EH.

So much to say and so little time to say it in.

From our last visit we successfully made it to Texas and back. We are officially "Texans" I guess if you call having a drivers license from that state making you officially anything. Larry in true historic fashion got super ill the first 3 days of the trip so he actually let me do most of the driving. Larry generally doesn't take vacation because he usually get sick to make for a terrible time.

Our first planned vacation to meet my grandparents? He was hospitalized with Ehrlichiosis. Went to Florida the next week taking Doxycycline and couldn't go in the sun.  Honeymoon? Bad sinus infection and he spend our cruise on Doxycycline... I forget the rest but the pattern has been set. The one outlayer was the Idaho trip. Maybe because he had plenty of time and we had nothing planned and nothing to loose that one worked out.

Anyway. We took the long way there so we could drive the old Route 66 and show the kids the real places the movie Cars was based on. Plus there are volcanoes along the way. And lately I've thought volcanoes are cool. From a distance, tho. not really keen on living on top of one of the "maybe they're not really dormant afterall" Salton Sea ones here or that one they say is a supervolcano under yellowstone. Although if I'm going to go, going fast and relatively pain free is pretty high on my list. I'm just not convinced that death by volcano would fall under pain free. Don't worry I'm not preoccupied with death but it has become one of those things that crosses my mind occasionally the further I get from the birth blip on my theoretical life time line. But much like birth it's not something I think we get a whole lot of say in the matter on.

Anyway, we hiked the Sunset Crater Volcano in New Mexico while Larry napped in the car:

That is a mountain of Geodes. For sale. By the pound. The kids, all 5 of them- had a blast here.

went through the Petrified Forest stopping long enough to become Jr Rangers and use the bathroom twice, and see a beautiful sunset

 picked up some spray paint for the Cadillacs buried in the dirt in Amarillo

 and hoped there were bathrooms at the enormous cross and stations of the cross in Groom Texas.

We studied the Missions this year with the 4th graders. Surprising to me, I didn't realize that when you don't grow up catholic that the Crucifix is pretty shocking. Especially life size ones.

We turned around to take pictures of signs in podunk areas with 3 stop lights, a town speed limit of 35 and exactly 1 dairy Queen and 1 Sonic. I think you can have a population of 15 in a town and still have a DQ and Sonic in Texas. And a feed store and a gas station that is priced higher than even California.
Pictures will be uploaded.  Pictures are worth 10000 words, ya know. And about 90 GB, apparently.

Gotta love the blue correction spray paint.

 As Larry says "NO EARL! that's not how you spell "For Sale, I"ll fix it! see - that's a 4!"

And he wonders why I don't jump at the chance to move here. The kids have to date at some point, ya know?



















If you're looking at these pictures and thinking "boy, they look cold!" I can assure you, yes. It was cold. Living in paradise we forget that the rest of the world sometimes has winter. And rain. So that was snow in the background and rain you see. Because I checked the weather in Dallas and said ;'hey, it's going to be the same as here' and forgot to check all the places we were going to travel inbetween. Besides. We're San Diegans now (sorta. I mean are Texans, too, and Connecticutans.. now I'm just making stuff up..) and we think anything below 65 degrees requires a winter coat. And I didn't pack them. Because it was May. really, mother Nature, May isn't winter south of Wisconsin normally. I just forgot we don't define winter like Wisconsin would.

We were able to spend time with by brother, his wife and their kids. Who 2 of kids glommed onto. Kayla while we always assumed was a great deal like Gracie in fact IS a great deal like Gracie, so much so that Larry took to calling them "peas" as in "2 peas in a pod" 'Jemiah' and JM when in full motion were 2 blurs of equal size and intense physical energy.  And while 1 Jm gives me pause to reconsider all things of potential weapon and destruction, 2 of them gave me greater pause. My brother, however, more tapped into his testosterone decided to give them real swords when they were using less appropriate things like sticks and brooms to play swords with. Which pretty much highlights our differences. I'd let them keep the broom and add a dust pan to it, thus changing their task but leaving their fake weapon. He supplies them with the actual supplies to do the task they actually wanted to do thus sealing his fate as cool uncle and dad.

One of what could have been the highlights of our trip was a trip to 6 flags. For homeschool day.
The poetic irony that I took my kids from their public schools to visit a different state and go to their homeschool day and bookfair isn't lost on me. But Texas is a BIG state and boy do they have homeschoolers. They rent the entire 6 flags. This could have been awesome. And was surprisingly crowded.
But the problem developed that it was raining. Apparently if there is lightening within 10 miles of texas they shut down the rides. or at least the outdoor metal ones. Which is like all of them, ya know? so they got to go one 2 rides before we were drenched to the bone, cold and hungry. We went to their Van and the kids camped out in the middle eating our packed lunches and debating if it was worth going back in. The Texas relatives went in to attend to getting their season passes while we in the van decided 'ya know, there is a 6 flags in California.... and even our kids decided 'yeah, standing in the rain for the rides to be reopened doesn't really sound like fun' It was unique and a memorable experience. 

The other part of the trip that was a bit unnerving was the weather. Knowing that we visited the east coast and brought down both an earthquake and hurricane with us, everytime the sky there got erie dark I couldn't help but worry 'what if there is a tornado' We didn't see one, gratefully so perhaps Texas wasn't sending us a 'go away' message quite like CT was.

We also got to visit dear friends in west Texas and were able to put a real live picture with the mental image I have of what west Texas meant. A kindred sister I miss living near, it was great to catch up.

Missing were other friends from close to our route that we didn't have a chance to see. Hoping there will be a next time and we'll have new opportunities in the future.

One of those days

Where if I was writing a book I'd fill a chapter or two. Entirely with work stuff. Or 90% of work stuff.

The stuff you don't see in private practice or learn about at school.

Like a person whose blood glucose is so high our meter reads "hi" to which both doctors I asked about it quipped "did you say hi back?" No, dammit. I didn't. And oh, btw the meter range is to 700. So 20 units of humalog and 30 minute later it finally comes to a level of 600 which the meter can read. And then the guy suddenly perks up and wants to go on his way, thank you very much. While I was all for calling the taxi or ambulance to allow an emergency room to manage my friend here. The doc didn't blink and eye. Oh yeah- and remember those guidelines about I'm going to get graded on my patient's HgbA1c? Taking bets this guys will be by highest yet. And not sure why his failure to take his insulin to be my responsibility. But
I lean libertarian and live and work in a democrat ruled bubble.  Insulin? 'yeah. I'm supposed to be on it'. Did you take it? 'well, no.'  When was your last dose? 'awh, gee, maybe 3 weeks ago? It's been  a while.' Oh yeah, and he's lost 45 lbs the past month. or more. And was in the ER "not too long ago" in DKA. still wearing his bracelet from that visit.

Nice guy, tho. More than I can say for some others.

And so I get home with 12 charts to finish and the remote access gives me communication failure errors. alot. and crashes. Reboot, relog on. same thing. Which means..... I get to finish tomorrow after another day of insanity. literal insanity. for both the patients and me, I think.

School news- This week as JMs school music performance. as kinder/first graders they play the sticks, drums, triangles and cymbals.  JM is in a class or rambunctious boys and they got.... you got it.... the sticks. And I cracked up watching his teacher about have a stroke trying to get them to hold the sticks on their shoulders and not hitting each other with them. 

I am their "garden parent" and I"m getting to know them. they're 70% boys. And their teacher doesn't have the experience harnessing that sort of energy. And I have get to harness and contain all of them at once, either. At least not doing anything learning based. They play a mean duck duck goose.

The garden took over the past week of my life. Not MY garden in my backyard. But the school garden. I was sucked into being on the garden committee by being the only person personally known by the rest of the garden committee to actually have a garden.

If you can imagine 4 people going on pintrest and pinning about 3 dozen great ideas and then forming a committee to try to do all these great ideas before trying them at home... that's the garden.  I'm not on pintrests. I don't have that kind of time. But I've found myself landing there when doing other searches and some of the ideas have been great and others are 'uh, did you try that? yeah? and the result sucks? I'm so not surprised. Most of everything I've tried from there was a catastrophic failure."  They had meetings ad nausem to talk about all their great ideas. I had a conflict with each of them except for the one on my birthday which I decided to take a long bubble bath instead. But things like drainage, slope, you mean I have to water these things? all the time? what do you mean full sun isn't great for all plants? ARGH. And like a train wreck that might be able to be prevented I've been there trying to fix the tracks so that train doesn't take out innocent bystanders.

So aside from trying to fix irrigation issues and slope issues and overall garden issues I also got to be the classroom parent for Sonia's and Jon's class. (who after a few days of my being there, they call him jonmichael now, sometimes.) And while other class garden parents had to talk to garden head cheese to ask her for plants ahead of time I could go to my piles of sprouted seeds, other seeds, plants I needed to thin and plant 2 whole garden boxes easily. AND we had the only strawberry plants. Which seems to draw nearly everyone's attention. I mean how exciting to carrots and signs saying there are seeds there when there are pink and red strawberries begging all adult and kids to pick them.   Today was the big garden ribbon cutting ceremony and the reason I've got sunburn and blisters from getting the dang thing ready. And today I worked all day but Sonia was appointed by her teacher to be their garden parent class liason. She's a walking talking encyclopedia of gardening knowledge so she schooled the school board and the benefactors on all things related to her class's square foot garden. She also informed me that my handwriting on the "CUKES" stick looked like "cakes" and that "nonone knew that cukes stood for cucucumber" which might not be 100% true. But if that is true - is that a local new england thing or did I pick that up somewhere else along my life? The odd regional differences sometime amuse me. Like this week in the garden and I was talking to someone who when to Boston College and someone else pipes in about a "great restaurant" I'd like. They have philly cheesesteak. huh? Philly in that means philladelphia. Not Boston. And I said, yeah, I'm sure it's great but I can't say I'm a big cheesesteak fan. Nor am I a big fan of lousy geography skills or stereotyping people based on one food.  I mean really, San Diego you want people to ask you everytime you travel if you tried the san diego style street taco restaurant in thier po dunk town? because we live in street taco heaven here and even here you have great and less than great street tacos. And THEY say they're Tiajuana style. 

I think I followed that squirrel down the rabbit trail a bit too far tonight. Sorry.

In theory this coming week we'll be visiting Texas and becoming official Texans. This sounds kinda exciting.
In actuality, Larry doesn't have that leave officially approved, by the dozens that need to approve this but the absolute earliest we could leave is sunday. We'll be missing the first week of CST testing. So sad, I know.

I took the truck in to make sure that it could actually make it across the desert of west Texas and while it was pouring antifreeze into the driveway, it's been behaving perfectly fine since I brought it to the mechanic. We will see. I should probably make sure all our AAA cards are up to date and unexpired, tho. I love our mechanic. His advice - it's working, leave it alone, travel with gallons of water and antifreeze. And he wouldn't charge me because he didn't think it needed fixing. Time will tell on that.

Been a while, hasn't it?

While I don't miss the time consumption it takes me to turn on the computer and blog, I do miss having the journal of sorts to keep track of things like pictures and all. So maybe I'll go back to this again somewhat more often.

Today's elephant in the room is waiting for news on my father in law. While I personally haven't known him to be in perfect health, waiting for a death phone call is pretty terrible, although the current news is 'well, maybe just maybe they can restore 10-15% function' While I probably could skip the 85-90% function of many organs a few key ones like the heart and brain are kinda important. So I wait and pray and worry.

The bittersweet part of it all if this year they (the inlaws) started acting like they weren't already halfway dead. They've had some other health issues and when asked to visit, to do something/etc they always had excuses of dr apts, garden, dogs, it is too hard to travel, etc. And it always bothered me that they were limited themselves beyond their actual limitations. Maybe it's just that I have a totally different philosophy that if I'm going to be more infirm in the future, I'm going to make the now count more. Carpe diem, dammit.

So now I pray that they will actually be able to something more in life.

In our lives, we're 2/3 of the way into baseball with the kids. Jonathan (who most often forgets that is his name) is on the machine pitch/Tball league. He's specialty is 3rd base and L field. And horsing around with the kid next to him.  Sonia/Joey/Kayla are all on the same AA team. Kayla's specialty is striking a pose in center field and is a fairly consistent hitter. Sonia's specialty is being the player loaned to the other teams because there aren't enough players and she also has a comical throw and swing. Joey's specialty is first base and occasionally pitching.  Their league does 2 innings with machine pitch and then 2-3 innings of kid pitch. The kid pitch is arduously slow. The machine pitch is 5 balls through the machine - hit them or not. The kid pitch goes through the full count and when you get to 4 balls, 2 strikes then the batter's coach finishes pitching. There is no walking. either you hit or you get out. The slow part is when the pitcher throws the ball so wide the catcher has to get up and chase it, then throws it to the pitcher who will miss it and chases it... repeat.  Anyway, we're playing in town this season instead of on base. I like it better in a few ways- one- it's got a small town feel. there are 3 teams. that's it. you know the other moms/players. They say the pledge of allegiance and the little league pledge that has a first line of 'I trust in God, I love my country" before every game. Seriously. here in heathen land. gotta love it. I also love that the field we play and practice on is 15 minutes away opposed to 20-25/45 with the base leagues. And we practice once a week per team (that's twice) instead of 2x/week/team with 3+ teams.. thus there alllll week long.

School is.. well...
not terrific. 

Aside from the 30+ kids/class. This year Sonia's pregnant teacher went out on bedrest in Jan and won't be back for the rest of the year. I do like her long term sub and think she does a better job of keeping Sonia on track. Keeping Sonia on track and tuned in in a long term battle. It's getting harder to keep her in her chair to even fight this battle. 

Joey. *sigh* I just got back from a conference with his teacher. Again.  At my request because she doesn't communicate with me. Joey is a task orientated kid. She runs the room like a bipolar methamphetamine addict. (this might be an exaggeration but a slight one) This year just can't end fast enough and I'm really thinking of homeschooling him next year.

Kayla tests off the charts. A delight to have in school. Everyone loves her. Charms the world and drags it around on a string. I'd say every parent has to have an "easy child" but home she's our overly emotional one, so she lost that nomination. In fact as I type she's crying that a neighbor boy did something she didn't like. Never mind that she was spraying him with a hose and he didn't like that...

Jonathan/Jon/JM/child who isn't sure what his name is anymore has about as much interest in school, learning and homework as a cat has interest in autorepair. While he wants to read, mostly, his teacher is brand new and into memorizing long lists of sight words and spelling said sight words. It's not going well. He has learned to memorize the lists and "reads" them in a sing song that is unable to actually read those words - he's just memorized the lists. If his teacher wants this monkey to read she better start some phonics. And of course every week one of his days of homework is a creative writing assignment. I kid you not. The kids can barely write, can't spell or read and you want him to WRITE a STORY?' use good description and underline capital letters and circle punctuation'? give me a break. It's kindergarten. let's start with 'keep your hands off your neighbor' and learning to write those letters that go into those words you want him to use. As it is, most days when I go to pick him up I see him wrestling with the boys in his class on the grass. It's not a wonder why he has a hole in every single pair of his pants anymore.

As far as the homelife goes- we've really been pretty blessed to be surrounded by alot of really great people. I love our neighborhood, that our kids are playing with several houses of kids, that we work out car pools and I have adult women around when Larry is scare. I love that the kids are comfortable with the neighbors that when there was a snake in the road they promptly knocked on the door of the neighbor with the most snake kills and asked him to take care of it. There have been rattlesnakes, so we're on  guard about them.  The garden it fine, this year I started everything from seed. Even non traditional seeds like seeds I've gotten from foods we ate.  The last time the chickens got out, we managed to get them all back. We are quail free and the 2 pheasants we have haven't been killed by anything yet. No goats and while Larry came home happy that someone was going to give him a trained hunting dog I was less than happy to have one more thing added to the list of things that need to be cared for and put an emotional foot down on it. 

There is supposedly a development being built directly behind our house, but we haven't seen any surveyors or bulldozers there in a little while. Hopefully they will decide it's cost prohibitive.  We thought we'd built the garden/chicken coop right up to the back line, but our original owner neighbors say the property line goes a few feet beyond the ditch we thought was the line. So I'm a little relieved that while our chickens will probably be a detriment  for their home values that we're not actually breaking any setback rules. The plan floating around the neighborhood for the proposed houses have lot sizes 4 times our lot sizes, so them's gonna be expensive houses. I'm sure they'd love to set right back up to the hillbillies with the chickens and garden, so I'm going to guess that even if they DO manage to build back there that the house directly behind us will likely be one of the last ones sold.  Larry of course denies that he is a hillbilly. I think hillbilly has a better sound to it than redneck, which is his preferred title.

In other news, I have managed to resurrect most of my pictures which has been a huge relief.  However, getting them sorted and filed has been another issue altogether. And I've decided that this year I'm going to start making photobooks so I have at least SOMETHING for the kids to look at to remember their good parts of their childhood. And a youtube channel or something for the other vidoes that don't get into photobooks, maybe.

Last week we went to get tires for the truck. It was an all day adventure. Every year- actually 2x/year the Naval base as a 'scratcher sale' this means you get this card in the mail and when you go to shop there, they scratch off the circle (think lotto tickets) and it reveals 5-50% off. Of course you can't scratch and then shop and you can't add a furniture set to the purchase if you do get the 50% off.. but well, when you're spending big bucks you think it's worth a gamble. Apparently alot of other people had this idea. I called on a monday asking if a. they had the tires Larry wanted and b. can I make an apt and was told a. you have to come in to buy the tires and they have them ordered and delived that day and b. no, it's first come first serve and they won't be able to take any more cars that day (I called at 9 am) and tomorrow am they open at 7.

Well tomorrow am I was awake at 7 but we weren't there in line at 7. We (all because they kids were out of school) got there close to 8. The line was 5 people deep and when I get to the counter they say they're not sure they'll get it done before close of day that day. I look at him. He repeats himself. I look at my watch, do the math and say 'you mean it's going to take over 8 hours to get tires?' yes. that's what he meant. BUT if I wanted to pay for the tires now I can make an apt to have them put on when the sale is over. BUT I called yesterday and the lady said they won't make appointments so I drove an hour to get here today. grumble. well we're here now. put the tires on the thing. grumble grumble.

So we walked to the main exchange, the commissary ate snacks, wandered and looked at stuff. Walked to the bowling alley. bowled for a few hours. Walked to the trolley, took it to Old Town. Walked around there. Decide we should get back by end of day/closing even though they didn't call me about having the tires done.

And at this point we walk back get on to the trolley and it takes F.O.R.E.V.E.R to get there. it took 20 minutes to get to Old Town, I swear it took 40 to get back. It seemed every person in a wheel chair that needed assistance needed to get on or off at nearly every stop. And at this point I start sweating that they'll close and we'll really be SOL to get home because I don't know anyone who can easily pick up us from downtown San Diego and our car that can accommodate us is the one that might get locked in for the night. And the public transit would probably take us 3 hours at the rate we were going. Not to mention that I had to work the next day. So we finally get to our stop and double time it to the repair shop. Which technically was supposed to close 5 minutes before we got there. However, it is impossible to close with the line of people trying to check out/get their car/pay is 15 people long and out the door. Had I foreseen this possibility I would have worried less. As it was, our scratcher thing only saved us 5% which after the amount I spent on bowling, food and the trolley we didn't come out ahead. But we got the keys, the truck and went to get pizza since all that walking makes us hungry.The kids thought it was a fun adventure and I guess that's all that matters.

That week we also did the big 4th grade CA mission field trip. On our own.Not with the school. That's how things in a budget strapped state gets done.  They were assigned yet another big project. And yet another night before it was due I was up helping collate, correct and type. This time it was the CA Missions project. If you've lived in CA with a 4th grader using any sort of state mandated curriculum you know about this project. If you live anywhere else in the US this is what you're missing. Up until this year, the 4th graders had to build a model of the mission. In reality this was really a throw-down of whose father had the best carpentry skills. This year, the powers to be decided that this mission building wasn't really teaching the kids anything. Least wise nothing about the missions. They were catching some finer points of testosterone driven competition. So they  (the powers to be) assigned other options. Pick and choose you have to choose at least 10 points. Joey chose exactly 10. Sonia chose 13. One of the 3 point parts was to visit a mission, get a brochure and write a one page summary. Another 2 points could be achieved by taking pictures of a mission and putting them on poster board and 3 points could be achieved by completing an official scavenger hunt at one of the 2 somewhat close missions.

So, as you can guess, a trip to the mission could kill 8 of the required 10 points or in my case 16 of the 20 points, so I wanted big return on my time investment.

Not Joey got the San Juan Capistrano mission and was psyched because we'd gone up there this summer and he was kinda familiar with it. Sonia got the furthest one north. But the whole points thing didn't matter which mission you went to, so I looked into our options. Option A was the San Juan one. 1 hour away and all said and done would cost us $60 plus the gas to get there and back. Option B was the one here in Oceanside which was free because military was free. hummmm.. $60 plus 2+ hr drive or 15 minutes and free...?? such decisions.

So tonight was the last night this was all due and tonight at 9 pm Sonia was pasting pictures on posterboard. I didn't feel the least bit bad about keeping her up to finish because that kid takes after her father and her best thinking seems to happen when the rest of the world wants to be asleep. Like me.

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.