claw Poof hairdo in middle school. Three weird lines on my forehead. Maybe I'll have to get a picture of it. Just weird.

-I kid you not, I laugh different. Maybe it has something to do with having a big belly like Santa Claus, but when I laugh it's from way down deep in there somewhere. Feels pretty good and sometimes it takes very little to make me laugh. Finally, a good side effect! And makes me think of the bible story when God told Sarah she was going to have a baby and she laughed Ya, right! . And the He showed her.

I guess the hearty laughter makes up for the insomnia, crying, zombie-moods, and cellulite.

*****************

-In other news, where have all the pretty sandals gone? I can appreciate a gladiator sandal or those sandals that kind of look like Donald Duck's spats as much as the next gal, but I need something a little more...wearable? Plus I'm not trying to draw unnecessary attention to my cankles at this time.
But seriously, Target, normally trusty source of reasonably priced cute footwear, has really let me down this year. Plenty of flip flops, but flip flops are the sweat pants of the shoe world. OK for home and the beach and maybe some errands, but not so good for much more. No matter how many big plastic jewels or pleather flowers you put on them.
Plenty of retreads of last years sandals. And lots of low quality sandals that I know might look cute for a couple wearings and will then look like raggedy garbage.
Where are the quality sandals? Kick-ass leather sandals. None of this weird microfiber stuff. Sandals with real wooden stacked heels, not plastic heels with stickers made to look like stacked wooden heels. Metal buckles, not plastic. That kind of thing.
Ya, I know, they're on Zappos and they only cost $200. I'll keep on searching. But how about that for an indignant rant, eh? Deep thoughts, I know.

-Mark's aunt has told me on two separate occasions how huge I am. I am debating a 3 Strikes You Are Going To Get A Frakkin Earful From Me policy.

-Mystery Koi. We found 3 big koi in our pond and we have no idea where they came from. I need to get a photo of them. Two orange and one white, they are so pretty.

-YoYo gets some penicillin. The cat was exhibiting signs of a urinary tract infection so I picked up some antibiotic. Mark gives the shots in the family, from pigs to cows to cats, and my job was to restrain. Lucky me: YoYo is the cat who has sent several of us to the ER for tetanus shots. But YoYo would tell you there were extenuating circumstances.
At any rate, the wretched-smelling dehydrated beef liver dog treats were more than enough distraction for him. Hopefully he's on the mend.

-Lazy Days Of Summer. So the kids will be home all Summer and I won't. As we approached this horizon Mark & I knew that some changes needed to be made, namely in the chores arena.

Sam, only son and oldest child, had been the chore boy from the get go. The kid is a worker, I tell you. He works at the market, many times setting everything up by himself in the mornings. He's done that for years. He feeds the animals. Helps work the bee hives. Cuts the grass. Weedwacks. Trash duty. Occasionally supper and dishes. Some laundry. Plus he does yard work for other people, among other things. Honestly, looking at that list, it's a wonder why I have so much damn work to do myself when I get home.
Ah yes, now I remember. The Girls.
I love my girls so very much, I do. They do well in school, they're kind and caring, and not particularly sassy. They're my beautiful girls.
But thanks to their reliable and hard-working brother and their own ability to hide when there's work to be done, they've managed to skate by pretty easily all these years.
Mark and I know there's a lot of blame to place directly on us: we let 'em slide way too often and now we're paying the piper trying to reverse the damage done.
So far it's a pretty painful process.
Their shared bedroom has been the black hole cesspool of the house forever. Their brother's room? Looks exactly the same every day: bed made, floor immaculate, everything in its place. The rest of the house generally looks like civilized people live in it, but the girls' room was always...overwhelming.
Since moving into the house 6 years ago we have taken literal shovels full of stuff out of it. Bags and bags of garbage, toys and Goodwill clothes at a time. And yet, just days later it was destroyed again. Bad. I quit buying anything but bare necessities for them years ago and still it overflows.
I've threatened, I've counseled, I've given How-To Demonstrations, I've given step-by-step instructions pick up that sock, throw away that piece of paper, put away that book until the whole room was clean. I've given options, no options, time lines. Ignored it altogether or broken down in tears of frustration.
Even with the rules of no phone, no iPod, no friends til it's clean, it is still an every day battle.
Add to that our new lofty ambitions of laundry, dishes, and floor cleaning, and it's a full-time job goading my daughters.
But I'm pretty sure that's all it boils down to: wearing them down, one Chinese water torture drip at a time. Or was that me being drip-drip-dripped into madness? Time will tell.

I have hope that eventually there will be a day when they do something of their own volition. Just not today. Today, they will bargain and complain and drag it out and make dirty faces at their mother.

-And lastly. Anybody else see this resemblance?

It's been bugging me since this first time I saw her. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.

Peace out.

Pig Bone Fat. I Got Nothin' For A Blog Post.

2010-05-28T15:34:00.003-04:00

Check it.

"Fatty acids derived from pork bone fat are used as a hardening agent in crayons and also gives them their distinctive smell."

That special crayon smell? Pig bone fat. Now that I think about it, yes, it's a nostalgic smell, but really, isn't it kind of a stinky smell?

In other news, my short term memory is shot, so goodness knows what we've been up to.

School's out next Wednesday though the girls skipped yesterday to go to Kennywood, and they all skipped today because the girls were tired from Kennywood and Sam uncharacteristically missed the bus. Only half days anyway.

Yep. That's all I've got today. Who wants chicken wings?

Getting In Touch With My Gross Side

2010-05-17T15:10:00.002-04:00

Turns out, I'm gross.
Exhibit One:
Regular pants don't fit? Only 2 pairs of maternity? Refuse to wear those sweatpants again today?
Duct Tape, my friend, duct tape. A really sad moment because it wasn't a sad moment at first. At first it was totally acceptable. I was in a rush to get out the door and I thought, perfect!
No. No, it's not. You duct taped your pants. Gross.
Only good thing is I might get famous here.

Grossness, Exhibit Two?

Going shower-less for 3 days and I wasn't camping (but was wearing duct tape pants.) And somewhere in there, sleeping for like 15 hours straight and I wasn't hungover or anything. 'sup with that?

Grossness number three: Septic tank flower garden.
I imagine there's a proper thing folks do with the septic tank lids. Do they bury them? Because I'm afraid to bury them and then we'll end up driving the tractor over them and cracking the lids. Or maybe some bushy ornamental grass? Then it would be my luck we'd have to tear them all up to get to the lids.

Nah, I just let the girls plant flowers to their hearts' content. Yes, with a million and one places around the house to plant flowers, let's draw attention to the poop tank with flowers.
Just going to hope the petunias spread. A lot.

Grossness Four. Now, I could only maybe take half credit for this, but birthing a child who at the tender age of 8 is capable of the most pungent man-like armpit odor in our whole family. A female child no less!

Five. Salami sandwich for breakfast. Debatable.

Ya, I guess a lot of it's debatable, but I was just so not feeling feminine this weekend, ya know? Just.....not cute. Or pretty. One of those weekends.

But how 'bout a palate cleanser?

Awww, neato! A heron outside my back door this morning. Nature!

What else?

-Go kart's broken again. We need to keep parts on stock.

-Lily finally had a friend over after much waiting, and darn, if I didn't forget to pre-warn the mom about how filthy their child is going to get at my house.

Straight to the creek in shoes and socks, thoroughly coat them in mud then strip them off and throw them all over the porch. Splash mud over every appendage. Add a coating of watermelon juice from 2 big slices each. It helps the kitten hair and barn dust stick better. Then, when I shoo you into the tub to rinse your arms and legs, skip that and just have a splash fight. Return from the bathroom every bit as dirty and also soaking wet.

They had such fun though. And friend's mom is totally cool with the creek mud.

-Roses for my anniversary. I forgot to take pictures, but what a lovely surprise at work. Mark, you rascal, you.

-I can slightly, slightly feel a baby moving in there sometimes. A little bit. Just not when I'm lying really still trying really hard to feel it. I am struggling with not driving myself so, so crazy with this whole thing. Funny how carefree I was all those other times. Boy, am I making up for it now.

-I did some laundry. I cut up some fruit. I planted some sunflowers. ;-) I'm just being purposely extra boring now.
Have A Good Monday, Internets!

The Fungus Among Us, Girls Will Be Girls, And I Heart Maternity Pants.

2010-05-03T10:08:00.009-04:00

Howdy, Neighbors. 'Tis the month of May and verily it doth truck along.
Morel Mushroom season, but our haul was much smaller that last year's. I think it just wasn't quite the right temperature/moisture combo going on out there in the woods. But we found enough to fry and eat with leftover prime rib one night, and the next night to make a fabulous stuffing/dressing with leftover hard rolls, scallions, and morels baked to a yummy goodness. It went perfect with oven baked rabbit.

Look at the cute little snail.
Last weekend we finally got the part to fix the go kart. That was an adventure in and of itself. It involved a trip to a small town West Virginia cycle shop where the owner behind the counter was unabashedly eating sardines on saltine crackers when I walked in. And that seemed to make perfect sense at the time.
So anyway, fixed the go kart. The weather wasn't cooperating and Agnes and her friend were going nuttynuts. They finally decided weather-be-damned, we're going riding.And so they did. And it took about 5 minutes for them to look like this.It rained and they rode. For hours.
And then the tricky part of cleaning up. Ever notice that it's a lot of work letting kids be kids?
My plan was for them to hose off at the barn in their clothes, come in the cellar where I'd have towels so they could strip out of the mud clothes and then head to the shower in their towels.
Instead, they grabbed the towels and headed to the barn to strip. Dripping wet and still pretty muddy, they trekked from the barn to the back door. OK, not the cellar door like I asked, but no biggie. I asked Where are your sweatshirts? (to go with the other piled muddy wet humps of clothing they left on the porch) and they headed back out to the barn to fetch them, still muddy and wrapped in nothing but towels. So forgetful, these pre-teens.
So then I'm waiting and waiting and waiting for them to come back from the barn because it's like 8:30pm on a school night and they still need to get showers before we take Ag's friend home.
Ah, here they come, still totally unaffected by their lack of clothing. Well, we figured since we were already over at the barn we might as well go see the new kittens...
Well, that makes perfect sense!
Finally they were showered and content, and I was left with the aftermath of mud-filled tennis shoes and a bathtub full of sediment and leaves.
But then when I was looking through the photos I'd taken of their fun, I found this picture of yours truly from about this time last year:

and I couldn't really complain because Aggie gets her muddiness honestly. (sigh, was my butt ever that small?)

In addition to morel and mud season it is also softball season. Both girls are playing and it is quite the time suck. We got home after 9pm last night. I guess I'm just a big rookie at this is my problem.
But I do enjoy watching them, and I'm ever so happy that they seem to be enjoying it because I finally have someone to play catch with!Good memories. Pretty fun watching a bunch of 8 year olds, too. They're like a flock of chickens running around out there.

I took these puppies out for a test drive today: During my 1st trimester misery I was hellbent on staying in normal people clothes for as long as possible. I was pissed when I went to Target to grab a bunch of big neutral pregnancy clothes and they stayed in the bag for awhile unworn. I was sweating the fact that I was growing too large too quickly, but I'm over it. Pregnant four times equals get big quickly for me. So that's my approximately 15 1/2 weeks belly up thar pokin' out. And my growing bosom. Hello! Enjoying that before they get out of hand.

Anywho, glory be, are these pants not the most comfortable thing on my bloated middle? Love love love. Even more than my sweatpants. And they are not nearly so ugly as the maternity jeans I wore 9 years ago. We'll see how long til I'm exploding out of them.

That's all she wrote for now. Happy Mother's Day to all you Moms out there!

Why Must I Ruin Her Life All The Time?

2010-04-25T18:14:00.009-04:00

Protesting the fact that I did not buy her a trampoline this weekend. A right proper sit-in.All my poor neglected girl can do is sit and listen to her iPod Touch and text woeful texts to her friends. sigh. To her credit, she has limited it to theatrics only, no mean sass mouth to date. Thank God for small miracles there.

So Ag and her bestie had big plans this weekend for the go kart. Unfortunately, shortly into their fun Saturday the throttle cable pooped the bed and ended it all.

Begin the volleys of asking mom then dad then mom then dad to buy a trampoline to end their boredom suffering. They are champions of sweet asking those two. They made Mark lunch of a peanut butter honey sandwich with a honey heart on the bun. Aggie volunteered to forego all 2010 future Christmas presents. There were frowny faces. A touch of sighing.

Lemme just say, since there's a really good chance I'll end up caving like I do on stuff like this, I think trampolines are the junkiest piece of eyesore I could probably ever put in my yard. I admit, though I know it's not totally fair, that I associate them with trashy trailer parks. I've often wondered how long it takes for the thing to become boring and forgotten like any other yard toy.

It makes me think of Sit-N-Spins.

We never had a Sit-N-Spin at our house growing up and they were like the funnest toy ever-in my mind. Any time I visited someone else's house where they had one (and I swear everyone else had one but me) I'd sit-n-spin & sit-n-spin. And probably, the kid to whom it belonged thought "what the heck's the big deal?" and they probably never played with the dang thing. It's just one of those toys that's way funner at somebody else's house. Like a trampoline. At least, that's my theory.

Fortunately they did manage to find other ways to entertain themselves. I made them waffles for breakfast and then they headed outside in their 'pajamas.' I wasn't paying attention and then it was too late to bother making them change....

They were catching bullfrogs. Good times.Just like Charlie's Angels. Or something. Sam had just caught a couple of drones (male bees that don't have stingers) to play with and possibly take to school. He'd bee wrangled a bee at school last week and kept everybody entertained for a period or two. I said Crazy Bee Boy, huh? and he said Ya! He got the drones from an unoccupied hive that the other bees were cleaning of its residual honey. No gloves or nothin'! Even though you know they don't have stingers, it still makes me feel weird to hold one.

Could this be a prince?

We were just finishing supper, chicken fried wild turkey-yum!, when my grandmother phoned and Lily picked up. Nan asked Lily what she was doing and Lil said eating, but immediately said we caught bullfrogs today! And Nan said, You're eating bullfrogs?! and Lil said No! And Nan said Well, good. I wouldn't want you to croak.

Bum dum bump!

Look What The Cat Dragged In

2010-04-24T13:13:00.002-04:00

Kinda gross, I guess. Sorry about that. Fluffy. She doesn't know any better. And heavens to mergatroid, it's not like we don't feed her every day.

But for reals, Sam got his first turkey this morning. It was his first time going turkey hunting. He and Mark headed out behind the house early this morning and came back triumphant in less than an hour. 21 1/2 pounds.

Mark was too excited to make any normal faces for the photos. I gave him many chances, too.

...had my head so far up my uterus...

2010-04-23T12:56:00.030-04:00

Sorry. That's a bad visual. And a pretty accurate picture of where my brain's been.
On top of having trouble still wrapping my head around the fact that I'm pregnant, I've had 3 bouts of food sickness- one keeping me in bed for 2 days, the expected normal nausea and sundry hormonal grossness, an episode I'm fairly convinced was mildly epileptic, moodiness & exhaustion from hell, and general fear of the future. So. Wah.
I been meanin' to post, but then blogger wouldn't cooperate with my photos (gawd, am I the only idiot who has this much trouble dragging photos??,) and then the anti-virus would need updating for infinity minutes, and then I'd lose interest and go lie down. Then I'd think as I was lying there You're in no frame of mind to blog. You're thinking and acting weird. Maybe you ought to lie low for a while. So I guess I kind of did that, too.

What else have we been up to in the last weeks tho'?

There was the Maple Syrup Festival.After pancakes we walked around town to the kiosks and booths, through the museum, past the horse drawn carriage!

They let me pet him.Then there was a horse pull at the nearby fairgrounds. Much, much more entertaining to me than anyone else in our group.My photos weren't so hot but let me tell you, those horses, they were pretty. And strong.

From the horse pull Mark & I travelled to the farm where we buy maple syrup to sell at the market. The family has been making syrup for generations.

They also milk cows. Photogenic cows.There on their farm and all along the route you can see the maple trees tapped and strung with tubing to collect the sap. It's pretty impressive. So many trees. You can kind of see the tubing here:And then I went pregnant crazy for a few days and then I was ok.

Then Mark did some Spring beekeeping. He purchased some packaged bees to add more hives to the "herd."

Packages of bees behind the seat of the truck:

Sam helped him get everyone installed in their new homes. That's the suit he got for his birthday. (I would've duct taped those pant legs shut though!) One of the queenies in her cage being investigated by her ladies in waiting:

*yaaaawn* It is so boring when we can't go riding, isn't it, Nik?We had the annual Easter egg hunt at Wagner's Greenhouse.

'Tis the season to be gobble-gobbled awake every morning by wild turkeys pitching woo. It's a pretty nice way to wake up actually. That and the crowing of the rooster who insists he must be right below the bedroom window when he greets the sun. Ah, it's ok, he's a good kid.

Sam has been studying his Italian. If you can't find him, check in his "office."Sure, it's the closet, but the shelf is right at desk level, he's made a seat out of a rubbermaid container, got his lamp, dry erase board & calendar, books, and my laptop on loan in there. (And all the extra household bed linens he could possibly need.)

There is just enough room to shut the door right at your back. Pretty much an office. And a fun hiding place.

A big storm blew through the county last week.

My weren't we singing praises to the generator when the power went out! You just couldn't hear us singing over the noise of the generator.

The storm blew some jumbo trees down.A big 'ole cherry tree right on the fence. Fortunately there were no escapees.Sad to see such a nice tree go. I love trees. But that's another zubject.

Lily is on a hobo kick lately. She draws hobos and she builds hobo camps. Duct tape, sticks, and old bed sheets=awesome.

She took me on a tour of the empty pig pen the other day. Like I'd never seen this pig pen in the past 6 years we lived here.

But I let her show me the particular spots by the creek that were hers or Aggies. The area is on the far side of the barn and kind of out of sight of everything, so I can see how they'd feel like they were in a whole other world. She showed me where they made mud pies, where they'd unearthed bits of old junky pottery from the creek bed.

She showed me the "island" on the other side of the creek. The stones they sit on or cross the creek on.

It was awesome. It'll be kind of a bummer when the pigs move back in. Fortunately, their hobo tent is just outside the pig pen, so all is not lost.

Aaaand, most recently, yesterday, in fact, comma, Mark opened the market for the season. Not chock full like Summer, but still full of lots of goodies. Good and good for you. ;-)So far off to a nice start. Here's hoping for a super year. Reckon I' got onsies and papooses to buy.That there is my hero of a husband. Dude has had to deal with some major, major issues from me lately, and he has handled it like a true champion. I love 'at boy.

Roger, Wilco, and I'm Out For Now.

Yes, He's Serious.

2010-04-12T16:49:00.001-04:00

Mark wants to name the child Amos Moses, after this song.

I'll be back in a bit.

It's A Gummy Bear.

2010-03-24T16:10:00.003-04:00

I've already kind of blown the protocol of announcing a pregnancy early and announcing it on my blog for heaven's sake, so why not an ultrasound picture for good measure.

Also so I could brag about how my bladder holds an inordinate amount of liquid I guess. I was instructed to drink 32 ounces of water one hour prior to the appointment and hold it.
I'm a pretty compliant patient, so I did as I was told, though it was torture and I was so bloated I looked about 5 months instead of just over 2. Honestly, it was grotesque.

The technician sent me to the bathroom twice to offload because all that pee was obscuring the view.

But we eventually saw the little heartbeat flutter. So far, so good.

In other news, Mark got a phone call from the nurse today, not for Lily's signature stomachache, but because Aggie had a gym class collision and may be sporting a shiner. More on that as the situation develops.

Lator Gators!

Horse Dirt And Wood Smoke And Birthday Cake

2010-03-22T10:45:00.007-04:00

Spring sprung this weekend. In between hormonal fits of spontaneous napping (and fretting,) I joined the fam outside in the prettiness.

The go cart came out of hibernation.
When the cows weren't smoking themselves in the fire, they were skipping and bucking after the go cart. I don't know why they kept standing in that smoke? Weird.But I guess Lily was smoking herself in a burn pile of her own. Of course we roasted hot dogs after the sun went down.
Potatoes were planted. Onions and Swiss chard, too.
Garlic is coming up.
And if you look really, really closely to those tiny dots on the ceiling and wall, the blasted, brackafrackin' Asian beetle ladybug things are still polluting the house. Warm weather means they'll only be more infestatious (yup, "infestatious".) They are everywhere. Plopping into your beverage. Sharing the shower. Filling all the light fixtures.

Mark has the vacuum running about 12 hours a day, sucking them up with the hose. He thinks they know the sound of the sweeper and run for cover when he switches it on.

Don't mind this not so cute picture of me. Point being, the super top secret ear massage that Nikki loves so well. You have to get down in there with your thumbs. Gross, but she reeeeeeealllly loves it. The picture doesn't fully capture her rapture.

And since I'm totally not pouting because everyone says I shouldn't ride when I'm knocked up, and I haven't ridden in months and now I won't get to ride for more months, so many more months...I'm just going to try to enjoy the opportunity to groom and pet them, though the weather simply could not be more perfect for riding. Did I mention riding? sniff.

Really not a cute picture!.....

But check out this cute picture. Aggie's science project t shirt. She got an A+, yes, she did.
Mark & Sam built and painted these nucleus hive bodies last week. We thought it would be fun to do something other than white. Pretty crazy blue. But I think multi-colored hives look pretty, all mismatched out in the field.
Sam's hair had a perfect haze of blue after using the sprayer.

And finally, today is Mah Baby's 8th. Her dad made her pancakes before school for breakfast, and she fully expected today to be "the best day of her life" because: it is her 8th birthday, she has gym class, everyone in class will sing 'Happy Birthday' to her, and she will be getting a pencil from her teacher.
Pretty much sounds like a great day to me! Wait 'til she sees the new socks I got her. Talk about best day of your life!

Kind of disjointed post, but my brain has been trapped in the old well and Lassie has yet to return with help.
Cheers!

GiveItAway GiveItAway GiveItAway Now.

2010-03-14T21:05:00.002-04:00

Hey, All. I didn't forget, I swear!

So a big ol' Thank You for the awesome website name suggestions! You guys really come through, I tell you what.

When I mentioned the giveaway to Mark, he said it was a great idea because all of you are quite witty. But we all knew that already, didn't we?

Michele R., so many fantabulous ideas! Mark's eyes lit up over Bedillion's Gold, as he is forever announcing during honey extractions and bottlings, "It's liquid gold!"

Veronica, I so enjoy A Million Bedillion Bees. It makes me smile. Surely kids' books are a perfectly excellent source of inspiration?

Hi, Ange! Thanks for the happy thoughts. No worries on the names. Exactly why I'm asking for help out here: chicken fried brains.

Becky, your naming skills are undeniable. Bedillion's Bees: classic, refined, positioning us to take over the world of cool bee stuff. Coming to the lip gloss section of a Target near you soon.

Sara, In Your Beeswax, indeed!

Well, Amy Down Under,(and maybe you too HoneyPieHorse?) didn't I just feel like the lame hostess of the giveaway party when I realized I can't give you a dang thing? ...What is the opposite of 'down under?' Is it 'up over?' Because next time you're that, I will gladly ship you some honey. And I do like Bedillion's Of Bees.

Em, Mark was dead serious when he said, "Someone probably already used Bees 'n'at." (For those of 'yinz' who don't speak Pittsburghese...well, maybe be thankful that doesn't make sense to you...'n'at.)

Thanks, Patti! Becky is right; the whiskey loosens it right up. I mean the microwave. The microwave loosens it up. Just be careful not to cook it or scald it or something. You can also do a hot water bath or leave it in your hot car in the Summer. Really! If I'm using it for tea, the crystallized honey is actually what I prefer. Much less messy. But not so good for your biscuits. And that's important, too.

Rock on, Amy!! Those are great! (I always miss the dang deadlines. Heck, look at me, 2 days after it ended finally getting my butt back online....) And I can't wait to hear what your brother and his band finally come up with.

So, pretty much, you guys are awesome. Thank you, thank you.

Have we decided on a name yet? Hecks no! But all of these great ideas are in the mix and we're that much closer. And if we use one of your suggestions, there's liquid gold headed your way.

What?

Forgetting what? I'm forgetting something?

Oh, ya!!! The winner!

So without further ado, the winnah is:
Michele R.!!

We'll be sending some sweetness your way. And some waxiness. Everybody loves waxiness.

Now, if anybody's really got a hankerin' for some beeswax and Bedillion's honey, giveaway or no, just give me a holler and I think we arrange that. You all are my sweet bloggy friends and I'm happy to spread some love. And honey. And wax. So don't be shy. ;-)

Thanks again, you guys! xoxo

Party Time. Excellent. And Help A Sister Out Giveaway!

2010-03-11T09:31:00.004-05:00

As you may know, Becky and I hosted dueling (wink wink) birthday party sleepovers for our daughters last Friday. I have to agree with her that Friday nights are the way to go. The 11am pickup worked well for us, too.

Also nice? Mark taking charge of so much of it.

He picked up Aggie and 3 friends from Whiz Kids, the after school math club/social hour. Then he was flying solo to greet the remainder of the guests while I was still at work. He said only one mom seemed a little weirded out by it, but he was the one back in the days of church preschool who had the other preschool moms over for tea after morning drop off, so I'd say he takes it all in stride.

When I arrived home it was oddly quiet. I think they were just saving up all the noise for 1 AM.

Supper time, Mark was the coordinator of personal pizza assemblage. All the girls gathered around the island table in the kitchen, smearing sauce, sprinkling cheese, and bursting into spontaneous song. Really, they did! Pretty good harmony going, too.

Oh! Almost forgot. Mark also made 2 kinds of cupcakes earlier in the day! No! Make that 4 kinds, because there were big and little cupcakes of both chocolate and white. Thank goodness he made so many, too. My! Can they eat.

Mega-Triple-pack of CapriSun: Sucked down.
Mozzarella cheese sticks: Chomped on cold, straight out of the refrigerator.
Bacon-wrapped jalapenos (not for the party, I was just trying to use them up before they went bad.) : The perfect dare food for Truth or Dare.
Cans of whipped cream: applied to cupcakes or just squirted directly in the mouth.

They were whirling dervishes of crumbs and spent drink sacks.

Around 9:30pm we had a boredom issue with 2 of the girls in spite of their nail polish, makeup, and wigs. Though the group did their best to re-engage them and I bribed them with a a roll of paper for pictionary, they weren't having it.

Mark had retired to our bedroom, Lily was having fits because she didn't have a friend over for herself, and I had visions of bickering and tears into the wee hours of the morning. Possibly with my own tears mingled in for good measure.

But! Saved by the pay-per-view, though the selections weren't so hot. There were tons of horror movies. That's a big fat NO, though I remember many a grade school sleepover with Friday the 13th or Halloween. (It was somewhere around this time that I emailed Becky in my desperation. What does she reply? Neener neener, mine are all asleep like angels, and they rubbed my feet and made me tea before they went to bed. Or something like that. I can't remember exactly.)

We managed to come to an agreement about The Box. Now we just had to make it 20 more minutes until it started. They all gathered in the living room peaceably enough. They even invited Lily to join them. Popcorn was popped. And I wish I'd taken a photo of all the girls together in the living room, every single one on some sort of device: cell phone, iPod, whatever, all at the same time, faces quite serious. I have no idea what they were doing but it was funny and thankfully only lasted a brief time before they went back to normal 11 year old noisiness.

Sam and I watched the movie in my room, cracking up when we heard all the girls squeal and jump in unison during the startling parts. I nodded off towards the end (ya, it was that good) but woke to the sound of 9 girls all talking at once, discussing the movie and scavenging for food again.
It was all so enthusiastic and good-natured, I had to let them get some of it out of their system, though I wanted very much to sleep. 2AM I drew the line and they all went to bed. Phew!

Morning came and Mark the trusty fry cook was back on duty: Bacon and pancakes for our little girly army. Pretty much went off without a hitch. It came to mind that there are families where there are that many children at breakfast all the time, and then I didn't feel so overwhelmed at the thought of adding a fourth to our brood.

And that was pretty much that. The girls trickled out one-by-0ne and we counted it a success. Party accomplished. And hats off to my husband.

What else?

Roller skating birthday party that evening. Heck yes! I love me some roller skating.

My body has me on a short leash. I'm starting to figure out the routine of a queasy bedtime, 2AM restless legs attack, 5AM night sweats and then eventually up for work. The other night I went to bed around 7:30pm. Probably not a good habit to get into. But I was so refreshed the next morning. hee.

We Love It, Don't We? Giveaway?

Sounds like a plan to me, Becky! Who wants some beeswax and honey, honey?

Here's what we gonna did: You give a sister a hand in figuring out a domain name for our new website and I'll put your name in the pot for a sweet giveaway drawing. And, if we go with one of the suggestions , the suggester gets a sweet giveaway, too.

It's going to be a brand new website, never had one before, where we'll showcase our honey and have it for sale, with the future possibility of adding more bee products (pollen, wax, etc.) and beekeeping supplies (hive bodies, tools, etc.) as we get the hang of it. We'll still have the seasonal farm market here (Bedillion's Farm & Fruit Market,) and advertise it a bit, too, but I don't think we'll be doing any produce sales online. So it's mostly 'bout the bees.

The more suggestions you have, the more we'll throw you in the pot. Sound good? (Because if it doesn't, you can tell me, 'kay?)

Alrighty then, the clocks ticking. What's say we run this puppy 'til, um, Friday the 12th at 11:59pm. (I don't know why. I'm so bad at making rules.)

OK? Ready. Go! (And thanks in advance!)

(More) Beeswax and Baby Names

2010-03-04T21:22:00.003-05:00

Couple things.

The finished beeswax ingots.Unfinished ingots in the mold.
A story.

So I was up late the night before last, watching movies. Lars And The Real Girl to be more specific. I've been trolling for sappy movies to watch in my hormone enhanced state because I can get such a good cry out of the littlest things. It's like 3-D for my nostalgia bones or something. Plus I couldn't really sleep anyway. Cute movie by the way.
So I'm wide awake in bed next to sleeping Mark, 12:30am, and there's a rapid fire knock at our back/front door. Yikes!
It was so urgent. I immediately thought of some recent family drama that could possibly be at the door, but quickly dismissed the idea.
I woke Mark. Eventually.
Someone just knocked on our door! No response.
Hon, someone just knocked on our door! Blank stare. (making progress.)
Someone just knocked on our door! (I know this routine.) snuffle snuffle Are you sure?
Yes, positive. I'm wide awake. Times ticking away.

Mark not so suddenly springs to life. Digs out his pistol. (I know, exciting, right? But we live right on a busy state route. So.) Pulls on pants. And runs outside.
I grab my car keys and hit the panic button to turn on the alarm. I can barely see Mark and don't know what's going on.

What went on was, Mark found 2 punks sitting in their out of gas car in our lot. Why they knocked and left, I don't know. But when they saw the not-so-small man with no shirt, old school tattoos, madman hair, and a pistol at his side, they threw their hands in the air.
We're out of gas! We're out of gas!

So Mark walked them out to the barn to the gas can (he said he wasn't fetching and carrying it for them after all that,) and watched as the tall skinny one shook in his boots as he tried to put gas in his tank. He told them to make sure they had enough to get to the station in town. And that was about it.
I said that I think they'll probably pay a little more attention to their gas gauge from now on.

And finally, Baby Names.

The discussion started almost immediately.

"Samuel Joseph" is all original. No namesakes, that is. Other than the bible characters, I suppose. Samuel's mother gave him to God. I always had mixed emotions about that. What mother gives away her child? Oh, the thinks that I think...But it all worked out in the end, and I still think it's a beauty of a name.

"Agnes Cornelia" shares a middle name with my grandmother. And Agnes means pure, but I always think of Agnus, Latin for lamb. She is my sweet, gentle lamb.

"Lily Fae" shares a middle name with Mark's grandmother. She prefers I call her Lil-ah as a pet name. Not Lie-lah. Not Lily. Not Lillith. Not Lillian. But Lila. And sometimes I do even though a few years ago she hated to be called Lila. And a few years ago she also wanted to change her name to Diamond.

So now we have this blank slate. Pitching boy names and girl names because we don't know what we're gonna get. We all have our two cents, kids included.
Sometimes we suggest a real name, sometimes something off the wall or made up.
One of us will throw something out to the group and then there's the rebuttal.

That makes me think of a fat guy.

Sounds like a gruff, middle aged woman with a heart of gold. Possibly running her own greasy spoon restaurant.

That's so-n-so's dog's name.

I've got a boy name in mind. First name only. But is it weird that I'm afraid to announce it? Like I'm going to spoil it somehow? Or I guess maybe I don't want to be talked out of it. If I wait until the birth certificate is filled out, there's no turning back, and no one can talk me out of it. Right?
Ya, that's a little crazy.

OK, I'll tell you.
It's Rooster.

I'm kidding!

And I'm open to suggestions. Did you have a formula for picking your child's name? How do you feel about Juniors? Old fashioned names? Popular names?
And who doesn't love homemade names? (But not in this deli!)

So far the ground rules I've put together:

No nouns
No cities, states, or countries

What say you?

My Beeswax Is Your Beeswax

2010-03-01T21:22:00.003-05:00

So what have we been up to? Here's Sam helping his dad check and feed the bees.
They're getting sugar syrup right now. Here's hoping for Spring flowers to feed them soon.
Hard to believe there's anything alive in these snowed in boxes. But they're still kickin'.

Mark also cleaned some beeswax. It was the wax cappings from when he extracted honey, the top wax layer that enclosed the honey in the comb. I didn't get a photo of the first step of boiling the jumbled ball of honey covered wax bits being simmered in water to clean it. Mark boiled it in the water til it melted, then let it harden and changed the water to repeat the process. I think it was the 3rd cooking that he then poured the melted wax through this painters cloth to filter out the dead bees and junk.

Then it looked like this. But it still wasn't clean enough, so wash rinse repeat. It smelled so beautiful, like Summer, while it was cooking.

Then finally you get...what looks like a nice wheel of cheese. But it's beeswax, o' course.

So, what else? Um, homemade haircut:It actually turned out pretty well. About 6 or 8 inches of hair gone. Done in my own private barber chair, except you have to stand because it's the bathtub.

It came about because Lily was complaining about brushing her hair, something she's not all that great at. So when I told her we'd have to cut it all off if she didn't properly brush it, she became very excited. That's what I've been wanting all along! So. I figured why not. And she's been pleased about it ever since. And we also celebrated our sweet Agnes' 11th.Mawsi's homemade birthday cake, of course. Oh! And her gift? A cell phone. I know. I'm caving all over the place. But, she was one of the final few in her grade without one, and it's just how they keep in touch these days. Not like when I was her age, where you jumped off the school bus and on to (land line) telephone to talk to the friend you'd been talking to all day long. And it was free with the rebate and she wasn't whiny for it (we surprised her, so it was very unexpected,) it wasn't much more than Sam's phone on its own and....well, it was a little over the top for us, but that's not all. We got one for Lily, too. I know how ridiculous it is, believe me, but she looooooves to text. Loves it. Funny, witty little texts. Big long texts. And it is such leverage for me, you know? She loves the phone. It is her Precious. Which is probably more crappy parenting, but there it is. The phone isn't going to leave the house much and I like to think it will be great spelling and punctuation practice. And it keeps her in touch with her grandparents to boot.

And let's see, there was one other thing this weekend, hmmmmmm, what was it?

Oh ya. I'm pregnant. Two forms of birth control later and I'm knocked up. So, so not in our plans.

Three days later, some weeping, gnashing of teeth, 7 hours in the emergency room, and we've moved on to reluctant but real joy and excitement. We thought the kids would be put out, but they're having fun with it so far. Sam calls it (sorry for calling him/her "it") "Pellet" because it's only the size of a BB. Aggie is pitching real names. Lily is thrilled to be upgraded from baby of the family. And that's about all I've got so far.

Announcing pregnancy on my blog. Is it cheesy? Maybe. But 'round these parts, my beeswax is your beeswax.

Don't Be Jealous.

2010-02-15T11:27:00.009-05:00

We like to dabble in hillbilly. Not go all out Summer teeth and barefoot in the gas station bathroom, but we appreciate a homemade moonshine and the like. There's always been that camo-colored thread of redneck weaving through the rich tapestry of our family life.
Rich tapestry. Yep.

Everybody's familiar with the Poopy Truck in all its incarnations:

(gah, look at all that green grass! where are you green grass?!)

Old Red has hauled many a load of firewood. If you've been unfortunate enough to get stuck behind us in traffic, I apologize. Yes, we are the yahoos in funny knit hats (because the back window ain't all there-Brrr!,) probably 2 dogs on the front seat between us (stinking dogs,) cruising along in the truck laboring under its load (or not, maybe just laboring) at about 20 mph the whole way home.

I can overlook the rust spots and warts, because, thanks to our trusty truck, we've had our redneck membership upgraded this weekend: Mark welded the driver's side door shut.

Just like them Duke Boys with their General Lee!

The old bungee cord door latch system worked alright for a while until Mark backed up in the woods with the door open. The door came home a little hyperextended by a gentle tree of the forest. Very inconvenient when you're driving down the road and the door unexpectedly flies open into oncoming traffic.

The bonus to the whole thing was when Mark & his brother came in after welding, their faces red and squinty with that identical crazy laughter they share, because the window glass in the door basically exploded during the welding process. Fixed door. Broken window. Sounds about right.

Yeehaw! Ya'll come back now, y'hear! And Don't Be Jealous.

Still snowing where you live? And if so, are you losing your mind yet? Watching my house being slowly torn apart by glaciers is kind of wearing on me. That and all this lack of color maybe.

Oh, wait. Here's color:Luckily no one was hurt in the explosion.

Our nieces stayed overnight Friday and this is the inevitable fallout. They all happily slept in those "tents?" Me? I just let it all fall apart like that. And took a picture to boot! Have I no shame?

Small price to pay, having their room temporarily under demolition. All four girls had many fun hours out in the snow, especially playing with the horses. I'm pretty sure the horses had fun, too. I think they've been bored with all this white, white, white, and they came running when Aggie called them.We were watching from the house as they haltered the horses and led them around. Someone lost a boot! We debated back and forth as we watched from the window. Should we tell them to leave the horses alone? Goodness knows we don't want anyone to get hurt.

I watched them climb aboard and then leap off into the snow. Then they'd lead the horses back to the gate or hay ring so they could climb back on and do it again. They were out there for hours with no complaints about the cold so you know they were deeply into their play.

In the end, the parental call (ours and nieces' father's call) was to keep an eye on them and intervene if necessary. But everyone was having such a good time and so well behaved we didn't have to bother them, just sat back and enjoyed the show.

I'm probably biased (y' think?!) but to me that afternoon fooling around with the horses in 2 or 3 feet of snow, all girl cousins getting along & working together, was a magical and fleeting thing. We had to let them take advantage of it.

There were no boys or grownups there to take charge or do the dirty work. They haltered the horses. They made them listen. They invented whatever they were playing. No toys, no video games, no input but their own.

When they fell down, they got back up. They helped one another. No one came running into the house tattling or whining. They were kind to the horses and the horses were kind to them. They were proud of themselves when they recounted their fun to us.

Just the kind of times I want them to have. I want them to construct ridiculous things out of blankets and rope and scrap wood. I want to find that they tried to fix something themselves with a butterknife instead of a screw driver. I hope they try recipes on their own. Dig holes in the yard for fun. Jump off the swings.

Not because I want to wonder where all the silverwear went to (usually it's Mark's fault when that happens,) or have to untie the spiderwebs of yarn tied from doorknob to doorknob to doorknob, or waste food on experimental baking (guilty here!), but because I want them to stretch out a little bit. Do weird stuff (not destructive or dangerous or illegal, just...weird.) Make up songs. Talk to imaginary friends. Try something all by yourself even if it's wrong. Have fun! Make memories.

Ya, all that kind of stuff.

Said the woman in her ninth hour of the day behind a desk in a nearly windowless room, staring at a computer monitor, typing a blog post. Guess I need a dose of my own medicine!

Maybe I'll give my imaginary friends a call to see if they'd like to try a new cookie recipe in our hideout made of blankets and pillows. That may be the very definition of Cabin Fever!

Ah! Another Witch!

2010-02-10T22:32:00.006-05:00

I was up in Sam's room helping him with his vidya game when she came floating in.Poor little humpbacked thing. But she wasn't really a witch, just a bespectacled schoolmarm. She informed me that Lily was her student. She also informed me that Lily got one of her math sums wrong.

And then as quickly and inexplicably as she appeared, she was gone. Poof! And I never even caught her name.

In other news---electricity: it's a good thing. When it came on last night around 11pm or so it was a pleasant surprise to say the least. (My apologies to you Annette! I have a feeling your temporary outage was due to the repairs near our place.)

So we're back in modern times I suppose. I'm still going to try to enjoy The Dome without the ambiance of the gennie rattling the teeth out of my head. The only sad thing about it is that I felt like I was living in the dome myself: cut off from the world a little. It made the book a little more fun to read. I'll just use my imagination though!

I definitely relished using the range again. Mmmmm. Whole garlic cloves toasted in olive oil, asparagus, zucchini, mushrooms. Much better fare after our 4 day pork 'n pancake fest.

And speaking of food, look what I got! A sweet award from a sa-weeeet blogger over at Our Feet Are The Same. I'm going to get an actual cupcake, too, right? OK, I'll keep an eye out for it. No worries.

I'm passing this award on to 2 sweet bloggers who have made me hungry with their posts on more than one occasion: Sara the Handy Hooker and Patti the Osage Bluff Quilter. I've really enjoyed reading your blogs and, I just realized, you both have pretty cool super heroine names. xo!

Later Gators!

You See Her, Too, Don't You? The Radar Witch?

2010-02-09T13:56:00.002-05:00

Snowing again. Do you see that mean ol' witch with her wicked wand? See her long ugly nose hanging right over us and Pittsburgh? No? You say I'm a little Jack Torrance up in here? Ya, maybe a little. We're at day 3.5 without power. Still looking like our best bet for restoration is Friday if we're lucky. More likely is next Wednesday.

If you can cook it on the griddle, we're eating it. I finally put it away for awhile because even this clan can only eat so many pancakes.
On the good side, I'd stocked up on bunches of fresh fruit prior to the storm. Wasn't even on purpose. The fruit will hopefully also counteract all the cheese and pretzels we're eating.

Actually trying to take a break from all the eating...

The kids had school inexplicably yesterday. Attendance was down by about 25%, teachers included. Apparently there was a big stink raised by many parents about our school being the only one in a large area to have classes, so we were cancelled today. More than a few of us out here still without electricity and un-dug from our driveways.

While the kids were in school Mark and I loaded up the laundry and headed to the laundromat. One of my least liked places. All the years of relying on them has left me with a healthy fear and loathing. Even driving past them I still think to myself Thank God I don't have to go there anymore. We even bumped into a fellow country dweller come to town to wash their frozen blue jeans.
I realized while having my dirty unmentionables and raggedy towels and kids junky play clothes in public that those things aren't exactly fit for public consumption. Really, even my 'nice underwear,' I just don't care to show strangers. It all made me appreciate what a luxury it is to do laundry at home. And maybe to consider replacing some of our junkiest stuff.
I've also learned a lot about how much electricity everything uses in our house. For example, the coffee pot, such a small countertop appliance takes about 2 1/2 times as much power as a television. But a necessary luxury once a day I say.
The pump that provides water from our well. We're not one hundred percent sure how much power it requires but it for sure takes a ton to start up. So we ration water use, get everyone gathered to do their necessary things, and then turn off the furnace and refrigerators and freezers, etc. while we use water. The rule is, if there's no pee in the toilet, don't flush. If there's pee in the toilet, verify flushing permission and then proceed to flush. Um, number 2 requires prior written request in triplicate.
I've also learned that I don't have one of those hairdos that lasts more than one day. It just doesn't, and I can't really fudge on it either. So, trip to the laundromat enhanced by my ugliest layers of functional clothing plus second day hair reflected back to me in the dryer door was a little depressing. But at least we have clean towels. Relatively. I'm not convinced of the washing quality from those machines. Ick.
Evenings have been spent in a dogpile on our bed splurging on a little cable tv. The dogpile enables us to turn the furnace way down, thus allowing for tv and laptop wattage. We're getting pretty good at rationing power and I'm trying to think of ways we can carry it into normal life once it returns.
Other than that we're A-OK and hoping that 'witch' moves on her merry way.

"I Need More Power!"... "I'm Giving Her All She's Got, Cap'n!"

2010-02-06T20:29:00.011-05:00

Admiral relaxing pre-snow storm. Shoveling a path to the wood pile.

Cows belly-deep in snow.

Sam & I took a walk to check the fence rows for downed trees. That's the house waaaaaay down the hill. Snow was usually up to our knees, sometimes up to mid-thigh. Sam was the champion of complaining. I'm too hot. I'm too cold. I'm simultaneously too hot and too cold. The snow is too white. We started trying to think of the most ridiculous complaints he could use and just decided that he'd save time by just grumbling "Complain, complain, complain." in lieu of specific things.

He asked, "Have you tasted the snow yet?" as he took a sample from the ground. Of course I already had, but I said that it was from down on the porch. That had us off on our advertising spiel for all the different flavored snows we could offer. Woodland Flavored, Porch Flavored, Fencepost flavored. So many delicious options.

And then I flung myself backwards, arms wide.

I even convinced Professor Whiny to try it. He agreed that it was one of the most comfortable tempur-pedic-like beds he'd every fallen into. We laughed at our body prints in the snow. Our tiny heads and big bodies.
I said, "Let me take a picture showing how deep the snow is." Pretty deep, huh? Just kidding, he's on his knees.

Relaxing in a pile.

This is normally a lovely path in the woods. All blocked by bent over trees.On our way back home. The horses way off in the distance wondering who's in their pasture field.

And then after nearly 24 hours of straight snow, the sun came out.

My Nikki.

Lily came out and said, "I want to show you a trick Sam showed me." I already knew what the trick was: free-falling with your arms outstretched into the deep snow. I let her show me and then said, "And who do you think showed that trick to Sam? Girl, I invented that trick!"

The birds were all very busy with their suet. They barely minded us being there.

They were so cute and pretty.Or 'handsome' is probably more accurate.Check out the snow on these bee hives.

Caught ya!

The final tally: 18 inches.

Tonight's blog post courtesy of our brand new generator!

Power went out last night shortly after midnight. Having no power could be very disasterous for us here since our heat source is an outdoor wood-fired boiler which requires electicity to run the water pump and blower fan. There is so much plumbing here that can't freeze. So much.

We called the electric company hotline and they predicted we'd have power at 5am. Five hours without juice: no sweat. (Literally, no sweating. It was 55 degrees in here this morning.)

But the snow was nowhere near being done. There were 12+ hours more of snowfall forecast. And we figured it was going to take a bit longer for the power to come back on.

The plan was, wake up at 6 to see if we were back online, and if not, rush into town to buy a generator, hoping hundreds of other folks hadn't thought the same thing.

Long story short, we dug ourselves out early this morning and were in line outside Lowe's with about half a dozen other poor souls waiting for them to open so we could buy a generator.

Mark snapped up on 1 of 2 on the shelf before anyone had a chance to blink and we headed home with our prize.

So not only are we relieved, we agreed we're basically living in the lap of luxury here with our running water and heat.

And internet.

The Sky Is Falling. Send Milk & Bread.

2010-02-05T22:26:00.004-05:00

Big time snow storm going on right now. Mark and I have our accumulation predictions: Mark says 13 inches, I say 9. We're at about 8 inches right now, with hours to go, looks like I may lose. I had my doubts about the whole snow storm prediction.
I get really cranky watching weather forecasts since they super-sensationalize anything and everything. I swear to you, the guy on the Weather Channel this evening described the precipitation as "something he likes to call 'jazz,' a mix of snow and rain" or something along those lines. Mark looked at me and asked, "Did he just say that?" Ya, please change the channel. Jazz.

Any, any, any time there is a prediction of snow here in our neck of the woods, in Western PA where it, ah, snows in the Winter, (I know! Weird!) there is an insane run on the grocery stores for milk and bread in the day prior to the predicted snowfall. Or maybe that's what happens everywhere before it snows?

But people LOVE to do it here. All conversation centers around the pending snow and inescapable epic battle all will face in their attempt to gather the life-sustaining manna of "milk & bread." The milk & bread will see you through. It's like the duct tape of all food. The WD-40 of your pantry.

Seriously, you couldn't get by on the freezerful of Hot Pockets for a couple days? Couldn't the 2 liter of Mountain Dew and fresh box of zebra cakes see you through in the highly unlikely case that you really, truly couldn't get to a store in a day or two?

I realize I'm biased. We can go weeks without fooling with a loaf of bread here, because we have spells where we just don't eat it. Our milk is purchased by the week's worth. So we're spoiled. And probably when people say "milk & bread" they're just speaking figuratively. Maybe not literally "milk & bread," but maybe just the little odds and ends they'd like to have around so they don't have to leave the house when it's cold and snowy.

Something along the lines of the survival gear I picked up today before heading home to dig in for the weekend: "beer & video games."

Groundhog

2010-02-03T21:03:00.002-05:00

Lily asked me today if the groundhog saw his hole. My mind went all kinds of places so I just tried not to smirk. ' Said I didn't know and I also didn't correct her that it was his shadow, not his hole.

I can never remember which one means Spring anyway. Hole or no hole. :)

"It's Just Like McDonalds: You Get Change Back."

2010-02-03T13:38:00.003-05:00

"It's Just Like McDonalds: You Get Change Back." What the hecks does that even mean?

The absurdity of the statement has not stopped multiple customers from enthusiastically using it lately.
I had to google it, too, because I thought surely our humble burg is not the birthplace and residence of such a quotable quote. And glory be! it kinda looks like it is.(Based on my not finding it anywhere else.) (Unless you can tell me that you're doin' it your neck of the woods?) And it's a good illustration of why I was so very desperate to leave this place straight out of high school.

Sure, now I can appreciate it, I came back, but back then I felt like I was living in a Stephen King novel full of sideshow freaks. I can appreciate it now probably because I've become one. ha Haaa!

So anyway, it's the dreaded First Of The Month here at work and all the folks who don't have a bank account, who drive around all day paying all their bills in cash, who then treat themselves to a meal at said McDonalds as a reward for driving around all day paying all their bills in cash, they come out of the woodwork and come to the office spouting words of fun and wisdom.

In fact, I received a kiss on the top of my head from one today. True story.
That was unexpected. Dennis is our sometimes office pet who shows up to eat our donuts and drink our coffee, then has to be told to wipe the food off his face. (Or his tobacco spittle, yuck.)

Another did her best to clean out our candy jar. On at least one occasion she's brought a little baggie with her to carry her loot. We tell her to load up. Why not, ya know?

Heck, I even stopped on the side of the road today to help one who was stranded because her car quit. She was more upset by her lack of cigarettes than her car troubles.

We'll have multiple inquiries along the lines of "I've got my bill here. It says to pay xx amount of dollars. Can you tell me how much I need to pay?" Why none of us has ever asked in return "Are you serious?" I don't know.

Lots of folks coming in with straight-out-of-bed hair. Their kids leaving candy wrappers out on the waiting area floor. We have more than one customer who has a voice just like the witch on Bugs Bunny. We have a guy who wears a shirt with the name "Chet" embroidered on it, but his name isn't Chet. Come to think of it, he's one of the people that likens our office to McDonalds.

But there are good ones, too. A customer brought us some homemade chocolate pudding. Which was weird and scary, but really thoughtful. Folks bring their dogs in to visit. We try to entertain the kids with scrap paper for doodling and lollipops. We love seeing new babies.

So if any of that makes me sound like a stuck up creep, I apologize. Maybe I've posted these little rants before. If so, I apologize. You deserve a break today. heeeee :-)

Lily keeps asking me if she's adopted. Lily, the child that looks exactly like all my baby pictures.
She thinks she's black because she tans more than her siblings in the Summer. And it's not like she's really upset about it, just unconvinced when I tell her she's not adopted. She even seems a little disappointed when I insist that she's biologically ours?
I have a feeling her brother has something to do with it. He's the one who told her to touch the electric fence with a tenpenny nail when she was about 3 years old. I heard her screech from the house. Boy, was she pissed.

I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant. Are you kidding me? (Not me, the TV show!) Have you seen this show? I'm totally sucked in by it because no matter how many reasonable explanations they give for why these women didn't know, I still can't wrap my brain around it. Even women who've been pregnant multiple times before still didn't know they were pregnant.
Babies move in there for pete's sake.
Especially my 'adopted' child, Lily; she used to do this weird rhythmically pulsing kick thing. Not the hiccups, but like some kind of little dance.
I knew I was destined for an interesting child when she was doing that in the womb.

Alrighty then. Is it Friday yet?

Weekend Rolling

2010-02-01T15:22:00.004-05:00

It's a hardcore bunch we roll with.
Though I'd been looking forward to an uneventful weekend (other than math club, basketball practice, sleep over, basketball game, etc. ) I couldn't turn down a friend's invitation Friday to take the kids ice skating. Three sets of parents & kids with a friend thrown in for good measure.

Since we've never done this activity before ( or at least I haven't since I was a kid,) it was a learning experience.

The fancy place we first tried had a line of pre-teens out the door for a half hour before the public skate session even began. So we were turned away when they quickly met their occupancy limit. Now we know, next time, be there a good half hour before the rink opens and be prepared to stand in sub-zero temperatures outside in line.

It was 9pm at that point and the kids were still amped up to go skating. So I made a call to my Globo Gym Purple Cobra hockey playing brother for the next best location and our three vehicle caravan was back on the road to find another rink.

Fortunately we scored. And the ticket gal even gave us a discount since we'd missed part of the session.Their first time around the rink took them all about half an hour because they were inching sooo slowly along the wall. That's not an exageration. Half an hour!

But things loosened up after that. There was a DJ playing Lady GaGa and even Michael Jackson's 'Thriller.' 'Thriller' is a superb ice skating song btw. I squirmed on the sidelines wishing I was out on the ice, but I was definitely too old for that crowd.

But not too old for this crowd.Big pinball tourney goin' on amongst the adults. Vending machine coffee drinkin', pinball playin' good times.

11pm and closing time finally rolled around, but did we head home? No!

Table for 11 at Eat 'N Park, please. And we laughed and ate breakfast and stayed out past midnight.

Lily was so proud of arriving home at 1AM. She's a party animal, she is.

And having breakfast at midnight enabled us to postpone Saturday's breakfast until after lunch. The girls and Aggie's friend were busy most of the day working on some sort of video. There was makeup & hair doing, musical arrangements courtesy of the electronic keyboard, and fancy introductions.

Their photography was not so great. Not sure how the final video turned out, but they were happy for a long time so I just kept to my own beeswax.Aggie and friend. They're good eggs. But I still made them take the makeup off before we took them out for Mexican. They totally pouty faced us into that one.And friend's parents make some incredible homemade wine. They gifted us a nice hefty bottle of red that went magically with our Sunday supper of homegrown T-Bone steaks, asparagus, mushrooms, and Mawsi's homemade macaroni 'n cheese.

Neko Case playing in the background. Mark's grandma laughing a little more freely over her wine. Mark & his grandpap chewing on their steak bones.

Supper was after I'd spent several reluctant hours on hands and knees poking the vacuum in every nook, crannie, crevice, corner, hole,...you get what I' saying, and then, on hands and knees again, mopping the whole first floor by hand.

I made the mistake of busting out the magic eraser on the laundry room floor. Ah, the bane and boon of flooring that so effectively hides dirt. And the agony and ecstasy of the magic eraser bringing to light just how much filth you've been living in all this time.

So I was riding high on that Just Cleaned The House feeling. Supper was perfect. I'd bribed the girls to extra clean their room with the promise of 1 month of Club Penguin membership and Lily was beside herself with joy. She told me as much, and I wish I'd videoed her beaming and squirming in her seat as she logged on. So I'd basically bought myself some sisterly love and peace for about 12 bucks.

Mark & Sam were engrossed in a video game.

And I topped my 2 glasses of wine off with a concoction of amaretto, creme de cacao, and milk (probably has a real name, huh?)honky tonk music on the Sirius (I have an occasional love of the ickiest, most inappropriate honky tonk songs; e.g. I'd Love To Lay You Down by Conway Twitty. So wrong, but I just can't look away or stop listening,) and a fresh, squishy brownie as I lounged like a contented hog on my bed.

A giddy moment.

YoYo was PO'ed because he wanted in the house. He's so handsome, even when he's peeved.

All I wanted was one day of clean, buddy. Things will be back to normal today, paw prints and dead ladybugs everywhere.

Who's With Me?

2010-01-27T16:01:00.003-05:00

We were talking today about how fun it would be to use the new Apple iPad as a cell phone. Like so.
That is all.

*insert Benny Hill theme music

2010-01-25T11:45:00.007-05:00

Here's the scene of all the mayhem yesterday. I'm sad because I don't have action shots from yesterday.

Yesterday was the day that we penned up the 4 beefs so that they'd be ready to trailer and transport this morning.

It was timed perfectly to coincide with lots and lots of rain. So untamed cows plus mud equals a perfect Sunday afternoon.

We withheld their feed (just their grain, not their hay, don't worry) the previous night so they'd be more anxious to follow a bucket of feed.

One cow in the corral... two cows in the corral... three cows in the corral... and the token rebel cow who just wouldn't cooperate.

Mark and Sam were doing the honors. I was peeking out the bedroom window watching the festivities.

After they'd been out there a while and that 4th cow still wasn't in the corral, and knowing Mark's timeline of escalation during animal round ups, I thought it might be helpful for me to go out to add another body to the efforts.

By that time, the notoriously rickety gate that was supposed to keep the horses in a separate pasture was knocked over by Mr. Nosey Admiral who couldn't bear to have someone messing with his cows without his supervision. Either that or he figured there was food involved.

So you've got Rebel Cow plus (mud plus manure plus whiz) plus buttinsky horses equals husband's rapidly approaching boiling point. Sam was assigned the blame for the gate. It was all "If you would've locked the gate, we would've been done by now!"

Then when I came out, apparently I distracted Rebel Cow who was "just about to go in!" And out the cow ran, bucking across the flooded creek. So strike two was mine. Eh, I'm used to it.

Also, ten years or so with my husband is enough time for me to know to keep my mouth shut, don't laugh, when I see my beloved leaping through the creek and falling as he chases a cow. Even though it was awesome!

We eventually abandoned the first plan & first corral for an "easier" corral on the other side of the barn.

It was a fantastic soup of poo.

Our goal was to run him into the opposite side of the barn where he could be easily shoo-ed through the barn to the corral on the other end of the barn with his buddies.

Sounds pretty simple, but of course he was having none of it, and we went round and round the little fenced in area for a long time.

Running through mud is a terrific workout! I refused to let him have one second of rest unless he was approaching the barn door, so every time he bolted back away from the barn, I'd have to go running back after him to keep him moving. Round and round the hay ring I went *

Long story short, with the help of a gate, a metal step ladder, and a feed trough we were able to herd him into the barn.

And I was only five minutes late getting Aggie to her basketball scrimmage. Sure I was covered in mud poo up to my thighs (I quickly wiped the 'mud' specks from my face) but I didn't have time to fix it. I offered to not make an appearance at the game, hide out in the car or even run home to change, but Aggie said it was OK. I figured we're not the only family with cows in this school district & I made sure to sit far enough away from everyone to keep the stink to myself.

The important thing was that the cows were where they were supposed to be. And Aggie got a basket!

Look, it's Rebel himself! I will miss my lovely baldies (white face beefs.)This morning's plan had been for Mark to go fetch Charlie's trailer and Charlie would follow with his big beautiful tractor to haul the trailer full of cows up to the level parking lot.

Unfortunately, Charlie wasn't bringing the tractor, so that meant my car had to fill in. Fortunately, Charlie brought himself and his overalls and his priceless brand of crazy.

Hello, Mr. Bedillion. I am delighted by these overalls. Delighted.

Workin' so hard this morning.Doin' farm stuff.Men folk stuff.With a side of crazy. Any job is more interesting with Charles.Aaaaah. So nice and dry from my perch in my bedroom. And how dreamy was it, as I waited for my car so I could go to work, to be home in the morning on a week day, house empty and still but for the hum of washer and dryer, folding clothes at my leisure, nobody there messin' stuff up. Gee, it was a shame to end that bit 'o loveliness.

Aw. More overalls.
It's "The Commander" himself. That's one of Mark's nicknames for his grandfather. Charlie in amongst his cattle brethren and sistren. Sisthren? Sistren. Sistahs!

Not Fluffy. I call her The Bunny for she is soft as a bunny.And a final farewell. I hate to see them go, and I'm glad I didn't ride along. And so went that spin of the cycle of life.

I love our cows!

For The TV Tells Me So

2010-01-22T09:21:00.006-05:00

I don't get to watch a whole lot of TV. Aw, listen to me, "get to." I just don't make a big effort to watch, except maybe on lazy Sunday mornings when the Loonie Tunes are exceptional.

Or maybe it's because I get the remote control all jacked up like last night and can't watch TV.

But the past couple of days I've been a little mental so I was drowning my sorrow in the idiot box and I caught most of Modern Family, which was funny. Especially because there was a bit about a wife smashing the remote control out of frustration. Boy, did I relate to that last night. I was like an ape mashing the buttons. 2 remotes going at once. The 3rd remote that I didn't try was naturally the one I needed.

Since I was starting to pop blood vessels and about to tear up (ya, one of those days) I gave up, grabbed a book, and laid it next to me while a took a nap. Problem solved!

Mark eventually came in and fixed it in about 3 seconds. And I got that crackhead rush when the picture came back on the screen. Sad, but true.

Then I learned some stuff.

The channel that popped up first was a religious channel. They were having a telethon and I got sucked in by their shopping network smiles. There was a middle aged man, typical enough, and a pretty 20-something gal who simply would not stop smiling. Whether she was speaking or not, that intense (and to me, painful looking) smile never left. I imagined that she was very relieved when the camera switched to the next pair of folks urging me to send money.

And I kept listening and watching the way you watch those shows about morbidly obese people or drug addicts or Cops. I kept wondering what those people are like in real life. Wondering how they felt about what they were doing. They never really specified what the contribution was for and I wondered if anyone watching noticed that.

So they were pushing and pushing, specifically for $1,000 gifts at that time. $1,000! And I was thinking about all the little old ladies and lonely folks getting caught up in the hype (and guilt,) just wanting to talk to someone, so they call and give money they don't have. Then, what made me so mad that I finally turned it off, was when one of the auctioneers basically said, even if you don't have that thousand dollars, give in faith that you're going to get it. And they had all sorts of scriptures to twist in support of it, of course.

Now I'm not knocking faith. Or scriptures. At all. But how irresponsible is that? Folks living on food from the dollar store giving all their money to these cheeseballs in the name of faith. So wrong. So creepy.

So there was that fiscal lesson. Then I got another nugget of wisdom from this bank's commercial.

A creamy, dreamy voice over is talking about saving money, blah blah, how they're going to help you do it with their plastic card.

All the while, pretty mom is in the convenience store! buying giant, brightly colored beverages for herself and her children with the friendly plastic card.

In other words, No, it's not cutting back on stupid unnecessary purchases like overpriced crap drinks at the gas station that will save you money; it's the card, the card. It will save the money for you. You just keep buying 15 bucks worth of crap every time you leave the house. Sigh!

And then I watched New Lawyer Drama, which was pretty good but for the fact that everybody has sex with everybody and cheats on each other and it's no big whoop. Really? It adds nothing to the story (for me, guess I'm a prude?) and just seems a little silly. I did like how pretty everybody was and the bright and shiny lighting. Plus Deb from Napoleon Dynamite is in it.

And finally I watched Old Medical Drama with all the Mc-eamy doctors. Never really watched it before. I could do without the dank lighting, terrible makeup (is that on purpose?,) everyone being a dick to each other all the time, and...everybody having sex with everybody. Really? With whom would this arrangement be OK in real life? I'll admit though, I watched it through to the end. So, you win! TV drama. You win.

And that's the story of what happened when I peeked out from under my rock and watched current TV instead of old Newhart reruns. And my apologies if this is a little cranky.

Hey, here's how we'll end on a sweet note: It just looks like a box of wax paper, but it's actually wax paper with the homemade fondant candy that Mark made for his bees. Cooked it himself, he did. Just a little something to tide them over.

I tell ya, the first hive we bought was kind of just mine. Just to have. To play with and learn about. But Mark soon took over bee duties and has expanded it beyond what I could have foreseen a few short years ago. He know so much stuff that I don't even know what he knows.

Like he knows (but will say that he has so, so much more to learn) that feeding this straight candy now versus pollen patties that he'll feed later will hopefully set the bees up for good timing of brood production and therefore honey production. There's more to it than that, but that's all I can remember from what he explained.

I was too busy watching TV to listen.

`a la carte

2010-01-17T21:47:00.006-05:00

Small town living.

One thing I've relished about our small town telephone company is not having to dial our local area code. I'll admit, I felt a small thrill every time I did it, only having to dial 7 numbers instead of 10. But alas, the good old days are over. They up and got modern on us. Bummer.

Wake up call.

Ah, Sunday morning. Sleeping in. Leisurely cups of coffee over the Sunday paper. Eggs and bacon. My butt faithfully parked on this bar stool....

Pancakes, pajamas, cartoons. Urgent knocks on the back door by the ex-convict asking to borrow money for the second day in a row. I just need a little gas money. Basically, he is like a stray cat that Mark fed. We could take him to the pound I suppose, but no one is going to adopt him at this age.

Cat Scratch Fever.

Like not the Sweaty Teddy kind either. Lily came home from school Thursday with 2 big ol' blisters on her ear. They were fluid filled and sore. Her ear was swollen and red. I'm not usually an alarmist about illness or injuries because that's Mark's job. I will however usually defer to a second opinion from my Mom. So next day Mark took Lily to the local urgent care jiffy doctor, who prescribed antibiotics and steroid cream and gave no diagnosis.

Since the moment Lily came home with her pustules, Mark was insistent that it was cat-related. I didn't doubt the possibility, but figured, even if it was, (a.) it wasn't life threatening and (2.)abstinence from cats was out of the question sooooo no use getting too bent out of shape about it.

We don't have an official diagnosis, but based on my extensive google research I feel confident that it is possible that it may or may not be cat scratch fever. And not that I wish the fever on anyone, let alone my children, but how cool is it that it's a real thing? I'm kidding! a little.

And she's fine, by the way. The cream literally had it gone the next day. (Antibiotics likely overkill. It kills us to give them to her on the chance they aren't necessary, but...that was the call we went with.)

Bee poop.

Mark checked in on his wee workers Saturday since the temperatures were up in the 40's. Lookin' pretty good.

It is during these brief warmups that the bees are able to finally, finally take a potty break. See all the spots in the snow?

When you gotta go, you gotta go.

Shirts and Skins.

Finally! They've only been practicing for An Hundred years. We finally got to see them play a game!

And they won! And they lost! Because they were playing themselves. So, almost a game! And I keep wanting to say that Aggie got a goal. I know, I know! It's a basket. Aggie made a basket.

And of course her Dad had to ask her when she came home if she got a trophy. It's a tradition with those two that no matter the activity, no matter what point in the season, when Aggie gets home Mark asks her if she got a trophy and she becomes very (pretend usually) irritated and says No. Then Mark says she is talking like a cat and he meows at her, then Aggie becomes irritated some more and scrunches up her face and pretends she's clamping on Mark's forearm with her sharp talons and quietly growls Daaaaaaaaad stooooooooop dramatically through gritted teeth. And then they both go about their business like none of it ever happened. Kind of like in a musical, when they're dancing around like maniacs and singing, and then suddenly the song is over and everything goes back to normal.

Family Date.

Our family went on a date with our good friends 'n neighbor's family. We all rode together in the same vehicle. Went to the mall, went out to supper, and then checked out the super, cool new grocery store with the rare meats & funky fruits and vegetables. They even have a small section where hydroponic lettuce is growing for your hydroponic lettuce needs. They had truffles ($139.99/lb) and buddha's hand fruit. We stolled and strolled and only scraped the surface of what they've got.

We bought ice cream sandwiches and popcicles (Hey, it was in the balmy 30's!) and ate them in the car on the way home.

Final Thoughts.

If you're not making these, you should be. I've made them 3 or 4 times just since Christmas (that is a relative $#!tload of cooking for me these days) and they're just so dumb-tasty. Like pretzels and Nutello. Or honey on vanilla ice cream. Or homemade Chex Mix. Or toast. Or pepperoni rolls.

So we had those peppers, stuffed mushrooms, potato pancakes, and elk cheeseburgers for supper with the brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and nieces. All our girls together playing, sewing outfits for the cats & rockin' out to the black eyed peas, all the guys hypnotized by a video game, and us moms in relative peace in the kitchen.

One of those weekends the floors didn't get swept enough but we ate well and had fun times.

Guess that will do for now. Toodles!

Yes, We Do Love It, Don't We? aka Lazy Title

2010-01-07T19:19:00.010-05:00

Inspired by Suburban Matron's recent post about how we decorate (or don't decorate) our homes, I shall share some favorite stuffs o' mine. I like to think about the little nooks and crannies that I enjoy most in our house. The very stuff that makes it our home.
I guess my decorating style is a little tongue in cheek.
So come in. Hang out with me. We'll talk, we'll have coffee, we'll have coffee talk.

And I'd take the tour from the front door in, but I'm sick of rearranging the photos in here. Blogger do you hear me? It's not convenient!

Anywho....

That is a Gen-U-Ine velvet painting of mallard ducks. It came with the house. Great Honor. Oh! And a gun cabinet. Yep. First thing you see when you walk in the house.

Now. The first time I ever came in our house, when we walked through with the realtor and got the Not So Grand tour, the house was basically a train wreck. I think the shock of how yucky it was left me with very little memory of our visit. Hysterical Amnesia, if you will.

We went home after that and I could not remember any of what I'd seen save for this tile back splash.

Thank God I remembered nothing else or we never would have signed papers. Boy, was I in shock again the first day we stayed here, wondering what in the hell I'd done signing my life away for a $#!thole.

Anywho! The tile could not be any more perfect for us. It is so representative of our family, it's almost spooky. I count it as one of those divine signs and a comfort.

I realize it's not all that remarkable for a house in the country to have farm-y decor, but this groovy tile stood in stark contrast to the red shag carpet, black poufy valances, and pee stains, among other really weird stuff.

See:

Fruit market:
Raising animals & processing ourselves. See, directions! "Butt" always makes me laugh a little when I'm washing dishes.Kitties!And much much more.

My view from bed. Aside from Mark's fancy TeeVee. Mah Baybehs. Mark's bookshelf. Bee books.

Cellar wall. Love that crumbly stone.

The stairs. Covered in wretched filthy turquoise carpet when we moved in. I painted the backs of the steps, but I'm letting the treads wear. I like it worn.

View from my typical reclining position on the couch. I can see the kids handwoven baskets on the cupboard in the kitchen. Dragonfly light reflected in the mirror- my substitute (the mirror) for a transom over the door. :(

Favorite painting. Painted by the father of the man who owns the horse farm our horses came from. That is Mark's dad on his horse Shebang.

Shebang!Scythes hung over the windows as curtain-less curtain rods. I just like 'em hanging there. "Painting" that always hung over my great aunt Shirley's couch. It is literally cardboard in a frame, but the picture has provided lots of staring time.

My great grandmother's afghan. Guess I could have done a more poorly lit photo?

Scotty dog cross stitch and oval frame that belonged to another great grandma. Deer head that was on the front porch of the house when we bought it. Barn painting from the second hand store. Turquoise hearth. Horse painting on the mantel from a home show at the convention center. Badly lit photo...

The ghost of a window on the living room wall.

Still in the living room. Three foot tall resin Native American chief? Check. It was a gift Mark gave to his grandmother way back when. I can't imagine how she's been living without it all these years. Chief Wakasorta they call him, I think. I don't call him anything. Maybe Dude?The paper barrel. For holding the furnace's snacks. The scale hanging between the kitchen and dining ?room? area breakfast nook place? The place where the table sits... We actually use the scale for weighing sausage and or kraut or whatever.

Cluttered letter/bill(/feather) holder. It came with the house.

Foyer Laundry Room. The whole house used to be Cracker Barrel-ed like this. Now the fun is all reserved for this room. Horse bits found here on the farm. Deer head wearing wampum imported from the local junk auction. I feel kind of daring for having such a ridiculous thing hanging prominently in my home. Makes me laugh inside.

Cross stitch of a pistol over the bathroom door. A gift given to Mark.

The bathroom floor made of pebbles.

The door to the cellar. Green glass knob. Door in desperate need of scrubbing and painting. Retired cat door.

Framed insert from the waffle iron bought at a local yard sale. The waffle iron works like a charm, too. It hangs over the washing machine for some reason?

The view that greets you as you enter through the back door. Which is kind of the front door now. The Foyer Laundry Room. Tre Fancy. (Ya, like I said, the photos aren't in order. Lay-ZEE!) That washboard belonged to Mawsi. She really used it.

A friend built this table and it is the gathering spot for pots of macaroni and cheese and people. Or people and pots of macaroni and cheese. I swear, there are no pots of people!

We found this clipboard in the barn. It has slips for feed from the Hickory Feed Mill which belonged to Mark's family for many, many years. Actually up until a couple years ago when Pops sold it and retired. Mark working there kept us out of the poor house back in the day. Very cool piece of family history.

Weird little cubby shelf in the kitchen. Used to not be trimmed in wood. Used to be nothing but painted paneling. Soooooo ugly. But cute now, I say. My green chicken dish.

For Amy, Matron Down Under: my Australian calf liver tin. Do ya'll eat that with Vegemite?

Fetch me milk! Stat!

Not so favorite: The Steelers Head Band. It comes out every Winter. It originally came out of a rag bag I think.

No, he's not some big Steelers fan. He just thinks it's funny. And functional for guys with naturally hot heads.

Now Shoo! Mama, needs milk...(Shoulda been cream, but we'll settle for milk...)

...a couple final favorite things! :) We love farm fresh milk. And stuff. Cheers!

It's 7am. Do You Know Where Your Horses Are?

2010-01-04T09:22:00.006-05:00

The phone was ringing all morning with the school's recorded message of "We are on a 2 hour delay" due to the snow and frigid temperatures, so when I did my nekkid dash from the shower to the kitchen to answer it once more, I figured it was just a repeat.

But it was my neighbor across the street telling me she was pretty sure my horses were in her back yard.

All I could think was How in the hecks did they get across the 45 mph state route so full of tractor trailers there are signs posted about their obnoxious jake braking.

Truly, the stretch of road in front of our property is dicey on a clear and sunny day, let alone in the dark and snow.

Then I thought, No way. Mark left the gate unlocked? He neeeever leaves the gate unlocked and Sam (and to a lesser degree, yours truly) is the usual culprit and there is a big stink about it. Understandably a big stink when you're talking about animals getting smashed on the road or causing dangerous traffic accidents.
So all that's going through my mind as I wake the sleeping grizzly in my bed and try to find clothes to throw on and a hat to cover my wet head. Ah, the 15 degree weather is refreshing right out of the shower!

Run to the barn for halters and head across the street for my little runaways.

I think they were very, very glad to see us and came right to us. They must've had quite a scary adventure and seemed lost. Mommy, you found us!

When we put them back in the pasture we found that the gate had not been left open. Phew!
But somehow Admiral had either run through the gate or slid into the gate, because the gate hook was torn from the post and the gate was dented with horse hair stuck in it. I couldn't find a scratch on either horse and they seemed none the worse for wear thankfully. It's kind of a mystery what happened though. Weird.

I'm very glad it was a happy ending. Horses alive and well. No ten car pile up in front of the house. None of the cows had the ambition to sneak out. Sam was not in terrible trouble, though he was unpleasantly roused from his 2 hour delay sleeping in after a late night skiing with The Older Boys. (Kind of a milestone event overshadowed by the escape; Sam took a trip sans parents to the mountains to ski with fellows in their 15's and one almost 20 year old. Pretty rad for a guy not quite 13 I thought.)
How's your Monday so far?

No Man's Land

2009-12-30T10:31:00.003-05:00

Mah Boys are supposed to be returning from their mountain camping trip today. Thank goodness. I have been single parenting since Sunday morning and I don't really like it. Because it's hard.

I knew that already. It's one of those things I see other folks doing and I wonder how in the hecks they do it. Something I had a small taste of in the past and hope I never have to do again.

So anywho there's that and the added chores I have to do. In the dark. In the cold. After being at work all day.

And of course, as soon as the guys left town it did this:

That's 6 inches or so of snow. And it was 18 degrees yesterday morning and 12 degrees this morning.

When Mark asked me yesterday if it was OK for them to stay one more day because Sam was having such a fun time, it took all my power to not play my Girl Card and whine for them to come home as originally planned. In spite of my unenthusiasm, I really was happy they were having a good time, so I grinned and bore it.

My routine has been:

6am Wake up and lie in bed for half an hour pep talking myself into going outside.

6:30am Out of bed, put on the same stinky jeans I've been using for chores since Sunday and go directly outside to feed the furnace. So it's dark, snow is getting in my shoes and gloves, I'm hunting for logs I can actually heft, hot coals threatening to fall out on me. It's super dramatic.

6:45am Run to the shower because I hate the smell of wood smoke all over me.

7:30am Start the process of nagging the girls to get up so I can take them to Mawsi's house. Thank goodness for Mawsi...

Then time starts to blur. We're looking for shoes, we're forgetting things, arguing about who sits where in the car, complaining about how cold it is, etc. And then somehow I end up at work.

4pm Mawsi drops the girls off at the office so they can come home with me. They climb the walls in boredom for the next hour.

5pm rolls around and we head home.

Back into my stinky jeans, Mark's muck boots because I can't find mine (I think they took them to the mountains by mistake?,) and coat hood tied tight around my head because it's booger-freezing weather out there. It's a very sexy look, also.

To the barn, feed the cats.

To the van, which is parked a city block away and uphill both ways, where the steer feed is temporarily stored. Two full 5 gallon buckets of feed carried down to the troughs with a bit to spare for the chickens.

Back to the barn for the horse feed. Haul it down to the other gate where they are nickering impatiently and Nikki is wringing her neck at my slowness.

At this point the yard looks like a Family Circus cartoon of Billy's dash-dash-dash through the neighborhood, my footprints in the snow telling the tale of of where I've been.

It's damn cold and dark by the time I close the barn up again and head to the furnace for its second feeding of the day. Temperatures in the teens means I'm not about to skimp on feeding the furnace. By that time, I'm over the coldness because I'm coming in the home stretch. Sort of.

From then on it's all about the coon dog 'til she goes to bed at 9pm. I take her out, beg her to pee, she won't. We come back in, she paces in front of the door, I take her out, beg her to pee, she won't. Repeat, repeat, repeat. I'd leave her tied out for a while but it's just so dang cold I can't do it. Why won't she pee?! 9 o'clock can't come too soon after 3 plus hours of dog potty training paranoia. So far we've had no accidents, but I'm pretty sure the dog thinks I'm a loon putting her out every 15 frickin minutes.

And it makes preparing dinner a little hectic. Including Jill's dinner which requires me to mix her fish oil supplement with peanut butter to pour over her food. The dog gravy Mark bought her just wasn't quite cutting it. Ya.

Speaking of dinner, I've nearly accomplished my goal of personally consuming all the turning fruits & vegetables in the refrigerator. Two nights of squash & jalapeno stir fry. Just as good reheated the second day?

I did try to talk the girls into going to the little restaurant up the road last night, but Lily wasn't having it. She'd rather make me scrape together a sad dinner of tater tots and venison burger for her to complain about and refuse to eat.

But there's light at the end of the tunnel I think. Jill peed without me begging this morning. Lily did eventually fall asleep after coming downstairs at 10 o'clock to tell me about all the nightmares she was having. Thanks for that, Lily, because you halfway had me creeped out. Sheesh.

And the boys might be home in time today to relieve me of my stinky jeans duties. That wouldn't hurt my feelings one bit.

There's A Stranger In My House

2009-12-28T15:41:00.002-05:00

Several things have come to light in the last 3 months or so that have fairly rocked my world. They all have to do with my husband not being the man I thought he was.

First, there was a lovely lunch Mark and I shared at a hidden gem of a restaurant. Yummy soup and a big basket of homemade potato chips between us, we sat nestled in a pretty little wooden booth. I was quietly, sneakily I thought, picking all the folded potato chips out of the basket because they are my favorite (because they are superior to flat potato chips) and leaving Mark the flat ones. It was an intimate atmosphere and I decided to share my innermost secret love of the folded potato chips and how I was picking them all out of the basket. Self-sabotaging, I know, but I was all lovey-dovey and sharing. Plus I was expecting to hear that he prefers the flat crisps, which would just reaffirm what a perfect couple we make because we each eat what the other doesn't prefer.
Anyhow, what I learned was that he too believed that he was sneaking out all the good folded chips and leaving me the flat chip dross. How rude! Talk about a bombshell.

Then, there was Thanksgiving over at my Dad's house. The house used to belong to my Dad's Dad who recorded our measurements on the wooden trim of the doorway betwixt the kitchen and dining room. There you will find measurements not only of all the grand kids, but parents, cousins, step-relatives, neighbors and dogs.
After some good food and cocktails we decided to update some measurements. We learned that Sam is now taller than me, but I was happy to discover that I was not lying when I've completed questionnaires with my height as 5'6", 'cause I'm 5'6 1/4"! Woo!
The disturbing thing I learned is that my supposedly 6 foot tall husband of more than 7 years/been knowin' for like 10 years, has really been 5'11" this whole time! We've been living a lie, and I told him as much.

Next there was our hardcore IKEA shopping adventure. I had 3-D sketches, lists, and measurements. I dragged him all over the store, while I touched, tried, and inspected all sorts of things. I was still puzzling through how the whole thing would work, if the whole thing would work, so I was questioning the salespeople, questioning myself, and questioning Mark, who just. wanted. to be. done. with the whole thing. But Mark was patient and did his best to pay attention to things that mattered not to him.
As we sat in the warehouse waiting for our things to be brought out, I posed some sort of question or scenario to him, to which he immediately nodded enthusiastically. Too soon he nodded enthusiastically, because in the very same breath I totally changed my mind and said, no no no, that won't work, and I caught his head full of glazed-over eyes mechanically start shaking no, no, no. I said You're totally not listening to a word I say, are you? And he was caught. I think he even surprised himself a little at how instinctual the nodding and headshaking agreement was. So what I thought was this great team effort was nothing more than some sort of evolutionary husband self preservation mechanism. I'll give him a pass on that one, because I'm actually a little impressed.

However, most recently, I learned something so sad, so shocking, that I'm not sure what to do with the information. We were chit-chatting ourselves to sleep one night, all cozy and content in our bed, when somehow we came upon the subject of smells. Smells we prefer, smells we hate, you know. It's a conversation we've had countless times before for whatever reason. Naturally I say that one of my favorite smells my whole life through has been the smell of a horse. Everybody can appreciate horse smell. It is unmistakeable, the fresh grassy, horsey smell. It is aromatherapy for me to go sniff the horses, and I do not have a problem with smelling like one myself after a nice long ride. I mean, not to go out to dinner or anything, but still, I like it.
But Mark, after growing up around horses his whole life, humoring me with my horses, tells me that on a scale of 1 to 10, with pigs be a mega-stinky 10, and baby, I can vouch for that, he would places horses at least as an 8. What? And he said that when he tells me that I smell like a horse, no matter how gently he says it, it is most certainly not a compliment and he thinks I stink. It's a sad state of affairs indeed.

I'm trying to look on the bright side though. I figure things shouldn't get dull when we have so many enthralling unknowns to discover about one another. And he's already told me about the biggest tree he's ever known, so what more could there be to tell?

I IKEAed the hell out of that room.

2009-12-27T22:22:00.008-05:00

Whoop whoop. Merry Christmas and all that jazz.

Go 'head and laugh. Isn't this just so tender vittles? The family business. Awwwww. (Not sure why I look scared-ish. Look at all those fiveheads!)Oh, but hey, we went to see Avatar opening day. Loved it! The effects, that is. Fun time with the fam.
But before that, I decided it would be a good idea to rip my entire house apart right before the holidays. I thought Let's paint. Let's tear up carpet. Let's put a new kitchen counter top in and swap bedrooms around. We can pile garbage and debris 4 feet high on the porch in front of the door. Let us grossly underestimate the amount of time everything will take and make our house barely liveable for a few days. Yes, now is a good time to do these things.

I'm kind of exagerating (who me,) but not much. And as always, I don't have true before and after shots to illustrate the makeover-ness of it all. So picture the entire room that sickly flesh color shown inside the closets. The closets we left unpainted because we were at the end of our painting rope.

Also picture the most dastardly, wickedly ugly striped! (in shades of crap) carpet and you're halfway to imagining the Before. This was my bedroom (well, Mark's, too,) but now it's Sam's. He selected the wall color. It's very soothing.

This is the girls room pre-carpet. Aggie picked out the wall colors. I was a little scared about the colors, but I like them ok now. This room had pinky pink walls and a turquoise piece of carpet which didn't fit the room. It was super nice of the previous owner to leave it behind for us. I just covered that square hole they cut in the carpet with an equally ugly area rug. Way pretty! The girls even helped paint a little, which is a test of patience after spending all day prepping the room, let me tell you.

Not sure if you can read this: but Mark, ever the role model, painted "Aggie Stinks" on our newspaper window blinds.

"So-in-so Stinks" is like our own family grafitti. I don't get involved too often, but it's not uncommon to find this sentiment scrawled on homework, the newspaper, or a scrap of paper towel left for the allegedly stinky person to find. But Aggie fixed it to say "Dad(ie) Stinks." And there it will stay until JCPenney's sweat shop (kidding!) sees fit to ship my Roman blinds.

So this is basically an after shot. I didn't stage this so well, what with the busted handles on the shabby dresser (I'm gettin' to it!) and the not quite made bed.

Sam's room didn't photograph so well either. Plus I didn't include his sweet TV/PS3/Wii setup hidden in the closet. He has revealed his inner neatnik also. He had this room whipped into shape in no time. The bed is YoYo approved as you can see. (Pile of laundry wasn't supposed to be in the photo.)

And this represents 10 lbs of $#!t in a 5lb bag.In moving our bedroom down to Sam's former room we lost about half the area and nearly all closet space. We also increased the size of our bed thereby taking up even more room.

Why do it then? Well, because this room sits right on the porch giving easy access by window to the bedroom. Usually all the kids camped out in this room. I should probably be embarassed to admit that I've let the girls sleep on the floor in Sam's room for years, but it's been going on for so long that I've grown numb to it. Eh, so sue me, right? Point being that I was way upstairs at night and all my chilluns was down in that room where someone could break right in an' snatch them.

So I've been puzzling these many years how we could create storage and a livable space in an approximately 9 foot by 9 foot room.

Enter IKEA, land of "affordable" (cheap? flimsy? nah!) furniture. We've never really invested in any good furniture to date figuring on heavy use and abuse with 3 children and a somewhat occasionally careless (no offense Darling!) man in the house.

So for our purposes IKEA works wonders. It's functional (if you're selective,) versatile, and you aren't totally heartbroken if it breaks because it didn't cost a fortune. My only beef with IKEA is that they (purposely, I swear) don't tell you everything you'll need for some projects just to force you back into that store where ohmygoshhowcuteisthatthingIdidn'tseetheotherdaywhenIwasjusthere jumps up at you and you buy something else.

Not to mention it's a good half hour away. Totally incovenient when you've unloaded a van load of boxes of unassembled furniture, had a remodelling-fueled meltdown with your husband and then sat in a teary heap on the floor after opening the very first box to find that they gave you the wrong damn colored cabinet.

But anyway, the final result is swell. I love having a small but efficient bedroom. It forced us to get rid of even more excess stuff, something I've been working on for the past year or so. Mark also bought a big honkin' tv to put on the wall. Probably horrible fung shui but awesome for watching movies in bed.

Also made a decision on the kitchen countertop. It's white with teensy black stippling (word?) dots? that give it a grey appearance. It looks like the silestone sample I was coveting but it is good old formica. I did splurge on the integrated sink though. Love it! Loved it even more when they finally delivered the damn backsplashes on Christmas Eve. Retrofitted to preserve our crazy tile backsplash. Very important.

Not the Taj Mahal, but pretty good for a formerly almost condemned 100 plus year old house!

So all this stuff meant we kept putting off getting a Christmas tree. There simply wasn't any place to put it because the living room was our stuff receptacle. We kept saying Tomorrow we'll get the tree, tomorrow but then tomorrow was Christmas and we had no more time. So thankfully we had Lily's beautiful fiber optic tree from the dollar store. Perfecto!

See that Santa's hat up there? On it is a peel of the clementine Lily left for Santa. No milk and cookies this year. Her only regret was that she forgot to leave something for the reindeer. I told her I'm sure they had plenty from all the other houses, no worries.
I think it was still a good Christmas.I even surprised Sam with his gifts. Mah Boy needs a hair cut!Mawsi is thrilled with our Christmas gift to them.Christmas breakfast brimming with pork and biscuits.

That's Fluffy Fluff Fluffbug sleeping in the crook of Lily's arm. Cat is weird!

Laughing at Lily's mechanical cockroach toy.

And now here I sit as the satellite guy installs a cable for our new tv (lot's of tv's in this post huh.) Mark, Sam, & Pops are in the mountains for the Men's Christmas Trip. Aggie's at a friend's, Lily's at her grandma's and I'm here babysitting a coondog.

Miss Jill is learning to be a house dog but she needs attended to like a toddler. It's very tiresome because I'm so out of practice! Crate training, potty training, don't leave me when I'm eating, I'm bored, Can I play with the cat?, can I eat the cat?, pet me, where's Mark?, where's the other dog?(camping with Mark,) wipe my feet when I come in from outside, whoops I peed on the porch....

I want to sit in the rocking chair, crap, I'm stuck in the rocking chair, help me off the rocking chair...Thank goodness for stuffable kong thingies. I swear to you, she just sat down beside me and farted 3 times. Fartingest dog I ever met. Husband, you owe me!!! And it snowed last night. Don't you hate when you have to go scrape your windshield and brush all the snow off your cow?

This is the view from my new bedroom. And we love it, don't we, yes, we do!

Better Than A Bratz Doll

2009-12-08T09:38:00.000-05:00

'Tis The Season

2009-11-30T12:22:00.003-05:00

Not that Season. Deer Season!

Time to locate that one special, strategically placed tree. The one with the most prehistorically giant poison ivy vine growing up it. It's itchy branches reaching out like an umbrella of poison berries over your head. Time to enjoy the irony of your little plastic safety glasses as you climb the tree with no safety harness. (The thing Mark's sitting in is the thing with which he is climbing btw. It is in two parts and he inches each one up and settles his weight onto it hoping it holds. Sorry if that is elementary to anyone reading.)

Time for me to lose my hunting license at 6am on the first day of hunting season so I can't carry a rifle into the woods. I can however don my gayest orange apparel, go out in the pouring rain, climb a jumbo steep hill, shimmy under the electric fence in the mud, and sit in the cold, cold rain with Mah Boy for his first ever first day of deer season.

And it was great! And way luckier than usual on a boy's (or girl's) first hunt ever. It was a very good shot though.

So I'm proud and happy. And Sam was, too, I think. And he immediately went into the house and cooked up some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins & hot tea.

Muffins.

And Hot Tea.

Deer Hunting, Muffins, and Hot Tea.

So there you have it, Sports Fans. I guess that's how we do it here in Hickory.

The Circus Is Coming To My Hometown!

2009-11-19T09:35:00.002-05:00

First I'm going to admit that I did a google search for "animals that look like Sarah Palin."

Yep, I'm one of those people. But come on, that would've been funny a little. Plus I really like to enter weird searches into Google because I like to think about who might get to see what I searched for and hopefully they get a kick out of it. I'm thoughtful like that.

So, oh, and the only thing I found was a puppy dressed up like Sarah and it wasn't that funny. But I'll tell you what is funny, or at least interesting: TotallyLooksLike.com
Also not the reason for this post....

We're a stop on the Sarah Palin book tour! We are. Here in relative nowhere. At our Sam's Club.

Who decides these venues?

So what do you think? Should we go? I have a morbid curiousity, but is it enough to motivate me to head in to that kind of ...of...well, you know what I'm saying.
My hometown has a Stephen King vibe to it without the freak show coming to town, so the possibilities are endless.

But if I do go, and you catch me going rogue, please whap me with a rolled up newspaper and rub my nose it.

Does Your Face Hurt? 'Cause It's Killing Me.

2009-11-11T11:14:00.002-05:00

No one has ever accused me of having flawless skin.
My relationship with pimples started in the fourth grade when my Mom tried to thwart the eruptions on my forehead by pinning my hair up tight with a barrette..... thereby showcasing all my pimples.

I remember so many battles waged against those wretched pustules. Over the counter stuff, prescription stuff, homemade stuff. Recommendations to put my own pee on my face. Picking, popping, and then panicking: Why the hell did I just butcher myself like that?!

It was either my 6th or 7th grade school picture and I was already having a bad hair day.( Ya, who wasn't having a bad hair day during the big AquaNet boom.) Add to that the dime-sized crater on my chin that refused to heal before picture day and you have a quintessential puberty moment. And captured on film with a baby blue and paint-splattered background! Not even my popped up collar could distract you from all that ugly goin' on. Thanks hormones!

So I eventually upgraded from the Noxzema's and the OxyClean's or whatever it is you can buy in the drugstores to lovely salon skin care products. I even managed to get a few facials like a real girl! Very nice. Who doesn't enjoy a well done facial?
I got all kinds of education on what not to do, what was causing the problems (maybe,) and so on.
But there was no big Before and After like you see on the infomercials. Just the skin in between the acne was in better condition.

And I'm not going to tell you that I ever found the answer. I found the products that I love to use. Found the routine that seems to cause the least troubles. And I just keep telling myself that this oily skin that's causing me zits now will keep me from getting wrinkles as quickly later.

But what I wanted to tell you about was my discovery of foundation primer! By Jove, it actually does something!

When I wash my face it has always shined like a new penny. Not in a youthful, dewy kind of way, but in a plastic-y, not so attractive way. Plus there's the uneven skin tones and that big hairy wart on the side of my nose. Kidding! But the primer really helps with that shininess and the unevenness.

Also, I don't like much makeup. I'm not skilled at it, have some vague goal in my head of the natural French standard of beauty (which I may have created in my own imagination,) plus I can't even get away with a little loose powder without Mark asking me why I have on so much makeup. He doesn't like it either. He insists on telling me I'm beautiful when I'm at my most undone. Darn that man!

But when I decided to give the primer a try I was super stoked to find that it really minimizes the shine without looking too matte. Plus my skin, which is very stuck up about moisturizers--it will only let me get away with a super light, spray on toner-type moisturizer--seems to enjoy it, too. It stays less shiny but more moist and fluffy without feeling congested.

And that's what I'm all about: not pissing off my face.

Oh, and it was not an expensive primer either. Bought it at Target, the brand that Kate Moss receives gobs of money to endorse. I was a little freaked out by its orangey color, but it goes on invisible.

So there you have it, Peeps. Beauty advise from the Pig Whispering Rat Smasher.
You're welcome!

I Killed A Rat With A Shovel And Other Weekend Doings

2009-11-09T11:08:00.004-05:00

But first let me start with the post about the weekend before this one.

So Romantical

We handed temporary custody of our kids over to Mark’s grandparents last Tuesday night. That was in order for us to leave at around 4:30 Wednesday morning for my day and a half of out of town business doings. Mark came along for the ride, partly because he’s semi-free after the seasonal closing of the market, partly because we had a babysitter and a really nice hotel room at corporate rates. Don’t get excited though, my time was spent either in one intense class or meeting or other, or sleeping because the mental stress was exhausting. Stupid brain. Where’s the off button on that thing? Mark lounged about on the big plushy bed and ate chicken wings from room service.
Class ended at around noon on Thursday and I was giddy with freedom. Giddy, I tell you. I’d asked for Friday off, so I was going to live the good life for the next 3 ½ days.
Lunch with my husband at a restaurant we’d never been to, on a weekday: Now that’s livin’ the good life.
Taking the long way home and coming across a family owned apple cider press where we stopped to chat with the owners, bought homemade cider and apple butter, and got some really great ideas & connections for the farm market: Score. Check out this little dude.He's the grandson of the owners. There were 3 generations there working. He was adorable.
Friday, Saturday, still no kids at home. We called at least once a day to see if they want to come home or if the grandparents are weary. We just aren’t quite sure how to feel with them out of the house.
So what were we going to do with ourselves? We could go any number of beautiful places. Just get in the car and drive. Stay wherever we wanted. Mountain resorts. Bed and Breakfasteses. We had packed extra stuff just to be prepared. Wanted to make the most of the opportunity.
Thursday night and what do we decide to do? Well, on a fair and clear moonlit night such as it was, of course we went raccoon hunting. And we parked in the wrong spot and Mark fell down umpteen times. Blamed it on “barbed wire,” our quote of the night. We freaked ourselves out listening to weird noises from the woods: owls, coyotes, gas well equipment. And we talked and laughed and seriously, you are missing out if you don’t take walks in the woods at night when the moon is full.
Friday, what joyous slackitude. Putzing around, cleaning house together, and the obligatory horseback ride to pacify me. Then, that night, the highlight of the whole long weekend, more raccoon hunting. But it wasn’t the hunting that was all that incredible, it was how overwhelmingly beautiful it was. I’ll never be able to describe it and no picture could capture it, but I will tell you that the moon was huge and nearly full. We parked along the empty country road that leads from our house to Mas’ & Pops’ house, stepped over the guardrail and into a strange land.
We crossed the grass-covered breastworks of a flood control damn in that singular bright blue light of the moon. Everything was illuminated in the otherworldly glow; I imagined a sister planet to our own where this was their daylight.
It had been very warm during the day and remnants of the warm daytime breezes alternated with cool evening breezes. Cool, warm, cool, warm. I wondered if I was imagining it, but Mark felt it, too.
We rarely needed our flashlights, even in the thick of the woods. I swore oaths to myself that I should never again fail to go walk in the woods and fields when the moon was clear and bright. That I should drag our kids out to soak in it as well. I tried to absorb as much of that beauty into my brain as I could, store it away. I wanted to remember those breezes.
And it only got prettier. We came out of the woods at the top of the large hill to find perfectly groomed paths cut for pheasant and rabbit hunting. A road in the wilderness! A thing of beauty when you’ve just blazed through 6 foot tall thorn bushes. So we strolled in the moonlight. We let the dog hunt and run. We followed the path as it led us through the woods and down to the creek.
Eventually we called last hunt when Mark had to drag Jill out of a hole in the ground, and we walked down the middle of the road in the middle of the night to the van, another simple pleasure. No cars, no houses, just the country road, wide open spaces, and the moon.
We did some other stuff on our remaining days, went out to breakfast and dinner, bought some shoes, slept in, but nothing was so restorative as our time outdoors. Thank goodness we decided to stay home for our romantic long weekend. All the fancy hotels and mountain resorts ain’t got nothin’ on our home sweet home.

This Weekend's Fun

Unseasonably (and Un-Western Pennsylvania-y) warm and sunny weather all weekend. We even had the windows open. There were big plans to insulate the attic which were promptly postponed for a less beautiful weekend.

There was porch sitting. Pleasant BSing with Aggie's friend H's parents. We watched from the porch as our girls ran to and fro, playing with the barn kittens, climbing fence gates, and talking quietly amongst themselves as the travelled about attached at the hip. It does my heart good to see kids playing outside. Love it.

H is Aggie's beloved friend and she was finally, finally able to come over and stay the night. Good times.

We headed in to town for some Mexican food. (Pretty sure I didn't cook the entire weekend!) There's something fun about having an extra child every so often. As long as they're a good sport, and H definitely is one of those. Especially when she was excited to go coon hunting after supper.

We unbelievably found enough working flashlights for everyone, loaded up into the car and headed out to another lovely hunting spot. Everyone had fun. They had foot races in the dark. The night was starry and pleasant. We laughed and had ridiculous conversations. I think H is eager to go again. In fact, after talking to H's dad, Mark said it sounded like her whole family wanted to come! Fun!

Sunday we had a date with my grandmother to take a driving tour of her old stomping grounds. She spent much of her childhood in the county south of ours, out in the country, moving from one farmhouse or log cabin to the next.

We stopped at a general store that claims to be "The Oldest Active General Store In Southwestern Pennsylvania."

We stopped at a diner for lunch. I had an egg salad sandwich and a homemade apple dumpling. :)

And I learned lots of new things about my grandmother. Mark and I also agreed, between spending this Sunday with her and when we stopped over at her house just to chat during our child free weekend it only reconfirmed, she is one good looking woman. Even without makeup, she's still a knockout. You go, Nan! Let's hope I've got those fountain of youth genes.

The kids were well-behaved in spite of being dragged along on a Sunday drive. They snacked on sunflower seeds we bought at the general store, spitting the shells out the car window. They weasled a Webkinz a piece out of Mark when we'd stopped at Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Nan and I laughed when he came stumbling back from the register, receipt in hand. He said, "They told me they were $3 dollars!" Meaning the girls, but he just misunderstood when Lily said she only needed $3 on top of the $11 in her purse. Poor guy!

But it was a very lovely time and we still got home in time for the kids to take a hike and for me to play with the horses. I saddled Admiral up and took a spin the yard. He's been a little ornery for lack of being ridden and a little bit of work did him (and me!) good. Of course I let him take a break to get a drink from the pond and blow bubbles and splash with his front legs, pawing like a dog. I love those horses! Nikki I lunged a little bit. She does not enjoy it especially, but it was good interaction. Even though she did rear up on her hind legs like Hi Ho Silver once or twice. She and I are too alike sometimes...I love those horses!

I'm going to tell you about the rat in a second, but 2 things at work that we've been enjoying lately:

My new nephew, Crosby:

He is my brother's furkid, and he comes to work everyday to see his Aunties.He is a way better insurance mascot than a gecko.

And courtesy of one of our customers, the latest catch phrase: "Do you want to see something creepy?"

It was the Monday after Halloween and she stopped in to make a payment. She asked me the above question and I balked at her digging around in her purse. She produced a photograph for my inspection that I've tried to recreate for you here:

Her picture also had a flowery sofa in the background.

So I'm looking at this photo which is quite obviously a picture of someone's out of focus hair and living room, listening to her as she pointed out pictures of a ghost face and ghost dog. Even being generous I could not muster up enough imagination to see what the hell she was talking about. So I nodded and agreed and just waited for it to be over. Good news is, we can now at random say to one other with great enthusiasm "Hey....(wait til you get the other person's attention)...'you wanna see somethin' creepy?"

And, in conclusion, I killed a rat with a shovel. It was a first for me. Killing something other than during hunting. I've never done it in all the chicken, pig, and beef harvesting we've done. Never put something down because it was ill or irreparably injured. Nothing.

But as I walked into the barn to put my saddle away I came upon one of the kittens in a face off with a rat very close to it in size. The rat was squeaking at the kitten, and the kitten was just staring with an expression something along the lines of "Ew."

I said to the kitten "Git it," but I couldn't blame the kitten for running away. I was trying to think quickly. We'd put rat bait out very recently after rats had burrowed under the barn wall, dislodging the water hydrant, and I figured this rat had to be half-poisoned to be out in the daylight like it was.

I didn't want to kill it, but I knew that I should. I considered that it would likely be dying soon anyway, but said to myself 'what if it doesn't die. what if it recovers or is just a very bold rat.' And I still had trouble. I even thought about fetching Mark from the house to do it for me but I thought it might run off. So I reminded myself that they leave disease-causing urine all over everything including the feed our animals eat, so I picked up a shovel, poked at it a few times-it squeaked and viciously attacked the shovel, and then...wham, wham, wham, wham.

Imagine my disappointment when I told Mark of my accomplishment and he didn't even ask me to tell him the story!

The Things We Do For Love

2009-11-03T09:18:00.005-05:00

The curtain opens on a dark and chilly evening with a harried mother scurrying through the big box store, her 5th store of the evening, in search of Halloween stuff for her children. She had mere hours before she left town on a business trip, hadn't packed a stitch of clothing, and scrambled at her only chance to do her motherly Halloween duties. Party snacks! Costumes!
Her mission, should she choose to accept it: For Aggie, something scary. For Lily, a witch costume with broom. Again. For Sam, nada. Zip. Which his mother couldn't understand because pre-teen Trick-Or-Treating was a highlight of her younger years, but whatev, as the kids say.

Behold her texts to her awaiting children*:
*I'm not sure if this is the same for everyone, but "j" in our family is our text code for any sort of "affirmative."

Me: u want costume? nanny said she’ll bring stuff for u to dress as a doctor. let me know.
Sam: naaaa no thanks
Me: ah ya party pooper!
Sam: aww come on!
Me: pooper!
Sam: unpooper!
Me: makes it look like theres a fat disgusting monster w arms and legs on you shoulders

Me: eh?
Sam: aggie said ya she wants to know if shes going to get a costume
Me: well i could get a cape. Or I could get a different mask which makes a complete zombie or werewolf?
Me: or a skull mask and cape?
Sam: aggie wants pics of the full zombie and werewolf if possible
Me: theyre kind of lame. But ok. R u sure you don’t want one? after i send pics tell her to hurry and pick cuz I need to get home.
Me: not too bad i guess
(unfortunately I don't have the werewolf costume picture.)

Sam:no thanks again. j
Sam:aggie wants the fat ugly monster on the shoulders
Me: for sure? cape or not? or jusr some pplain black cothes would prob be better
Sam: aggie says she wants the cape
Me: grrrrr. Ok :)
Sam: aggie wants to know if she can get both
Me: GRRRRRrrrrrr. i’ll try
Sam:aggie says GRRRrrrr
Me: j

Arms overflowing, the mother heads to her 3rd incompetent checker in an attempt to escape the big box Halloween hell, uncharacteristically snags a little bag of the Cheetos that turn you mouth blue when you eat them (a gross treat for the children that just made her costume shop via text for half an hour,) and returned home triumphant!
And scene.

When This Mountain Mama Ain't Happy, Ain't Nobody Happy

2009-10-27T10:25:00.004-04:00

I don't do much preaching on this blog. I'm just no good at it. But that doesn't mean stuff doesn't get me riled. Especially since I have this crazylady attachment to our Appalachian Mountains. (I mean, two of my favorite words are Appalachian and Appaloosa, so you know I'm serious.)

I love my Appalachians and all their mountain kin, and naturally I am not cool with chopping their heads off and turning them into toxic waste dumps. Not here, not there, not anywhere.

Grist said it best: "Mountains Look Best With Their Tops On"

From iLoveMountains.org 's Flickr photostream (graphs, too.):
Before Mountaintop Removal Mining (Kentucky)---After---And so then you do the math---Versus Wind Farms which would be perfect! for those un-beheaded mountaintops----(I also love wind turbines!)And that's not even taking into account the jobs that would be created (more) and the environmental impact (duh) and the people who live there not being poisoned (reason enough by itself.) So, you know, you don't have to be a rocket surgeon to see what's what here.

Save Coal River Mountain from Mountaintop Removal Mining

So, if you're feelin' it, you can follow the widget over yonder to join in my resounding "NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"

Country Fried Weekend

2009-10-26T20:24:00.004-04:00

Bee on my windshield. Kitten in a hole in the barn. 'Coon hunters. Raccoon hunters, if you please. All about a Saturday night!

' Coon Dog in a cargo van. Treeing Walker Coonhound. Code name: Jill. Very expensive GPS tracking collar.

Treed. 2 raccoons in a gigantic tree.

She is craazy for the raccoons.

Eh. I thought this would turn out better. All eyes in the top of the tree.Um. The brutal part. I spared you the worst. But she earned it.

Coon dog as lap dog? She's a first in our family. Sunday, fun day. Wood choppers. Log splitters.

Now that's what I call a family photo.
I also call this a family photo. Log splitter serving as camera tripod.

I didn't have to ask Mark twice to pose with his chainsaw.

I'm Doing Great. Why Do You Ask?

2009-10-21T09:51:00.005-04:00

See? Doin' great!: Been a little harried and stressed the past week and a half. So what else is new. But seriously, we were way short-handed at work and I was pretty wacked out.

Which made me forget to post about our super fun bike ride/jog on the Montour Trail. Sam and I jogged while the girls rode their bikes. More specifically, Aggie rode my bike after she hosed a quarter inch of barn dust and cobwebs off of it, and Lily rode her goonie farm bike. It's like Mark's farm truck: raggedy and outdated, but it gets the job done.

I didn't have the bike rack because I loaned it to my sister and I was desperate to go play outside after being trapped in the cellar all afternoon pre-cleaning for the Fall honey extraction, so, don't tell, but I loaded up the kids and the bikes into the back of the cargo van and headed for the trail. I did make them wear helmets. So I was halfway parenting at least.

I didn't take the camera because the sun, she was setting, and I just left it behind. I could've taken pictures of deer, bunnies, Fall foliage, and a wonderfully surprising section of the trail where there were no houses, just rolling hills of grass. Lily claims she saw a skunk, but I'll never know if that was true.

We logged close to 6 miles by the time we made it back to the van with our cheeks cold and rosy. Lily informed me that it was the first time "in her entire life" that she'd taken a real bike ride like that. Meaning that she rode a bike instead of the pull behind bike trailer we hauled her in back in the good 'ole days. I think they were all proud of how far they went.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Mark and a friend (because I bailed on Mark and took the kids on a bike ride instead of helping) extracted honey using Mark's fancy new honey extracting equipment. I must say, it is quite an upgrade from our tried and true but very used and/or homemade stuff. Really makes the whole process much faster and less messy.

Photography courtesy of Lily.

This is the new uncapping tank. The wax caps are removed with the hot blade uncapper thingy and fall into a rough strainer in the tank. Any honey that drips to the bottom of the tank can be collected later. The old one was secondhand, homemade, and had no legs, among other things. This is way High Class for us. (Note the High Class furnace, crumbly stone foundation walls and water softener tank in the background. Fancy facilities! Might explain why there is so much pre-cleaning to do.)

You can't really see it that well but in the background there Mark is loading the new extractor. It holds 20 frames, pulls the honey from both sides of the frame at once versus flipping the frames halfway through, and required bolting to the basement floor. Just where ever. Throw some bolts into the floor. No big deal.

There's no photo of the new hot water-jacketed bottling tank, but trust me, it is a beloved item, too.

We got 3 new cows. They are real beauties and one sounds like a bugling bull Elk when she moos.The pigs are delightful. Sometimes I forget how lovely they are.Fall is somewhat noncommittal this year, if you ask me. But it's getting here I guess.We did some crafting. Puppet making, even.

My sister and I had a cheap little blue rabbit puppet named Presley when we were kids. He barely even looked like a rabbit and I'm pretty sure when you turned him inside out, (why you would do that to him, I don't know.) the material used to give some firmness to the inside of his mouth so you could make him talk was part of a Little Debbie Snack Cake box.

So for whatever reason, it was a favorite toy of ours growing up and as we got older we took to hiding it in each others bed or luggage or what have you. Moving away from home? Look out for Presley. Headed off to college? Beware The Monkeys Arm: the arm of a white plush monkey toy we once had. (And the fake turd, which I believe one of my mother's coworkers might have gifted to her? Mom? Do you remember where the fake turd came from ?)

But eventually all the original hiding items were lost & we had to make new (sorry turd, they broke the mold. Only memories remain.) and I constructed a new Presley. Not as good as the original but still functional. So my Presley was inspiration to Aggie and she decided to construct her own rabbit puppet. We already had ears from a half-assed Halloween costume I made when she was a toddler. She wore her black faux fur Winter jacket, I made fun fur ears which I pinned to her hood, and gave her a black eyeliner nose and whiskers. Viola! Puppy! Or bunny! Or mutant humanpuppy creature!

So we had the ears. A scrap of fun fur. And no sewing machine. (I know! For shame! What kind of pioneer woman am I?) Here's what we've got so far:

I am especially pleased with the double button eyes we went with. Aggie is doing most of the work herself. Fun times!

And lastly, living and working in a semi-rural/rural area, it is not unusual for your clients to walk into your office with this:

And also not unusual for someone like me to get excited about it, fuss over it, take a photo of you with it, and overlook the dead deer smell on it. Because we love it..........don't we?

Like Grains Of Litter Through The Litter Scoop, So Are The Cats Of Our Lives

2009-10-15T10:00:00.007-04:00

We were reminiscing about our cats the other day. Memories brought on by the recent loss of my beloved Helen.
It was normal to not see Helen for a day or two at a time. Then you'd find her curled up asleep in between straw bales in the barn, in a cardboard box in the greenhouse, or on a pile of feed sacks in the farm truck. But when the 2 days stretched out into more than a week, my heart sank.
I asked every other day "Has anyone seen Helen?" and no one had.
Mark was oddly quiet and I finally figured he knew something. He said he'd been afraid to tell me, planned to maybe never tell me, but he found Helen on the road days ago. He said there was a bird's body right beside hers, so maybe she died doing something she enjoyed: hunting.
I'm still bummed about it.
Helen. I selected her from the other cats at the pound because she was talkative. That was my main criterion going in. But at the same time there was another ridiculously handsome grey cat who caught my eye. He had the head of a cougar and a very stand-offish personality, solid grey coloring and a linebacker body. I called Mark from the pound to tell him about the cats and he said to bring them both home.
So Helen and Roger (not their pound names, those were something pedestrian like Patches and Fluffy or something) came home with me in their cardboard crates, caterwauling the whole car ride. But not before Roger had seriously maimed the volunteer at the shelter.
She had put the cats in a temporary cage while we did paperwork and when she went to retrieve him he went berserk and attached himself to the top of her head with all four sets of claws. There was blood. All the while I'm saying to myself only I would take this beast home. And pay to do it!
But all was well once they settled in, Helen was crazy affectionate, meowing at every word you said to her, spastic in her appreciation of being held, and impossible to stop from licking you head to toe. Helen was a big licker she was. Roger was the notoriously stinky pooper and known for sneaking into the automobile of anyone who came to the house. Unbeknownst to the driver. He took many a car ride accidentally.
If Helen wasn't sleeping on Sam's head, she was sleeping in his dresser drawer. Well, before she moved outdoors, that is. And I know indoor cats live longer than outdoor cats, etc. etc., but once she learned to hunt and play outside she hated coming in the house. Plus she was the one who pooped and peed behind the hot water tank. And her itchy skin cleared up once she moved outdoors. So who am I to argue with that?
You could go outside and call her, not in a normal voice of course, but in a shrill baby-talking voice, and she'd come running. I called her "Helen," "Helen the Melon,""Hulun the Mulun,""Helen the Skeleton,""Skeletor,""Skully." I am sick that I can't do that routine anymore.
I miss Helen.
I miss Roger, too. Once I actually saw him get hit by a car, rolled under that car, and then jump out from under the car, still very much alive. I couldn't immediately find him after that and I went inside the house very upset. An old Asian woman who had been shopping at the market came over to comfort me by saying "Cat hard to kill." As in, Don't worry, he'll be fine. And I think that wondering exactly why she knew that was what made me feel a little better. True story.
But sadly, after serving as mascot (and stowaway) for the market for a couple years, Roger was found as well and Mark tried not to cry as he picked him up from the road.
I also miss our little orange tabby Hank. aka "Hanky," "Hanky Tooooo!" He was born on the farm, son of Mama Cat, long time matriarch (after her predecessor One Eye,) the cat formerly known as Fritz. I think we decided to convert him from barn kitten to house kitten after Roger's passing. Plus he was extremely affectionate and always kept his cute kitten meow which he greeted me with every morning.
One of my most favorite photos is of a 6 or 7 year old Sam sitting at the kitchen table, Hank in his lap staring attentively at the book Sam was ready to him. But, even though he was strictly indoors, Hank was an escape artist. It was nothing to find that he'd jumped out of a second story window, and eventually he too met with the same fate as Helen and Roger.
Our last surviving "pet" cat (versus "barn" cat) is YoYo. aka Yoko, Mocho Coco, MoMo, Big CoCo, Yokudekimashita.
He's been enjoying a lot more indoor time lately. Whether he likes it or not. Mostly I think he likes it. He's soft spoken, drools when he's happy, and is like 2 and a half feet long when he stretches out fully for you to rub his belly. He's also been known to enjoy a Sunday drive with the family, and for some reason was really drawn to the coffee beans I was grinding this morning? His previous owner had him declawed so I think the cold bothers his front feet, but he is a successful hunter and cock of the walk amongst all our cats, in spite of his lack of claws.So. Cats, cats, cats. Our life is full of cats. First thing Lily does every day after school is head to the barn to play with the kittens. They have names, but I haven't learned them yet. This is a picture from the archives. Not even sure who these guys are? Well, I know that the black & white one would have automatically been named Baby Coco. That is a given.

I can't remember his name either. He's gone, too.

Whoops. Not a cat.

The most recent Baby CoCo. With the extra toes.

And I've only just scratched the surface of my supply of cat photos. But this post was a little bit much already. Forgive me if I've told you these stories before. Shared these photos before.

We love our cats, don't we?

And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Program

2009-10-03T20:38:00.006-04:00

When last we saw our cheeky heroine she was ~~sipping Grey Goose and cranberry juice from a beer glass through a bendy straw~~ debating the virtues and vices of a cell phone for her first born.

Well, you all know I totally got him one, facts and figures be damned.

Just kidding. There was a small amount of figuring.

But I'll be honest, as soon as we cracked that baby open we must've texted each other a dozen times. And it's fun. The kid has a great sense of humor, and I'm just going to relish him even wanting to text me at all. You should've seen the look his dad and I shared when he received a text from a girl the other night. It was ... a moment.

Sunday was Pittsburgh's Great Race--and we went! Sam and I. And we ran and we finished and we got an Eat N' Park smiley face cookie at the end.

The Milk Man encouraged Sam & I to enter. He insisted that it was a lot of fun and mostly down hill. He said he pushed his baby in a stroller the entire 10K last year. I was skeptical, but he's a jovial chap and the peer pressure was strong. Meanwhile, the race is 10K and I normally only trot about 3 miles at any one time.

It was one of the funnest things I've done in a long time. It rained the whole time. Sam beat me. But I only walked when I took a drink at the water stations. The water stations where the water tasted strongly of bleach. I thought Gee, "city water" sure tastes bad and then I learned at the water tent after the race that it's because they were dipping it out of garbage cans. True story.

If you want to feel superior, please feel free to check out my race results on the Great Race website. It kind of took the wind out of my sails when I saw them the next day. Ah, who cares! It was fun.

When we got home that afternoon, Mark and I took the opportunity afforded by Sam having a cell phone to leave him and his sister unattended at home while we went mushroom hunting.

Yes, my legs hurt like hell from running, but I'm super tough like that.

I also got semi-lost/separated from Mark in the woods. It was like he instantly vanished. So I called out to him. Nothing. Then I thought He's messing with me. He's hiding. Gonna pop out and scare me. So I was determined not to react. I just stood where I was picking burrs out of my clothes. Then my imagination started poking out here and there. Someone snatched him. There gonna get me next. He fell of a ledge somewhere. He's unconscious. I have a lot of life insurance on myself. He lured me out here in the middle of nowhere... And then I heard him yell for me. And ask me what the hell I was doing.

Doesn't this tree look like a ghoul? Edvard Munch-y? Not Georgia O'Keefe-y...

We found 2 types of edible. Chicken mushroom. And what we were really looking for: Sheepshead. And now a series of comical pictures of me on the mushroom hunt.

Not too bad. Nice getup, though. Fanny pack! I wore it in the Great Race. The Milk Man said Weren't those outlawed back in the Eighties? And for a second I thought he was serious.

Mark says to me Have I ever shown you the biggest tree I've ever known? I felt like we were dating again.

And so, on some back road in the middle of nowhere so don't ask me to ever take you there because I'll never find it again, I met the biggest tree Mark has ever been personally acquainted with. If I had been feeling a little more limber I would've crawled inside the tree because it was big enough inside to do so.
The pictures don't do it justice. The base of the tree is probably 30 + feet across. Pretty neat.

Here are the best photos: Wasn't even tryin' to look so awesome, I just did.
I also let Lily dress herself for school pictures:
The picture doesn't show the fine detail of her cheap matching necklace and bracelet or those high heeled pink sandals. She was stylin'. I guess I could've tried to make her look proper, but what the heck is the fun in that? This is 2nd Grader Lily. Only available for a limited time! So act now!
Back to work now! Not really. But tomorrow. We drove halfway across the state Wednesday to fetch Mark's new girlfriend: The Meadow Creek something something 3000 Bar-B-Que super duper smoker thingy. It's a giant smoker griller trailer.
And now we're selling pulled pork sandwiches along side the road. It's much more work than it sounds. And I don't care if I eat any more pork for a while.
We love it, don't we?

Say It Five Times Fast: "Fetal Cat Tattoo!"

2009-10-02T13:17:00.003-04:00

Because I like to share stuff with you.

It's a tattoo. A Fetal Cat Tatto.

Now That's Italian! No, wait, it's totally not.

2009-10-01T13:12:00.006-04:00

This blog isn't really big on snark, though I appreciate well done snark and may partake in real life. I'll be back to my regularly scheduled whatever-it-is-I-do-here shortly, but for now, can you just please enjoy this with me? Thanks!

Overheard on the Facebook recently....

Expectant Mother (known for sloppy, over-sharing status updates) :
ok people.....give me some possible girl names for the baby plz :)
Yep, gonna ask my Facebook friends what to name my offspring.

Friend: Shalaiah
Aren't you missing a few more Shalalalalalalalala's in there somewhere?

Another Friend: I kinda made one up, well I put 2 names together that I really like if I would decide to have another, but have since thought about it and realized it's too much like my youngest daughter's middle name...McKenadie (or just Kenadie I love both)
No, you did not make up a name. You randomly combined "Mc" and some consonants and vowels. And what are those 2 favorite names that you supposedly combined?

Male Friend: How about mythological like "Athena"? Or perhaps something like "Shyla"? "Ramona" maybe?
How about "Irony?"

Yet Another Friend: I like the Athena one. That's pretty. Also thought of Dakota, Caren, and sophia.
Sigh.

Bestest Answering Friend: My girls are Sierra Dawn and Sadie Jo. But I also like Savannah, Kenzi. I have a friend who names there girls Avenna, Myrella and Daylore. I believe those are italian names. I also like Abigail.
Thank you, mother of Sierra Dawn and Sadie Jo, for making my day. And those all sound like Herpes treatments.

Toot My Own Horn

2009-09-24T11:43:00.002-04:00

Not really my horn, but Sam's. Mah Boy.

Mark called me at work to tell me that the science teacher had called this morning. That had me worried a bit.
But Mark said that she simply wanted to tell us what a great student Sam is, that he's her best student (Mark's paraphrasing) and she really enjoys having him in her class. That he even helps his classmates in class. I reminded Mark that Sam's Civics teacher said the same things.

Night before last, Sam was at the sink doing dishes (I know, right?) while I sat at the computer looking up animal phyla and calling out the facts and characteristics to him. I was just as engrossed in it as he was, all nostalgic over my favorite phyla and names from biology: Platyhelminthes (so fun to say!) and Echinodermata and such.

We were especially interested in the Cnidaria because the name comes from the Greek word "Cnidos" which means stinging nettle. And we have lots of experiences with stinging nettles, so it was helpful to our remembering that they are all armed with stinging cells called nematocysts. E.g. jellyfishes, fire coral, and the like.

Mark walked into the kitchen to find us excitedly babbling on about flatworms and liver flukes. Good times.

The big debate lately has been whether to get Sam a cell phone or not. Keeping in mind that Sam was halfway nicknamed the Amishman last year for his lack of gadgetry, we are not known for having or providing the latest in technology.
Ya, there's a Wii (from grandma) and some Flip Cameras (from Santa) , but they're all extraneous non-necessities. Aggie wants an iPod, but she knows you don't just get an iPod for no reason just because you want one. You put it on your very selective Christmas list and put out hints for the 6 months prior to the holidays, and then you probably get it.

So a cellphone was not even a consideration until this year. And a very reluctant one at that. The problem arose with Cross Country, a lovable but scatter-brained Cross Country coach, and an unpredictable calendar of events on the school website. Sam would say things like "We might have a meet tomorrow, but I won't know until I get there." Huh? And "I don't know where we'll be or when we'll be back."

And there was also the fact that I had to repeatedly email and call to even find out what the hecks was going on in the beginning of the season. Here, turns out practice had started for a week or two and no word from the coach. I'm fairly convinced we never would have heard anything had I not made a pest of myself. But I digress.

Cellphone. Big major 3 week study of all the available options. I need to know where Mah Boy is. Not at all times, but pretty close. And I need it to not cost lots and lots of dollars. But it probably will and I've broken the seal on the Cell Phones For My Kids.
So I'm feeling a little defeated, a little like a sellout, and a little excited to text back and forth with Mah Boy.

Cooper's Lake Cross Country Invitational

2009-09-19T11:30:00.000-04:00

This is Sam's first year of Cross Country. I'm pretty proud and excited about it. I ran in high school, too, but I think Sam actually has a chance of being good at it. Plus it's something he and I both like, so that's nice.
Action shot! Uphill right away.
Aggie was cheering him on. Lily was criticizing him for not being first.
He was somewhere around 304? in a race of 415? I believe he's improved his time in every meet.

Have a good weekend!

For Becky. With A Twist.

2009-09-17T21:14:00.005-04:00

After neglecting my bloggy duty to post photos of my booty ( it's a jingle!) I'm trying to make up for it here. And I don't mean my caboose, my rump, or the junk in my trunk. (Honest, it's just pouring out of me!) I mean what I snagged during my recent transformative shopping trip.
So I had this fun idea to post photos of myself in different outfits, some of them from the shopping trip and some of them from scratch, and then everyone could guess which was which.
What actually happened was 3 consecutive nights of Open House from 7pm to 9pm. I forgot to get photos of the first part of the week, balled up the dirty clothes, and haven't washed those yet. I realized that what I actually bought on that shopping trip was 3 cardigans, 2 black and 1 fuschia, 2 blouses, and a necklace. Not exactly a new wardrobe. OK, I also bought a bra (trusty Playtex nude,) some pantyhose (grossssss! and I didn't wear them. Gross. Just couldn't bring myself to do it. Wore black tights instead,) a little black dress (to be worn with the pantyhose but it didn't happen,) and a cheap pair of black comfortable heels. Still not a new wardrobe.
But! Fact of the matter is, I still looked way more put together and presentable with those little additions than I would have without.
I learned from this that I am hopelessly not a shopper. But I also was inspired to take another look at the clothes I already had. Try to juice them up a bit, you know. Give them another chance. (Because who has high fashion expectations of an insurance agent?)
So the point of the photos, since I didn't get the guessing game together, is to show you my cheap stuff. It gets me by really well. Walmart top $11, handmedown skirt from my sister, shoes on clearance for like $15 (give or take, I got both pair on clearance plus one pair was also 50% off. Score.)
My working theory on shoes is, while I totally follow the belief that you shouldn't wear cheap shoes, I feel that as long as they don't look cheap when they're new you can wear them until they start looking crappy. Which is obviously going to happen a lot sooner with cheap shoes, but you still got by spending less money even if you have to replace them sooner.

Shirt by Target. Meh. My Daisy Fuentes trousers. Eh. The other pair of cheap shoes. Weh. And! My $15 Banana Republic necklace which I'm wearing with nearly everything because it reminds me of the beaded chains that hold eyeglasses, like my grade school librarian wore, and therefore I feel smarter and bookish. Super professional. So is my mussed up hair. I actually sneaked in a jog, took a quick sponge off and then put these clothes back on to go to Open House. So a little extra "dewiness." Is that a word? Dewy-ness? Dew-iness? Sweaty.
Which reminds me- I was totally stressing prior to that trip to Home Office that my naturally curly hair was not professional. (I'm serious, google it. I'm not the only one thinking it.) It looks icky in these photos, but anyone else have an opinion on curly hair and professional? I ended up deciding "Too bad. I'll do the best I can with it." And of course I was the bell of the ball. ;)
Since we're talking clothes and shoes. Mark's grandfather so generously gave these to Sam. Because what almost 13 year old young man doesn't long to wear his great grandfathers pleather loafers?
This isn't about the outfit, it's about the booboo. Right leg. Check it out.This (and some road rash on my shoulder. actually "tree rash" would be more accurate.) is what you get when you're practicing swinging up from the ground onto the horse's bare back (and I'm getting pretty good at it BTW, from the ground!) and it takes off (brideless of course because you're just out pissin' around in the field) and unstoppable through the trees. Yes, I'm sort of proud of it. And I was just about healed up from two separate bouts of nettle stings and welts, too. Don't worry, it wasn't as dramatic as it sounds. And! I didn't fall off or have to bail. So, it's all good. The Great Pumpkin made his delivery today! Pretty pumpkins.
Freaky pumpkins. And the best part about the pumpkin delivery, The Pumpkin Bin Village that the kids construct on the porch from the empty pumpkin bins. These will be modified, decorated, YoYo the cat approved, and possibly camped out in. Good times.
But first you have to do your "work" as noted here in Lily's notebook.

All along I could've been learning about scheduling and priority management from Lily. Who knew.

I Drank The Kool-Aid. And Then I Went Camping.

2009-09-14T21:12:00.006-04:00

So I went to my "Priority Management" seminar and it was good. An intense 2 1/2 days and I'm thoroughly brainwashed.
But first I went shopping, and that was fun. Kind of. Until then my work wardrobe consisted of some carefully (ha.) selected Target clearance items, hand-me-downs from my younger sister, and a pair of Daisy Fuentes black slacks from Kohls. Ya, chew on that for a while.
Didn't really enjoy the wardrobe. It was all about function and getting by. I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyway. Forgive me.
So I knew I had to step it up for my trip to the Home Office to rub elbows with all the bigwigs and gurus. I was going to have to overcome my dislike for shopping, my aversion to the sweaty dressing room misery of trying & trying & trying to find something that doesn't look lame or cheap or ill-fitting, my miserly ways of immediately judging a garment as "not worth that much money, I can get the same thing at Target for much less."
And I wasn't trying some massive overhaul. I was just headed to the Banana Republic outlet store.
Long story short, it was all Pretty Woman, with me walking in to the store bewildered and helpless, and the sales person helpful and complimentary. Wait, that's not Pretty Woman, they were mean to her...But the gal did seem to have a lot of fun picking out clothes for me to try and then oohing and aahing as I tried them on for her.
I'm still stinging from the amount of money I spent, but I did look very presentable for the seminar.
And though the days were intense, arriving at 7:30am and class til 6pm, I enjoyed the challenge, learned some really helpful stuff, and got to mingle with some really great folks.
And then I went from Miss Fancy Business Pants to...

Camp Middle of Nowhere With No Shower For 2 1/2 Days. Except this year I cheated a little and took a quick sponge-off in the Winnebago shower.
We were deep in the Susquehannock State Forest area of Potter County Pennsylvania. This is my 3rd year for the trip.
The first year, Mark, who had been there several times before, suggested we go along on the annual Labor Day weekend camping trip. Up to the Wagner's Cabin. Stop me if I've told you this already...So I'm picturing a little cabin in the woods, with all the amenities, like something you'd rent from a campground. Charming, you know?
What I found when we arrived at 2 o'clock in the morning after travelling eons on a remote and precarious gravel road, was a sturdy looking shed of a building and a matching outhouse.
There I was in the middle of nothing, damn cold September mountain air, a bladder full of Sheetz coffee from an endlessly long trip, and I am confronted with the outhouse. What the hell?
I was in a panicky shock. Mark was suddenly faced with his decision to omit this very important information in his description of the camp. He said he knew I wouldn't have come if he'd told me about it. Well, Ya.
But. Yet another long story short, once I relaxed, it was a total blast. Not in an exciting amusement park kind of way, but in a free to enjoy the sweet camaraderie that comes from sharing an outhouse and preparing meals together. The joy of watching the kids and dogs run free. Catching salamanders and frogs: Building their temporary home:
There used to be a little plastic baby pool for this purpose, but it went missing.

And then turning them all loose on the last day.

Playing in the yard all day and all night. Aggie can touch her feet to her head. I learned that on this camping trip:Big kids playing with little kids:They had the most intense game of Release on Sunday night. (It's like Jail Break, I guess?) It went on until after midnight, 9 kids from age 7 up to about age 19, and they all played with the same enthusiasm. Even the dogs got in on it a little. (Sorry no pics, too dark. And I was busy sitting by the camp fire eating s'mores and doing nothing.)

Earlier that day Sam took me on a hiking adventure. Now he's been to camp more often than I have because the men all go on their Men Trip the day after Christmas, so he was more familiar with the trails. I was trusting him to go the right way.

What I didn't know was how much Sam likes to blaze his own trails. Up cliffs.(I was fairly terrified.) And across streams. (Sometimes we even used a bridge.)(We both peed in the woods somewhere around here.) And through monstrous nettle patches.This wasn't the nettle patch. It was up on the never ending mountainside Sam climbed leaving me behind on the trail yelling 'Sam, Sam, Why won't you answer me?!' and then finally climbing up after him only to find myself surrounded by stinging nettles. Then I heard him yell that the path he was looking for wasn't up at the top and that we'd have to go back. Through the nettles.

And then I said 'I want to go back to camp!' Wahh!

And then we had steaks on the grill with the wild mushrooms Mark found, oyster mushrooms and this Lion's Mane, my new favorite:
Super Fun Camping Extravaganza: Home again, home again, to my farm peeps:

Pigs acting like pigs:

And RoboKitten. What are his prime directives? Drink milk, hop around all nimbly bimbly from tree to tree, and fight crime.

You weren't expecting that ending were you?

My Homework Assignment

2009-08-28T15:13:00.003-04:00

I'm headed to a 2 1/2 day "customized consulting services, training, and personal performance coaching for sales, service, and underwriting professionals in the insurance industry" seminar next week.

Prior to attending, we were assigned a book to read, a questionnaire to complete, and an essay to write. The essay was My Life...In 500 Words Or Less. But for Pete's Sake, if you're only going to give me 500 words, you might as well only give me 50! 500 and I'm just getting started.

So anyway, I wrote the essay once, probably going over my word limit, and lying awake for awhile unsatisfied with my summary. Too dry. Too negative. Sure I've had some less than picture-perfect times in my life. Times I can be embarrassed about and ashamed of. And sure I can spin those times to show how they have naturally contributed to my personality and maturity, made me stronger, humbler, yada yada. But it isn't so much what has happened to me as who has happened. And so I wrote this instead and I was much happier:

My Life…In 500 Words or Less. Take 2

There are the events of my life story, and then there are the people of my life story. My childhood included my 2 young parents, a younger brother & sister, both sets of grandparents and many aunts, uncles, and cousins. All were nearby enough for big family gatherings and attendance at school programs, softball games and track meets. I was surrounded by a big group of loving and encouraging people.
My grandmothers were both positive influences in my life. One was the traditional sweet older grandmother, fantastic cook, gentle, and patient. The other was the younger, creative, and beautiful grandmother, who let us paint and sew and swim to our hearts content. I have an immense admiration for their faithfulness, strength, loving kindness, and down to earth spirituality. I credit their prayers for so much of the grace in my life.
My mom gave me a love for reading and quiet solitude. My dad pushed me to be a better softball player, throwing catch over the house from front yard to back. They shuttled me to practices and games and attended band concerts. When teenage angst and the accompanying bad decisions ruled my life, they patiently waited as I struggled through and they welcomed me with open arms as I returned the prodigal daughter. They are loving grandparents to my children and supportive in-laws to my husband.
My grandfather encouraged me that I had a beautiful smile and that “I could do anything if I put my mind to it.” He taught me to play pool and how to plant a garden. He taught me that tomatoes, avocados, and Hershey bars are some of the best stuff on earth. He pushed me to learn as much as I could and make the most of my mind. When I was about 10 years old, he raced me in a foot race on the beach and didn’t let me win. He told me wonderful stories of his childhood adventures and encouraged me to be adventurous, too. Just try!
My brother and sister were my main playmates at home where the small semi-rural neighborhood was scarce of other children. We played barefoot all summer. We had fun times when we were younger, but I’ve enjoyed our adult years together even more. Now I can better appreciate them for the great people they are and for the crazy sense of humor we all share.
My children and husband are the biggest part of my life and I feel like I’ve hit the lottery when I think of how incredible they all are. My husband is my best friend and my partner. He is the entrepreneurial spirit and I am tactical support. Being parents is our biggest responsibility and our biggest joy. We only need to share a knowing look to understand what the other is thinking. From large to small, they have all made me a better person: more giving, more patient, more appreciative and more humble. And I still have so much to learn!

The End.

So again, the 500 words weren't near enough, but I think I may continue the essay in the same vein adding all the folks I couldn't pack into those couple paragraphs. Give it a try yourself. I think you might like it.

Vote For Pedro! Bedillion's Farm Market!

2009-08-26T14:56:00.000-04:00

Post 101! And I Have To Get Something Off My Chest.

2009-08-21T15:09:00.002-04:00

I passed 100 posts! Do I get something for that? An iron-on patch or something?

But on a serious note.

I just don't think Brad Pitt is all that good looking. There. I said it.

Have a good weekend!

Oh, Brother.

2009-08-20T16:17:00.006-04:00

Remember brother Greg (again)? Weeelllll, he's been livin' in a trailer down by the river. I think pretty happily except for setting himself a little on fire that one time. Those two times.

Unfortunately, last week he had a severe pancreatitis attack after his post-colonoscopy three Junior Whopper lunch binge. 'Doctor said I could eat whatever I want! Well, I think the Whoppers were just the tipping point in his Dagwood Sandwich Garbage Can Diet. Dude weighs in at a precious 300 pounds.

Poor Greg. He's been in the hospital ever since. Poor Mark when he saw not only how sick his brother was but how characteristically dirty he was. Oh, yes. Greg was a vision in his grimy white t shirt with the sleeves ripped off and his bare feet sporting toe nails that Sasquatch wouldn't dare be seen in public with. So big brother took it upon himself to give Greg aka "Cecil" a little TLC.

First stop before the hospital was the dollar store. Tools were needed. Scrubbing, trimming, and grinding tools. Exaggerating! A little. But I knew I wasn't donated my personal nail kit to the cause, so new stuff had to be got. I dropped Mark off to play beauty shop while Sam and I headed to the store for some fresh t shirts and shorts for Uncle Cecil. We also got him a deck of cards and an electronic slot machine game. Yay!

When we got back with the goodies Greg was shining like a new penny and scowling like an old wet hen. (ya, they scowl alright.) Mark said he used the garbage can to soak Greg's feet. That man of mine! Ingenious.

I have to say, Mark's one hell of a pedicurist. And a good brother, too. Hopefully, Greg appreciates his fancy garbage can spa treatment. You can't get that just anywhere, you know.

Wherefore Art Thou, Towel?

2009-08-20T14:23:00.003-04:00

Bad Housekeeping Confessions.

There's been a lot of towelessness at our house lately.

Usually I'm pretty on top of it. Towels are my favorite laundry to do because it is more forgiving. Tons of bleach means you can temporarily forget that there is a load in the washer. It takes a looong time for the towels to get that wretched forgotten wet laundry smell.

So I know that there are way more towels than people on the property. And yet I've had to resort to emergency towelling measures more than once in the last couple weeks.

I'm the big showerer in the family. Pretty much every single stinking day I take a shower. Don't want to. But it just works out that way. The rest of the hooligans in the house? Eh. It varies. And when they do finally buckle down and scrub their butts do you think they bother to make sure there are towels for the next person? Noooooo! I'm the only one to monitor the towel levels. Sure it's only because I don't want to hear somebody yelling from the shower "Can you get me a towel!?" when I'm in the middle of something, but still. Come on. Just like replacing the toilet paper roll even if you've done your business and don't need any more, lets think ahead on the towels.

So clean towel levels have been dangerously low. I find out way too late and have to improvise. Hand towels work but I only have like 2 of those for some reason. Not sure whether to blame the kids or Mark for that. Tea towels from the kitchen would work but that's kind of weird in both directions. Don't want to rub my face with the towel that might have cleaned up spilled milk or chicken blood or something. Don't want to wipe up my kitchen counters with the towel that dried my armpits. Beach towels, of course, could be a great substitute but I have a huge problem with them get worked into the circulation. They are strictly seasonal/swimming towels. Them's the rules. So more often than not (OK, like 2 times) I've simply used a washcloth.
Ya, the washcloth that's, what, 8 inches across? Good thing I'm not a real big person. But if I was? 2 washcloths.

I think one reason this works for me is because 1.) I was revelling in the huge reduction in laundry I'd accomplished just by replacing one towel with one washcloth. And 2.) I have a preference for thin raggedy towels anyway. Those giant plush fluffy mega-towels? Sure, in theory they're awesome. Bigger is better. They're colorful. They're soft. But. I'm just not into it. Too much material, too heavy, too much room in the washer & linen closet. Also, it wouldn't make any sense to pay for fluffy plush towels when their ultimate fate is heavy bleaching, kid barf, dog baths, pig births, massive honey spills, fire, lightning, earthquakes, and typhoons?

Nope. I'm going to keep on buying the bulk pack of generic hotel towels at Sam's Club. Plain white. And I'm going to use them until I can read the newspaper through them, as my Grandmother says.
Well, I'm going to use them if someone would wash them, that is.

Globo Gym Purple Cobras

2009-08-19T13:41:00.003-04:00

My brother, Jim Jimmy Jibbets Dragonball Hitchcock, team captain of Champion Inline Hockey Team, Globo Gym Purple Cobras. Camera batteries on their last leg. Photos ain't so great.

Aww. The Fam. Before they started fighting over who gets to stand closest to Mark. And my Mom. And my SIL, Mrs. Jim Jimmy Jibbets Dragonball Hitchcock. Jim's #33.Jim about to present a commemorative team photo and the trophy to the parents of a teammate who was tragically killed in an auto accident not quite 2 weeks ago. This last playoff game was dedicated to his memory and his family.

Every bit as exciting as a Pen's game and I apparently don't have the same jinx power over the Purple Cobras. So they won! 11 to 3.

Go Cobras!

Things I've Done For Money

2009-08-14T14:51:00.013-04:00

Ya. That got your attention, didn't it? hee!

So by popular demand: what I can manage to remember from my days scrubbing toilets in a cheap motel along the interstate. Probably told in some ramshackle disjointed vignette form. With made up names for everybody. Not so much to protect anyone's identity, but because I only remember one woman's name. If you know the Neko Case song "Prison Girls," please hum along as background music.

Every morning upon arrival, report to the lawn furniture table and chairs located in the indoor swimming pool area. Kind of humid in there, so the cigarette smoke hangs extra heavy from the Marlboros and Virginia Slims. Charming plastic ivy plants dangle in macramé hangers against the back drop of permanently clouded glass windows. No uniforms in this motel, everyone wears street clothes- blue jeans and cheap tennis shoes. My tennis shoes are especially cheap and looked very much like Ernie's shoes A major score at the Goodwill. I had a penchant for Vintage Goonie from the Goodwill: sweater vests, men's zip-up ankle boots, gold lamé hot pants. I never actually wore the hot pants anywhere but I did wear the lime green thigh high stockings...

So I am the rookie. Fresh out of high school and, in retrospect, naive as hell. Everyone else is decades older than me, save for one very overweight twenty-something. And I don't think she stuck around very long. Also in retrospect, though no one was overtly unkind to me, they were always a little wary and probably gave me some of the ~~literal~~ crap jobs on purpose. But that would've been only fair since I was the newbie and the youngest. No hard feelings.

These women were veterans.

Dee looked like an old motorcycle mama. Wiry thin petite, long hair, and godawful giant plastic glasses. She was quick and nervous and asked me for whatever dirty magazines I found so she could take them home to her Old Man. A lot of times she worked the laundry, so she wasn't out doing rooms with the rest of us, but I think she taught me the ropes. I still fold my towels like the motel did.

Fay reminded me of my old Girl Scout troop leader. Whom I loved. Brassy cotton candy hair, a ready smile, but an underlying toughness I wouldn't mess with. I have the impression that she was a sweet woman who hadn't been treated with anywhere near the kindness she deserved. She was the one who went the extra mile wiping the carpets down to perfection.

Jem was a 50-something Korean woman. Attractive and hard-working, she was known for her signature toilet cleaning moves. Was it more efficient to use the water from the toilet to wipe the commode down? I don't know, probably not, but you tell her how to do her job.

The front desk clerk, Rhonda, also served as a housekeeping director of sorts. A giant Muppet of a woman, she was in charge of assigning us whatever rooms we were cleaning that day and following up with random inspections. She was firm. Firm but fair.

Meg was closest to me in age, also not quite part of the veteran clique. She was energetic and agile despite her size and liked to tell room cleaning war stories when we cleaned together. Her tales were along the lines of slumber party ghost stories so I don't know if they were true, but they helped pass the time. It wasn't hard to believe at least some of what she said in the farthest, darkest windowless chambers of the detached section of rooms on the backside of the property. (phew! That was a lot of "of's." My bad, but I'm not fixing it. Laaaayeeezeee!)

I don't know whether that separate building housed the less desirable guests or not, because I rarely worked in any rooms other than those in the 'back forty.' Given that the giant lighted sign towering over the motel simply advertised "$29.99 MOTEL" and not an actual name, I'd say all the tenants were probably of the same caliber.

So. Memories. Let's see....Construction workers. Rough looking men in town for work. Many times they shared the "suites" with 2 bedrooms. They could be in the same room for a week at a time and you weren't allowed to touch their stuff when you cleaned. You had to clean around it. If their stuff was on the bed, you couldn't change the sheets, etc. Ninety-Nine percent of the time they were out working but occasionally you'd find them camped out in the room. I always had a lurking fear that they were hiding in the room waiting to pounce on me. But they never gave me any real trouble. Except, riddle me this: a bar of green soap buried beneath a mound of ice in the bathroom sink aaaannddd a five dollar bill under the mattress. Was the soap a clue for me to look for the green under the mattress? Probably 100% not, but what would make me imagine such a thing? Maybe because it was so unusual for us to receive any tip at all, that five dollars was quite a fortune and I was feeling generous.

I'm pretty sure it was the same room that left me a nasty thick besprinkling of intimate manscaping debris all over the sink and floor.

I forgot to mention that this motel had no two rooms alike. Some were similar to one another, most bed spreads were interchangeable, but the majority were all different floor plans, decor, bed arrangements, etc. How this would be efficient, I don't know. It's not like there were special themes to the rooms. It was all pretty much a consistent essence of brown despair and wannabe The Shining creepiness.

$29.99 MOTEL also featured a special room on the backside with a king size waterbed. A waterbed. Can't get much more romantic than that. Which probably explains why Anonymous Dude wanted to save his ejaculate in the complimentary plastic drinking cups. King size waterbed.

Next door to that room was a large room usually occupied by some scrappy family with raggedy children. One unruly bunch in particular kept declining our offer of housekeeping services. Why they were camped out in a motel in the middle of nothing, I'll never know, but after they left it turned out they brought their cat along for the ride. Now, if you're going to bring your cat with you on a road trip don't you bring along his or her litter box? I mean, I don't know, because I wouldn't likely take a cat to a motel, but I do know that using a dresser drawer in place of a litter box is not cool. (Why are you travelling with cat litter but no cat box anyway? Did you already have this planned out?) But it did explain why they wouldn't let us in to change the sheets.

I think we've all read or heard about some exposé or other on hotel cleanliness and what not to touch and what to immediately disinfect, but here's a little anecdote to go with that helpful info. Tiny room in the back forty that I had just finished cleaning is rented out shortly thereafter. Normally I'm gone for the day by the time rooms start filling up again but sometimes it does happen while I'm still working. About an hour later I get a call in the room I'm currently cleaning to add that first room to the bottom of my list to clean again. Huh. Ok. A walk through of the room reveals a slightly mussed bed spread. That's about it. Sooooo...maybe that person or persons just needed to take a short nap and continue on their way. Ya, that's it. Maybe they were napping on the bed spread. At any rate, that bed spread did not get laundered on that occasion. None of the bed spreads got laundered daily. So if you didn't already immediately discard the bed spread upon entering a hotel room, I hope you will in the future.

I believe that room was also the sight of a major major bedwetting. I found that bed with so much pee I question whether they used the toilet at all. Just kept going back to the bed to pee. Now, I was there when they dragged the mattress away, but I have a sneaky suspicion that it wasn't actually replaced, just scrubbed and returned to duty.

Eventually I did get to work in the main building of the motel though I can't really say it was an improvement in scenery. Have you ever stayed in a hotel/motel with fake wood panelled walls? I think they main reason I got the occasional 'promotion' was because I made it to work during snowstorms when others did not.

So what were the benefits of working in the main building? Well, all the illegal recreational drugs I could get my hands on, for one. Just kidding. I only found them once. Quite the stash, too. And they left an entire dresser drawer of clothes to go with it. Bonus! But seriously, I still wonder how they made such a screw up. Too stoned? Had to leave in a big hurry? Took an unplanned detour to the pokey? Or was I being set up? Because, if I was, sorry about their luck. I wasn't much for mind altering substances at that juncture and promptly ran to the front desk clerk like a tattletale little girl. That's pretty much how that went down.

The ultimate frosting came towards the end of my stint. Just a normal day, dum dee dum, last room on my list. Nice looking older couple had checked out with their suitcases. One of the most normal looking rooms available actually. The usual routine is to first go in to collect and count all the used towels and linens so you know how many clean pieces you'll need to restock. (And that meant leaving what was unused. Not sure how you feel about that but uh, it kind of creeps me out that someone could've wiped their nose on or sneezed on a towel but didn't unfold it so it looked unused and so it was left for the next person to wipe their face on after their shower. Or something.) Anyway the walk through also gives you an idea of how much work each room is going to require. Like, in case somebody pinches a loaf on the bathroom floor. Like when somebody enters a very small bathroom where the toilet is one step in front of you upon walking through the bathroom door (i.e. handily close for emergencies,) closes the door behind them, wedges their butt into the corner and takes a big 'ole poop as far into the corner behind the door as they can.
Of course I went straight to the front desk to tattletale. But for the most part, I thought it was pretty cool. I mean, sure I had to don the thick rubber gloves and scoop up someone's giant poop, but I was kind of a celebrity for a brief moment. Everyone came to my room to see what all the hubbub was about. And I have a priceless story to tell. So thanks, Mystery Pooper!

Anyway I hope you've enjoyed today's edition of Things I've Done For Money. I know you were probably all juiced up for some serious motel craziness but all in all, it's pretty mild stuff.

Either that or I'm just a jaded former motel maid. I'll leave a light on for you...the burning ember on the tip of my cigarette.

*a smoker's gravelly cackle echoes into the night*

Aaaand Scene.

Road Trips And A Homemade Hat

2009-08-12T09:02:00.015-04:00

Road trips!Wait. That's not what a road trip is supposed to look like.

So we took a road trip out to Lancaster, PA to pick up a van load of honey jars weekend before last. We figured it would save on shipping costs plus it would give us an opportunity to see the factory where our containers are made. Gamber Container is where little plastic honey bears were invented! Which is probably a little bit of trivia more fascinating to us than anyone else...

At any rate, we boogied East on Sunday afternoon right into a never ending torrential downpour. We finally decided to find some place to stay overnight with plans to continue on in the morning. I kept asking the GPS for places to stay, places to eat. It kept giving me stupid answers. All I wanted was a Hyatt and some prime rib. We called multiple places looking for accommodations with an adjacent restaurant. None to be found. I mean, unless you wanted to walk to a nearby Denny's.

We finally settled on a Hilton in Harrisburg mostly because it had a restaurant and partly for the novelty. Nothing like having to valet park your dirty cargo van. The dirty cargo van which will not fit in the parking garage and is therefore parked 20 feet from the valet booth. And now that I think about it, Mark parked it himself...so...not really valet. Just an expensive parking spot.

Anywho, it was a splurge of sorts. Not worth it except for the cleanliness and Crabtree & Evelyn shampoo, but we can chalk it up as something we did. It was only the second time in our life we've been away overnight without our children. True story.

Oh, and I did get this for my mystery writer friend Annette:

It's a picture of a blood stain on the curtain in our room. Or maybe it's wine. Let's call it "Inspiration!" So much for cleanliness.

You see, one of my very first jobs was cleaning rooms at the local No Tell Motel. No, it wasn't really called that, but you get the idea. Sometimes folks stayed a week, sometimes an hour. The bones of the place were just fine. They even had an indoor pool. But it was, well, goonie. I know you think I overuse that word, but I've just had a lot of goonieness in my life.

In spite of its unintentional retro-ness, there was a relatively high standard for cleanliness in the joint. We were a hardscrabble group of cigarette smoking broads. No, really. We were. But we knew how to clean and weren't afraid to do it. We were fast, efficient, and hard-working. Our rooms had to pass inspection. Not so much as a tiny piece of lint was allowed on the carpet under the bed. Not a drop of moisture could remain after you cleaned the bathroom.

One of my coworkers was known for her toilet cleaning technique of slopping the bleach water all over the commode, gloved hand in the bowl up to her elbow. But. It was bone dry and clean when she was finished. Another gal would finish the rooms by wiping the carpet with a clean damp rag to bring the nap of the carpet back up. Craziness.

The not so clean side of that job: pubic haircuts in the bathroom sink, using the dresser drawers as a cat litter box, a huge amount of pee on the bed, using the plastic drinking cups to collect 'fluid,' forgetting magic mushrooms & clothes in the dresser drawers, stashing dirty magazines under the mattress, and the bestest of all, turning around to face the toilet in order to poop on the floor behind the bathroom door. Those a a few of the reasons hotels will always gross me out.

Phew! Lost focus there! Lancaster! Land of suspenders and horse-drawn carriages.

I'm not going to lie. I could not get enough of the horse-drawn carriages. We stopped at a restaurant featuring food with the deliciousness of every grandma's secret recipe combined and from my seat I could see a carriage with a grey-haired couple inside enter the parking lot, park their horse and give him a dousing of fly spray before coming in for lunch. Amish!

Then after a couple of stops we headed to Gamber Container/Dutch Gold Honey headquarters. I wished we'd planned ahead for an actual tour, but it was still a neat visit. It is family owned and operated. The air smells like honey from the tanker trucks full of sweet goodness.

We placed our order and Mark sampled some of their different honey varieties before we headed back out to the van to get loaded. What a great trip we were having. Until Mark turned the key in the ignition of the van and nothing happened. Dangit! Our combined automobile mechanical knowledge is something like "Air, Fuel, and Spark" and "Is it out of gas?" So we went with the gas theory. But what are the odds that there is a functioning gas pump 15 feet away from us in the parking lot of this factory? Excellent!

What are the odds that the very owner of the whole shootin' match comes out and personally sees to it that you are fueled up and on your way? She pumped the gas herself. And so Mark got to hear a little of the history of Gamber and rub elbows with the boss of it all. Pretty sure he liked that.

So the gas did the trick. For all of 107 miles of the turnpike before the real source of the problem cropped up again--fuel pump--and left us disabled on the side of the road. But long story, um, still long--safety patrol showed up within 2 minutes, tow truck within 20 minutes, and our local mechanic within a couple of hours to tow us 128 miles home.

Then, this weekend we took another road trip clean across the state to fetch this:

It's like a cigar store Indian, only it's a bee. It's a chainsaw carving in white pine and it's Mark's belated birthday present. It's not quite 6 feet tall and weighs a couple hundred pounds. It meant leaving our house around 12pm Sunday and arriving home again at 3:30am Monday morning. Versus our plan of camping in the van with sleeping bags. Umm, so that's that story.

Let see, Homemade Hat. There was a really lovely Summer storm Monday evening. I stood in the doorway enjoying the breeze, watching the clouds roll in when Lily showed me her new hat:

It's a wire hanger bent into a pointed 'hat.' She called it her Storm Hat or some such. Basically, the single most awful hat to wear during an electrical storm. And I told her as much. Doesn't stop her from wearing it.

Aaand, YoYo caught us a mouse. But then he took it back.

There was a Big Wig at our house. Well, just a big wig. Yikes. The girls get on these wig kicks sometimes...wigs all over the damn place.

Umm...Got Admiral a new saddle pad.

It's grippy to keep the saddle from slipping. I didn't mean to get a picture of Mark with that Heineken bottle in his hand. But since I did--you know why you shouldn't drink and ride?

Because then you'll have to pee:

And then when you get off to pee I'm going to take your picture.

I'm happy to report no one fell off. Even though Nikki gave it shot bucking me off when I made her canter in the yard a bit.

Now would this sweet baby horse act like that? Isn't she shiny? Pony!
I think that wraps it up quite nicely. Over 'n Out. Ten Four, Good Buddy.

Mine. That. Bird!

2009-08-02T10:57:00.008-04:00

This may be about as exciting to you as a vacation slide show presented by your great aunt Hortence, but let me tell you. I was a kid in a candy shop. And this may be one of the few times in my life I've been star struck. Kentucky Derby Winner, man!
I was invited by Annette to be partner in crime (because she writes crime novels, hardy har har) on a trip to yesterday's West Virginia Derby. Thoroughbred horse racing! Annette probably said it best when she called us Thoroughbred Groupies. When all the races were through, there we stood, grown women waiting to see a horse like it was Elvis or something. We stared into his empy stall admiring the cleanliness of the wood shavings. If that horse could write, I'd have his autograph right now.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. How did I get to meet Mine That Bird? Annette, in her novel writing research, became friend's with a professional Thoroughbred race horse trainer (super smart and a heck of a fun gal to boot) who was kind enough to get me a pass for the day into the barns. Annette is also a licensed groom at the track. Both of those things give her super awesome access to the barns. Where all the horses are! These photos all could use some captions:

None of those guys and gals were racing yesterday, but they were sweet to visit. They're so beautiful and shiny.

Oh, and I forgot to tell you that I'd never ever been to a Thoroughbred race in my life, let alone met the horses or seen a Kentucky Derby Winner...

So we headed over to the track. So much to see, I'll never be able to include it all. I learned how to read a racing program a little. I'm still the unluckiest and non-gamblingest person you'll ever meet.

Second funnest part of going to the races is seeing the horses come out into the paddock to be saddled. There you can see how they look, how they're behaving.....how pretty they are.

Neither one of those 2 were Mine That Bird, but My! are they not majestic!

And if you are a super horse nerd who has watched the reality TV show Jockeys, you will certainly recognize this guy:
Mike E. Smith!

He rode many horses yesterday including last but not least....ta dah!

The Little Brown Horse himself, Mine That Bird!:
I know. He just looks like a little brown horse. ha! But he is a lovely little brown horse. And fast. Mine That Bird and Jockey Mike Smith heading out of the paddock.

Being ponied to the gates. I want that job!

Aaaannndd...coming in 3rd place. Ah well. Such is horse racing. Ya win some, ya place some. He was awesome to watch and came all the way from last. Loved it!

And better yet, look how close I got to him!! I read his name on the brass plate on his halter. The 2 gentlemen to the left are his owners. Also cool!

The gentleman handling him (I should know who he is maybe, but I don't) also had me tickled when he slung his arm over Bird's back and just kind of rested it there like I do with our horses when they're out having a little grass like this.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about my first time ever betting on a horse race. Last race after Bird's, I decided to pick a long shot. The Eight horse because it's my favorite number and he was like 50 to 1. And actually went off at 80 to 1. Good lord. I placed my bet and went back out to wait for the race to start and started to read the program a little closer. Hadn't one a race all year. "Weary" in one race. "Labored throughout" in another. Maybe not such a great pick, huh?

So the race started and of course he was dead last starting out. But he was due for a win, right?Well, if you consider beating the 3 last horses in the pack then I'd say Yes! Fourth to last and not last! Alright! Doesn't get me my 8 bucks back but it was still fun. I even got to see him in the barns cooling down.

And so ended one of the coolest days of my life. :) Thanks Annette! Thanks Jessi!

The largest hot-air balloon gathering in the world,, Chambley, France

2009-08-02T10:57:00.001-04:00

The largest hot-air balloon gathering in the world,, Chambley, France
Originally uploaded by gbatistini

I Liked The Movie Krull As Much As The Next Person

2009-07-31T11:26:00.010-04:00

Firstly, this is for my Mom. She taught me everything I ever needed to know about how to make toast. Especially that it is a very important food group along with hot tea, cold cereal, and grilled cheese sammiches.

The Speedy Slice.What is with the the open-faced baked bean sandwich?

Here's another Just Because that I'm going to be looking for in my local grocery store. Cheeseburger In A Can.

But what I really wanted to tell you was how Lily's very first sleep over was going. She is about a mile away at her friend K's house. They played with toys, played in K's playhouses, and ate rigatoni.

K's Mom and I keep in touch mainly through email. We set up playdates and check in on how things are going. It's pretty handy. But imagine my surprise when I get the run down on last night's events and K's mom says matter-of-factly "I did take the knives off of the girls"... Huh?! It was just somewhere in between "eating supper" and "going to bed" so I wondered if I was misunderstanding something.

So my entire reply was "Knives?!"

Turns out Lily had smuggled a couple of knives over to K's house. Yep.

Sam has a collection of knives so I suspect that's where she got them. If you've ever seen the knife sales on Home Shopping Network, you'll know what I'm talking about. Knives with resin eagle claws for handles (Great Honor!) or deer paintings on the blade or somesuch. Gifts he'd received from relatives over the years, goodness knows why. Super classy.

So it could have been those. Could've been any old piece of crap pen knife floating around the house. I take it for granted that there are knives everywhere. In the drawers, in the vehicles, in the barn, in my purse. It's just something we need often and have plenty of. But I never figured on needing it for a sleep over. Far as I know, she doesn't play with knives at home.

I was totally embarrassed. And baffled.

Stuff And Goings-On

2009-07-29T11:04:00.003-04:00

Date Night Monday: Kids at my Mom's. Agreeable weather. I'm in what I believe to be full-on PMS zombie mode. Mark takes the bull by the horns (surely you must know by now how much I love cliches) and offers to go horseback riding with me. I am in such a doldrums that all I want to do is crawl in bed, but prior experience tells me riding never fails to help. And also I appreciate the huge effort Mark is making.

So I drag my carcass out to the barn and we saddle up. I especially love riding with Mark, not just because he's my boyfriend, but because he's just as adventurous as I am. He shares with me the childlike silliness that can't resist riding up and down over piles of gravel and through puddles. Admiral is the four-wheeler I won't let Mark buy. (If that makes any sense?)

Our horses came from a horse farm not far from our place. An Appaloosa and Ara Appaloosa farm. Just give me an excuse to drive past its pastures full of multicolored beauties.

Anyway, there is a nice sized farm pond in one of the pastures where Admiral used to live and I was told by one of the boarders there that one cold day, when the pond was frozen over, standing there in the middle of the ice was Admiral. He was dubbed Admiral Pondwalker after that.

He loves water. And true to his Pondwalker name, he was into every puddle we came to on our ride that evening. He splashes with his front hooves and blows bubbles and submerges his face up to his eyeballs whenever possible. He cracked us up.

After that bit of playtime we rode up to Wagners Greenhouse and chatted with them until we were seriously running out of light. And our only path home is through the dark woods. I wasn't too concerned but it did make it more challenging. For the record, I did mention to Mark that the girth was pretty loose on his saddle...

So we headed home on our well worn paths. I'm in the woods fairly often enough to know where all the low hanging branches are located. Whenever I started losing sight of the path, I trusted Nikki to know where she was going. I'd call back a warning to Mark when low branches were coming.

We were nearly to the brighter paths close to home when I called out what was the last low bridge on our route. I lay forward onto Nikki's neck under the branches and walked on. Seconds later I heard a commotion behind me and automatically yelp out "Are you OK? Are you OK?"

When I turned around I could see a shadow of Admiral and a blob of white on the ground: Mark.

Remember that loose girth? Well, while Mark has very good balance in the saddle, and made it most of the way home just fine, leaning off to the side to avoid that tree branch maybe wasn't such a great idea. He forgot about the loose girth and all went tumbling to the side. And it was all made more exciting by the fact that I couldn't see a damn thing to confirm that he was OK. But it was. Except for the bright purple bruise on his thigh, of which he has taken half a dozen photos.

Date Night accomplished? I certainly think so.

******

So speaking of zombies, (apologies for including a dream in a blog post. Is there some sort of etiquette for that?) I had another one of my zombie dreams last night. It's just as likely to be zombies as it is aliens. Either way, in the dream, it is very difficult to discern who is human and who is an imposter.

Finally figured out that zombies and aliens represent something along the lines of PMS or a persistent bad mood I'm trying to shake.

In last night's dream, we humans were holed up in wooden shack of a house, zombies all around. But the twist was that we had one zombie hostage we were using for bargaining power. Makes sense, right?

The man in charge of our group of humans was shouting to the zombies outside in an attempt to negotiate our safety in exchange for their zombie buddy.

Trouble is, we all know how articulate zombies aren't. They're usually just making some guttural moaning groaning noises, right? But our human negotiator had no patience for that nonsense and was insisting that they speak and speak clearly.

And so their voices started to become sharper and even harmonized with one another. Buuuut...it wasn't coming clear into words, they were merely zombie moaning the tune to "Do You Love Me (Now That I Can Dance?)" by The Contours.

Do the Mashed Potato! Can ya do The Twist!

Afraid I can't tell you whether the negotiations were successful or not because I woke myself up thinking how stupid that was.

*****

Then I went downstairs to find that Sam had overslept. He was supposed to be out setting up the market at 7:30. I called in softly to him so I wouldn't startle him, but he jumped about 10 feet in the air anyway. He was so pissed that he accidentally slept in.

Don't you hate when that happens?

*****

We finally got around to the castration process on Sweet Pea the calf. While there are many ways to castrate a bull, in our tiny little operation we just use the rubber band like thingies that make the testicles fall off over a matter of time. No cutting, no crushing, no squeeze chute. Just a warm bottle of milk to bribe and distract him. He had no reaction to the band whatsoever. Good deal.

*****

This is YoYo. The cat previously known as Oreo. We adopted him from a friend when the kids were littler and for some reason they never called him Oreo. Check out the chalk mural all over our basement wall:

YoYo is a giant tuxedo cat. He had a torrid love affair with out dog Penny back in the day. Once, when Copper the Lab Dog was a puppy, he approached YoYo with playful but mindless aggression. The kind of approach that would send any other cat on a mad dash of escape. But not only was YoYo unflappable, he also placed one paw on Copper's head and just held it there performing some sort of hypnotism.

Copper was paralyzed and confused, putty in YoYo's paws. Cat is weird, I tell ya.

But he's also pretty fun. This is the second time the kids have packed him up in an old backpack like a baby in a sling and took him hiking through the woods.

I'm thinking....Appalachian Trail, here we come!

Pony Ride part II

2009-07-25T10:26:00.004-04:00

Aggie's friend K was over again last night. They first called me at work and then pounced on me as soon as I got in the house. Take us for a ride! This is K and Nikki .Here comes Aggie and Admiral. And the hoagie Aggie would not allow out of her sight. Try taking it away from her and risk losing a finger.Nikki, as irritated as I am by pictures of her @ss. Lily was our photographer for the evening.K and Nikki. I think this is adorable.Pre-flight preparations. Hoof picking.I let K give it a try. Good job!Saddle up! I included this photo mainly because of how horrified I am by it. Stupid jeans! You make me look bad! (Anybody else watch Courage the Cowardly Dog?)More of Lily's photography. Nikki trying to restrain herself from nipping because she knows the girth tightening is coming.Not too tight. Sam is my fellow wrangler. Pictured here with Admiral. We swapped horses for a little while when Admiral found it necessary to eat, eat, eat anything in his path. Sam got frustrated and needed a break from him temporarily.But mostly they got along.K and Nikki again. Know why I love this girl? She is an awesome baby talker to my horses. She really nails it. I was so cornfused when I saw this picture. Wondered what on earth I was doing. (Note Mark scratching his head in apparent cornfusion as well.) I was letting K use my leg as a mounting block. Still a pretty funny picture and add it to the unflattering shots of my rear end collection.Home again, home again, jiggetty jig. Lily didn't accompany us on the actual ride. She had a K friend over, too. So what she missed was Aggie getting silently furiously mad about her helmet. And then somehow, when I was in front of them, Admiral managed to step on his reins (I'm guessing he flipped them over his head so that they were hanging all to one side) and broke his headstall out on the trail. Fortunately, it wasn't a deal breaker since he was still haltered. I told Aggie it was a great opportunity to work on her balance. She was just fuming all the more since this added to her prior helmet fury. That's my girl! Once we were home she was all hugs and sweetness. Other than that hitch, ride accomplished! And the horses received their pay of half a Granny Smith each.

Jetsam and Flotsam. Yes, I will keep using it for post titles.

2009-07-22T11:22:00.003-04:00

Target Practice

We have a customer who comes in to the office who, no matter what he stopped in for, will always manage to make reference to his adult sons. "Mah Boy" did this, and "Mah Boy" did that. Sometimes he'll mix it up and talk about his daughter, Mah Girl. I'm kind of offended by it, that he can't be bothered to use their names, almost reducing them to an "it" status, but the funniness of it overrides my indignation.

So, for future reference, if I start talking about Mah Boy, I'm talking about Sam.

So Mah Boy asked if he could do some target practice. Contrary to what you might expect, this isn't part of our daily routine already. We never really pressed the issue of hunting with him. I think we both wanted him to take an interest, to carry on the family tradition, but we also knew that Sam was more of a History Channel watcher and WWII video game player. Not a couch potato, just a thinker. If he was going to go in the woods it was to look for ancient artifacts or simply for exercise.

But I guess it turns out he's all of the above. The redneck mama in me was proud to hear that .22 being shot off the back porch. I can only imagine Mark felt the same. I want Sam (Mah Boy) to learn to do as many things as he can.

No bull's eye, but they're all within the orange ring. Good 'ole paper plate target.
Honey Bears Marching Off To War

This is just a fraction of the honey. And wait til you see the new extractor. It came today. The credit card is still reeling.

Formica Decision 2009

Not just because it's goonie Formica butcher block, but because the sink is leaking around its edges and I've already tried to fix it.

I was going to go with paper composite countertops. They're all earth friendly and whatnot (supposedly. Is using formaldehyde in your processing really all that earth friendly? I dunno)

But the paper composite dealer told me he wasn't 100 percent sold on the product for one. And for two, our house, though I really do love it, is never going to be valuable enough to warrant much more than Formica countertops.

Like, how cheesy would it be to put granite countertops in my kitchen with the fake Pergo floors and fake wood cabinets? And I'm not going to replace the flooring and cabinets when they're in very functional condition. That would not be earth friendly.

So I'm pretty much stuck on the far left choice which, in person, is very silestoney/granitey. I don't like it because it looks so matchy. And I don't enjoy matchy home decor. But it seems like the most sensible choice.

I would've loved a more slate looking choice, because the samples aren't half bad, but with my yellow kitchen walls I was afraid of it looking like The Pittsburgh Steelers Kitchen.

The white on the right was just a random choice. It's real shiny and fake marbley and not in the running to win.

Choice number 2 there is kind of concrete texture. Another desperate grab at the sample counter because I just can't commit to the first sample.

Did you know they make formica to look like stainless steel? I tell ya, what will they think of next?

So what do you think?