Category: Uncategorized (Page 7 of 118)

That’s Buckbeak, my sweet little rooster.

Buckbeak thinks he needs to get up on the patio table and crow and crow and crow. He crows when he feels like it all day. I thought roosters were just supposed to crow in the early morning. But I’d rather he crow during the day than in the early morning, I guess.

His girls are all scattered around. They like the patio, too. Not sure why. Is it warmer than grass, or do they just like to be close to the house? Whatever the reason, they end up pooping all over the patio, which is gross and a huge pain to wash off.

This little one is Sasha. She’s the same age as Buckbeak, but is still just a tiny little thing. Maybe she’s not going to be very big. She’s a sikly. Can she even see through that mess of feathers on her face?

And then there’s Fox, our sweet little three legged cat. She likes to curl up on the back porch, too, even though I bought her a nice soft cat bed that sits on the FRONT porch. If I moved it to the back porch, I fear chickens would just walk on it and poop on it. I don’t know why she prefers to sleep on wood, but there she is, trying to nap. Ignoring (or attempting to ignore) those feathered creatures that must surely be a bother to her, but she never chases them.

That’s me. 25 feet up in the air, walking across that tiny cable. I did it.

I’ve read through the past few posts and they have been kind of downer posts. Got to do something about that, don’t I.

Well, we had a GREAT Labor Day weekend. I’ll skip over the details of the week, but lets just say I had a few more chime kids the second day, I got very familiar with the steam canner (I canned over 60 quarts of peaches, pears, and tomato juice) and we got ourselves a new little birdie.

On Friday, Megan came home and it was wonderful to hug my girl again. It’s been hard for me to have her gone, and missing her makes me miss Cole even more. Weird. So even though it’s only been two weeks since she left, I was SO happy to have her come home for the weekend. Friday we also welcomed our friends Robin and Ron, so we had a full house again. Hooray! Friday night we went out to dinner at the Spaghetti factory. Yum.

Saturday morning Robin and I got up and hit the garage sales shortly after 7:00. We found some GREAT stuff, I tell you. I may go into more detail on that later. Even though there were more sales, we had to stop about 9:30 because I was a-out of money, b-needing to use the bathroom, and c-was supposed to meet someone at 10:00.

By now you have probably seen this Talk Nerdy to me Video, right? If you haven’t, then just take a minute and watch. Pretty cool, right? I know the guy in the yellow shirt. He was the Cat in the Hat in Seussical all those years ago. He messaged me on Wed night and asked if I knew of someone with a horse in the Alpine area that he could use for a video shoot on Saturday. Of course I do. So, on Saturday, I met him over at Megan’s friend’s house to see about her horse. They looked at her pretty horse, and looked behind her to another horse, and said, “Can we use that one instead? That one is perfect!”
He took a picture and instagrammed it, saying, “Ya. We got an Epona. So stoked!”

Ipona is the name of the horse in the video game, The Legend of Zelda. Yeah, I wouldn’t know that, but my kids do.

Anyway, we spent the next hour mostly watching, sometimes helping these three guys film shots for their video. It’s not been released yet, so I can’t post a bunch of pictures just yet. I don’t even HAVE too many pictures, as I left my camera and phone in the car (duh). It was fun to watch the process, and when we left Keith thanked me profusely for my help (what help? I didn’t do much, but I’m glad it worked out.

Later that day we examined out yard sale loot and were pleased with our haul. Even Ryan, the skeptic of all skeptics, said I had done well and gotten some good deals. A BOSCH bowl for $2?! Crazy, right? A Whisper mill wheat grinder for $3? Insane.

That evening we went to my parents’ house for dinner. Mom had said we would eat from the garden…Corn, Tomatoes, Beans and Peaches. Yum. We also had sloppy joes and potato salad that we had made. It was all so yummy, and we all laughed a lot and had such a nice time.

It was a GREAT day.

Sunday was another great day as we got to go to Ryan’s niece Marissa’s homecoming and gathering at the house afterward. More great food. We were so stuffed.

Monday morning we tried to find more garage sales. It was pretty bleak, but we did at least find one, and it was a good one. Megan had mentioned that she wanted a typewriter, so I bought her one for $2.

Everyone had fun typing and playing with it, once Ryan adjusted it for them.

Then I took all three girls over to Great Clips for hair cuts. Megan wanted a trim, but Natalie and Jenna went for it.

Natalie before.

And after.

My girls. ARen’t they beautiful?

Then I took Megan to Walmart to stock up. I think she’ll have enough food now. Plus, I gave her peaches, pears I just bottled, ham from the freezer, butter….anything I could think she might need. Her car was packed and it was mostly food. She took a cooler in the car with her to keep everything cool for the 90 minute drive.

Whew!

What a GREAT weekend. And tomorrow…..is John’s birthday.

That was a failure. First day of chime choir and I got 3 kids at my 7:00 time (one was John and one was his friend, who I picked up and brought) and 2 kids at my 8:00 class. Sadly, there’s not a lot you can do with 2 or 3 kids.

I’m supposed to have a beginner group tomorrow, that is just 3 and 4th graders. I have about 6 or 7 signed up, but they will be split, too.

If I don’t have at least 20 kids enrolled, there’s not enough money to pay me.

I feel like just calling it quits. Who needs to get up and be to school at 7:00 am anyway.

It’s like when you throw a party and you’re the only one who comes.

My sister posted this lovely conversation with her 9 year old daughter that just made me laugh…

Brooke: “Eww, what are those black things under your arm?”
Mommy: “They’re hairs. I need to shave, but it’s hard to get time to take a shower when I’m taking care of all you kids.”
Brooke: “Eww, yes, you need to get rid of that! And your leg is all bristly.”
Mommy: “Someday, you will have the same thing on your legs.”
Brooke: “But I don’t! . . .Oh, I guess once I’m OLD like you, I might. So why does your body look so bad? Daddy’s older than you, and he’s PERFECT! You even said so! He’s like immortal! You said he’s smarter than you!”
Mommy: “Some day you’re going to learn to be more polite to your mother.”
Brooke: “But I can’t say something like ‘You’re beautiful’ when you have those ugly red bumps on your chin!”

Good thing I have a sense of humor, so she’s still alive.

Yes, as mothers, we sometimes take the brunt of the criticism, and brutal honesty, from our kids.

I got this message yesterday from college daughter, who is not big on thank yous or sentiment.

“I love you. Thank you for all the sacrifices you’ve made for me to be in college that I will never know about. I’m going to crush it…. thank you.”

Yeah, if I weren’t already crying after dropping her off at school on Saturday, that would do it.

Kids. Gotta love them.

I had a crap day yesterday. A certain headstrong child of mine and I got into a huge angry shouting match and I behaved badly. As a mom, I should be more in control of my actions. Then I felt like a horrible failure all day.

My older daughter is leaving this weekend for college and she’s anxious and apprehensive about it. We still have much to do. I don’t know how to make it better for her, and I’m feeling the separation anxiety myself. I don’t want to let go. I want her to grow up and have a wonderful college experience, but I don’t want to be left out of her life. I want to know what she’s experiencing, but I know she won’t share much with me. And she’ll be two hours away, which isn’t great for just popping in for a lunch date.

As I was feeling sorry for myself and almost in tears while shopping at Costco, I remembered my dear friend had lost her mother that morning. “Buck up,” I told myself, “At least your mom didn’t die today.” True, my mom didn’t die, but the mother of a dear friend died. I spent many many hours in their home and I knew and loved their mom. I hate it that my friends are losing their parents. It reminds me that my parents are no longer young and that death could be a reality. My mom was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. It’s small and they think they got it all with the surgery, but it’s still breast cancer.

Later in the afternoon I read that Robin Williams had died, and it looks like he may have taken his own life. Happy, Super Energetic Robin William. The one who made us all laugh. How could he be gone?

I’m just sad.
And it’s ok.

Chicken Butt.

John got ahold of my camera today and took some pretty good pictures.

Ok, they aren’t all good, but still fun.

I like this one of Jenna. He did pretty good with the zoom.

He claims that this picture of Jack is the perfect picture, because Jack is actually looking at him.

Good job, John.

I may have mentioned my love for Thanksgiving Point. It’s SO fun, and so close to me, and such a great deal if you have a family pass (which we do).

I love that we can take a couple of friends and just go for a few hours, and not feel like we need to see every. single. thing in order to get our money’s worth.

So, on Monday, I invited a couple of John’s friends to go to the new Museum of Curiosity with us. It’s half price for any guests that we bring, so it was only $6 each for his friends.

We’ve already been twice, but it’s always fun, especially with 10 year olds that I don’t have to worry so much about them getting lost. I stayed in the same general area and told them to stick together so we wouldn’t lose just one of them. They started out in the jungle area, climbing, climbing, climbing.
Then we went to other areas and tried out experiments with movement.

They loved racing things to figure out which one would go faster, or maybe, being boys, they just love RACING anything (these three tend to get competitive).

In Kidopolis, I was reading my book out in the center, not really sure where those boys were, and John came out and called me in to watch their play. Sure enough, they were in the cutest little stage, where there are a couple of backdrops and some costume items, and they did a “play” for me.

Then we went over to the movie making area and they made a short stop motion film and then a movie with the green screen.

If you haven’t taken your family to this amazing museum, you might want to try it out. Go with a friend who has a membership (like me) so it’s half price!