And the kids are packing for their trip to Grandma and Papa's house.
I don't see a single item of clothing in their suitcases. And Joey's started on cramming his backpack full of stuff. Never mind that there are 3 chess sets there, he wants to bring the one they brought him. And you'd think that the girls can't sleep without 15 stuffed animals. Don't kid yourself. They don't sleep with or without stuffed fluffed fomite covered things.
In other news... the guys are back to try to get the solar panel inspection passed this time.
I know.. you're thinking "wow. solar they must be rich" no. But we ran the numbers and we can pay the credit union monthy or we can pay the electric company monthly. At least with the credit union, there's a payoff date. And once the electric company installed a new meter last year our use went up 40%. It seemed awfully suspicious and it's not like you can shop around for a less fishy company. And we live in the land of perpetual sun. So much so I'm almost ready to say I'm ready for a break from perpetual sun. Never thought I'd say that. And I don't want too long a break. I think1 week in ct ought to be fine for that.
But anyway.. in perpetual sun we can make electricity from said sun. Sadly, because we can't get the backup batteries and generator you'd need to be completely off grid, we're still on the grid. And there's still that gas and water issue we are grid bound for. *sigh*
We bought our cranky neighbor off with fresh eggs and got 2 more chickens. Chicks, actually. Yeah. Larry ought never let me go back to the feed store without him. They had kittens there, also. He did draw the line at those. I don't even like cats. But I was thinking, well, an outdoor cat might catch the dang squirrels that keep eating my garden... Larry's been waging war with a bb gun and after I threatened to bring home a cat, he put out poison. Anyway.. the chicks are now 5 weeks old and really cute. They're in the rabbit's original cage until they're big enough the hens won't kill them. "Pecking order" has actual meaning when it comes to chickens. As does the term "squawk like a hen" in case you were wondering.
Welll.... Joey's here insisting that we read the next chapter in Tom Sawyer. We missed it last night, and he want so read. It's out of character for him to want to read anything, so I guess I should take the opportunity while it presents itself.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Lest you think life is dull around here just because I don't blog about it
I thought I'd share a little glimpse of what an hour here is like.
For example, this am.... I decided to take a shower.
I know. Ground shattering news, but if you're a mother you know anytime you take a shower during the kids' awake hours, you're living dangerously. After Larry was done, I notice JM was awake and without his older siblings to keep him from burning the house down, there was no way I was showering. Not to worry, he had them awake and screeching in about 12 minutes.
So after feeding them breakfast and telling them to get changed and clean their rooms....
(ah ha.. my secret.. I tell them to get dressed and clean their rooms, they disappear into their rooms for about 20 minutes. Not that they actually CLEAN them or get dressed.. but they go and play or read quietly so that perhaps I'll forget I told them to do something and not notice they're not doing it. I of course am wise to this, so I can take the opportunity to take a shower. I can't use the time to use the phone, because the magnetic draw of the phone being on is just too great for them to remain away and not have a loud and urgent catastrophe while on said phone.)
And we have swimming lessons today and after Monday's lesson as I was putting on my bathing suit, I realized I couldn't remember the last time I shaved my legs and decided today I really should do that. Today. Before swim lessons.
I know, this is getting into the Too-Much-Information stage.. but... ANYWAY.. it's why my shower was longer than 2.2 minutes this am.
Because longer than 2.2 minutes was the time it took the boys to get dressed, go out into the backyard and find a "dinosaur bone" Which they then bring into the house, fight over until Joey puts it in his pocket.
This said dinosaur bone was about the size of a rabbit or squirrel leg bone and probably about 2 weeks old and carrying all sorts of disease and pestilence.
And the girls were chasing him to see it, still in pajamas.
And THAT my friends is why I don't shave my legs. Just in case you've been judging me and my fashion sense. It's not a political hippy statement. It's self, or rather, child preservation. And by the time they're old enough that I can trust them longer than 2.2 minutes, I shudder to think what their ingenuity will be able to accomplish in 4.2 seconds. As it is, Joey's made a functioning tazer out of legos and batteries. Yes. I'm worried, too. Either he'll be a serial psycho or he'll be the next MacGuiver. I'm hoping and praying for MacGuiver.
For example, this am.... I decided to take a shower.
I know. Ground shattering news, but if you're a mother you know anytime you take a shower during the kids' awake hours, you're living dangerously. After Larry was done, I notice JM was awake and without his older siblings to keep him from burning the house down, there was no way I was showering. Not to worry, he had them awake and screeching in about 12 minutes.
So after feeding them breakfast and telling them to get changed and clean their rooms....
(ah ha.. my secret.. I tell them to get dressed and clean their rooms, they disappear into their rooms for about 20 minutes. Not that they actually CLEAN them or get dressed.. but they go and play or read quietly so that perhaps I'll forget I told them to do something and not notice they're not doing it. I of course am wise to this, so I can take the opportunity to take a shower. I can't use the time to use the phone, because the magnetic draw of the phone being on is just too great for them to remain away and not have a loud and urgent catastrophe while on said phone.)
And we have swimming lessons today and after Monday's lesson as I was putting on my bathing suit, I realized I couldn't remember the last time I shaved my legs and decided today I really should do that. Today. Before swim lessons.
I know, this is getting into the Too-Much-Information stage.. but... ANYWAY.. it's why my shower was longer than 2.2 minutes this am.
Because longer than 2.2 minutes was the time it took the boys to get dressed, go out into the backyard and find a "dinosaur bone" Which they then bring into the house, fight over until Joey puts it in his pocket.
This said dinosaur bone was about the size of a rabbit or squirrel leg bone and probably about 2 weeks old and carrying all sorts of disease and pestilence.
And the girls were chasing him to see it, still in pajamas.
And THAT my friends is why I don't shave my legs. Just in case you've been judging me and my fashion sense. It's not a political hippy statement. It's self, or rather, child preservation. And by the time they're old enough that I can trust them longer than 2.2 minutes, I shudder to think what their ingenuity will be able to accomplish in 4.2 seconds. As it is, Joey's made a functioning tazer out of legos and batteries. Yes. I'm worried, too. Either he'll be a serial psycho or he'll be the next MacGuiver. I'm hoping and praying for MacGuiver.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
It's been another week here in paradise
Well, actually paradise is about 10 miles due west of here. It's been pretty dang hot here. But All I have to do is drive 15 minutes and I and get to paradise...
We're wrapping up our last week of swimming lessons. Three of the four kids advanced to the "sinks slower than a stone" class, however, one thought she was cleaver in getting just her hair wet and not her face when they were supposed to go underwater, so she failed. She's in rock class, however, when we realized she was the last one in the sinking rock class, she became motivated and should catch up. I'm not sure if the rest will "graduate" their current class, but even if they do, I don't see us re-enlisting anytime soon.
But we did learn that you can take advantage of their free swim time before/after/during swimming lessons so when we got there 30 minutes early for class, the kids got to play in the pool, and then while the big kids were in class JM could play and when JM was in class the big kids could practice and when JM was done they could all play until their mother decided she'd had enough. Funny, with all the pool time we've had this month, yesterday the kids were done at the same time I was. lol. Usually I have about 20 minutes after swim lessons are all done before I've had enough. Enough sun, enough noise, enough water...
But I like the pool far more than I like the beach, so.. I'm far more willing to go there than the beach. You see... the pool doesn't come with sand that gets in everything. AND if you're lucky you can snag a poolside chair instead of parking on sand and/or hauling a chair/blanket/cooler/umbrella/sand toys from the car.
Which, if you're my kids, you're willing to help carry something to the beach until we actually get to the beach, then you kick off your shoes and run leaving your mother with a pile of shoes, sand toys and food and drink you'll want later. You know all she wants? A large drink, a lounge chair and a good book. And next time that's all I'm dragging down toward the water. The kids will have to bring the things they think are essential. And if they don't think their shoes are essential, they're not getting new ones. (Lest you think that's an idle threat, we've lost 2 pairs of shoes at the beach, and my brand new beach blanket.)
If you've ever gotten to the beach and seen a random shoe and thought "who can be missing a shoe, wouldn't they notice that?" The answer is "no, my kids don't notice" and by the time they do notice and we spend hours hunting for it, it's beyond being found. Twice now I've stopped at walmart on the way home from the beach to buy $3 flip flops for the shoe-less kid. Not that they have only 1 pair of shoes, but usually they pair they loose is their pair they love and take everywhere with them... And refuse to wear the rest of their shoes or it's their shoes that they need to wear to school, so I'd like them to not be lost...
Anyway.. I was planning on taking said children down to free museum day today, but when I double checked, it's next week that we'd prefer to go. So today is wide open with potential. However, the potential for good is rapidly dwindling after the morning of bickering and fighting here. Joey found a magnet. He wants to see if quarters are magnetic, however, he claims he doesn't have any quarters. (I find this hard to believe, since this kid is the saver in the bunch) Kayla decides to help him and goes to get her purse, Sonia gets mad saying the coins in Kayla's purse are hers, Kayla claims they're hers, Joey calls her a liar, Kayla cries that he called her a liar and I'm ready to wring all their necks. This was all before breakfast. I just read Parenting with Love and Logic and yet again, I think "well, gee, your methods seem to work for you, but I fail to see how 60% of your ideas could be implemented here" Which is what I think with most books. Sometimes I wish those authors ran a drop off boot camp, I drop my kids off, they write me a book on what to do with them to get the results their original book promised. Yep. Now THAT's an untapped market.
And frankly, I bet it will remain that way.
So off I go to put on my referee hat. Or maybe I'll try the "lock them in a room together and let the best kid win" method. At this point, I'm ready to consider it.
We're wrapping up our last week of swimming lessons. Three of the four kids advanced to the "sinks slower than a stone" class, however, one thought she was cleaver in getting just her hair wet and not her face when they were supposed to go underwater, so she failed. She's in rock class, however, when we realized she was the last one in the sinking rock class, she became motivated and should catch up. I'm not sure if the rest will "graduate" their current class, but even if they do, I don't see us re-enlisting anytime soon.
But we did learn that you can take advantage of their free swim time before/after/during swimming lessons so when we got there 30 minutes early for class, the kids got to play in the pool, and then while the big kids were in class JM could play and when JM was in class the big kids could practice and when JM was done they could all play until their mother decided she'd had enough. Funny, with all the pool time we've had this month, yesterday the kids were done at the same time I was. lol. Usually I have about 20 minutes after swim lessons are all done before I've had enough. Enough sun, enough noise, enough water...
But I like the pool far more than I like the beach, so.. I'm far more willing to go there than the beach. You see... the pool doesn't come with sand that gets in everything. AND if you're lucky you can snag a poolside chair instead of parking on sand and/or hauling a chair/blanket/cooler/umbrella/sand toys from the car.
Which, if you're my kids, you're willing to help carry something to the beach until we actually get to the beach, then you kick off your shoes and run leaving your mother with a pile of shoes, sand toys and food and drink you'll want later. You know all she wants? A large drink, a lounge chair and a good book. And next time that's all I'm dragging down toward the water. The kids will have to bring the things they think are essential. And if they don't think their shoes are essential, they're not getting new ones. (Lest you think that's an idle threat, we've lost 2 pairs of shoes at the beach, and my brand new beach blanket.)
If you've ever gotten to the beach and seen a random shoe and thought "who can be missing a shoe, wouldn't they notice that?" The answer is "no, my kids don't notice" and by the time they do notice and we spend hours hunting for it, it's beyond being found. Twice now I've stopped at walmart on the way home from the beach to buy $3 flip flops for the shoe-less kid. Not that they have only 1 pair of shoes, but usually they pair they loose is their pair they love and take everywhere with them... And refuse to wear the rest of their shoes or it's their shoes that they need to wear to school, so I'd like them to not be lost...
Anyway.. I was planning on taking said children down to free museum day today, but when I double checked, it's next week that we'd prefer to go. So today is wide open with potential. However, the potential for good is rapidly dwindling after the morning of bickering and fighting here. Joey found a magnet. He wants to see if quarters are magnetic, however, he claims he doesn't have any quarters. (I find this hard to believe, since this kid is the saver in the bunch) Kayla decides to help him and goes to get her purse, Sonia gets mad saying the coins in Kayla's purse are hers, Kayla claims they're hers, Joey calls her a liar, Kayla cries that he called her a liar and I'm ready to wring all their necks. This was all before breakfast. I just read Parenting with Love and Logic and yet again, I think "well, gee, your methods seem to work for you, but I fail to see how 60% of your ideas could be implemented here" Which is what I think with most books. Sometimes I wish those authors ran a drop off boot camp, I drop my kids off, they write me a book on what to do with them to get the results their original book promised. Yep. Now THAT's an untapped market.
And frankly, I bet it will remain that way.
So off I go to put on my referee hat. Or maybe I'll try the "lock them in a room together and let the best kid win" method. At this point, I'm ready to consider it.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Just a reminder
Don't take me too seriously. I ramble and rant here, don't think I'm complaining about you. In fact I can guarantee it isn't you. If you want confirmation, you can comment or email with your name and I can tell you for sure. I'd name names here, but THAT I'm pretty sure could get around eventually. That 6 degrees of separation, I'm sure someone's great aunt, 5th cousin twice removed's step daughter sort of relationship would get back to them.. but if you're paranoid like I am and just need confirmation about it, I can do that, too.
But seriously, there are nuts out there.
And in crazy fruit and nut land of California, Hubby and I are right at home.
But seriously, there are nuts out there.
And in crazy fruit and nut land of California, Hubby and I are right at home.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Well I have something to say now
Just a general letting off steam, but really, people (not you who read this, but people in the generic the-trouble-with-you-people sort of people) when you write a product review, cut and pasting the product description from another site, such as Amazon does not count for a review. Seriously. That's not a review. If I want to know if a tent will leak in the rain, I want someone who's used it and tried to to review it, not some techy smuck who thinks they can drive all sort of traffic to themselves by posting faux reviews.
Additionally, people... Amazon review is not the place to post statements that what you got the item as a gift and that Amazon can state it was received with great joy. Really. I'm not making this up.
Also.. Dear Craigslist folk:
If I can buy something for $75 from Walmart/Target/Home Depot, why would I buy your used 2 year old one for $90? I doubt you're that important that your using it actually increases the value. You may think you paid $100 for it, but your memory might be faulty. Or you overpaid. Either way.. good luck with selling it.
And to those CL buyers out there: If I'm selling something for $10, I'm not delivering it 2 hours away. Are you on crack? I list things on CL I don't want to bother with delivering/shipping/getting some crabby person complaining it wasn't want they expected and want their entire $1.75 refunded... or after bidding $1.75 then not paying and getting pissy that you send them invoices to pay. Oh, wait, that's moving onto ebay complaints.
Needless to say.. the full moon is out and it's not a good time to work retail. Or medicine. At least I can laugh about the medicine part, since it's memory. I'm still in retail and the post partum/pregnancy hormone driven full moon craziness is getting to me.
For examples:
If I don't have something, I don't have it. I'm not getting it, no you can't wait for it, because I'm not getting more. No. I'm not getting more. Not even if you put smiley faces in your email and tell you you're going to die without it :-( You might need to re-think what you would die for, because, seriously, if it's a diaper, you probably could use professional help.
I am sorry I didn't realize yellow was a girl color.
I am sorry I didn't realize yellow was a boy color.
I didn't realize blue is a girl color.
Sorry you don't like the orange, Sorry the color on your computer didn't look the same as what you received. Of course it is my fault, because I snuck into your house and messed up your monitor color settings.
Of course I'll exchange for a color you want.
I am sorry, I am out of blue. I have yellow. Oh, sorry, I forgot, yellow is a girl color.
(WHO THE HECK IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DECIDING WHAT COLOR GOES TO WHAT GENDER??? And could you all agree? This is getting out of control. I'm going to forward your color complaints to those gay/lesbian/bi folk....)
NO, I don't want a service to help me ship overseas. NO. Seriously I don't. STOP CALLING ME and offering your companies' oversea's brokering services. And starting your day in NYC at 7 am means you are calling here way too dang early. Next time leave me your home number. I'll call you when it's convenient for me. Hope you're awake at 2 am.
Thank you for trying to return items you bought used off a diaper board. No, sorry, I can't exchange them. No, not even if you tell me the name of the person who you bought them from. Why? Well, a.) I have no record of an order with her, and b.) there is a limit on my graciousness, this exceeds it.
If you want to check on your order and order under your husband's name and email address and you don't share the same last name, it's a little hard for me to find that for you. Sorry, but most times I guess incorrectly. I'm not a matchmaker. Probably better for you that way.
Additionally, people... Amazon review is not the place to post statements that what you got the item as a gift and that Amazon can state it was received with great joy. Really. I'm not making this up.
Also.. Dear Craigslist folk:
If I can buy something for $75 from Walmart/Target/Home Depot, why would I buy your used 2 year old one for $90? I doubt you're that important that your using it actually increases the value. You may think you paid $100 for it, but your memory might be faulty. Or you overpaid. Either way.. good luck with selling it.
And to those CL buyers out there: If I'm selling something for $10, I'm not delivering it 2 hours away. Are you on crack? I list things on CL I don't want to bother with delivering/shipping/getting some crabby person complaining it wasn't want they expected and want their entire $1.75 refunded... or after bidding $1.75 then not paying and getting pissy that you send them invoices to pay. Oh, wait, that's moving onto ebay complaints.
Needless to say.. the full moon is out and it's not a good time to work retail. Or medicine. At least I can laugh about the medicine part, since it's memory. I'm still in retail and the post partum/pregnancy hormone driven full moon craziness is getting to me.
For examples:
If I don't have something, I don't have it. I'm not getting it, no you can't wait for it, because I'm not getting more. No. I'm not getting more. Not even if you put smiley faces in your email and tell you you're going to die without it :-( You might need to re-think what you would die for, because, seriously, if it's a diaper, you probably could use professional help.
I am sorry I didn't realize yellow was a girl color.
I am sorry I didn't realize yellow was a boy color.
I didn't realize blue is a girl color.
Sorry you don't like the orange, Sorry the color on your computer didn't look the same as what you received. Of course it is my fault, because I snuck into your house and messed up your monitor color settings.
Of course I'll exchange for a color you want.
I am sorry, I am out of blue. I have yellow. Oh, sorry, I forgot, yellow is a girl color.
(WHO THE HECK IS RESPONSIBLE FOR DECIDING WHAT COLOR GOES TO WHAT GENDER??? And could you all agree? This is getting out of control. I'm going to forward your color complaints to those gay/lesbian/bi folk....)
NO, I don't want a service to help me ship overseas. NO. Seriously I don't. STOP CALLING ME and offering your companies' oversea's brokering services. And starting your day in NYC at 7 am means you are calling here way too dang early. Next time leave me your home number. I'll call you when it's convenient for me. Hope you're awake at 2 am.
Thank you for trying to return items you bought used off a diaper board. No, sorry, I can't exchange them. No, not even if you tell me the name of the person who you bought them from. Why? Well, a.) I have no record of an order with her, and b.) there is a limit on my graciousness, this exceeds it.
If you want to check on your order and order under your husband's name and email address and you don't share the same last name, it's a little hard for me to find that for you. Sorry, but most times I guess incorrectly. I'm not a matchmaker. Probably better for you that way.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
The problem when you blog sporatically is...
You can't remember what it was you were going to write. A few times I thought, 'hey, I got to remember this to write about' and no, nope, can't remember it. Although it's a joke here to even pretend that I can remember anything. If there was a herb, spice or drug I could take to return my memory I would. As it is.. they didn't work.
So here's a brief synopsis of what we've been up to, so the grandparents know what we do way over here on the other end of the world....
The kids started swim lessons at the Y. Monday and Wednesdays were there for hours. The swim lessons themselves are only an hour but by the time you add the change and shower afterwards and the fact that we're allowed to use the open swim time before and after swimclass, then, yes, we are there the better part of the afternoon.
Of the 4, Kayla is the sinking stone. Joey and Sonia have now had 4 other swim classes and can do more than sink. However... they still haven't passed the first "non-swimmer" category, so all 3 are in the same class. JM would be also, except the age cut off for the class was 6. He's 4 so he's in the 3-5 year old sink like stone class. They give them cutesy names like "poliwog" except.. last I checked polliwog can swim. They could have given it the name "rock" and you graduate to "wood stick" and finally can become "boat"
Anyway.. that's were we'll be again this afternoon. Last class (Monday) I came inches from running over a boy who came sprinting out in front of me from 2 parked cars. My heart still races thinking about it. Seriously. His brother ran out from 2 other cars and stopped part way and ran back, which probably was a saving grace since I was going really slow watching him for sudden suicide running boy moves when his brother streaked out 2 cars closer to me. In a surprise to me, the mom didn't scream at me for almost running her kid over. She said he knew better. Well.. yeah. I sure he does. But it wouldn't hurt to remind him. I'm sure if I hit him, she'd blame me. I sometime think I want one of those cop-type dash cameras for times such as these. I have a tech-heavy hubby. I might look into it seriously. It'd be priceless in a lawsuit. (paranoid, anyone?)
So in my other paranoid areas... our vegetable garden is doing well. The potatoes have been quite an experiment. We'd learned as a kid that you take the parts of potato, cut it up and toss it in the ground and it makes new potatoes. Larry, on the other hand, worked on a potato farm as a kid so he saw some of this in action. Anyway.. I had some potatoes past their prime and let the kids plant them. A few months ago. And we had potato plants and then I read about growing potatoes and the book said not to use grocery potatoes because they can have growth inhibitor.. but I think that must be the expensive potatoes, because the cheap ones I buy seem to sprout on the car ride home....
Anyway.. the plants died. (Larry could never remember how the farmer killed the vines, but apparently they will die on their own) and as I was digging out the done producing broccoli that was next to it, a few potatoes were unearthed. Yesterday Larry dug out the rest. Or, at least what he could find. And this is what we have:
And some really deformed ones
There were 4 types of potatoes we planted. The cheap-sprout-in-days ones did best. The yellow gold ones, did ok. The red ones didn't do terrific, and the potato plant larry bought from the store did pretty poorly also. I think. It's hard to tell which those potatoes were.
The patch was this tiny spot between the broccoli and eggplant. The dead leaves there are the broccoli leaves as I was clearing out the spent broccoli plants.
And if you're looking for zucchini, I have it. Check out these 2 plants. They're the size of a VW at this point. The mass of green just beyond the orange homedepot bucket is them. They have given us more Zucchini that I know what to do with. I've given it away to friends, neighbors and the postmaster who gives me the coupons that are left over from the ones that get mailed (that's a whole other topic). We've had Zucchini casserole, fried zucchini, zucchini bread, zucchini diced and added to pretty much anything and... zucchini brownies. Believe it or not, they're pretty good. Not knock your socks off great, but good. Better than not bad for something that's somewhat healthy.
So.. the postman thing...
Because the horrible people stole our packages, I no longer leave them for our mailguy. I bring them to our post office. I've gotten to know them fairly well. And with the trying to coupon thing hobby I've developed, I wondered.... "I wonder if they get extras of the ones that get mailed?" So I asked them. The first time (ok, first 3 times) they thought I was insane. But now they offer them to me when I come on the day they come out and I bring them veggies. I had brought brownies back in the early days, but they didn't turn out that great, being from a box mix and getting overcooked and all.. so they prefer veggies. And wouldntcha know, I have those.
So.. I guess I need to get moving. I hear the tell tale whine coming from a child that another is bothering them. I don't know at what age they need to learn to work stuff out on their own. I think it's a great skill to have, but it seems that more I try to let them work it out, the worse they act. *sigh* Parenting- not for the faint at heart. I thought the newborn/toddler stage was bad. But honestly they got along better then. Now it's the day long epic battle of which kid is in the other kids' room ... seriously. Wars are fought over territories. This is no exception. Despite they all belong the the Dad and Mom's domain colony.. not to worry, I think if I reverted us to communist state, they'd still find something to fight over- like who was breathing the other person's air. Gotta love human nature.
So here's a brief synopsis of what we've been up to, so the grandparents know what we do way over here on the other end of the world....
The kids started swim lessons at the Y. Monday and Wednesdays were there for hours. The swim lessons themselves are only an hour but by the time you add the change and shower afterwards and the fact that we're allowed to use the open swim time before and after swimclass, then, yes, we are there the better part of the afternoon.
Of the 4, Kayla is the sinking stone. Joey and Sonia have now had 4 other swim classes and can do more than sink. However... they still haven't passed the first "non-swimmer" category, so all 3 are in the same class. JM would be also, except the age cut off for the class was 6. He's 4 so he's in the 3-5 year old sink like stone class. They give them cutesy names like "poliwog" except.. last I checked polliwog can swim. They could have given it the name "rock" and you graduate to "wood stick" and finally can become "boat"
Anyway.. that's were we'll be again this afternoon. Last class (Monday) I came inches from running over a boy who came sprinting out in front of me from 2 parked cars. My heart still races thinking about it. Seriously. His brother ran out from 2 other cars and stopped part way and ran back, which probably was a saving grace since I was going really slow watching him for sudden suicide running boy moves when his brother streaked out 2 cars closer to me. In a surprise to me, the mom didn't scream at me for almost running her kid over. She said he knew better. Well.. yeah. I sure he does. But it wouldn't hurt to remind him. I'm sure if I hit him, she'd blame me. I sometime think I want one of those cop-type dash cameras for times such as these. I have a tech-heavy hubby. I might look into it seriously. It'd be priceless in a lawsuit. (paranoid, anyone?)
So in my other paranoid areas... our vegetable garden is doing well. The potatoes have been quite an experiment. We'd learned as a kid that you take the parts of potato, cut it up and toss it in the ground and it makes new potatoes. Larry, on the other hand, worked on a potato farm as a kid so he saw some of this in action. Anyway.. I had some potatoes past their prime and let the kids plant them. A few months ago. And we had potato plants and then I read about growing potatoes and the book said not to use grocery potatoes because they can have growth inhibitor.. but I think that must be the expensive potatoes, because the cheap ones I buy seem to sprout on the car ride home....
Anyway.. the plants died. (Larry could never remember how the farmer killed the vines, but apparently they will die on their own) and as I was digging out the done producing broccoli that was next to it, a few potatoes were unearthed. Yesterday Larry dug out the rest. Or, at least what he could find. And this is what we have:
And some really deformed ones
The patch was this tiny spot between the broccoli and eggplant. The dead leaves there are the broccoli leaves as I was clearing out the spent broccoli plants.
And if you're looking for zucchini, I have it. Check out these 2 plants. They're the size of a VW at this point. The mass of green just beyond the orange homedepot bucket is them. They have given us more Zucchini that I know what to do with. I've given it away to friends, neighbors and the postmaster who gives me the coupons that are left over from the ones that get mailed (that's a whole other topic). We've had Zucchini casserole, fried zucchini, zucchini bread, zucchini diced and added to pretty much anything and... zucchini brownies. Believe it or not, they're pretty good. Not knock your socks off great, but good. Better than not bad for something that's somewhat healthy.
So.. the postman thing...
Because the horrible people stole our packages, I no longer leave them for our mailguy. I bring them to our post office. I've gotten to know them fairly well. And with the trying to coupon thing hobby I've developed, I wondered.... "I wonder if they get extras of the ones that get mailed?" So I asked them. The first time (ok, first 3 times) they thought I was insane. But now they offer them to me when I come on the day they come out and I bring them veggies. I had brought brownies back in the early days, but they didn't turn out that great, being from a box mix and getting overcooked and all.. so they prefer veggies. And wouldntcha know, I have those.
So.. I guess I need to get moving. I hear the tell tale whine coming from a child that another is bothering them. I don't know at what age they need to learn to work stuff out on their own. I think it's a great skill to have, but it seems that more I try to let them work it out, the worse they act. *sigh* Parenting- not for the faint at heart. I thought the newborn/toddler stage was bad. But honestly they got along better then. Now it's the day long epic battle of which kid is in the other kids' room ... seriously. Wars are fought over territories. This is no exception. Despite they all belong the the Dad and Mom's domain colony.. not to worry, I think if I reverted us to communist state, they'd still find something to fight over- like who was breathing the other person's air. Gotta love human nature.
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