It's been a rough week here in paradise, my current town

While I know in contrast to much other evil and tragedy that has happened recently in the world it's trivial. And if the world really did end tomorrow it would be just a speck of dust in the eyes of eternity.

But I, for one, have give my notice. To everything around me, but nothing has listened.
To the husband because he's not around to notice I'm still here.
To the kids because doing 2 4th grade projects at 9:30 the night they were due is not acceptable to me.
To the truck, who decided it's southern ca and doesn't need heat. The one am we had frost.
To the job, which I left fully 1 hour late and..... left charts to be done. I know. SO unlike me. I got home access to the computer system. I'll get to it sometime in the next 1.5 hours while it's still today. or so I tell myself.
To the neighborhood. Who are both a blessing a a frustration at times.

So. let's see. The 4th graders. THEY are going to make sure I have plenty of grey hairs and a lifetime diet of antacids. So on their homework agendas - they have vastly different teachers, as I've mentioned.. on one agenda I've had a nightly notation of "shoe box" on it. and nightly I asked "what does this mean- shoe box?" to which I was told "oh, we need a shoe box" so I get him a shoe box and say, "so you bring this to school?" uh,no, you have to have it at home. So after repeating this conversation for about 4 days I finally get to the question of "what are you supposed to be doing with this shoe box at home?"

A diorama project thing, of course.

When is it due?

Wed.

What is today?

monday.

So you mean to tell me that this whole thing is due on Wed? and tomorrow is Tues? so TOMORROW THIS ALL HAS TO BE DONE? (as the voice raises about 6 octives) This of course is after bedtime.

Go to Sonia. YOU HAVE ONE, TOO? yes. she does. Oh, yeah. it's also due wed. But she's been thinking about it and has mentally planned about20% of what she's going to get done.

So.. Tuesday we had 2 shoe boxes, which, by the way had to be covered in paper and not look like shoe boxes but represent the obscure Califonia Native American Indian tribes their projects were on. Into which we needed 10 objects that were significant to said Indian tribe so that you can represent everything about said tribe in 10 objects and 10 note cards. 

Lemme tell you, even with Wikipedia and the SDSU library it was hard to come up with 10 things, unless you count that 'there were last known 2 elders who spoke the native language in 1940' and 'they ate rabbit' as one and 'they ate acorns' as another.

I'm all for culture and all, but really. These kids don't know Connecticut is part of the United States. Shouldn't we cover the geography and history of the whole country before focusing on an essentially extinct people group? I know they think Connecticut is Canada because when the kids came home friday talking about the school shooting in Canada, it seemed very far away and remote. Suddenly when a phone call from family in CT happens, it's no longer so distant. But to the kids.. they feel safe. Guess that's what matters.

Unfortunately... MY kids know CT is in the US and knows people there, so when the news on the TV at the hospital where they were all dragged in for strep tests was on, it was all that was covered. And they were mesmerized.

I of course have hit the crazy land where I think all the good guys in life should have concealed hand guns and should just shoot the wackos who go places shooting. Frankly. Yes. It's come to that. I used to be in the 'we don't need guns' camp. Now I realize there will always be wackos and they won't stop at legal means of destruction, so I'm ok with stopping them when they go wacko and kamikaze in public. I read the Oregon mall shooting only killed 2 people because someone in the mall was packing heat. Well, dang it. I think teachers should have that right, too. And ever since my kids entered public school I thought teachers should be allowed to carry those tranquilizer dart guns the animal control people use to re-locate bears. Bears, wackos, out of control kids.. tranquilizers for all.

Anyway.. back to diorama boxes. They got done. And while I'm sure the over acheiving parents and kids had baked clay models of the type of home their assigned tribe had, we had pictures. We did have a few "real" items such as a basket, pine cones, and arrow head from Joey's now broken arrow head set (didn't take long, although he still has the bow, but the arrows just weren't meant for long term use much less actual attempt at penetrating anything thicker than a blade of grass). But for clothing.. the men wore nothing. you really want me to enclose a model of a naked male? or a topless female? Riiiight. I'd put quail meat in the box, but not sure that would smell great after a while.

We are now quail less. (speaking of quail) or rather, the cages are quail less, the quail themselves are still in the freezer.  We have 9 chickens and 2 pheasants.  No eggs they quit laying this winter.

Winter. we had actual winter today. As in a frost. As in it would have been a great day for the heat in the truck to work to DEFROST the windshield. And if I thought my husband would have answered his phone this AM, he would have gotten an earful. As it was, we managed. not well, but we did. All alive, didn't kill or run anything over. Only took til lunch time for my toes to thaw after my 30 min drive to work blowing luke-cold air on the windshield.

Usually we get 2 days of winter here, so I'm thinking 1 down, 1 to go. hopefully. Or I'll nag hubby to address the heat thing or threaten to take to to pay someone real money to get it fixed. Or maybe I'll just get out the book and fix it myself. Although he gets kinda touchy when I take something apart like a car to fix it and can't figure it out how to fix it and expect him to get it back together.

Taking things apart.. that reminds me. Last year I got Joey a target shooter thing with a basket that catches the air soft pellets or the nerf darts, which I expected him to use. Supposed to be awesome. Cept it didn't work out of the box. Tried to exchange it but I'd bought it 6 months earlier when it was on sale and it was discontinued. So it sat in the garage. And as we were cleaning out that garage (again. seems to collect crap, broken and not) he found it. I told him he could take it apart and see if he could figure out what was wrong. Suddenly... BEST CHRISTMAS PRESENT EVER. He LOVES taking things apart and fixing them, kinda like his father. So with some help from Larry, the loose wire was re-soddered and suddenly it works. This year he gets his own tool box and tools. And instructions to check with an adult and unplug it before dismembering anything. Boys.

At school they had the Jingle rock event. Used to be pancakes with Santa til cooking and Santa went out of style. This year it was cold bagels, cream cheese, donuts and the band concert (why we went. Sonia's in the band. Was in the band, I should correct). So.. the week leading up to the band concert, I asked 'hey, how's the practicing going, need help?' and she says, no, the teacher says we just have to be able to play the first 3 notes.

OK. can you play those? no. Still no sound comes out of the flute when she "plays"

We get to the "concert" and well.. none of us could hear much of anything, and then the band teacher gives a speech about how they're nervous and learning to play in front of an audience and that practices go better. uh, hello? how is that? I know for sure that 2 of the flute players can't play a note. I got confirmation from a trumpet player that he can't play the song, either. To add insult to injury the strings band (all violins and violas and such) played a real live song and sounded good. kindergarteners and all. Which leads to the question- is it self selecting that families that choose violin are more musically orientated and us 'band' parents are the under achievers of the elementary school music world?

Next time we're going with the violin. The price is the same, although we don't own a violin, yet, I've always wanted to learn how to play one. And after this year, I think this band will be totally dissolved. It was a disaster. Tonight they have another concert. We won't be going. Maybe if no one shows up, including the kids it will send a message. You want disaster proof: here it is. Just say to yourself "If you think it, you can play it" and then go rent the music man. It's in our que. And no longer such a strange and bizarre concept.

Can't recognize the tune? It's "we three kings" missing 3 kings, and a few camels. it's left a sick mooing camel and something that squeaks.

Another week gone, another night alone.

Hello computer. Thanks for waiting for me to find the time to come visit again. I know I'm not a great consistent friend. But hey, neither are you, so I guess that's why our chemistry works.

So Larry's working again. This residency thing puts a bit of a damper on the hours we actually see each other.  But we're almost 1/2 through. Or so I keep telling myself.

In other news the across the street family FINALLY left. New people moving in do not have kids, but as I figure no kids is better than bad kids. They seem nice enough.

I think we have gone 1 whole week without a hiccup in Joey's class and home work. Of course if this is going like last semester, I'll get a whole pile of failing papers in 6 weeks with the previous 6 weeks worth of work on the day of report cards so this could be a false positive report.  If she does that again, please feel free to unplug my computer and take away my car keys, because I cannot be responsible for my words and/or bridges I blow up in that case. I'm pretty sure this is the first year she's teaching 4th. I bet she was a Jr high teacher before. Her background hasn't exactly been clear other than she's married to a principle in our sister school district and that she had taught before. Details. I bet google could help me.

Sonia of course has forgotten her homework this week. But this is Sonia we're talking about. Because getting her to get it done in a timely and un-distracted and non-doodling manner I've started waking her up in the am to finish what isn't done before bed.  Jury's out on if this is a brilliant logical parenting move or an idiotic one. But she's my night owl and hates. HATES to wake up in the AM, much less at 5:45 when I am getting up. But there are far fewer distractions for her at 5:45 and her brain is at least 1/2 asleep, so I'm guessing some of the squirrels jumping around her brain are dormant so she get it done and goes back to bed if done fast enough. The part that I'm probably an idiot parent is that a tired Sonia is like a PMS screaming banshee 80% of her waking hours at home. But the logical parent says 'well, maybe she'll just learn so we don't have to go through this too many times' Tomorrow will be morning #4 since I hatched this plan that she will be getting up with me.

Kayla makes everything look easy. And would be a perfect child if she didn't cry over every hang nail and name she's called. Today (because I think she and Sonia were keeping each other up far too late last night) she was even crying at what she thought they were going to say or do to her. "he almost hit me or he almost called me stupid" Seriously. What I didn't gain in patience dealing with Sonia and getting her homework done I'm trying to find in dealing with a histrionic 7 year old 1/2 Cuban girl. I think it's a dominant Cuban gene she's expressing. Glitter, sparkles, and hystrionics. It's there, on the back of the X chromosone, written in glitter glue.

JM. Or, Jon as his teacher thinks he is. Will go to college on a sports scholarship or not at all. Of course this is kindergarten, but since he's in a K/1 class he seems to be not the smartest kid since he isn't reading. Which isn't as big a deal as the fact that he has NO interest in reading. At all. Not with computer games, not with me, not with the teacher. Nope. You cannot make him read or try to read when he doesn't want to. Which is 90% of the time.  And he's all about wrestling, sports and tackling, so football I think would be a wise career choice for him. Minus the head injuries. I assume that's the offensive team that gets those. I'm hoping the defensive side is the ones giving the head injuries and with JM's size and love of tacking siblings, dogs, and anything else that might not appreciate being tackled, I'm thinking defense is his talent.

Other than that, I've been in family medicine again. And I have an idea for a clinical study on quality of care and patient satisfaction with the implementation of EHRs. Not that I think I can change that we've all moved to them, but I have an alternative more human intensive idea to the way we practice now. Of course I'll need a grant and once published probably need to look for another job. MY hidden talent which my parents should have steered me to is bridge demolition. I blow up bridges spectacularly. Doubly so if I'm on them. Bet the pay is good and the autonomy is better.

Heading to craigslist to look for 'part time figurative bridge demolitions specialist position'
Hey would you know, there aren't any openings? Bummer.

Sometimes I think before I type

But most of the time I don't. What you read is the stream of consciousness thought that my squirrel chasing brain thinks.  Once in a while it slows down enough for me to fix typos and spelling errors. But usually it's full of red and green underlines when I'm done.

Anyway.. I didn't really have a certain thought I wanted to share but thought it's been a while and I hadn't written anything lately. It's odd to me when I log into blogger to see that I had page views today. Odder yet to see what page they landed on. And then I look and see what those posts where and realize 'humn.. if those were just meant to vent a thought 3 or 4 years ago and are still here in cyber land maybe I should be intentional about what I am writing here in cyber land?"

On the other hand.... here I am with the what come to mind post that I think is the only type I'm capable of.

So... a brief re-cap of the month - inlaws came and went. It was a nice visit, we didn't do a whole lot, but as they were leaving they said it was better than their visit from 2.5 years ago and they actually enjoyed themselves. Stay tuned, it's entirely possible at their new visit 2.5 years from now they'll only remember terrible things from the last visit.

In preparation for their visit, I did a little shopping and bought a new mattress set. For our bed. yeah. Love that logic, huh? But we needed the guest bed to be off the floor and a second box spring did the job nicely. That and the memory foam topper we have should make my parents stop dropping hints about the mattress. I did all this while Larry was away, so I found the set at 1/2 the price we'd seen before and since he didn't answer either of this 2 phones or pager, I took it as a go-ahead on the purchase.  Because he was away and I get a little insomnia with that I also made a 2 sets of curtains on a sleepless night.

He's away now, so here I am. Additionally when he was away we had a little crime spree here in the neighborhood. Started with someone trying to break in to a home in the middle of the day to the front door. This got me a call from one neighbor and knocks on the door of other neighbors telling me I was notorious for not locking our gates and doors and that we better do it. now. go now. while I'm on the phone. And then if that wasn't enough, someone's adult child came home drunk and decided to relax in the hot tub.. of the neighbor's house. So at 3:30 am there was a naked guy in the road confused as to where he was. I don't really call that a crime spree as much as a good reason to lock the doors lest a drunk person think my room was his. I thought such things only happened in movies. Apparently not.

There is a new boy in the neighborhood, in Joey's class. We like him so far. The people across the street have been moving out for 2 months now, but the real movers arrived here yesterday. We've heard the new person is a grandmother. So no kids. bummer. or not. depending on the kids.

We had report cards and it was 3/4ths good. And that 1/4th I have issues with. No, not ADD girl. Boy with the perpetually bad luck in teachers. This year's new teacher seems to have a perpetual case of ADD and Joey doesn't do well with staccato instructions, much less hurried staccato directions. And she blames the kids for not speaking up that they don't understand her/directions/etc when she races through and they don't know that they don't understand.  That and the books she's having them read have my 2/3 of the way going to the principle and demanding that he be in a different class. Nothing on the gay agenda, dad and mom. Just way above 4th grade level in reading level and content and too much dark/death/magic and another mom says the book in her group is very based on the occult. There are several reading groups, Joey's in a different one, and for this mom to notice the book is base on the occult, I'm pretty sure it is because she's not one that sees occult in things other than occult. I know there are some that make a lifetime of seeing the devil and occult in everything in a hyper-spiritual way, I can guarantee that isn't the case here. And if we had been assigned that book we'd have been locking horns sooner. As it is, I went to discuss my issues with her on Friday, got some answers -not totally happy but not as mad and get home, talk to Larry later and he brings up a dozen other things that he thinks I didn't address or get adequate resolution to. *sigh* it's going to be a long year at this rate.  And I threaten to homeschool regularly. This of course puts a kink in the work schedule.

Work.... sigh..... even Jesus went away from the crowds. There is so many issues. I was in a clinic with a larger percentage of english speakers this month, but with english came a greater percentage of homeless/mental health/substance abuse problems. wow. it just weighs on your soul after a while. Making tiny differences, hopefully, but just not sure how much it really matters in eternity. Of course I'm not totally comfortable doing the 'what matters most is knowing where you go after this life' speech. I'm getting better at it- practice and all. Still waiting to get called into the carpet for that. But the truth is, that it doesn't matter what we do for them medically or socially if we're not helping them spiritually. And on that side part of me really wants to start my own clinic with my own mission statement. I just don't have the resources of either money or time to do it.

In other news Sonia's band class is going about as great as the Music Man's band. I swear he is going with the 'if you think it you can play it' method. Mostly because they have a concert in 2 weeks and Sonia still can't get a note out of the flute. This concert will be one for the record books.

I started a Shutterfly account to add pictures to from now on, as the battle with loosing pictures is an ongoing one here. The hard drive they've been on has crashed repeatedly. Once I have much on there, I'll share them.  But the current site is  http://cowlesfamilysharing.shutterfly.com/ not sure if I have to make you members to see it. But if I do, email me what address to add to it.

Not that I think of it, I better finish uploading the rest of my pictures... talk to you later

Online AGAIN tonight.

This time trying to buy an infant stethoscope asap. There was 1 in San Diego but that store closed at 5. I was calling at 4:30 and Larry doesn't have the time to go get it.

So I'm looking at buying one and having is shipped. And the site I'm using is having hiccups. Or our credit card is. And considering that we had to cancel all our cards AGAIN last week because Larry's wallet walked away from his computer at work. It could be our end. Seriously. We are in the running for absolute worst luck in credit card theft.

It was eventually found/turned in, but at that point we'd cancelled everything. The one thing it did save was the process of trying to replace an expired out of state drivers' license. Larry was given an extension but was told he had to go in to the DMV to renew. In VA. This of course is a little problem. I face the same fate in 2014. We'll be looking to change residency status in the next 2 years, I think. Although this year our vote supposedly counts in a swing state. I say supposedly because the whole mail in your ballot process doesn't really give you a warm fuzzy feeling that they're actually going to count it.

But the one thing that strikes me this time of year is that life in the military, particularly life with Marines is different. Honor, patriotism, and protocol. And you see it from a young age.  For example- at the movie theater on base, before they play the movie they don't play commercials- they play the national anthem and the Marine Corps hymn. And the entire audience stands silently -from an early age. There's occasionally the random toddler that makes noise but it's not too common.   And at soccer these days, we're on the field at Colors - when they play the retiring music and lower the flag. Practice comes to a rapid halt, everyone freezes and faces one of the 2 flags on either side of the fields and stay that way until the tune that releases everyone. Sometimes the colors song has ended, but they're still folding the flag and that 'you're free to go about your business' 10 note tune seems to take for.ev.er. but no one moves. It's kinda cool in an uniquely patriotic way.

I was sitting in our car tonight. And after all this talk of protocol, since I would *hear* the music if I was listening hard or had the windows down, I was supposed to get out of the car and stand at attention, too. But I wanted to take a picture of it, and there's no way I was going to get out of the car and do that - move? during colors? what a newbie mistake. lol. I did it before. Not colors, but I didn't realize the Marine Corps anthem was also sacrosanct. Now I know.

playing before colors star

Frozen at attention, the flag is to the Left

The other flag.

So the pictures are there.

And I'm off to finish what I was supposed to do.

Can't sleep

Which is kinda ironic because if Larry's home watching Netflix, I have no trouble going to bed to sleep. But with him gone every creak in the night makes me awake. And I make huge grandiose plans of what I'm going to organize when he's gone, get 1/3 into a wheezing and sneezing fit, sit down and turn on the computer and drink herbal tea waiting for the claritin to work it's magic.

And last night the artillery was blowing stuff up that did more than a little window rattling. However it didn't do alot of banging, so with only the window rattling, it was sleep with the light on sort of night.  I was talking with a fellow wife who said she loved having her big german shepherds when she was alone and I realize.. no. I'm ok. I don't want a dog. or 2. especially large hairy ones. I already can't breathe and the cat lives outside.

The cat. I haven't told you about that.

You see, Kayla batted her eyes and did a "daddy, I really want a cat" thing and we were finding rats outside with our neighbor's apple tree... so we went on the get a kitten hunt (think I did mention this) anyway.. kitten goes out one night and doesn't come back. Still hasn't. And another cat went missing that week also. I suspect there is a crazy cat lady somewhere.... anyway..

Because kitty was cute and sweet and I felt bad I said we could get another one. Larry, on the other hand said no, we're not going to get another and spend money on it. To which I reply, what if it's fixed already and free? To which he agreed.

So I go online a few times and find a cat. Free. Fixed, has his shots. And.. Orange.. which was the color we were originally trying to get because Kayla's fixated on her "stripey" the orange beenie baby cat she's had since she was 2.

And Violla.. She sends me a picture of this younish cute orange cat. Says he's a little shy but great with kids and playful like a kitten.  I ask, is he short hair, she says yes.they have a baby and can't devote the time to him... (really. it's a cat. how much time are you talking here?)

So I show up. The cat is long haired, 45 lbs, and nearing the end of it's life. In fact I'm pretty sure I caught a glimpse of the tunnel  of light it was supposed to travel down. Cept it was too fat and lazy to get down that tunnel.

Mistake #1. I had the kids with me, Larry was somewhere overnight and I thought maybe if the cat was settled in when he came home it would go over better.

Actually that's mistake #1 and #2.

Mistake #3. I didn't say "are you sure this is the same cat you were talking about? he looks 8 years older than his picture you sent?" and walk away. No stupid me let the girls go "AWWWHHHHHH mommmy! it's a cat! can get really have it?!"

So Cat came home with us. A sign of how "loved" he was might be when I asked his name, she said "we just call him fatty"

It stayed under the couch for a day. I'm surprised it got under the couch.  Then it went under a bed for a day when we moved the couch. And when it was under the bed (we had extra kids sleeping over, to boot) the kids got hysterical- at 11pm- that the cat smelled and they thought it pooped.

Mistake #4. having friends over the weekend the new cat comes home.

Move bed, get cat, make sure the floor is clean and move cat outside to the garage.

It's been outside since. Once I realized it did nothing but sit on the shelves in the garage he got evicted from that, also. He's now an OUTSIDE outside cat who sits at the door and meows that he thinks he's an indoor cat.

He catches nothing. But he has lost enough weight that he could climb over the lower fences in the back yard. This is an improvement- before he couldn't get 3 feet off the ground. Did I mention this cat was Obese?

And he's named Garfield now. It fits, fat orange lazy cat...

The one almost good thing he's done is to sleep at the front door and fight with the across the street cat that sprays our front door. But he's only stopped him twice in 2 months. So can't say he's really earning his keep.

But it's minimal upkeep, throw some food and water in a dish once a day.

Still have most of our other animals - Pet rabbit, 9 chickens remaining after rooster was re-homed and 2 died in the 110+ heat we had last month. I haven't counted the quail. Cages get opened and not re-hooked good so we've lost to nature probably 15 that way.  Some wild animal has attacked and killed another 12 and another 6 went in the heat and 12 went in the freezer... But we still have dozens of quail left.

But really.. farm life is messy. It's not all cute cuddly creatures and yummy veggies. It's life and death and vermin and weeds and bugs and, and, and... kinda like Genesis says life would be difficult to live on the land.  As much as I live in paradise, we still live in a fallen world.

So I won't blog about the kids today

Lemme take a minute to tell anyone out there that thinks electronic medical records will improve life for doctors a little story.

There was once medicine. It was practiced where the doctor looked at the patient when they were talking, maybe took a few notes.  The patient and doctor did their best to figure out what was best for the patient and sometimes lab results went missing, and charts took time to file, but that was part of life.

Now, the computer screen is being watched, the "provider" is not seeing the patient because they're looking for the 6pt clicky box to check for each symptom the patient is mentionings, and in going between screens missing about 10 symptoms- both in documenting and in hearing.

The computer crashes and there is nothing you can do aside from scribble notes on a piece of paper. You can't write prescriptions because no one has prescription paper pads anymore and the controlled medication prescription papers need to be filled out by computer.  And if you need to go over labs or results... for get it.

And then.. the best part... you get rated on "quality of care" no longer do you get to discuss the options with your patient and decide what's best for them- nope. You get graded on percentage of your patients that have government clicky-boxes checked. When you hear the president talk about "we're going to pay the most efficient doctors" or that sort of wording, just remember they're treating you like a multiple choice clicky box and if you refuse the flu shot your doctor will be graded as incompetent.

As you might guess, there's a bit of a bee in my bonnet this week. I got my "random audit" of my August visits. And would you believe I failed 100% at giving my patient the flu vaccine in August. uh, HELLO? govt audit agency? We don't HAVE the vaccine to give in August.   And today, of 15 patients, I had 3 say "yes, I'd love to pay an extra $20 and get the flu vaccine" the rest said "are you kidding me? it's 100 degrees out, I can't think of the flu right now and I never get the vaccine and I never get sick" so my audit this month will be crap, too.

Not to mention that 11% of the patients I saw had a Hgb A1c of >9%. uh... for 1, I'm seeing the person for the first time, so it's not like anything I did had any effect on the previous 3 months and their current A1c. For 2, dear govt agency, do you realize that a vast majority of our patients show up with meds from other countries and cross the border all the time for their care?

For example, I saw an immigrant who brought in her metformin and glyburide and tells me she's taking 1000mg of metformin bid and 20 mg of the glyburide bid. yep. When was the last time her sugar was checked? 1997? We've seen her for 4 years and never before had she mentioned she had diabetes, but her overseas source of her med dried up and suddenly she's got a random glucose of 300+ and would like her meds refilled. Oh, yeah, and she doesn't feel good.

Don't cha think mentioning to your doctor that you have diabetes might be a good idea?

Similarly, a woman presents for a mammogram. Ask, are you having any problems. "well, yes, I'm having pain" (this is of course in spanish) ok, well, let's take a look and WHOA nelly.. uh, this is a surgical site. did you have surgery here? Yes, 2 days ago.

For one... dear MA's rooming patients, I know you're pressed for time and don't have time to find the right clicky boxes in the medical records for this, but alittle heads up of "she had surgery 2 days ago" helps. ESPECIALLY if she's there for you to re-dress it and thinks you're taking her sutures out. A little help with my spanish to explain you don't take sutures out of anything 2 days after major surgery.  And if you think this is rare... it isn't. This is in fact the second time in 6 months that this has happened. Apparently you go to mexico to have the lump removed, the doctor there says you need a mammogram, but in mexico  you pay for your mammograms. If you come to CA, the state pays for it.

No one should wonder why we're bankrupt as a state here. no one.

BUT back to our dear government standards... so they're going to require medical persons to do testing and treat beyond side effects and patient desires to get numbers where they are, they're going to require us to put everyone on certain meds because that's what certain studies say is best, regardless if the patient wants it or not, and then they're going to make sure the government taxes us to pay for it. I mean I understand there's some logic there, but not really. Can't some of us make decisions for ourselves?

If any of my kids tell me they want to go into medicine, I'm going to steer them to plumbing- the hours might be worse but the autonomy and pay is better.

Why don't I blog anymore?

In case you're wondering and haven't asked:

I'm more unplugged from the computer these days. Sure I have one, but I don't have to BE on it with the business stuff and not turning it on is the first step in getting unplugged from it. It's a good thing as far as time management goes. 

I'm not at home to be on the computer- this whole start a job thing means I'm dropping kids off at school, going straight to work, going from work to the store to buy a gallon of milk and bread, dropping that off at home and getting back in the car for pick up time. We get home, get snacks, changed and suddenly we're back in the car and on our way to soccer. Then dinner, finishing homework, bathing, bedtime for kids then laundry, cleaning and bedtime for me. The second I throw the computer in there my bedtime gets pushed back an hour, if not more. Since I'm getting up before the sun these days, late bedtimes are not good.

I have less to say, or perhaps more accurately less positive things to say. I have alot of stuff to rant about but in an effort to not be NancyNegativity I try not to dwell and write about that. Try. Go ahead and point me to the archives here, I know. This is a work in progress.

But today we don't have Soccer, Sonia is getting a ride home from band practice and the remaining 3 are at the neighbor's house and I have 15 minutes where I turned on the computer.

So in a real quick synopsis of the time since school started:
JM has moved from his kindergarten class to a K/1 class- not that it is necessarily more advanced than a K class, it did get him out of the class of 30 kids with the teacher that seemed like she was 6 months past ready to retire. His new class only has 24 kids. Their school does these combo classes when they have too many students for the grades but not enough to fill a full classroom- so they had 1/2 a classroom of K and 1/2 a classroom of 1 so they combined it to a K/1 class. They also have a 2/3 class. His teacher still calls him Jon. As does his coach. And he forgets that's him, so he tends to ignore them. He also ignores me when I call him JonMichael, so perhaps it's more than the wrong name thing.

Soccer has hit full swing. And Sonia actually LIKES soccer this year- and runs and puts in effort. She's in better shape than I am at this point. Kayla also likes soccer (after the whole protest that the girls didn't' want to play when I was signing them up...) and is one of the 2 better players on the team. JonMichael is a born athlete, so it's ok that he's not past his first sight word list, I guess. We all have different strengths. And he hangs out on the side of the soccer field playing with the other siblings during his sibling practices so he's gotten a ton more practice. As has Kayla who's played along with Sonia/Joey's team. Sonia and Joey's team is VERY competitive. I guess this is the first year they have playoffs and rankings so winning is everything. They're ranked #2 and still undefeated. They have a great coach and I think that helps alot with Sonia liking soccer. Joey's always liked soccer and excels in pretty much any sport he tries. Except baseball. We didn't go great there, but a big part of that was we don't have a backyard for practice. In fact our neighborhood kids are here playing all the time and we've had near misses in neighbor windows up to 2 yards over. Thus anything harder than a pom pom has been confiscated.

School this year aside from JM- Kayla has Sonia's 2nd grade teacher who she adores. Joey had a new to the district teacher and so far loves that he gets 1/2 the nightly homework he used to get last year. This is the first year he gets less homework than Sonia on a regular basis. He thinks this is awesome. Sonia has a young teacher, but she seems to be doing fine. She's still mostly a loner when it comes to playing with kids at school, but I think I'd prefer a loner to some of the nonsense the 4th grade girls are getting into already. Besides she's a smart loner and doesn't think this is a problem. 

JM lost his first tooth, and in a miracle it wasn't from him jumping off the top bunk- it was just a normal wiggle loose tooth. Joey has his first orthodontist apt this week.

For fun we went to the Air Show again. Joey took tons of pictures.

I'm now on Shutterfly because that's where we share team and class info, so my pictures are there. If I can figure how to get them to share with a link, I'll be posting it. I could put up a share site and invite whoever, so that might happen next.  ok, we'll see if this works  shutterfly pictures link

ok if it doens't work let me know. it takes a year and a day for me to get pictures to loan on the blog and it's now 5 min past my 15 minutes of allotted time, Sonia is walking in so it's time to start to hit the homework before dinner and growth group. 

We went, we saw, we had fun

And here is my helpful advice:

• All passes and tickets have fast pass. All of them. We were 1/2 way through day 2 when I thought to ask how to get said things. Apparently they are free with any ticket.
• They will give you free cups of ice water if you ask at the restaurants. You don't have to haul a day's worth of cold water bottles with you. 
• Avoid the parking garage, aim for the surface lot
• Go to the fireworks show and stand/sit in front of the castle. Pick your spot an hour ahead of time and bring stuff to do while waiting. It's worth it, it's super cool. 
• Check the seat of the roller coaster after you and your kids get out to avoid the panic of returning to try to find a lost cell phone. 
• If you scream like a girl going down the roller coasters, you won't pass out from holding your breath. 
• Extra memory cards for the camera
• Avoid the pizza place there. It makes little ceasar's look and taste gourmet.

I actually purchased the striped down season passes available to southern ca residents. We can't go on any of the school vacation days or Saturdays, but we can go a good chunk of the year and gives me a reason to keep the kids out of school randomly. This of course is a good case to homeschool, however.. I learned that as long as they are in their seats at 8:15 when attendance is taken, they are considered present for that day. Besides.. it took a week of bribing Sonia with going for her to learn her multiplication facts. I forsee the threat of leaving her in school for not getting her homework done a valuable tool in the ADD toolbox.

In other news.. We had kindergarten orientation yesterday. Nothing has changed, and just incase it did with the increased insanity at the school with the parking/cones/etc... in the parking lot, I wondered... will they address the cones - are you allowed to go around or not go around the cones? Exactly what is the right way to access the kindergarten gate? Yeah. They skipped that part.  The school sends out automated recorded messages and the principal already sent a "we know the parking lot is going to be crazy, please plan ahead" message. Considering there wasn't an open parking space the day of kinder orientation, I can't wait.

So we found out that Jon has Kayla's kindergarten teacher. Who knows him as JonMichael. So after all the drama of "what are you going to be called in school" being Jon Cowles, he is in fact still going to be JonMichael this year. So says his cubbie and folders at school. Lovely. I signed up to be classroom garden parent. It appears she had other volunteers for the stuff I used to volunteer for. Besides, I'm planning on working. And I'm already involved in the garden.

The garden- I think it's a great idea, frankly, for the kids to learn where their food comes from. I've been surprised that people think my offering them fruit or veggies or eggs from our yard is either great or gross. I'm not surprised by the great response- I mean who says no to free, fresh food? It's the "you grew this? and you expect me to eat this? That's gross" response that shocks me. So the school, in following our example, has started installing solar panels, and the garden is started so that they can start growing food for the cafeteria. And compost. I can't tell you how happy I am to hear they will be composting. I'm hoping they'll switch to non-disposable trays and silverware -the amount of trash that cafeteria produces is shocking. Of course I'm a weird crunchy granola-y libertarian odd ball.

Back to school: the rest of the school's class rosters were posted today. Joey has a teacher no one has heard of before. I'm going to guess she's new. I'm hoping optimistically that this is a good thing. After last year with a newer teacher, I hesitate. Sonia has a tried and true teacher with a bunch of kids she knows. Joey has at least 2 friends/acquaintances in his class. And the fun begins on Monday. whoo hoo!!  I'd say let's party but in actuality I'll be heading to work after I drop them off. This reality stuff isn't much fun.

We're going to.....

Disneyland!!!

No. Really. We are.

As long as I don't break my ankle tonight or something equally tragic.

The kids and I. Larry's on call. And we might even stay overnight and go a second day.

Because I want to live richly. Really richly.

Because working like a dog has got to have SOMETHING to show for it.

I worked again tonight. (Bah) and while I have to say I really appreciate having been able to go bug the Docs at St Lukes for help at whim, being the Senior NP on staff is rather frightening. And that's what tonight was. And in a fun and ironic twist, I got to ask my co-NP to approve my Rx's (still, hours done, but no fancy number from the state yet) and she'd ask me what to do for her patients. Or better yet... see her patients. While she complains all night of how many patients she's booked while I'm seeing twice as many since she's still on 1/2 booked schedule.

AHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the crown jewel of tonight was a child brought in with diarrhea. Pull up his shirt and find surgical scars and steri strips. Ahem. did said child have surgery sometime recently? yes. actually he did. But he's being seen at our clinic as a walk in because he's in a great deal of pain and the surgeons office didn't answer his phone tonight.

I love my job. I love my job. I love my job.

I have to tell myself that because after paying taxes and the babysitter, the babysitter makes $2/hr more than I do.

And if she translates Spanish/English wrong or make the wrong decision she won't run the risk of getting sued.

(bangs head here)

But tomorrow, after all summer of insanity such as this, I get to find the hidden Mickeys, (opposed to the slipped mickeys) wait in lines, wear sunscreen and take lots of pictures.

And for their "what I did on my summer vacation" essays my kids will have something to remember. Insecure parenting at it's finest.

At least last year we missed that week and the whole world knew we were in CT, stranded without water, power or electricity due to a lovely hurricane. This year, I have to top a hurricane, grandparents and missing a week of school. 2 days of Disney ought to do it, I think.

Pictures to follow.

Although if I break my foot, we're not going anywhere other than the ER. I joke but I've injury prone and tripped over shoes already once tonight. So you'll either year later of the vacation day of the year or the trip of the year. Or not. I'm not all that great about updating this thing. So keep guessing and you'll hear eventually.

That was prophetic.

Last night as I was typing how good "Jon" is with scissors, guess what he was doing? Oh, I know it's a long shot.... yep. Cutting. He took not 1, not 2 but 3!! pairs of scissors to his room to bed with him. I check on him while going to yell at the girls for staying up all night and.... what do my eyes spy.. tiny confetti sized paper everywhere. Someone body decided to cut into microscopic pieces his brother's book report. I have a deal here since nothing else works. Joey will do 5 book reports and do them well, Sonia will know her multiplication, Kayla will know her addition and subtraction and JM will read 3 letter words and apparently we also need to work on knowing his name.. and in return for said skills being done and learned by Tues, they get to go to Disney. Anyone who doesn't know said skills will have their ticket sold on Craigslist.


Today I went to the Base pool with my kids and 3 more strays I picked up along the way and 2 more we picked up at the pool. (that would be 9 kids if you're counting along) I actually ran out of seats in the truck today. Sonia swore she put suncreen on her face, but her face tells another story. We even bought her the SPF 50 stick because she says that one works the best, but somehow that does not seem to be the case. Either that or it's not waterproof. Maybe I better to re-read the package.

But before I do that, I've got to go round up a few kids and return them home. I'm done having the house of perpetual chaos. I'm looking for a house of peace, tranquility, sleeping kids and maybe a glass or two of wine. Or a bowl of ice cream. Although I think there are fewer calories in wine. Decisions, decisions, decisions....

Hot. Dang hot. Maybe Global warming is happening

I know I usually live in paradise, but it appears the thermostat here in paradise is broken in the record breaking hot direction. Compared to the place in Texas Larry want to moved to, it's not hot or muggy. But we've been here 4 years. In my mind is it both hot and muggy. It's been in the 90s.

In other miserable news, the cat has gone missing. I'm guessing it was either hawk or coyote food, but he went out one night and never came back. I feel bad about that. And that I had just spent the money to get the dang thing fixed and his shots. That was a very expensive meal for coyotes. And I feel bad. He wasn't that terrible for a cat.

In less miserable news, the kids are now swimming. And without $200 of lessons this summer. We did 2 private lessons I traded eggs for and that was all it took. Well, that and it's been dang hot so I've been willing to go to the pool. Alot. I've even been swimming in it.

Back on the miserable front, I applied for life insurance again. Apparently I am insurable, but at the "there's a chance you'll drop dead rate" and this frustrates me.  At the end of 20 years, I'll have paid the amount that they might pay Larry if I die between now and then.  It's frustrating because either I have something or I don't. If you're going to decide there's something wrong with me, go ahead and tell me that to my face and start the intraferon. If you're just going to put it in my medical chart and leave me oblivious, you're making it difficult to get life insurance. And pissing me off. I'm talking you to, oh team of interns at the hospital I've seen. *sigh* I'm going to have to make an apt to have a heart to heart with my "your new primary care doctor is" intern. I get the letter every July. I'm pretty sure they assign me the worse intern ever. But I've spouted my thoughts on military medicine before. It shouldn't come as a surprise that I'm not a glowing fan.

Of course I've been operating in the bubble of I can't have "undefined demylenating disease" because no 2 neurologists can agree on it.  Tricare denied the last MRI ordered since I can't have this disease, but the life insurance policy is written that I must have it because I don't have a recent MRI documenting non-progression. I guess I shouldn't feel too bad, they wouldn't insure JM, either. They were adding riders for all the kids and he's also uninsurable. And he's only 5, he's got a lifetime of this crap ahead of him. Hopefully.

He's told the school he wants to be Jon at the kindergarten testing day. He also told him his last name was Michael. The teacher left parents outside for the testing, but had to come out to ask me "uh, what is your son's name really?" because Jon Michael wasn't on the roster. I'm not sure what else they asked him. He told me they had him cut with scissors and tell them the colors. Well, heck.. he's great with scissors- did you give him hair and/or bedsheets to cut? he's awesome at getting alot of cuts in on those. Colors? well, I thought he knew them but he was trying to tell me his black shoes were white. I though he was kidding, but he was really insistent. He'll probably be in the drooly wheelchair kindergarten class til November, just like his mother was. (ha. I should write about that someday. And people wonder why I'm weird.)

Well this weirdness has had enough internet for the night. Ramble at you later...

2 days left of school

And I think they just need to wave the white flag over the school of surrender. *I* am ready to wave the white flag. Although I didn't go help at Kayla's water day today, but Joey's water day is tomorrow and Sonia's was last week.

Water day? Oh, yes. The theme is water. They bring the fire dept here and they spray water and the kids get wet and they throw water balloon and have water related games. They didn't have this sort of thing when we were in school, that's for sure. I remember field day but that was a whole lot of 50 yard dashes and 3 legged races. Since when do you send your kid to school in a bathing suit? And since they have 1 water day for every 3 classes, the fire dept has been there for the past week. Good thing there wasn't something like a real fire in the area this week.

Oh, yes. The fire dept. That reminds me. This week I got to call 911 from work. That's always a blast. The guy was SICK SICK SICK and had called a cab to bring him to our clinic. The MA's realized that he wasn't doing well when he stumbled in the door,  brought him in a room and found me.

Mind you, I was in the wellness clinic. WELLNESS. But, hey, go ahead, call up gasping for breath, talk incoherently and get an apt for the wellness clinic. Because you're well. Riiiigght.

So, the cab brougheth and the ambulance taketh away. However in the meantime it took an hour. And the fire department came first. Then the Ambulance. I had 6 hunky ( I assume) guys in uniform blocking the hall and our gay nurse hovering checking them out (why I assume they were hunky). yeah. I love my job. 

That reminds me, I should go add up the hours I have and the hours I need and do some simple math.

Speaking of Math the awards ceremony that the note came home from school for Sonia's getting one was this am. Sonia got a writing award, one of the top 10% of creative writers in her grade. I assure you it wasn't handwriting. And an award for having 290 AR points (what they use to measure how much and how well you read- they take tests on the books they read and then are graded on those tests, ranked on how difficult the book is.

Now there are 6 teachers and each got up and announced their award (citizenship, math, reading, writing, something else I forgot and then the last teacher gets up and announced that she was giving out the perfect attendance award. The mom and dad pair I was sitting next to's daughter had not yet received her award (because if you're there, your kid is getting an award) and I could tell that perfect attendance wasn't the award they were wanting.  And the girl was sulking. Kinda like getting "nicest personality" in a beauty contest, although I'd prefer nicest personality if they MEANT I had the nicest personality and wasn't really just saying I was terrible.  We of course didn't get perfect attendance. We blew it the first week of school. hahaha.  Joey didn't get any award, which he took fairly well. Alot of kids didn't get an award and this really hasn't been his best year.

More salt in the wounds today was the girl scout cookie selling awards. Most girls sold enough to get a patch. 4 girls with my creative accounting got a Tshirt and Sonia and said perfect attendance girl got the 200- box of cookies giraffe. Of course I didn't want to sell 200 boxes. We ended up with 200 boxes because attendance girl and her mom kept selling cookies and we keep having to order more cases and I'd sell the remainder of the case at the countless booth sales we had. The booth sales rules said we had to have 2 adults and 2 kids. So having 2 girls dressed in uniforms and dragging Larry along at least twice we sold alot of cookies and all were credited to Sonia because Kayla's an unregistered girlscout in our troop.

This of course infuriated Kayla that she sold more cookies (and technically she did because she's not shy) that Sonia but Sonia got the coveted giraffe. So I spent a month looking for a stupid stuffed giraffe to give her. In retrospect I should have looked online, but I was really aiming for the same. But finally I found one and she's happy she has a giraffe even if it isn't the same. One of my scouts said "oh, I have that, but mine is a webkins" which told me it should have been easier for me to find than it was. Although I looked it up and the webkin giraffe was $50 and Kayla's was $6. So overall it wasn't a terrible choice.

So tomorrow Joey's teacher would like all the kids to bring water balloons to school.  Have I mentioned this girl hasn't got a really good grip on practicality as a family with kids? AND she suggested we transport them in containers filled with water to prevent them from breaking. Sure. I'll get right on that. I bought the water balloons. If I find 20 mintues tomorrow morning to fill them, I will. but if she thinks I'm going to haul a 50 lbs bucket of water balloons from the parking lot to school and add extra water to it... fuhgettabout it.

On the home garden front I've discovered you can dehydrate blackberries and dehydrated zucchini chips are pretty tasty and not a bad alternative to potato chips. Well, so I say. The kids still think Lays are better.

And we now have close to 50 quail. we will be selling them online. Because there's a new batch ready to hatch next week and we'll likely have 30 more. And to think, we though breeding rabbits would be exponential. This is faster, I think.

I was told to update my blog.

But you see, the trouble is I'm pretty uninspired about what to write about.

But here goes: A quick update from the week's events- Yesterday we went to an Indian Pow Wow. Or native American. Because I don't remember being to one and the kids have never gone to one.

I can honestly say that genre of music isn't my favorite, but there was chanting drum music. And dancing. It was interesting to see the costumes, too. The highlight for me was the indian fry bread, which was just like the fried dough I missed so much from home.  For the kids it was all the vendors selling rocks, slingshots, beeds, and bows and arrows. Because they had their birthday money burning a hole in their pockets they spent it. there. The boys on weapons- Joey has a bow and arrow and JM has a slingshot. And surprisingly they both seem to work. Also surprisingly (or not) was they were not in fact made by native americans and were in fact made in China. So after going to 5 booths seeing all this Chinese stuff. I went to one of the guys selling stuff and said "you work here?" yes. "who owns here?" that guy over there. [walks to said guy] "you own this store?" well, my dad does.
And the conversation went "why don't you have stuff that's made my native americans or at least not from China" and the answer was because the chinese stuff was cheap and the native stuff was expensive.

And then on the way home I realized it's not just that the Native made stuff would be expensive, it's that there is no motive for the Natives to make stuff when they get paid just for being tribe members from their tribe's casino. So why would they make bows and arrows to make a $10 profit when they make $8000 just for being alive?

So, dear friends, if you know of a redneck who wants a business you can start making cheap bow and arrows and selling them with "made in the USA" stickers on them at these powwow events. Apparently there are quite a few of them.  Who knew?

So we got home with the weapons and so far no one has shot an eye out or broken a window. And I wonder where it was that we crossed the line from cautious parents to the ones that think "eh. They'll be alright" Not sure where that boundary was, but pretty sure we passed it some time ago.

In other kid news, we have 1 week left of school. Which means we have about 15 parties to go to during school. They have water day, pizza party day and end of school day. And after the huge stink about the kids and the election and if taxes aren't raised by XYZ referendum they won't have a whole week of school. And I think "are you kidding?" they can miss a week of school and not miss a thing. Like this last week of parties. Sonia's teacher stopped giving out homework about 4 weeks ago if not longer and Kayla's gave up the homework ghost 2 weeks ago. Joey's is the only one who seems to think that it's business as usual. We're not going to miss this much next year.

The cars have all been running this week, although driving them in and out of our neighborhood has proven to be a challenge with the construction. It's hard to explain but they moved the state highway our road turned off of 50 feet further from our street, made the old street an access street for about 50 feet and then a new street/ramp winds up a temporary road to the new light at the highway for our street and the strip mall to be able to get onto the highway. But the part from our street to the windy ramp thing has been under construction. Alot. They've dug and paved and dug and hit water mains and dug and it's just been a mess. And a hassle. But this week, they decided they were going to pave part of what's been dirt for 2 months, which meant they had people standing with stop signs on sticks preventing you from going anywhere which the truck dumped the pavement and the steam roller went over it. Of course they choose to start this right when everyone's trying to get out and get to work/school. A few times of going in and out of this and I was about to drive off road and around the nuttiness. As it was I started going back over the dirt "short cut" which is infact an empty lot we used to occasionally use to get to the strip mall and home when the traffic was bad. Which leads me to ask "this is supposed to improve our lives and the traffic?!"

So while it's easier to get out onto the state highway, getting to the state highway hasn't been easy. But we're supposed to have a straight shot to it when it's done. or so they say. 

Well, Folks, that's all there is to write.

Still here. Still crazy

And this week's gem from the kids- JM. JM specifically had been testing the limits of gravity. (an aside here, he's been going by Jonathan at his friends house/daycare, so he might no longer be JonMichael by the time school starts)

I don't know why he consistently needs to test to make sure gravity still is present in his life, but he does. Lately he's been jumping. From tall things, like top bunks. The boy is a thrill seeking daredevil and will not be getting a motorcycle or car that exceeds 45 mph until he gets this out of his system. Somedays I'm not sure he needs a bike, either since sidewalks and roads are just too mundane for his need to jump off stuff, like say side walks and retaining walls.

Anyway. Last night he comes crying to me that he hurt himself. (and I try hard not to roll my eyes and say "DUH! that's what happens when you TRY to hurt yourself) and as I ask him what happened he cries " I accidentally, accidentally, uh, accidentally, uh jumped. It hit my head"
No. No, son. You don't ACCIDENTALLY jump. Of all the things in life you can accidentally do, I'm pretty sure jumping is never on that list.

In further crazy news, the word is now on the street that we have chickens. The warden didn't know until we said something about it on Memorial day. He was pretty speachless on it but his wife said she thought it was great and was happy to take a dozen eggs from us.

In smaller gamebird land, Sonia's class hatched quail also, and it appears there are 25 of them. Although they move so fast it's hard and the kids won't stop touching them and picking them up, I'm not sure I have an accurate count yet.  Kayla's class flock of 12  is now 3 weeks old and half way to mature and laying. Our incubator can house something like 100 quail eggs, so really, we're just getting started on our exponential experiment.

Although this week I was in a sleep deprived daze, apparently, when I went to feed and water them. I removed the water bottles, added food and left the door of the last cage unlatched thinking I was coming right back with the water. Although I forgot what I was doing, left the water bottles out and the door open. So we're down a quail from that. I caught one who didn't go far but another has never been seen or heard from again. So if I keep this up, exponentially growing won't happen.

The kids have 9 days left to school, Sonia's been nominated for some sort of award, so I'll be at her award ceremony next week to see what said award is. I'm guessing it will be for the child that had read every book in her teacher's class room and nearly all in the library or something like that. I'll let you know what it ends up being.

Both cars have been running this week. And we've had some mexican friends here to do a tiered landscaping project between our wall and the actually property line/ditch. Larry' hoping to get a few more feet of gardening space out of it and possibly netting it to keep all things squirrel related out of the garden. If that doens't work we have a friend who thinks it would be a blast to sit on our back wall with a beer and bb gun and target practice all night. Actually I think I'll go get some beer tomorrow and invite him over.

I don't wonder why people look at us in disbelief when they ask what DH or I do and I tell them he's a dr and I'm a nurse practitioner. We;'re wayy to redneck hillbilly for those sort of refined professions. We should be taxidermists with a side plumbing business or something like that. Or we should just recruit more redneck hillbillies for medicine. Yeah. I'm voting for option b. Or option c- look for a different job since medicine isn't what it's all cracked up to be. And that's a post for a day after I have my 540 hours to get my furnishing number and my paperwork signed off. Until that time it's OPSEC still. Nothing to see here. move along. Check back later.

Whelp. Still employed

And my arsenal of stories has grown.

In fact one of the MDs I work with has been writing books and let me read them. I'm honored and inspired. Not to become an OB as much as to write about my experiences. I know, Mom and Dad that you've told me FOREVER that I should write. I just might. I'd start online here but well.. I still hesitate about the whole patient privacy thing. In fact I heard about a patient suing a dr for writing a story that was about her even without any identifying information.

To which I ask...... if there wasn't any identifying information:
a. how did you know it was you
b. why did the dr admit it was you when you said it was you?
c. why did the Dr use his (or her, but I think it was a his) real name in authoring the book?

Because as I see it, if I write a book under an assumed name in a fictitious town with identifying information changed about my identifying information lacking patient there wouldn't be a problem, right?  Because if SuzyQ patient in Podunk imaginary town Georgia written by fictional person who has never lived in Georgia is going to be hard to prove by Juanita in Southern CA that the story is about her. Right?

However... Since this blog wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where I was, who I was and where I work... I'll just maintain OPSEC or whatever that stupid acronmym is the military uses for internet silence on all things important. So nothing to read here, move along now.

In other worlds, the kids have been surviving the standardized test month of school. And when the rest of the testing is done it's pretty much party til the end of the school year as far as the kids (and parents) are concerned. Of course we have one teacher this year who I'm pretty sure will be still assigning and grading homework on the second to last day of school, but I'm really hoping the aliens will return the human and take the robot they left in her place back to space. oh dear. I just wrote that. whelp... It's not a patient and violating patient confidentialty and I'd say that all identifying informaiton is removed, but who am I kidding? I only have 1 kid who has a teacher who could possibly be mistaken for robot barbie teacher. So, yes, Miss S, I am talking about you. Can you please check your back and turn the switch back to "human" from "busy homework monseter" thanks. 

Kayla's egg hatching project went well, although day 3 into the chicks being in the room her teacher decided the smell was just too much so we took them home. They live under an open window right now til they get moved out to the shed. Although in her class we promised the kids they could take one home if their parents approved. So we might not have too many to keep. Although we're going to try to keep the recessive gene ones if possible.

And since things went so well with Kayla's class, Sonia's class now has the full incubator in her room. This of course is genius because a.) we're not paying the electric bill b.) the kids all get to see life and c.) the teachers think we're crazy but a little cool. Probably alot crazy. But we have at least a little coolness factor. In fact all I need to do is walk around school campus with a cat carrier or hampster case full of quail and I'm the pied piper of elementary school. I bet if I showed up with a bus I could take a few dozen kids with me. Of course I would also get arrested. So I'm rethinking that plan. That and the fact that it's darn near impossible for me to manuver the excursion around the parking lot at school I could imagine what an actual yellow bus might be like.

As it is I got myself stuck in the parking garage at work today. Well, not REALLY stuck but just couldn't get it into one parking space. 2 and 1/2 the drive area, yes. Parking garages in Southern CA are not meant for anything larger than a Camry. Seriously. But if it wasn't so crowded here, we wouldn't need parking garages. That is my biggest annoyance with living here- sharing it with something like 6 million people. (documented, the actual number is higher than it appears) Working in the spanish speaking community clinic has tilted my perspective so it might not be 19 million undocumented, but it certainly feels that way somedays.

Larry and I are back to 2 cars, one of them being the truck. So which ever of us is driving the least is the one who drives the truck. Most days that would be me. This is because Larry's car has decided it's had enough of this reliable running thing and had enjoyed not 1, not 2 but now 3 visits to a mechanic this month. When Larry was gone to the field (military speak for he went camping in one of the desert locations with a bunch of Marines to play war or practice shooting stuff like at war) he took my car so I could take his ot the mechanic. We're lucky enough to live close to the bus line so droping a car of and taking the bus home isn't a huge issue. Time consuming, sure, but it does make you appreciate having your own reliable transportation. JM of course thinks it's a blast to take the train and bus home. So after dropping his car off I'd had the truck to drive last week and since it decided it missed it's good buddies there it threw a fit and a hose and is back there again.

We offered to lend a car to friends moving overseas who had to have their car shipped, so we were planning on being down to 2 cars anyway, but thankfully our friends haven't needed it but we're still practicing. It wouldn't be a problem at all if I wasn't working. It's this working stuff that kills me. Well.. Actually it's not even the working as much as it is the driving JM to his babysitter on the way to work. So next yr it'd be fine to walk the kids to school and the bus to work. I really love being close enough to use public transit. Just enough country to have chickens and just enough suburbs to be on a bus line. Best of both worlds. And no winter to boot. What's not to love?!

Speaking of chickens. Chicks are now off the heat and I'm faced with the fact athat we might have too many chickens. Like 4x the Official San diego city limits, although being county it's a bit harder to interpret the actual regulations and who might enforce what. the 2 we hatched are just the funniest looking things ever (go look on facebook) but we have a sinking suspecion that one might be a rooster, so sadly we might be saying goodbye sooner than later.

Still no goat, dog or outdoor cat. Or cow or horse. Although Sonia's birthday present horse back riding lesson is Friday, so we'll see. I hear horse manure is great for gardens.

MUST. NOT. DO, IT

Oh but I want to write about work stuff. Of course I can't share 99% of the stuff I want to narrate about. Hippa and all that.

However. I can share a few bits of helpful advice for those who work in the medical field.

1. If a 80 year old woman calls up saying she's having terrible stomach pains like labor pains she does not need to be seen by the  obstetrics clinic.  Shy of Abraham and Sarah I'm pretty sure she's not actually pregnant. Especially when she's had a hysterectomy.

2.  Similarly if someone calls up saying they passed out, hit their head and are bleeding and want to schedule their pap while they're on the phone with the clinic, the head injury is the more pressing issue. Really.
 
3.   Universally to do a pap smear, the patient cannot remain fully clothed. At least not from the waist down. 

4. When talking to patients who get care across the border, it's helpful to include details such as "they had surgery last week" And what said surgery was. Especially major surgery. 

5. The "I had a rash last month and what to know what it was" visit -  It's kinda hard to reverse time to see said rash, especially when the only description is "it was itchy" was it pink or red? no, it was itchy. Was it bumpy? no it was itchy.  When you looked at your skin, could you see anything? no it was only itchy. How long did you have it? I dunno, a day? Did it go away? yes. Has it ever come back? no.
They why are you here, again?
Dear schedulers- we can't travel in time, please don't give apts to evaluate resolved problems. It confuses those of us who think there is actually something to see or fix. And it's kinda hard to code for a "there could have been something but now it's gone" diagnosis. I haven't found the ICD9 code for that one, yet.

6. "El Aire" and it's sister "inflammada" -  it's the Pandora box that in involved with many ailments. There is no xray, test or drug you can use to rid one of these demons. In fact I'm thinking of marketing holy water capsules for it.  Actually Holy Water/Miralax capsules might do the trick???




To be continued..............

Dear Internet: I hate you

Really. Don't get me wrong, I use you. Alot. But really I can't stand what you've turned people into.

You go from someone complaining about something at home to blogging about it, perhaps as a guest blog somewhere and suddenly there are 400 comments saying "you're right, that's terrible" when really.. it wasn't. I mean seriously does it REALLY make that big a deal if your shade of red wasn't the one you wanted sort of thing? Did that "friend" really do such a terrible thing that it needed to be posted online and be validated that that person is indeed a terrible person in their eyes?

As you might be able to tell, I'm in a mood. And no, it isn't that time of the month. I had gotten online to look something up, some "article" caught my eye and I realize there are entire sites dedicated to cattiness. Cattiness of all sorts of varieties. There are the cats that complain about those with too many kids, the cats that complain about single people, the cats that nit pick everything with a pulse around them... and we seem drawn in to it. We rally around this crap.

It's just nauseating to see these dens of malcontent spurring each other on to more malcontent. Seriously. Pick a topic. Anything. Google (Bing or whatever search engine you want) it and find a forum, blog or article complaining about it. Better yet. Pick a public persona or TV show.  If you're not picking anything find something that has to do with moms, mommies or pregnant people.

Suddenly I see how people have blog "giveaways" and reviews. As a business owner I'd gotten hundreds of requests for giveaway items and a promise of a review. So if I wanted to make sure I had good blog posts out there, you essentially have to put it out there with that sort of bribe. Frankly I didn't get it at the time. I mean really anyone with a blog (and as you can tell from this blog ANYONE can start one on anything) can say "hey, I have a blog called Swirley Smiles and Giggles and I love your product and want to do a review. Can you donate an item to review and one to giveaway? A link to my blog is here"

Oh. great Idea. I think I'll do that.

"Dear Volkswagon, I really love your TDI's. I'd love to do a review of them on my blog "Everything Sunshine and Roses". Would you be willing to donate a new 2012 TDI, in white, with seating for 6 or more, for me to review and one for a giveaway for my 6 million readers? Thank you!"

Seriously. Some of the requests were extremely specific. But, hey, can't fault them for trying. Well. I did. But, anyhow.......

I'll let you know if I get my new TDI for a giveaway.  But I wouldn't give away your current mode of transportation.

Not everything is sunshine and roses

Lest you get that impression from my absence here online that it is.  We've skirted a few disasters and have stumbled through life the past few weeks.

Work is just... well... there are alot of mixed feelings there and I'm just not sure about it. Frankly, if it was just about the money I think I could make more with the diaper thing if I was willing to do it full time. But the lag time between ordering and making money is pretty much a year so that's kinda out of the question. That and I swore I would NEVER EVER do another move with inventory from behemoth of a business again.

Not that I see a move in our immediate future. But you never can tell with us.  In fact at the rate we're acquiring farm animals and their accessories you'd swear we weren't ever going to move. As it is, the duck needs to move on to his new home now that he can walk. I should be listing him on Craigslist now. Instead I'm here. The problem with him being able to walk now is that he's going to be that much harder to catch, put in a box and give him away. With the broken leg and injured wing he wasn't going anywhere fast when we picked him up and brought him here.

Not that he could fly, even if he wanted to. He's the non flying kind of duck. Yeah. you read that right- does.not.fly. Although when I brought him home, I was thinking "well, when he's healed, he'll just fly off to some happy place with a lake or something" but once we did our  research on him, we know know that domestic Pekin ducks can't fly. They're too fat and been breed to be raised on farms, not in the wild. The reality is the duck is going because he's a boy and really not all that useful other than entertainment/ambiance and pooping on the patio.


And this duck is getting fatter by the day he's here. Because the boy loves bread and bread crusts and I have 3 kids who have gone on strike from eating said bread crusts.. so he eats them.  Usually out of someone's hand. Although not mine today since I tried to catch him yesterday- he hasn't forgiven me for that yet, apparently.

On the rest of the farm front area, we managed to hatch 2 chicks from the fertile eggs we got. Unfortunately our broody hen decided to die 1/2 way through the incubation period so we didn't get the hatch rate we were hoping for. Broody is when the hen decides she's going to sit on eggs to hatch them. Our hens usually could care less about their eggs once they announce to the world that they just laid one.

But of course running a brooder for only 2 chick isn't great use of our resources so we have 4 more under there now. I think we might have an illness here. 2 of them are supposed to be show chickens that Sonia can show for the 4H this year- if I can find out how to sign her up.

And because.. well.. just because...Kayla shares ALL our craziness with her teacher, we'd talked to Kayla's teacher about the eggs hatching thing and said "hey, wanna hatch them in your room?" and so they are. Potentially 25 of them. Quail that is. Of course I mixed up the hatch/incubation times so there's a chance that they'll hatch over the weekend and no one will see it happen (argh. figures)

So the grand total thus far is 5 laying hens, 12 quail, 6 chicks, 1 duck,  25 cooking eggs, 1 duck and a partridge in a pear tree. Humm.. actually I wonder where I can get a partridge and what you'd do with it.

Oh dear. I should not have googled that. They're like quail. I *could* raise them.  And that is how we end up with a petting zoo of feathered animals. I'm ready for things with fur. I think.

On the kid front, we had back to school night this week. I'm still not sure what back to school night is supposed to be, but it's an open house of sorts where the kids and their parents go into the student's room and see the artwork on the walls, etc. In Kayla's room the theme on their theme wall was eggs. As in hatching them. I'm holding my breath that the kids haven't asked for a detailed description from Kayla about the difference between fertile and non-fertile eggs but she's use those words alot in her trying to educate her class on the egg thing. I'm not sure she even understands it more than "you need a rooster to have baby chicks."

Joey's classroom has the over achieving teacher who had a clip board and check list for the student to review with their parents. And the room was decorated ALOT like hours of work. She had the kids bring in a change of clothes and shoes and stuffed them with crumpled paper and put them in their seats, too. I'm not sure where the paper came from because among the newspaper in "Joey's" pants was someone's mortgage paperwork. I'm guessing a paper recycling bin and part of me wanted to mail the paperwork back to the address listed and say "you really want this stuff out for others to see?" but then decided "heck, they recycled it, so can I" and just tossed it into our recycling bin.

Soina. Well. Sonia's bright. She tests well. IF she can concentrate on the test long enough to finish it. I forsee looming bigger issues and probably Ritalin in her future. She's testing off the charts, still, but she's dropping points. For the third quarter in a row, now, I think. He teacher is nice and been very patient with her, and he's been teaching a while so I'm hoping he's being so laid back about her "forgetting" her homework all the time and completing nothing in class is from his experience and not from his lack of wanting to try to tackle the elephant in the room. She's not disruptive, she just scribbles instead of writing answers until time runs out. I had been thinking she just didn't know the answers, so we'd been working on her math facts alot but in reality it's just that the squirrels in her head can't seem to stop long enough for her brain to communicate to her fingers that the answer to 5x5 is 25 and write the number 25 on the paper.

Of course her father and I have our own squirrel issues, so it's not like we don't know what's going on.

Speaking of squirrels, we are once again loosing the ground squirrel (which his bushy tail and all) war. Dang things dug up and ate my seed potatoes this year, ate through my basket with other seed potatoes in it and keep picking my strawberries. Larry has been out with the bb gun but it seems to do nothing to them and dreams of using something with a .22 caliber bullet on them. This of course is illegal here so we won't. But I'm kinda wondering how many cats I would need to liberate in the back woods to take care of the squirrel problem and at what rate would I need to replace them because the coyotes ate them? And would they put a big dent in the rabbits back there, because I kinda like the rabbits. And then I can't let the quail run free in the yard, either. Of course the last time I tried that he decided he liked the shed better, afterall. And the time a baby quail got loose he sat on the patio peeping til I found and caught him.  Oh, yeah. They can't fly, either. They take big jumps flapping their wings, but they are also flightless birds and I don't think they can get more than 3 feet off the ground.

Well, it's getting late here in crazy game bird land. Feel free to visit. We'll leave the light on for you and all.

Pictures!!

Or lack thereof has been on my mind this month.

You see.. wayy back when we lived in VA I had a computer without enough memory to put my picture on it. And left them on my SD card.

And now that I'm looking for said pictures I realize that SD card was taken with my stolen camera. And the few pictures I had on my computer really aren't quite enough to fill a scrap book. And sure, I put a few up here, but alot of those weren't scrap book sorts of picture, I think.

And to top it off.. we had a home server. That's past tense. It died. Larry resurrected it enough to transfer the pictures to a new home server. And this week that one died. He's been kinda busy this week and hasn't tried to resurrect it enough to save my beloved pictures.

So right now I have... uh. the twins early pictures on CD and 2011 and up.

I'm taking deep breaths and trying not to freak out about this.

And I had a little voice in my head say "hey, you should back this stuff up on CD" and had started that process but that's when the server died.

ARGH!

So.. if you (ahem, mom and dad) have pictures of us I'd greatly appreciate a CD of them at some point. Otherwise I guess I'll just have to find some random pictures online and tell the kids that's what they looked like when they were little. Think it'll work?

Yep it's been forever.

Again.

A quick summary if you're not on Facebook (which despite my privacy and big brother government reservations... I still use. Because it has an app) we took a vacation. A real live vacation. And while we did technically visit family on this vacation, the purpose of it was just to travel and see stuff. And touch it.

One of the cool things about traveling with little to no plans is that there isn't a hotel reservation to get to or an objective to arrive at by x day.. so when we to got Las Vegas to rent a trailer and decided that wasn't in our best interest after all.. instead of heading north as originally planned, we headed south west to see the Grand Canyon.

The other cool thing was when we wanted to get off the road and explore and touch the cool rocks and stuff.. we did. It took alot of the monotony of travel out of long travel that first 2 days.

And Larry and I (more emphasis on the Larry part) are pros at driving at all hours, and infact have pulled a few overnight trips since having kids, so with pillows, blankets and enough snacks to feel a village in Mexico we can travel as long as we can stand it. That also helped with the flexibility.

The not so great stuff... because we didn't have the trailer, we did end up having to find hotels along the way. And there are some places of this great big country that the next hotel is 9o miles away... but having "smart" phone, a AAA guide with hotels listed and an atlas helped. Alot. Of course we got the Atlas 4 states into our trip when we realized that
a. yes. in 12 years roads to change. Particularly the one that used to go over the Hoover dam.
b. Cell service is not a right and in most of utah and idaho it's not even a privilege
c. Dance moms. Google it. Apparently it's a big phenomenom which books up hotels in the middle of no where. We hit 3 towns with big dance things going on, thus limited vacancy and not the affordable sort of vacancy.

But overall it was a once in a lifetime trip.

In other news. Easter came and went, we had company. It was fun and I think we should do it more often. In fact I'm thinking monthly or twice monthly. Maybe not AS many people but a few would be great.

Our petting zoo is now hatching chickens, fancy 4-h kinds, apparently. I went to work and came home to Larry and the kids with fertile eggs they got from Craigslist. We tried liberating one of our quail who decided the wild was just too wild for him and found his way back into the shed hanging out under the cages. Goats keep getting mentioned but I'm just not there yet. And considering we live on 1/10 of an acre our animal menagerie is going to be somewhat limited by space. Actually 1/10 might be an exaggeration, it's probably less.

Work's been going ok. Most days I think it's ok, but some days I think "And I thought I missed THIS?!!???!!!"   But, hey... I'm back at work, I'm working towards that stupid furnishing number hours and will be able to re-qualify for board certification.. So what could be bad about that?

And as much as I have stories I want to share about the horrors I've seen at work... I've been reading about blogs and such getting people in trouble when they share stuff about their patients.. HIPPA and all that.. so you'll just have to guess at all the fun I've been having. And then some because at least 1/2 my day is in Spanish. HA. And my parents thought Latin was the better language to take in high school. But I guess their crystal ball of my future did not include my working in a free clinic in the area of  US that could pass for parts of Mexico. Viva la Vida!!

So to catch you up on this week's fun

This week we hatched quail. So far 2 have hatched and there have been some other rolling of other eggs but nothing has popped out so far.

In fact Saturday AM I wandered into the kitchen and heard a squeeking and though "oh, great, we have a mouse stuck in here?!" and followed the sound until I saw this tiny little ball of fuzz in the egg warmer.

I have pictures on facebook- wander over there if you haven't seen them.

A few hours later while the boys and I were at baseball chick #2 popped out. Sonia got to witness it, which in itself is pretty cool, I think. I still haven't seen anything pop out of an egg in real life.

This of course wasn't great timing on our part because we're hoping to get out of town on Wednesday. We have a house/animal sitter who'll care for them but we'll be away for it if more hatch after Wed. Do these things are about twice the size of a large grape, fuzzy and just oh so cute. 

But we're planning on temporarily obtaining a camping trailer and using it as we make our way on our completely not planned vacation. Which is pretty much the opposite of any family vacation memory I had as a kid. In fact I'm pretty sure my dad even had each potty break/pit stop planned.  About all I've planned for is to go buy a map, so we'll have one and to go to AAA and make sure our member card in my wallet refects the current number of my policy. Because I've learned along the road of life, if you're prepared for the problems, they're not as likely to happen. And besides if you're bringing a trailer finding a place to sleep isn't as big a problem. Larry and my trip from VA to CA went rather well with the sleeping in the back of the truck method of traveling so we're going to attempt it with a camping trailer and kids.

We've started baseball. It's only taken 5 seasons of playing here to find out that after the season starts that you can go to youth sports and ask for a team change so that your kids practice on the same night. That would have been handy info to have before. But since I have it now, I had JM's team changed so that we're only at baseball 4 times a week instead of 5. I aimed for 3 times but apparently there's only so much magic to go around.

So the answer is

H and R block. They get to try to figure out the piles of paper I have here. I give up.

The homestead front continues plunking along. The chickens are still an experiment in progress. The new chicken was clearly the lowest in pecking order in her last flock and was getting picked on alot with our 3 mamas. So we put the 3 adolescent chicks into the flock since they're about the same size as the new hen and even they tend to pick on her when they're not getting picked on by the older ones.

The first hour of putting them in together was a racket. One of them was SO loud and making Guinnea fowl noises and I really questioned my sanity. They've since settled down to less noise, but I was sure the neighbors were going to throw a fit. Not the ones closest to the chickens, but pretty much any of the other ones. We're getting along well with the ones next to the chickens. Besides, we share eggs with them and they're coming over for Easter. With who ever they invite. So I'm not entirely sure who we'll have here for Easter. But we won't be alone.

We introduced the concept of Lent to the kids but we're not doing the full "give something up" this year.  This is actually a pretty big step since Larry was not a fan of alot of the Catholic traditions but he made me my advent wreath this year and contributed to the discussion of Lent. I even bought fish for friday. That might put him over the edge since the original reason for fish had nothing to do with Jesus and everything to do with the church using it's power to support fishermen. But on the menu for tomorrow is fish. We have friends raising Tilapia so I'm considering  trading some eggs for more fish. The current fish in my freezer came from the grocer and farmer's market. Those come already gutted and cleaned, which is pretty much the only way I want to prepare fish.

In other news, the insulation people are back here for the 3rd time fixing the house's insulation issue. Hopefully the rodent will leave now. And our bedroom won't be 10 degrees colder than the rest of the house.  By the time this house is perfect we'll be ready to move. And then we'll have to re-home a zillion animals or sell them with the house. I wish I was kidding. Although a zillion might be an over-exaggeration. Probably just a few million.

Although nothing is due to hatch for another 2 weeks. And our rabbit doesn't yet have a mate. Yet. And we haven't actually acquired a pair of dairy goats. Yet.

In search of

A CPA. Or maybe some other accounting type.

Because I'm just not getting it done. And it's another file-in-two states plus business from the home year. And the credit for the solar panels.

A assembled all the forms and booklets and receipts and it's 2 inches thick.  I haven't even logged into tax-act and I 'm pretty sure my business books remain unfinished too, tho I haven't looked there for some time now, either.

Worked out a babysitting swap which should be working well for us per-diem types. However it didn't work today when work called at 7:58 to see if I could work at 8.  If I could have brought JM it would have worked fine. However it isn't bring your preschooler to work day. *sigh* I just have to put up with this until he starts school in August.

Well, that's all for now, folks off to bury myself in accounting work. Oh yeah, and rescue a chicken later today.  Because we're crazy. But if you've read much of this blog you already knew that.

Fab Friday

Well if I think positively it'll be that way, right?

On the agenda today is finding the baseball uniform missing pieces for the boy's new teams. Fun times. And buy jock straps. Oh the stuff I didn't consider with having boys.

In other news we have only 50-something girls scout cookies left to sell in the next 2 weeks. This sounds like a ton, of course but we've sold almost 800, so 50 doesn't seem insurmountable. The light is at at the end of the tunnel.

The quail project isn't going quite as well as planned. Yesterday we got zero eggs and we're starting to think we have 4 boys and 2 girls instead of the other way around. Of course I'm reading about quail and you're supposed to be able to pick them up, flip them over and inspect the anatomy and tell what gender they are. Unfortunately for me, I can't seem to figure this out. Good thing I didn't pick veterinary school. If it wasn't for my rabbit humping things like an adolescent dog, I wouldn't be sure he was a boy, either.

Of course this is prompting the dilemma of  'at what point do the kids need to know the birds and the bees?'   Because they saw the quail mating. And thought it was hysterical. And then started yelling  "they're mating!!" all the time. yeah. great. They think the bunny is just "attacking" things particularly the stuffed animal we gave him so he's leave the kid's legs and arms alone. I'm a little afraid they'll go into school and decide to educate everyone on it. Kayla announced to her teacher and class about the quail the first day of school after getting them. Nothing secretive here. Our teacher knows our neighborhood and asked "you have all this at your house?! in your neighborhood?!" and I admit "yeah" I'm going to have to invite her over some day. She's house and babysat for a neighbor so she's familiar with the neighborhood. AND the neighbor she house/babysat for isn't really the sort to live near someone with chickens and quail and composting and livestock. So it probably adds to the surprise.  When Larry was working on the cages for the rabbit and quail in the drive way, he did get a few neighbors stopping to ask what he was doing. Specifically was he getting chickens and/ or a rooster.  Especially not a rooster. He assured them no rooster and it was going to be quail and rabbit. And they walked away relieved.

And as we're trying to hatch eggs here, I realize... what if they do hatch? There's a chance we will have a rooster here. At least until we find it a new home. I'm not 100% at what point they start crowing. I'm guessing that when the chicks go from peeping to clucking is when the rooster would start crowing. Stay tuned. I'll let you know.

We're using an incubator which looks like a big styrofoam box with a heating element at the top that appears to be the kind from an electic skillet. We were hoping that our chickens would get broody, meaning they want to sit and hatch eggs but since they haven't and since Larry bought the incubator for the quail eggs and since the feed store offered us fresh eggs from the hens with a rooster in the pen with them.... We candled them and decided to try to hatch the ones that looked like there was potential. 6 of them I think. Maybe 8? I could get up and go peek in the box, but I'm already wasting time here instead of getting in the car and going to the bank for the girlscout deposit or baseball uniform accessories.

Alright. I really do need to get moving here. Back to life where the kids are loud, the adults are a little crazy, and the homestead is a work in progress...