It's that time of year again

Which time? oh let me see....

Taxes (which means I have to scrounge up all the receipts and stuff and put them in Quickbooks before I can even start to do my taxes)

Garden planting

Girl scout cookies

The start of birthday season

JM's Bday was yesterday. I hold a pretty firm stance that until you're in school I'm not throwing a big party.  We went to Chuck e cheese on Friday night and then had cake/ice cream/presents yesterday on the actual birthday. To be specific, the kids had ice cream and frosting from the cake. I don't know why I bother with the cake itself. Next year I'll stick candles in a tub of icing and skip the cake part.

A big part of me is in disbelief that my baby is 5. My brain's realized that he's not been a baby for a long time now, but the realization that he's 5 and starting kindergarten is sinking in that perhaps I'm not a young as I might want to believe. The game that I'm 29 isn't fooling 1/4 of the kids so far I think it won't be long before the rest of them figure it out. Nevermind I was 30 the year I had the twins.. nope. I tell them I'm 29.  Larry hasn't played along with this game so it really doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math that says "if daddy is one year older than  mommy and daddy is 39... mommy is 39 minus 1... hummmm.. that's not 29!?!!!" Only 1 has bothered with that detail. And it's not my math wiz.

In other news: I am "cookie mom" for our girl scout troop. Out of default. And no, I am not happy about this. Mostly because it's a headache and I really don't have a whole lot of time or interest to devote to this. AND I'm annoyed about the whole girl scouts letting a cross dressing boy into the girl scouts because he "identifies as a girl." Seriously. Google it. It happened in Colorado. (not California. I know my parents think CA is pretty much the far left of Sodom and Gomorrah but seriously not all things perverse originate out of here.)

Anyway. Larry wanted me to resign that week on account of that nonsense, but I felt bad that I made a commitment to the girls to do this troop this year.  It's not their fault that the GS big-wigs are hard core left wing feminists. BUT I'm not looking forward to selling cookies which essentially promotes and funds this sort of insanity. My girls/troop gets about .$65/box, the "council" (bureaucrats) of the GS get about $2/box per box sold. And that irritates me, too. Before I was Cookie mom, I didn't have access to the numbers. Now that I have access I see that these girls get very little for each box sold and the lions share goes to fund the Girl scouts in general. If you're a huge supporter of GS, that's fine. Since I'm kinda peeved that their political and social policies go against my beliefs I'm not really looking to support them financially.

So against my better judgement and beliefs I'm here organizing said financial support.

Also, unique to here they have "operation thin mint" which people can buy a box of cookies which are sent directly overseas to our troops. Great, huh? But the profits are still sent to the troop and GS same as if you bought the box and ate it yourself, so it's not as altruistic as it might seem. But here in military land, there is some patriotism that buys these boxes. And part of me chafes at the thought that they are exploiting conservative support of the military for their financial gain. I might be over-thinking things. I am kinda cynical some days, but there you have it. My honest thoughts.

Dear GS organization, please feel free to relieve me of my positions for having views not in line with Girl scout values. But seeing as said positions are unpaid, unappreciated and without other volunteers to replace me....

The garden: Larry's been FarmerCowles these days, building and setting up lattice for my peas, sunflowers,  cucumbers, and pole beans to grow up. He's staked and put up string to plan out the garden and built raised beds for us to move our strawberry messes to.  Last year we tried a more square foot garden approach, but the end result was a mess. The carrots didn't grow much and didn't appear to love the tomatoes at all. The tomatoes became a vine-y mess and took over  everything nearby and made harvesting difficult. This year we're skipping the tomato cages which didn't contain or support them at all and going with old fashioned stakes.

The chicks from last spring are now laying so we have 3 layers again, and 3 young chicks still 4 or months out from laying. Larry has thoughts and plans to add quail to our poultry. For eating, apparently. I'll let you know if this actually happens. *I* have no plans on butchering anything. Sure I can cut and sew up a human, but to kill a bird and get it ready to eat? welll... I'd have to be really really hungry. I'm not there. Not even close.

And now back to the tax time. I guess it's time to actually load up quickbooks here. *sigh* it's going to be a long day already.