Random Thoughts Tuesday (because it is still, barely, Tuesday)

Once Lost had finished blowing my mind and breaking my heart this evening, I'd intended to come in here to the office, shut off my computer, grab my book and head up to bed.  (I'm reading the latest Jodi Picoult, by the way, anyone else read it?  I'm about 3/4 of the way through right now, so please, no spoilers.  I'm still wondering Did He or Didn't He?  Or Did His Brother?...)

Well, one thing led to another - or more precisely, one click led to another, and here I still sit, almost two hours later.  Time Management and Decent Bedtime FAIL.  So, instead, I'm going to throw out a Random Thoughts Tuesday (now with rambly intro, woot!) like my bloggy friend Cristin does so well.  (I know it isn't Cristin's original idea, but she's the one I read regularly who does this the most, so I'm going to leave it with her.)

Here goes!
 
***
I've developed a new landscaping style in the past few weeks.  I call it the "Yard Mullet" and it is achieved by mowing the front and sides of one's yard, but leaving the back long.  I find it's easiest to create the Yard Mullet by attempting to mow when under impossible time constraints and if there's Weather coming.  You know, with a capital W, like last week's spring snow, or this morning's thunder, lightning and hail storm that blew in out of seemingly nowhere.  Yep, from the street, it's all business - neatly trimmed, nary a dandelion bobbing, but in back?  Jungle party!

(For the record, I *do* go back out and get the yard de-mulleted eventually.  It's not like my property is the equivalent of a 90's Billy Ray Cyrus or anything.)

Feel free to try it.  It's just retro enough to be cool, and I really think it will catch on.  I mean, have you seen some of what's considered fashionable these days?  I mean, for Pete's sake, jeggings?!?!

***

Speaking of cutting, Kiddo needed a trim, and when I took her in to the salon yesterday afternoon, she asked if she could have it cut even shorter than it had been when we had it bobbed back in March.  I said yes, and lo and behold, another two-two and a half inches hit the floor.  It still looks pretty dang cute, if I do say so myself, but it is reverting to its wavier self now that it is shorter, which is bugging Kiddo (who didn't listen to her mama, even though Mama always is right, heh).  She's going to lose her mind when we go to Florida this summer and her shorter 'do meets the southern, summer humidity!

But in the meantime, it looks like this:

If she continues to want it shorter at every consecutive haircut appointment, I figure she'll be channeling Demi's G.I. Jane look by the time she's eight.

***

Back to the topic of yards and specifically dandelions - do you want to know why I'm now convinced dandelions are EVIL?  Because last week, I pulled a handful out of a planting bed, all of them not-yet-silver-and-open, and tossed them in the yard debris pile at the curb.  Two days later when I was out getting the mail, I glanced over at the debris pile and discovered this:

Yes.  They'd continued maturing and had opened even after being picked.  Every single, last one of them.  WTH?!?!  That is just so not right!!

It would also help my yard out considerably if my beloved daughter didn't find blowing dandelions irresistible.  Grrrr.  I guess this is karmic payback for all the dandelions I blew in my youth, but still.  Oy.

***

I'm on the school carnival committee, and part of my job is to solicit businesses for donations for our raffle.  I haaaaaaaate soliciting.  Even for a good cause (which it is) and even for a nonprofit (ditto).  I've told myself I don't know how many times in the past week I'm going to get out there and get it over with, but each time something (something totally legitimate, like Kiddo coming down with strep and me coming down with a nasty but fairly brief stomach bug) has prevented me from going.  Now I've sworn to myself that I'm going to go tomorrow and do it.  Maybe typing the words and hitting the Publish Post button will help reinforce my resolve.  Why can't the donation fairy just turn up at my doorstep with some artfully packaged gift baskets and a fat stack of gift cards?  Sigh...

***

This afternoon was our monthly Daisy Scout Troop meeting.  This fact should not ever be a surprise to me, seeing as how I'm the troop leader.  Yet once again, I found myself looking down at Kiddo's Daisy tunic and at a baggie of patches that needed to be affixed, just so, to said tunic, just an hour before I had to leave to go to the meeting.  I don't know if this counts as Mom Fail, Daisy Troop Leader Fail, or both...

So, I was determined (as I always am in that final 60 minutes before I have to leave when I discover anew I haven't attached last month's acquisitions to the dang tunic yet) that I would get them on before I had to go.  I dragged out the ironing board and plugged in the iron.  Checked the contents of the baggie - only two patches, not too hard.  I began doing the larger one that needed affixing to the back of the tunic first.  I ironed and I ironed and I ironed, and the damn thing just *wasn't* sticking.  It took me over three minutes before it finally dawned on me - this was a sew-on patch, not an iron-on patch.  All the ironing in the world wasn't going to stick that bad boy on.  If only I hadn't burned my hands and fingers fourteen times while attempting the impossible.  Sheesh.  I abandoned it in favor of the more important Daisy petal that had to be stuck onto the front.  This one I *knew* is an iron-on, as I've already put eight of its brethren on the front in a rather haphazard, circular formation per Daisy Uniform Guidelines.  I lined it up and began ironing away.  It isn't adhering, either.  ?!?!?  Yes, I kept attempting to iron it on for another good minute before pausing, engaging the rusty wheels in my skull that pass for a brain, and flipping the petal over.  It still had the backing paper on.  Whoops.

I burned my fingertips mightily removing the now-nuclear-hot backing paper from the tiny petal, but I got that dang thing on before I left.  Of course we came home from the meeting with two more petals that need to be sewn on, so I purposely left the iron and ironing board set up and set Kiddo's tunic on it when we got home, because this time?  I'm not waiting until the afternoon of the meeting.  I might as well get them on before the scabs heal from the burns I incurred today!

***

Has anyone out there actually bought and tried those sneakers that are supposed to help your posture and tighten muscles and help you get in shape?  I will admit to being intrigued whenever I see an ad in Entertainment Weekly or a commercial on TV.  I'm more than halfway tempted to get a pair, but I'd love to know if they live up even vaguely to the hype.  (Sorry, Joe Montana, you don't cut it for me, endorsement-wise.  I'd like to hear from a real person, preferably a woman, whose opinion I could trust more readily.)

Whoops, now it's Wednesday.  I really need to get to bed.  I'm meeting (in my carnival committee persona) with the principal tomorrow, and I don't want to be either racoon-eyed and yawning or so jacked up on caffeine I can't sit still, and I fear at this point, it's going to be one of those options or the other...................... 

Alllllllllllllllmost........

Almost unfurled...

Almost open...

Almost there...

Almost the very first bloom of Spring...

Monday Musings

I know there is a "thing" out there on the blogosphere to post Random Thoughts Tuesdays.  One of my favorite people to stalk bloggy friends, Cristin, does this pretty regularly and I always enjoy reading her posts.  Well, I always enjoy reading any of her posts, but you know what I mean.  (Or maybe you don't.  It is quite possible that I'm not making any sense whatsoever this morning as I am functioning on a caffeine hangover and less than 4 hours of sleep thanks to last night's Oscars telecast and my decision to majorly overcaffeinate in order to stay up late enough to watch every, last moment.  My brain is so foggy, it's San Francisco.  Or London.  Or that John Carpenter movie.  Or its remake.  Okay, okay, I'll stop.)

So, as this is Monday and not Tuesday, but the best I can do is throw out some random things that are clattering around quite loudly in my aching, befogged brain, this is my stab at a Random Thoughts Tuesday but I'm calling it Monday Musings instead.

***

The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra-la!  Look what four days of sunshine and a few-degrees-above-freezing temperatures have wrought in our front yard (along with a rapidly shrinking snowman):

 

 Crocipetti!!  (Or crocuses, for the non-Beat Cats in the audience)

  

 Daffodils!

 

Daffodils and also possibly a hyacinth!

I planted about 150 or so bulbs in front of the house and around our light post last fall.  I did a mixture of crocuses, daffodils and hyacinths because those were the three bulbs I was assured by many an online gardening site would be least tempting to the seventy squillion squirrels and chipmunks that call our silver maples and pine tree home.  I know that some of those furry critters still felt the need to sample what I'd planted because I came across several bulbs that had been dug up and had a little nibble taken out of them before being rejected and tossed aside.  I replanted those and hopefully they weren't too taste-tested to bloom.  I'm just glad *anything* is coming up.  I'm glad we've had sunshine.  I'm glad I can see something other than white, liberally splotched with yellow.  (Think I'm kidding?  I'm not...............)

That was taken the weekend before last.  There are no dog or cat footprints leading up to any of those spots, either.  Ewwwwwwwww.

***

With the recent thaw, it's a good thing we got outside the weekend before last and accomplished a few of Kiddo's Most Desired Winter Weekend Family Outdoor activities:

- building a snowman bigger than Kiddo...

- and building a snow fort from which to have a snowball fight.

Ed, the snowman - or rather, person of snow that we built, has suffered mightily with the sun that decided to come out and stay out in the days immediately following his creation.  We have had to pick up the various bits of his face and reattach them several times in the past week, most recently this morning as we were waiting for Kiddo's bus to make its way up the street.  Ed is now a little person of snow with basically just his bottom snowball still vertical and present.

 

If I'd realized that constructing things out of snow in the yard was all it would take to bring on the spring thaw and sunshine, I'd have been outside at 12:01am on January 1st!  Let's hope it lasts............

***

So, the Oscars were on last night, which reaffirmed my deep and everlasting desire to one day be a seat filler for the Academy Awards.  At least twice during last night's telecast, I saw a seat filler sitting right next to George Clooney.  Can you imagine?!  Of course, I'll need to get a whole lot more attractive before they'd plunk me next to any celebrity, much less one in the front row.  With my luck, I'd get to seat fill next to the guy who was sitting behind Quentin Tarantino last night... (not that I have anything against Gandalf, of course...)

I've said I really want to do this for my 40th birthday, so I still have another year plus to figure out the wheres, hows, and if it's really possibles since Seat Filling at the Oscars is totally the number one item on my bucket list!

***

Words Kiddo asked me to define for her over the past three days:

murder

distended

slipshod

Each time, the question came out of the blue, and each time, I asked her where she'd heard/read it.  Murder came from a book she had to read about Abraham Lincoln for homework, distended from the movie Bolt and slipshod from a Kim Possible book she was reading.  It's like living with a pop vocabulary quiz around here all of a sudden.

***

Are you watching Modern Family?  It is, hands down, my favorite new show of the season.  I like that not only is it side-splittingly, spit-takingly funny, but that the characters actually seem to be fond of each other.  Yes, there is snark, but it isn't mean-spirited the way it tends to be on sitcoms of recent memory (well, even further back than recent memory - all the way back to Roseanne).  Every character gets great lines and great scenes, from Ed O'Neill's Jay on down to baby Lily, who had her first lines last week.  Modern Family is the reason why our family's band name for Rock Band/Guitar Hero is Why the Face...

Speaking of television, I'm just not as into American Idol this year as I've been in years past.  I haven't even re-upped for the annual AI pool in which I've eagerly and intently participated for years.  I don't know if Adam ruined it for me with his utter perfection last year or what, but despite being a huge Ellen DeGeneres fan (and enjoying her participation in the show this year a lot too), I'm just not that into it.  Anyone else with me?  I don't know if it is that none of the performers have grabbed me (yet?) the way that Adam did last year, that the song choices have felt tired and the performances for the most part ho-hum, or that the judges other than Ellen seem to be trotting out a lot of the same, exact comments that they have made in previous seasons or what, but I'm not feeling it.  Out of the current group of contestants, I'd have to say my favorite is Crystal Bowersox, and I am hoping I get more sucked in as we get closer to the top 12, but right now, it isn't Much Watch Live TV, but more Watch it off the DVR at Some Point TV instead.

Also speaking of TV, how about that final season of Lost?!  Whoa nelly!  Now *that* is Must Watch Live TV, along with Modern Family and The Amazing Race (though I really do still miss the Globetrotters from last season).  I'd watch Project Runway live too, if it weren't on so late.  That falls into the Must Watch off the DVR Because it is on Way Past My Bedtime category.  (Speaking of Project Runway, did you hear that Meryl Streep's Oscar outfit last night was designed by PR alum Chris March? WOOHOO!)

What TV shows are on your Must List this season?

***

Conversation with Kiddo the other day:

Kiddo:  Mommy, I think it would be fun if you played Littlest Pet Shop with me.

Me:  You know what would be even more fun than that?

Kiddo:  What?

Me:  Doing your homework!

Kiddo:  Ha. Ha. Ha. 

*pause*

Kiddo:  That?  Was me laughing sarcastically.

(Yes, she has a ways to go yet before she realizes that sarcasm is diluted quite a bit by pointing it out immediately after using it...)

***

If you're looking for a good book to read, in terms of being laugh-out-loud funny as well as extremely well written, I recommend picking up a copy of Notes from the Underwire by Quinn Cummings.  I've been reading her equally well written blog, The QC Report, for a while, and after languishing on the library's hold list for what felt like an eternity, I finally got my hands on a copy of the book last Friday.  Now that I read and enjoyed the book, I'm sad that I got it from the library because that means I have to return it.  This might be one of the rare times when I go out and buy a book after I've read it courtesy of the public library, because there are so many bits that I'd like to be able to reread whenever I want to, without languishing on the hold list all over again.

For example..............

What I want to be is a strong, resolute figure leading my daughter through the primeval forest of childhood, hacking out a clear, bright path of expectations for her.  What I usually end up being is a person swatting at bugs, squinting at the sun and saying nervously, "Wait.  I know I have the map here somewhere."

There also was an entire chapter about organizing summertime activities for kids (as in camps) that struck a huge chord as I'm presently squinting through the reemerging sun and noticing the long, long stretch of no school that is suddenly looming much closer on the horizon.  She had me rolling in that "It's funny because it's true" sort of way through this whole chapter.  It also had me checking the town's recreation department website for the opening of registration for the "summer fun" program and sending an email out to all the other parents in Kiddo's class and our Daisy troop to find out whether any of her friends are going to be attending Summer Fun and if so, when.  Kiddo loved Summer Fun last year, when she didn't know a soul in town and it didn't matter therefore which weeks she went.  This year, there are more field trips as she's now a going-into-second-grader which puts her into an older group (2-4 instead of K-1) and she knows lots of kids, obviously, now that she's in school here, so the timing of Summer Fun scheduling is more complex.  The cost has gone up a bit as well, but it still is the most reasonably priced summer day camp type program around, for which I'm grateful that Kiddo enjoys it so much!

Whoops, I'm digressing again.  I think that's a sign I need to walk away from the computer and tend to either the grocery shopping or the sink full of dishes from last night and this morning.  I'd much prefer curling up in a sunny spot on the floor like our cat and taking a nap, but I've squandered any potential nap time by blogging instead.  Think I might ingest some hair of the dog before I attempt anything else... 

***

Last but not least, it's almost March Madness time again, so allow me to display a bit of Hubby's and my school spirit and end with a hearty

LET'S GO, ORANGE!!!

Phriday Photo Phun - Happy first day of SPRING!?!

The flowers that bloom in the spring, tra la!
Breathe promise of merry sunshine —
As we merrily dance and we sing, tra la!
We welcome the hope that they bring, tra la,
Of a summer of roses and wine,
Of a summer of roses and wine.....





And that's what we mean when we say that a thing
Is welcome as flowers that bloom in the spring.
Tra la la la la,
Tra la la la la,
The flowers that bloom in the spring!





Happy First Day of Spring! Don't you love the shots above, of all my gorgeous bulbs and flowers, thriving in the gentle, sunshiny spring air? And look at my beautiful back yard this morning, on this, the day after the last day of winter.........





For comparison's sake, here is a shot I took of the back yard exactly one week ago:





*sigh*


Spring is sprung, the grass is riz, I wonder where the birdies iz?




I'm pretty sure Mr. Robin was thinking "WTH?!?!?!?!" as he promptly flew away. (Headed, no doubt, for the more tropical environs of the mid-Atlantic or southeastern states...) See ya in a couple more months, Rob!


I shouldn't be surprised, though, that spring has brought us more cold and snow, even after warming up well into the 40s and 50s for the past several days and making us hopeful for an end to the freezing and the bundling and the huddling under fleece blankets (though, alas, not a Snuggie) with the windows shut tightly against the chill, I mean, this is upstate New York, after all. Just two years ago, this was Kiddo hunting for Easter Eggs one fine, April Sunday morning:





And yet, waaaaaaaaah!!!! I'm ready for spring for real, man! For windows open and fresh air and flowers blooming and trees and bushes and lawns greening up and short-sleeved shirts with spring jackets and sneakers instead of sweaters under winter coats and boots...........................

in Just-

spring when the world is mud-

luscious the little

lame balloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come

running from marbles and

piracies and it's

spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer

old balloonman whistles

far and wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's

spring

and

the

goat-footed

balloonMan whistles

far

and

wee

PS - want to play along with the Phriday Photo Phun?
Pop over to Candid Carrie's for the Phiesta!

Flowering into fall

I was feeling a little artsy-fartsy last week, and I wandered around our property taking pictures of the state of our various planting beds as fall inexorably creeps in and finishes off summer for good. Here is a photo essay from those pictures (imagine me all in black, wearing a beret, listening to jazz or poetry as I put this together.....):

This rosebush was given to us by our pastor on the day we had Kiddo baptized. We have exactly the wrong type of soil for roses, and it seemed as though it had died by the end of that first year. We cut it back to remove all the dead bits (which was most of the bush) and let it be, more out of laziness than because we thought it would come back. Five years later, it hasn't really grown, but it persists in making a few blooms each summer. This would be its last hurrah for the year.


I learned that raspberries can bear fruit well into the fall from the fruit farm where we regularly do pick-your-own each year. However, this is the first year that my own raspberry plants have had a second harvest. I've been picking about a cup of ripe berries from them every few days, and there are still more yet to ripen, assuming we don't have a killing frost in the next couple of weeks.


My poor Echinacea plant - it was overtaken last summer by its aggressive (yet beautiful) cousin; a Rudbeckia plant I'd put in several feet away. This year, the Rudbeckia (aka black-eyed Susan) stayed over on its own side of the bed, but the Echinacea (aka cone flower) never quite regained its former glory, only growing to about a third of its original size. Hopefully next summer it will be bigger and stronger, assuming its cousin keeps her hands - or more precisely, her roots - to herself.


Some sort of bug infested the sunflowers early in the summer this year. Hubby came in from mowing one day and reported that there were swarms of little, white, winged pests covering the leaves. I tried to take care of the problem as soon as he alerted me, but the sunflowers never seemed to completely recover, yielding a pitiful crop of halfhearted, small flowers. The summer before, the sunflowers were magnificent in their dinner-plate-sized, taller-than-Kiddo, yellow splendor. This year, one decent bouquet of barely-saucer-sized blooms was all they mustered. They still are cheery, though, gracing the windowsill over the kitchen sink with their sunshiny presence (and spreading saffron-hued pollen all over with the cat's bee-impersonating assistance). Right after I took this picture, I cut this bloom and its one remaining companion and brought them in for a last dose of summer.


While I am an overly optimistic, yet haphazard gardener, with a blatant disregard for soil type or shade conditions and a lassitude for taking extra care with plants who shouldn't rightly thrive in the clay that masquerades as soil in our yard, I still luck out from time to time and get something that loves where I've planted it. Case in point: my Russian sage. I planted this years ago, purchased cheaply at an end-of-season clearance sale (I read the words "perennial" and "hardy" and thought woo-hoo, let's give that a shot) and every year since, it has come back taller and fuller and more gorgeous then ever before. We (read: Hubby) cut it back mercilessly every spring - we leave it through the winter as it adds interest to the landscape until the landscape invariably is obliterated by snow - and it shoots up and blooms for months even with the harsh treatment.


When the burning bushes burn, it is definitely a sign of fall. A few winters ago, our thriving vole community nearly destroyed our two burning bushes by gnawing off the bark around the base of the bushes and munching on the roots as well. We didn't expect them to survive, but they pulled through (and we began Mission: Vole Extermination the following spring) and they brighten my gray morning trudge to and from the bus stop with their fiery red leaves, bringing a smile to my face each day.

Ah, the true sign of fall, even more than the burning bushes going red or the sun disappearing from the sky.... mums and pumpkins! I am always drawn to the yellow mums more than any other color. I had some planted in the front yard, but the evil voles and their associates managed to do them in for good, so now I stick to keeping the mums well out of the critters' reach on my front porch, replacing the petunias in my milk jug-turned-planter and hanging baskets. (Or, in this year's case, the begonias that replaced the petunias in my hanging baskets.) The two pumpkins you see here represent the entirety of our first ever pumpkin harvest. Hubby and I were amazed that any pumpkins grew at all, considering this is the fourth year we've tried growing them and we've never had a single gourd to show for it before. Neither of them are big enough for carving, so we will be making a trip to the pumpkin patch for Kiddo's jack o' lantern soon, but they'll do nicely for decoration between now and Halloween.

I'm finally feeling ready for fall, but I do appreciate the plants that held on as long as they could to help ease the transition from technicolor and green to gray and lifeless... Let's just hold off on the snow until at least late November, okay, Mother Nature?

Miscellany: Sweet 16, The Silence of the Voles, Google hilarity

Sixteen years ago tonight was my first date with Hubby! He picked me up at my apartment in his teeny-tiny Ford Festiva and we went to Pizzeria Uno for dinner, then to see Last of the Mohicans (its opening night). After the movie, we went to Friendly's for dessert, where I was impressed by Hubby managing to put away an entire Jim Dandy sundae -



- that's FIVE scoops of ice cream, y'all! (I should point out Hubby was only a 19 year old college student at the time, and hasn't eaten a sundae half as large in over a decade...) We sat and talked 'til the restaurant closed. Then, we headed back to my apartment where Hubby came up (oh hush now, I'm not like that on a first date) and we watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, because I was horrified that Hubby had never seen it. (That's a movie that we still quote to each other on practically a daily basis, and it's a good thing Hubby liked it as much as I do, as that was part of my future-husband-material litmus test.) After that, we talked some more and he left my apartment around 4:15 in the morning. And that was the Great Beginning, sixteen years ago today...

***

So, yesterday I mowed the lawn. It was far overdue for a mowing, and the back yard was especially jungle-y. When I got to the back, I dragged Kiddo's playhouse up onto the deck, as is customary, and shook my head when I saw the obvious signs that some of our community of voles had set up an outpost - vacation home perhaps? - underneath the playhouse - vole poop, little trails, two voles scurrying away and under the fence, etc. We never put any rat poison underneath the deck this summer, where their primary metropolis exists, and I've seen evidence as always that they were utilizing both my food garden and planting beds as their own personal salad bar, so I wasn't surprised to see that they'd been under the playhouse. I began the mowing, iPod on and my Aerosmith playlist cranked up so I could hear it over our loud, old, gas-powered push mower. As I was going over the area where the playhouse had been, I mowed over a largish tuft of dead grass that I had figured was the voles' vacation bed. Coincidentally, as the front edge of the mower hit this tuft, the song I'd been listening to ended and there was a moment of silence just long enough for me to hear some hideous squeaking as the mower blades momentarily caught on something in the grass. I immediately stopped the engine, but it was too late - what I'd just run over with the Grassy Blades of Death was not an abandoned pile of grass for bedding, but a nest containing several small and now quite diced and dead baby voles.

I felt just horrible about it, as I hadn't intended to slaughter an entire nest of helpless babies, rodents or otherwise. I fetched a shovel from the garage, scooped up the gooey, gory remains and carried them ceremoniously down to the pond, where I gave them a burial at sea. (I figured the fish or herons or other pond-area wildlife would appreciate some Vole Tartar.) I mean, as much as I hate the stupid voles and do intentionally try to off them in their adult form (via the rat poison under the deck), I didn't mean to kill a whole passel of babies. To paraphrase Hannibal Lecter, now it will be some time before the voles stop screaming............... It also will be some time before I offhandedly mow any lumps of grass, as well. I imagine those baby voles are now sitting up there in animal heaven, alongside the squirrel I ran over when I was 17 and the bird that flew into my car earlier this summer, leaving grisly bits embedded in the front grill, and they're all waiting for their turn to cast their judgement upon me, the careless machinery operator who sent them to their doom...

***

So, from time to time I read posts other folks have written about the weird Google searches that brought people to their blog. Well, I certainly have my fair share of those too, and now's as good a time as any to share them with you. Here goes with a sampling from the past week's searches:

goldfish getting fat

Perhaps installing a tiny treadmill in the tank would help?

coke-bottle glasses thick

Yep, that's me. I could start fires in seconds by holding my glasses up to the sun. Seriously.

kids gotta pee

Yes, they do. True story.

how to make a loud burp without soda

I'm a bit sad that I didn't have any actual answers for this person on my blog...

the mom haircut
and
Mrs. Brady hair

These both appeared several times from different places. Who knew so many folks out there are interested in either mom hair or the mother of all moms, Mrs. Brady's hair?

neti pot hurt eardrum

Well, I told you I don't ever want to use one of those things, and here's just one more reason why.

why is my child barfing all over the bed

Um, I'm not sure, but sorry - perhaps a throw-up bucket would be a good idea?

funk

In which regard: bringing it, smelling it, or listening to it?

How to look like Angelina Jolie

Sorry, I certainly can't help you there. Getting Brad Pitt as arm candy might help, though.

apple bread more with less

This one just doesn't make sense. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

food getting stuck in teeth all the time

Have you tried flossing?

moms in jeopardy

I don't know what you were looking for, but I was on Jeopardy and I am now a mom...

How to remove very big splinter from childs skin without screaming

Well, I certainly would also love the answer to that one!

Boobs in a swimming pool

Yes, there frequently are.

Now, I have had many search hits every week for things like "naked locker room" or "embarrassing public nudity" thanks to some of my older posts, but I'm guessing that the people doing those searches aren't getting the results they were hoping for when they stumble upon my little blog. Hee!

Okay, I could keep rambling on, but I have a list of errands to do and I'm burning daylight here. Hope everyone is having a great day out there in the blogosphere!

Taroo, Taroo, ta-ROAT

My dear friend Andy emailed me this after reading my whine about being a grouchy grump. It is a bit of an inside joke (well, I did tell y'all about Skeeter, the inside joke part just spirals off of that original story), but it made me laugh so I wanted to share.


And yes, I am feeling a bit less grumpy, hallelujah! I'm mostly just tired than anything, as opposed to tired and hormonally eeeeevil. (Goatlike, one might say....) I've told Hubby that I'm not waiting up for him tonight, but going to bed when the kiddo does. Hubby's softball team is playing in the semifinals of their league's tournament at 7:15, then if they win it's on to the final game in a doubleheadery sort of way. If they lose, he wouldn't be home before 9:00 and while normally, I wait for him to get home and then we eat dinner together, tonight, no way. Hubby was in agreement with this plan - I think he doesn't particularly want to see me at that hour in my mood! At least I got the front and side yards mowed (thunder started ominously rumbling before I could do the back) and took out my frustrations on some ginormous weeds as well as hacking back our Forsythia of Insanity. I have such a love-hate relationship with our forsythia bushes, which are the hardiest things, ever. I got them from a friend who was relandscaping her entire property. They'd been dug out and bagged in some garbage bags, then moved in a hot van and left on the side of the house for like a month, still in the bags and only occasionally watered, before we finally got around to planting them. Now, in the spring, I looooove my forsythia. It is the first thing to bloom besides my crocipetti (aka crocuses) and I always bring branches inside and force them even before they're blooming outside. But by midsummer? They grow in this psychotic frenzy and get gigantic and sprawly, no matter how severely we cut them back. Haaate that - the branches poke through the fence into the back yard and flop over to the side into our neighbors' property. When I was mowing that side of the yard today, I noticed that the leftmost bush was completely blocking the neighbors' access to the side of their house and back yard. I'm surprised they haven't hacked it down or at least (since they're very polite) asked us to cut it back, but I went to it with a vengeance. The forsythia retaliated with a vengeance as well, bitch-slapping me across my left side and tangling in my hair as I fought my way through the branches to a cutting point. Ow.

But forsythia trauma aside, I feel better about having accomplished that much yard work despite the crazy humidity and my bad mood. I cranked up A Chorus Line (the OBC) on my iPod and sang at the top of my lungs over the lawnmower. I was obviously loud enough that the mailman could hear me as he pulled up our block, because he turned onto our street during "Dance 10, Looks 3" and shot me a slightly more bemused look than usual. (Our poor mailman has encountered me out doing yard work with my iPod on more than once....)

For those of you who aren't show tune fans, here are the particular lyrics I was belting out to my audience of finches, cowbirds, butterflies, garter snakes and our lucky, lucky mailman:

Dance: ten; Looks; three.
And I'm still on unemployment,
Dancing for my own enjoyment.
That ain't it, kid. That ain't it, kid!

"Dance: ten; Looks; three,"
I'd like to die!
Left the theatre and
Called the doctor for
My appointment to buy

Tits and ass!
Bought myself a fancy pair.
Tightened up the derriere.
Did the nose with it, all that goes with it!

Tits and ass!
Had the bingo-bongos done.
Suddenly I'm getting national tours!
Tits and ass won't get you jobs
Unless they're yours.

Didn't cost a fortune neither.
Didn't hurt my sex life either.

Flat and sassy,
I would get the strays and losers.
Beggars really can't be choosers.
That ain't it, kid. That ain't it, kid!

Fixed the chassis.
"How do you do!"
Life turned into an endless medley of
"Gee, it had to be you!"
Why?

Tits and ass!
Where the cupboard once was bare
Now you knock and someone's there.
You have got 'em, hey.
Top to bottom, hey.

It's a gas!
Just a dash of silicone.
Shake your new maracas and you're fine!
Tits and ass can change your life.
They sure changed mine!

Have it all done - honey, take my word.
Grab a cab, c'mon, see the wizard on
Park and Seventy-Third
For

Tits and ass!
Orchestra or balcony.
What they want is whatcha see.
Keep the best of you, do the rest of you.

Pits or class - I have never seen it fail.
Debutante or chorus girl or wife.

Tits and ass,
Yes, tits and ass
Have changed my life!

Now for the complete picture, you have to imagine my yard work ensemble: scrungy, once-was-orange tank top (with bra showing more often than not), faded, bleach-spotted brown capri pants - actually, I believe technically they're cropped gauchos, not capris - white crew socks, ratty old sneakers, filthy green and white (at least once, long ago, they were white) gardening gloves - the rubber-and-fabric kind that always make my hands smell like a balloon for hours even with much scrubbing - iPod and gigantic sunglasses, dripping with sweat and bearing red marks up my one side from calf to cheek from the forsythia that looked like I'd been flogging myself. Hair curling out every which way from the humidity, too. I was looking hawt. I tried to restrain myself, as I was in public and all, but I believe the occasional shimmy escaped, too (behind the screen of my lawn mower, but still). That's the danger of playing show tunes on one's iPod in public - one cannot help but dance as well as sing along. Well, if one is me, at any rate.

Anyhow, thanks for my goat, Andy! I'm off to change Swimmy's water, then make a lasagna for dinner (that'll reheat well for Hubby whenever he gets home) and crash on the couch with a book while the kiddo eats.

Update round-up

First of all, we opted to stay home instead of going out in the pouring down, thundery weather to attend the Jimmy Sturr concert, so no polkatastic good time for us. I mean, had Noah floated his ark by us (or alternatively, Steve Carell - boy was that not a good movie, and Hubby and I both love Steve Carell) we might've hopped on board, but only if the ark had a lightning rod on top. Honestly, we figured there was no way the concert was still happening, Hubby's golf outing was cancelled, after all... I learned today, however, that the concert did happen and was extremely well attended (from the pictures I saw online, by a rather large bunch of quite hardy oldsters) so shoot, no rain date and we missed the fun. Maybe there'll be a repeat performance next summer...

The AC on my beloved Sienna is still not fixed. This last time (#5) that we brought it in, they ultimately determined that it is something to do with the evaporator, which is yet another crazy expensive part that requires ordering. To be fair, our dealership is going above and beyond at this point in terms of the neverending problems with the AC, and we very much appreciate all they've done. With any luck, the new part will be in tomorrow and then Hubby can drop the van off either Wednesday or Thursday, whereupon they'll have to take apart the entire dashboard area to replace this one bit. Hopefully they can dig out those fossilized Goldfish crackers, Cheerios and raisins that the kiddo hurled up into the air vents about three years back while they're in there. To be rid of that occasional rattling wouldn't be a bad thing! (No, I don't think her thrown-for-distance from the back seat snacks are the cause of all the problems. That's definitely a coincidence, right?)

The finches have long departed the petunia basket nest, and for that matter, the petunia baskets themselves are now departed. The heat and wind did them in faster than I could keep them watered, alas, and so I replaced them with some hot pink begonias for the remainder of the summer. All the perennials have been going crazy, especially my Russian sage and English daisies, both of which are almost as tall as the top of my head! The butterfly bushes are blooming and beginning to attract quite a few butterflies, which ties in to my later summer obsession of getting a cool and arty photo of them, something that's hard to do with my point-and-shoot camera.

Oh, and while we don't have the finches in the nest, they're still hanging about the house, either chilling out in our lilac bushes in front or perching on the deck and fence in back. Hubby is starting to grumble ominously about not restocking the feeders, as the amount of bird poop on the deck, fence and porch is getting a bit out of control. I've promised not to buy another bag of birdseed when the current bag (that I just bought) runs out, and I'm only refilling the feeders every second or third day now (they empty in about 12 hours). I am still keeping the hummingbird feeder full and fresh - love those hummingbirds!

The finches aren't the only birds chilling in our lilac bushes. This summer, we've had a mama duck and her five ducklings hanging out there, too! They bathe in the downspout runoff when it rains, eat the birdseed scattered off the edge of the porch by the finches, and sleep underneath the largest lilac. Then they march on down to the pond for a swim (and/or to bother the kiddo when she's fishing back there - they loooove to go after her bobber!) and we'll see them heading back up to our yard again when they're done at the pond. There's no nest under there and the ducklings are now almost as big as Mama, but they're still cute and I will confess to giving the kiddo the heels of the bread loaves to feed them. The ducklings come within mere inches of her feet, whereas Mama Duck is a bit more dubious and hangs back a bit further, though she will gobble up any bread bits that get close enough to her.

We've been reaping the fruits of our labors in the food garden and berry patch. Hubby actually ate some of the strawberries and proclaimed them tasty, but I've been leaving them for the birds in exchange for leaving the other berry plants alone. We've picked maybe a half pint of raspberries and almost a pint of blueberries so far, all delicious! The blackberry bush didn't take to the transplanting and doesn't look like it will bear fruit this summer, but there's a lot of new growth so I'm hopeful for next year. We've also had sugar snap peas coming out our ears, which is awesome because we all love them and last year's crop stunk. Speaking of ears, after being cautiously optimistic about the 6 corn seedlings we put in as they grew to about 2 feet high, our hopes were dashed as 2 feet seems to be the maximum and they've not gotten any taller. Not sure if the stalks are tall enough to actually produce any ears, but you never know!

What else? Oh, a splintery badness update - true to the doctor's word, the kiddo's hand has completely healed, without infection or further medical intervention necessary. So, WHEW for that!!

In other medically related news, I've pretty much been wearing my glasses exclusively, as my eyes have been crazy itchy and I definitely do NOT want a recurrence of the Eye Ick from Hell! Even in the pool, I rock my Jackie O-ish, crazy Magoo thick, prescription sunglasses. At least this way, I'll have more pairs of contacts to use up on our vacay to Disney World next month! (Hubby and the kiddo made a paper chain to count down the days, and while it seems really long, I know we're just over a month now which is bad news for my "amazing weight loss and getting fit and toned" plan. Oh well, I can still tone in the next monthish, anyhow...)

I think that catches me up on everything, except for the ongoing Hair Follies. I'm utterly depressed at how long it is taking my hair to grow out, but happy that most days now, it doesn't get too Wolverine, Farrah or Carol Brady-esque even when I only do a minimum of hair fussing. So I guess that is something!

Anyhow, that's what's been going on in my neck of the woods, how are you doing? Having a good summer so far? Hot enough for ya? Doing anything exciting, going anywhere exotic or enjoying a "staycation" instead? Do tell!

Locavorish

So, there's a big upswell in the locavore movement these days. It got me to thinking that I've been a sorta-kinda locavore for most of my life. Not intentionally or consciously from a "cause" standpoint, but just from life. I mean, I was seven when my parents bought the farm (um, that'd be literally, they really bought a farm, not figuratively as in "kicked the bucket") and we ate what we grew from that point on - vegetables from the gardens, fruit from the trees (including the BEST plums EVER until the plum tree went barren, *sob*) and lamb from the barns. Lots and lots of lamb. Lamburgers, lambloaf, spaghetti and lambballs. Mom used to claim that we couldn't tell the difference between ground lamb and hamburger, but sorry, none of us ever believed that! (Let me say that I have eaten lamb exactly once in the 20 years since I graduated high school and moved away from home. Lamb isn't exactly on the menu at college cafeterias, and I have never, ever of my own volition bought, cooked, or ordered lamb in a restaurant.) My mom canned and froze things - what items we didn't grow we'd go pick our own or buy from neighboring farms, like corn and peaches - and we used to trade a lamb for a pig, so we'd get fresh meat that way too (including the Best. Bacon. EVER. Mmmm, bacon.) We also would go crabbing and fishing down the shore in the summers, and one year we were really way too successful when the bluefish are running - it took over a year to kill that bluefish supply downstairs in the basement freezer. (Like lamb, I have never and will never eat bluefish again. Unless, you know, George Clooney invited me over for dinner and served lamb and bluefish stew. Then, I might eat it.) I mean, we weren't like Little House on the Prairie with Mom churning butter and making her own Frosted Flakes for us for breakfast or anything. We shopped at the grocery store but we did eat as much local food as we could. (We did have an old-fashioned, churn-it-'til-your-arms-fell-off ice cream maker. Dad's favorite recipe for it used strawberries and oranges. It was...........interesting.)

So, flash forward a coupla decades, and I'm locavorish again. We have, as I've posted about previously, a food garden in our little, suburban back yard, as well as a berry patch. (The raspberries and blueberries are just coming in to ripeness, though I'm bummed that the blackberries I got from a fellow Freecycler have not done well with the transplanting - I don't think I'm going to get many berries off them this year. Darn.) I really love going out into the back yard and picking the food for dinner there, like last night when Hubby said "oh, we're out of lettuce" so I popped outside and brought in a freshly-picked head of Romaine that tasted deeeelicious on our bacon cheeseburgers. Oh, and that bacon and hamburger? I buy from a local butcher (almost the Best. Bacon. EVER but not quite what I recall from childhood, but still a thousand, million, zillion times better than what one can buy packaged at the supermarket). I buy all our cold cuts, cheeses and most of our other meats from the butcher. (I get chicken mainly frozen in large quantities from the warehouse club store, as well as the chicken "dinosaurs" that the kiddo prefers. She basically only will eat chicken in some sort of breaded, animal-shaped nugget form. Sigh.) During our area's growing season, I frequent the farm stands within a 5 minute drive from our house, and there I buy our fruits and veggies to supplement my itty-bitty (4 ft x 8 ft) garden. The kiddo and I also do pick-yer-own all summer/fall long - everything from apples to berries to peaches, all right around the corner from our house, fresh, cheap and delish! (Oh, and we have our own, newfangled ice cream maker too - just plug it in and your arms will thank you! We tend to make ice cream following Ben and Jerry's recipe book. Mmmm, Ben and Jerry's!)

So, without consciously trying to be a locavore, I really sort of am to a good degree. I like knowing where our food is coming from (especially when I'm picking it myself), I like knowing the pesticides that were - or weren't! - used on my food, I think fresh food tastes better and I really like that it tends to be significantly cheaper. I also feel good about supporting local farmers, having been a local farm family myself back in the day. What about you? Do you try to eat locally? If so, why? Convenience? Cost? Cause? Health/nutrition? Other reasons?

Lazy Sunday

First of all, if this post's title made Chris Parnell and Andy Samberg's SNL digital short run through your head, welcome to my brain. (The Chronic what? Cles of Narnia!) I've loved that clip since its original airing...

We've had a lazy Sunday here this year for Father's Day. I asked Hubby what he wanted to do today and his (somewhat tongue-in-cheek) response was "Breakfast. Nap. Lunch. Nap. Watch golf. Eat dinner. Watch more golf. Sleep." Well, the only Smiths that napped today turned out to be the cat (as per usual) and the kiddo, which was unusual but she's running a fever today, due, I think, to the four booster shots she had late Friday afternoon (quadruple OUCH but at least we're done with vaccines now until middle school). At least I'm hoping that's all that is causing it - she is asymptomatic otherwise, and certainly perked up following the nap, lunch, a popsicle from the ice cream truck, a water balloon toss with Mommy while Daddy practiced putting in the back yard and relaxing inside in the AC.

Speaking of AC, the AC still isn't fixed in the Sienna. Yes, argh to the tenth degree. Apparently there was a second part they didn't expect would need replacing, but it does, and they didn't have that part on hand, so it's now been ordered and we have an appointment to bring the Sienna back in again on Friday. That means another week of driving the kiddo back and forth to preschool (about 20-25 minutes each way) without AC. The good news is that the weather isn't supposed to be so stinkin' hot this week. The bad news is that the forecast is calling for rain every day this week, so we may not be able to cruise around with the windows open as we have been. Let's hope that Friday does the trick and the van is fixed once and for all!!

So anyhow, back to our day today. The kiddo woke up at four this morning, but went back to bed with a little coaxing before getting up for real at six. I got up with her so Hubby could sleep in, which he did until about 7:30. (Sadly, that counts as sleeping late in this house. Pathetic - I recall when "sleeping late" meant not being awake before noon...) Hubby actually requested ties for Father's Day, and the kiddo and I duly obliged and got him three new ones for his collection. The kiddo has surprisingly good taste in tie selection, and Hubby has received more compliments on ties that were her choices than any other. I have to give myself a wee bit of credit in this department too, though, as the one who will gently influence her choices as well as having the final say in which get purchased. This mainly comes into play when the kiddo spots a novelty tie - any novelty tie - because she has a mad, crazy passion for them. She will beg and plead and insist that Daddy would LOVE that one - the day-glo baby blue one with the flamingos and palm trees, or the one with giant lipstick smooches like Rocky Horror meets the Mary Kay lady, basically the tackier and louder the tie is, the more she thinks Daddy MUST have it. This time around, I had to dissuade her from picking the blue tie with the pink shirted, green shorts-ed lady golfers teeing off all over it. "But Daddy LOVES golf, Mommy!" Yes, true enough, and yet that isn't a tie that Daddy would ever wear in public, so it remained on the rack for some other dad's neck. (If it had been cheaper, say $5 or so, I would've gotten it - in part as payback for the Grandma Mother's Day card he let the kiddo pick out for me - but it was only marked down to $13 so no dice.) I think the kiddo would've loved growing up in the heinous, preppy fashion era of the 80s. I recall some horrible clothing, covered with worse patterns than any novelty tie, that people wore intentionally and with a straight face. My former school headmaster had a few pairs of cords covered with things like lobsters and tennis rackets that he'd frequently wear, not to mention madras slacks and pastel sweaters, and no one batted an eye. The kiddo would've LOVED those pants, as well as the wrap-around skirt I had back in seventh grade that was covered in (I kid you not) frogs.

The only thing we actually accomplished today as far as any work goes was to put up the netting that will hopefully keep the birdies away from the berries in our berry patch. Last year the netting was quite successful, but it was a ginormous PITA of a project. I put it up and removed it by myself and swore that next year, I'd get Hubby to help. So, he did, and thank goodness. When I say "ginormous PITA" I am vastly understating. That netting, yeesh, it is clingy and folds back on itself and gets tangled and can't be spread out.... essentially it is not a job for one person. Between the two of us and a few muttered curse words (the kiddo was safely out of ear's reach in the house), we hung it up in a way that I hope will make it easier for us humans to access the berries while keeping the birds out, and not get all tangled in the branches and brambles, which happened last year. The raspberries, blueberries and blackberries all look really promising in terms of buds and fruit, and while it was a bumper crop for my strawberry plants, they once again were itty bitty - hardly more than the size of a large raisin - so I left them on the plants as they ripened for the birds to eat. Which they did, with nary a "thank you" beyond a liberal splashing of bird poop along the edge of the fence in the corner where the berry patch resides.

In nesting news, all the finch babies are hatched and the end number is four. I don't know if the last egg was a dud, but when I took pictures the other day, there was still an egg left to hatch, then the next time we checked, no egg and no baby. The four that have made it seem to be healthy and thriving - they're already big enough that we can see their little beaks pointing up over the edge of the nest when looking from the window. Very cool. Mama Finch finally discovered the bird feeder I'd placed on the corner of the porch, right near her nest, and has invited every other finch in the area to join her. I counted fifteen finches (all female) on the porch and in the bushes around the porch when I peeked out the window earlier today. Finchtastic!



So, hopefully everyone out there had an equally relaxing Sunday and to all the dads out there (including my own and my hubby) - HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!

Happy Mother's Day!

As is unfortunately tradition in our house, the kiddo was up at dawn's first light today. Hubby got up with her so I could sleep in, which I did until 7:00 - woo-hoo! This is an improvement over last year when the kiddo set off our security alarm in the wee, small hours of the morning. That was the first and only time she's ever done that (it was accidental - she was looking for her godmother who had been over the night before and was here when the kiddo went to bed. She'd erroneously thought that her godmother had slept over and was trying to check the garage for her. Apparently the kiddo thinks that we'd make guests sleep in the garage......)

Anyhow, when I went moseying on downstairs at 7 this morning, the kiddo couldn't wait to give me my Mother's Day card to open, the one she picked out all by herself on a trip to the card store with Hubby.



The thing that you can't quite make out thanks to the whole "flatbed" part of the flatbed scanner is that Piglet is on a spring. A spring! Who could resist Piglet on a spring? And glitter?! Not my kiddo! She was very excited to point out how springy Piglet is, and how you can see him through the circle on the front of the card, then when you open it, he springs up!

(I should also point out here that the kiddo is yet in the earlier stages of the whole "reading" thing, and that even if she had read the wording on the front - and I'm fairly certain that Hubby pointed it out to her anyhow - the whole Piglet-on-a-spring thing still would have convinced her this was the perfect card, Grandma or not.)

They also gave me a brand-spankin'-new set of gardening tools in a cool carrying case. Apparently the various cheap, hand-me-down/garage sale-acquired tools I've been using for the past several years and lugging about the yard in my old college shower caddy are finally done with once and for all. These tools are not only shiny and new, but are made of rustproof material and are unlikely to bend or even snap in two at their first (or hundredth) contact with our insanely hard, clay soil. Woo-hoo!

Our Mother's Day plans are to get ourselves motivated (yes, I'll grant you that some of the fam has been up a wee bit longer than I have, but we're all still in jammies), head downtown to the Public Market for the first week of their annual Flower City Sundays sale and get the hanging baskets and other annuals I put in the planters on the porch and deck. Then, Hubby is going to rototill the food garden bed for me so I can get all our seedlings planted (they're straining against the lid of the starter tray at this point) and I'll get to play with my new gardening tools. Yippie!!

To all the women out there like me with reason to celebrate today, I wish you a very happy Mother's Day! To those who are grieving the loss of a child, my thoughts and prayers are with you.