The Trials of a Busy Mom

Category: General (Page 4 of 11)

Some pictures of my mess

I don’t have a true BEFORE picture, because I didn’t think, “Hey, I’m going to blog about this cleaning of the office, so I should take a picture,” but just know it was pretty crowded.

See this desk?

Well, before it created a major traffic jam in the family room, it used to be in my office, with my computer and a whole bunch of other crap on it. And those rubbermade boxes? They are now full of stuff to garage sale or go to Deseret Industries.

See that table?

That’s how my “new desk” looked halfway into the cleaning project. I had cleaned it off initially, to move the computer over there, but then as I was sorting and purging and organizing, a lot of stuff ended up on the table again. Which is usually what happens to clean surfaces in my home. They quickly get swallowed up by the ick and the clutter.

And why do I have so many pens?

I don’t really know. But I never seem to be able to find one that works when I need it.

Can you spot poor Raggedy Ann? She’s wasn’t feeling too happy about the whole situation, I tell you.

Now my desk looks like this.

With the computer on one side of the table, and the sewing machine on the other. There is a printer in the middle of the table, but I guess if I needed to use that space for fabric cutting or whatever, I could unhook it and move it. You can see that there is still a lot of “stuff” on the window sill, but that’s mostly sewing stuff, which I may get around to moving, and I may not. We’ll see.

And the other side of the room looks like this:

The big boxes hold fabric, the little colored drawers hold paper, craft items, sewing items, and other randomness. The kids’ scrapbooks and baby albums now all fit in my little dinky bookshelf, since I purged a lot of books that I had read and/or didn’t think I was ever going to get around to reading. And yes, there’s a yoga mat in that bag there by the bookcase. Just in case I decide to break into downward dog or do some pigeon pose. Now I have a clean floor–it could happen.

Oh, yeah, there’s a roll of fabric and a rug right outside my office door that I haven’t really decided what to do with. It’s a work IN PROGRESS, y’all. I’m not perfect, nor do I claim to be the best organizer or cleaner. Far from it. I still have WAY too much junk and clutter, but I find it hard to let go of ALL my crap all at once.

I’m not Melinda, you know.


I did get Raggedy Ann and Andy up out of the mess and sitting safely on a shelf over there, but I couldn’t find a hammer to hang that rooster clock. When I DO find a hammer, that will be on that bare space of a wall to the right of the window.

When I finally finished and pronounced it good –on Friday, after a week of working on it, the kids were amazed. “You have so much SPACE in here!” they exclaimed. “Look at the carpet!” Then they proceeded to pull the chair over from the sewing area to the computer area so that two of them could play a game together.

So there you have it. The view from the other side of the office, and much cleaner. Now I don’t feel so claustrophobic in here.

Let’s hope I can keep it this way, what with summer just around the corner and kids wanting ot bug me and use my computer ALL the time.

Wish me luck.

Not exactly what I was hoping for, but still not a total loss

When we were put in as a Relief Society Presidency a little over one year ago, we tried to think of something fun to do for the sisters when they had a birthday. Send a card? Take over a small gift? Nice, but we wanted to do something different. Our decision was to host a birthday dessert once a month for everyone who had a birthday that month. They could come over to a member of the presidency’s house, have a nice dessert and a fun evening chatting with the other birthday guests. As the year finished out, we hadn’t gotten the turnout we had hoped for. Sometimes it was just one birthday guest who came. So we decided to tweak it a little bit and only do the birthday desserts every OTHER month. That way there would be 6-15 people invited instead of just 4-8 people.

I was assigned the March and April birthdays. “Great,” I thought. Two of my good friends have birthdays this month, and there are at least 12 birthday, so I was looking forward to a fun evening.

I cleaned my kitchen and family room. I ended up doing a whole kitchen tear apart this week as I started washing curtains, which led to cleaning blinds, which led to washing windows (the inside, at least), which led to cleaning walls and ceiling, which led to taking down all the pictures that were hung on the walls and cleaning and dusting them, then the endless sweeping and mopping of the floor, cleaning bird cages, etc. Finally I had everything put away and the kitchen and family room looked GREAT. The bathroom was clean, although with a clogged toilet it wasn’t going to be available, so I don’t know why I bothered, but it was still clean. (on a side note, my big strong man came back from his business trip last night and unclogged that stupid toilet that had been clogged since right after he left. I don’t know how he can get it done when I can’t, but I am eternally grateful. Love you, babe!)

I didn’t go to a huge amount of trouble making dessert, but I did have pound cake with strawberries and blueberries and whipped cream, and it made for a very pretty and fresh treat. After running the kids to soccer and baseball practice (and the last minute ultimate Frisbee game–ugh) I was ready for the guests.

7:30 turned into 7:45
then

Our Relief Society Second counselor came.
We chatted for a bit, hoping that a few of the ladies would come.
The Stake had planned an auxiliary training meeting on the same night,
which took away a few of the ladies,
and in truth, both the second counselor and I
should have been at the meeting, but
we decided to go ahead with the
desserts,
since we had sent out invitations and had it on the calendar for a while.
Soon it was 8:00,
then 8:15.
Saddened,
I called my kids down from my bedroom
where they were watching a movie on my bed
and invited them to eat the dessert.
*
*sigh*
*
Is it me? Am I a bad hostess? I seem to host a lot of things where No one comes. I hosted a way fun clothing party for myself and one of my friends, once. Seriously. Out of the 50 invites I sent out, one person came.

Well, at least it’s not a total loss. My house is clean (well, the main floor, at least) and if I can avoid feeding my children or letting them eat any food, do any homework, or even get the mail, I can keep it clean for my family party–who I KNOW will come– on Sunday. Yes, I know that the keeping it clean part is a dream, but at least it’s clean NOW, and I can look at the nice clean counters and be happy.

What-cha do-in?

Hey my sister just did a great post about our New Year’s Eve party here. Now I don’t have to write about it.

My husband bought and installed some upper cabinets for the mudroom. How great is that? It hides the hole from the last project. So, I’m organising the olde mudroom, but that in turn creates piles of mess all over the kitchen, as I try to get the things out of the mudroom that don’t belong.

I’ll post pictures when it looks nice. Or when I collapse from exhaustion. Whichever comes first.

What are YOU doing today?

Home improvements?

Last week I went out to dinner with some friends. It wasn’t a “birthday outing” exactly, but since it was in the week of my birthday, I counted it as such. Actually, one of my faraway friends was in town, so we used that as an excuse to get some friends together and go out to dinner.
new year 2

When I came home, I walked into our disaster of a mudroom (imagine coats, boots and shoes for not just the normal 7 people who live here, but for 13 people! All over the floor of the mudroom! Seriously, a disaster!) to see my brother-in-law standing on the counter in the mudroom, yelling into a hole in the wall. Yes, a HOLE in the wall. When I first walked in, I thought he was yelling at ME for coming into that room, but I quickly realized that was not the case.
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The kids were running around and when they saw me, they said, “Mom! Dad made a HUGE HOLE in your bathroom!!!” They were so excited to tell me, and all I could think was, “Oh, joy.” I went upstairs to the master bath to see my husband laying on the floor, yelling into the hole. Really, it wasn’t a hole, he’d just taken off the front piece of marble that usually hides the innards of the tub.
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Oh, and here’s another shot of the “hole” with my cute curtains in there. Since I’m showing you my bathroom and all. (Sorry I didn’t clean it for you.)

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And I have no idea why this picture turned itself sideways as I put it in there. Ugh.

We had talked about doing this little project, I just didn’t know beforehand that this was the night to do it. You see, our hot water has always been kind of sluggish in getting to our bathroom. It is, after all, two floors up from the water heater to the bathroom. So, they installed some kind of direct circulation line from the water heater right to the bathroom.

It’s NICE. I mean, we have this nice shower with two shower heads, but it’s taken so long for the hot water to get up there, I hardly ever used the second shower head.

In other home improvement news, my husband finally ordered our boiler! I know, you’re wondering why we need a boiler when we have a water heater, but the boiler is for the radiant floor heating.
When we built the house, we installed all the pipe and everything for our warm floors, but we didn’t have the money to buy the boiler at that time.

We’ve decided it was time to order the boiler. There’s a tax rebate, so we got that ordered by the end of last year. Hooray! I’m not sure when that’s going to be installed, but I’m looking forward to some WARM cozy floors.

Ryan is out of town this week. He’s in Vegas at CES. He’s schmoozing, and explaining, and **EEK– a big spider just ran by. I tried to smoosh him but I missed. I may have to leave the room**

Ahem. Ok, I’m back. I’ve regained my composure.

While Ryan’s out of town, I usually like to tackle one organizational project. Last year I did the closet. This week I’ve been rearranging the bedroom. Because I’m kind of a rearranger. When I get bored or dissatisfied with my furnishings and start to wish for new stuff, it helps if I just clean and organize everything, sometime rearranging it in the process. Because of all the windows in our bedroom (3 of them, on two different walls), it makes it a little difficult to arrange the furniture in there. I don’t have a decorator’s eye, and I wish I knew someone who did, because I just arrange and rearrange the same furniture trying to find the right fit.

Before Ryan even left, I had him help me move the bed from one wall to another. It’s kind of hard to move a California King by myself. I got the bed settled in it’s new place, then during the week I got the dressers and other stuff moved around. But once I got things in place, I realized that I couldn’t put the dresser and mirror over by the window. I singlehandedly moved the BED, the heavy dresser, AND the nightstands.
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It turns out one person CAN move a big bed by themselves. Just imagine me on the floor, pushing at the bed frame with my feet. No, it wasn’t graceful, and it wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done. It feels nice to get the clutter out, all the clothes put away and the room cleaned. The baseboards are dusted (it was VERY scary to see the amount of dust that had collected on those baseboards behind the bed after 5 years of neglect), and the silly pink garage sale curtains even got taken down and washed. Ick. There was a lot of dust on those curtains.

Now I’ve got the room cleaned organized, and rearranged. I even went shopping yesterday for fabric for new curtains. I don’t know how long it will take to get new curtains made and hung, but I’m excited about it.
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I also like this little corner over here. I moved my tiny bookshelf and a chair to make a cozy reading corner. Isn’t that great?
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The only thing I haven’t moved yet is the dresser with the tv on it. For one thing, it’s a heavy beast, and I don’t want to break anything in the process. And, if I unhook my tv, I’m not sure I would be getting it hooked back up again. And I do enjoy having a tv in my room.
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So now I need to figure out what kind of curtains I want to make, sew them, hang them, and then find some decor for the walls. Piece of cake, right?

Would you like a side of Drama with those jeans?

If you are anything like me, even though you may have 5 or 6 pairs of jeans in the closet, you really only have one pair of jeans. The jeans that actually fit right. They don’t pinch, squeeze, or gap. They’re the perfect length, they aren’t cut too low, they feel fine every time you wear them, and you are comfortable in those jeans. I know it takes a while to get them that way. They probably weren’t perfect the first time you wore them, but they were close. And after several wearings, they fit just right.

So, while I don’t wear the jeans every single day, now that it’s colder and the wearing of capri pants is not practical, I wear those jeans about 4 times a week. Is that wrong? Should I be branching out more and wearing other types of pants?

However happy I am in my relationship with my jeans, there comes a time in every pair of jeans’ life when the “Go-to” jeans become the “up and went” jeans. They eventually wear out. -sigh- In my case, I developed some bare places where bare places shouldn’t be. I had to admit that the jeans were just too worn out to wear anymore.

Then I was faced with a dilemma. What to wear? And do I go out and shop for another pair? Ugh. Not jeans shopping. While not quite as ridiculous and painful as swimsuit shopping, jeans shopping can also be embarrassing, time consuming, and pricey. And even then, a pair of jeans may look and feel ok in the store’s dressing room, but when you get them home and introduce them to your other clothes, they just don’t behave. They gape in areas where they should hug, or they’re not quite as long as you thought they were, or they’re just too darn tight. It’s like you’re adopting a pet. The jeans must act all nice and obedient while in the store to convince you to take them home and away from that dark and lonely place that is the store, but once they get out, all bets are off. Plus, who has the TIME or the MONEY right now?

I admit I’m totally not a designer jeans girl. I’ve never spent over $50 for a pair of jeans, and I’d to keep it that way. I don’t get how they can charge hundreds of dollars for a pair of jeans. I mean, maybe I would get that super great fitting pair if I was willing to fork out half of my mortgage payment for a pair of jeans, but that’s not gonna happen. I’m going to buy them on sale, or with a coupon code, probably from Coldwater creek or my favorite store, Kohl’s. Don’t look down your nose at me, but that’s how it is. Maybe if I had a great body so that the jeans would actually look hot, but really, even with a great pair of jeans, I’m still going to be chubby.

And what’s up with all these different “rises”? By “low rise” they mean that these jeans will give you a plumber’s crack even before you bend over. Mid rise should be just about right, and high rise would be Mom jeans, I would guess. I can’t figure it out. I put on a pair of mid or high rise jeans and I still feel like I’m going to be pulling on the jeans all day to make sure they stay up.

Jeansless, I headed to the closet to see what else I could wear. I pulled out a few pairs of jeans to try. Let’s see, there’s the pair that fits but is obviously too short, and every time I sit down I’m painfully aware that everyone can tell if I shaved my legs or not. Denied. There’s the pair that fits pretty well, but it’s got a flower pattern on it that was started out gold, but now looks as if I was standing by the side of the road when a big truck drove by and splattered me with mud (kind of like in the movie “How to lose a guy in 10 days” with hunky Matthew McConaughey). Denied (I’m feeling very Suze Orman here). There’s the pair that has flower applique down the leg. Is applique in? Out? I don’t know, but when I wear those jeans I feel a little self conscious, like “Hey, look at me! I’m wearing my fancy jeans!” And I just don’t want to draw any undo attention to myself today. Denied. There’s the WAY cute pair that will look FABULOUS of me when I lose 10 or more pounds, but at today’s weight, they are most likely unzipable. Denied. There’s the other cute pair that are long enough and fabulous if I lose just 5 pounds, and I could wear them today if I weren’t planning on sitting down. They do “stretch”, right? But today, right after Thanksgiving, is not the time to try to pull that one off. Denied. There’s the pair of Khakis that fits fine and is long enough, but they are actually too long, and I feel kind of like puddle pants when I wear them. They need to be hemmed. Not feeling like hemming or wearing heels today, so they are denied. I found a pair of black pants that looked like a possibility. I put them on, and realized that while they did indeed fit, they were tapered leg, making me look OH SO HIPPY. How old ARE these things? I wonder to myself. I don’t buy tapered leg anything anymore. So Denied they go straight in the “donate” box.

What’s a gal to do?

Once again, I’m reminded why it would be so much easier to be a guy. Guys don’t have issues with their jeans. In fact, half of the time, they don’t even try them on. They just pick their waist size, and the length they want–Boom. Done. My husband doesn’t even buy his own jeans. Never. He hates shopping. He just asks me to get him a couple of pairs of jeans now and then. He likes the $13 jeans from Costco. Seriously. I tried to fancy him up last month, and bought him some Calvin Klein jeans. Still from Costco, but just a little nicer jean. He FINALLY tried them on, and said he doesn’t like them, and would I please just get the regular kind. Oh, well, if you want to keep on wearing the budget jeans from Costco, I guess I shouldn’t complain.

Way in the back of the closet I found a pair of jeans I didn’t remember. Hmmm. Whatever. I’ll try them on, I thought. I put them on, and they fit pretty well. They seem to be long enough, but not TOO long. Not too loose. Tight enough, but not TOO tight (Oh, who am I kidding? It’s just after Thanksgiving, of course they’re too tight, but not unbearably tight.) I can sit down in them. I think these might just work. I looked at the tag again, and they are Old Navy “curvy” jeans. I don’t know when the last time I was actually in an Old Navy store, and I don’t remember buying them. And what’s with the “curvy”? Is that a nice way to say fat? At this point, I just don’t care. I pull on the jeans. They are a little bit low in the back for my taste, but with a long shade shirt, I’ll be fine.

I wore the jeans. All day. While not as comfy as my last pair, I may have found a suitable substitute for the time being. And if some kind soul wants to volunteer to find me the perfect pair of jeans, I wouldn’t turn them away.

Don’t tell anyone, but…

Can I just say that my husband is a freaking genius? Seriously. He can fix any computer, I think. The other night when I came home from rehearsal, he informed me that he had fixed our neighbor’s computer, (again) and that it was a blown capacitor, the same thing that was wrong with our fridge. And he didn’t even have to go to Radio Shack to buy one, he just took it from an old dead computer that he had laying around.

Not that he needs advertising, but he’s a genius when it comes to fixing computers. People bring him their old, run down, slow, virus infected computers, and he fixes, upgrades, cleans and repairs them. Often for free. He’s like the statue of liberty of old computers…”Give me your tired, your poor computers, your corrupted files yearning to be free…”

Yesterday he also fixed our little DVD/TV combo for the car. I’m pretty excited about that one, because who wants to drive 11-12 hours in the car with five kids with NO movies? Not me, I tell you. That man can fix about anything, I think. Which is wrong. He can’t fix everything, and he gets kind of ticked when I bring him something wonderful I found at a garage sale, or rather something that would be wonderful, if it just worked, and I expect him to be able to fix it. Then he reminds me that he can’t fix everything, and I should “stop buying crap at garage sales”.

Yes, he is amazing, but he also runs on his own time schedule. He doesn’t appreciate me trying to TELL him what he should be working on, and he doesn’t me trying to MAKE him work on a project he’s not ready to work on. Darn. But still, I DO think he’s pretty amazing. (Hi, honey! I’m giving you a little wave!)

medicine in the mail

I don’t really use homeopathic products (or “load of crap natural products” as my husband would call them) that much. Not because I don’t believe in them or don’t think they will work as well as the regular over the counter medicines, I just don’t know that much about them. I have friends who know exactly what herb to take for every thing, and what natural cure will beef up your immune system, or help you get over bruises, or even help with cancer. I just don’t have that kind of knowledge, but I’m open to new things.

So I registered for some free homeopathic children’s medicines, and they came in the mail today!

In my little package it said to spread the word and gave a website address so that all my friends with blogs could also try these samples, but when I clicked on the link it said that the free sample promo was over. Darn. But you can still get a coupon if you’d like to try these products for yourself.

We are doing our best to AVOID getting sick (flu shots tonight for the kids), but especially this year, we need to do everything we can to avoid and then fight all colds and the flu immediately.

And in a totally unrelated side note—you want to know what the best part of the vein surgery was? Well, besides getting rid of those awful, painful veins, that is–I am NOT ALLOWED to exercise for two weeks. NOT ALLOWED. Even if I wanted to! Can’t! It takes all the guilt away. No more getting up and putting on my exercise clothes only to wear them around for an hour or two and NOT get to exercising and then guiltily changing out of them because I need to get on with my day. I don’t even put the exercise clothes on. Because exercise is FORBIDDEN for one more week. Wa-Hoo! Not that I feel like exercising in the least. I did make it through rehearsal last night, which was two hours on my feet. It was tiring and a bit painful, but I made it through. And I made it grocery shopping this week, but really, that’s about all I’m up to. So, it’s not like I feel well enough to exercise, but it’s just so nice to know that I CAN’T.

Is that sick and wrong, or what? Now you know just how lazy I really am, and to what extremes I will go to not have to exercise.

Projects

I am a good project starter. In fact, if you have been wanting to start a project, but you just can’t quite get the gumption up to start it, you should call me. I’ll help you pick out a paint color, I’ll help you buy fabric, whatever you need to GET STARTED. But what I have in startability, I lack a little in follow through til the end. I tend to get about 70-90% done with a project, and then it’s just not fun anymore. Or there’s something I didn’t buy in the beginning and I still need to buy it to finish it. Something like that. If I could get together with a FINISHER, we’d be a great pair.

But a week or so ago, my husband was out of town, and was going to be gone for over a week. I realized that that was the perfect time to work on a project. Not a huge painting effort, mind you, just a cleaning out project. I decided to tackle…..our bedroom closet. Ugh.

In order to clean a closet, you have to first REMOVE about half of that closet. And where does it go? Mostly on the bed. This is what it looked like.

You may notice I didn’t take a “before” picture of the closet. By the time I thought of taking a picture, half of the stuff was all over my bedroom.
The nice thing about doing this project when Ryan was gone, was that if I didn’t get done, I could just push everything over to his side of the bed and go to sleep without feeling guilty. And I did that. I threw out a TON of clothes. Pants that don’t fit, pants that even if they fit, they don’t look good, shirts that I don’t wear, sweaters that are outdated, sweatshirts that I don’t remember even buying, shoes that are old or I couldn’t find a match for…. You know how it goes. By the time I was finished, I had about 8 garbage bags of stuff to go to D.I.

And my closet, oh my closet! It has a floor! With carpet on it! And it’s big. When it was all cleaned out, my 13 year old daughter came in and said, “I could sleep in here! In fact, I could sleep 6 of me in here.” No, I don’t make her sleep in the closet, (except maybe when we’re on vacation) even though she would think it’s fun.

And it now looks like this.

And all my shoes sit on the shelves like this

That picture makes it look like everything’s falling over, but really, it’s just the weird camera angle.

This project that should have taken me two days, maybe a weekend, lasted almost a whole week. Because, like I said, I’m a starter, not a finisher.

Once I had all the bags in the car to take to DI, it then took me 3 or 4 days before I got THAT all out. I tried a couple of times to drop it off, but they were closed and they don’t allow you to just dump things there after hours anymore. It all came in handy, though. Friday night when Megan’s soccer game started late and it got really cold, I was able to rifle through the bags in the back and find sweatshirts for everyone! They weren’t their size, but who cares when you are just putting it on over your coat?

So by the time Ryan got back, everything was cleared off his side of the bed, and the closet was done. Now if I just had the energy to do that to every closet.

Another fun project Ryan worked on over the weekend was locks. He brought home some new deadbolts that instead of a key, you can use a code. The kids were so excited! They were full of what if questions about the codes, and who can have their own codes, and what happens if we have guests, and does each guest get their own code, etc.

The kids were quick to point out that we needed that the other day, when MOM WASN’T HOME when they got home, and DIDN’T leave a door unlocked, and they were STUCK outside for all of 10 minutes before I got home. Yes, I’m a terrible mother, and they are poor latch key children. Boo-Hoo. But now, I don’t have to worry if they get home before me. Because they can open the door! They were all so thrilled about it (especially John) that they went in and out multiple times, JUST to unlock the door with the keypad. John volunteered to go out and get the mail for me (twice) and unlocked the door both times. It’s just so much fun, and they feel so powerful. Of course, a couple of the kids suggested they get one of those on their bedroom doors so they can lock everyone else out, but that’s not gonna happen.

Today, since I didn’t have the energy to go grocery shopping like I should have done, I decided to work on some curtains for the boys’ room. No pictures yet, but I’ll post some when I’m all done. Think bandana in blue and yellow. Hopefully I won’t hate it when I’m done. Because sometimes projects are like that. You think it’s going to turn out one way, and then when you are done, it doesn’t look anything like the picture you had in your mind. Maybe that’s why I’m a project starter and not a project finisher. If it’s not turning out like I imagined it, I get frustrated and don’t want to start.

But, at least I’m not afraid to start.

So, what are YOU working on?

Fresh and (whistle here) clean as a whistle

We have a lot of deer where we live. In fact, last year we received a nice letter from them thanking me for all the lovely tulips I plant. I read in Martha Stewart magazine that to repel deer, put Irish Spring shavings on the plants that you are trying to protect. Then when the deer lean down to nibble on the crunchy goodness that is your favorite tulip plant, they’ll smell the strong “clean as a whistle” smell and turn away.


I decided to give it a try. A few bars of soap is cheaper than the pre-bottled deer repellent, and it smells better, too.

First we grated our soap.
The kids were a big help with this one, as they really like to use the cheese grater. Once they got the hang of it, they could do soap, too.
Of course, we found out that these little soap flakes also repel my dear husband. He came home from work and said, “What is that smell?” and began with the sneezing. We had a few shavings on the floor, I’ll admit, and there was a distinct soap smell.

Next we went outside and sprinkled the lovely green shavings on all the tender tulips. I had to show the kids which ones were tulips, and I must admit they put some on other plants, too, but I don’t think that will hurt anything.

When Ryan’s parents came the next day, they asked about the bright green shavings on the plants, but after a day or so the color faded so it’s hardly noticeable. And I must say, there has not been any tulip munching going on. I do not know if the deer just haven’t been around, or if we are really repelling them. We’ll have to wait and see.

With the snow yesterday, I fear the effectiveness of the soap may have worn off. Or washed away. So we’re going to be giving them another sprinkle or two of the soap once the snow all melts.

Great idea? or silly soap waster? Ryan laughs at my “soap deer repellent”, but I am not deterred in my efforts to save my tulips.

Manly? Yes. But I like it, too!

What’s all the chirping noise?

I have an announcement to make.

We have a new member of our family. He’s about two years old, grey and white and has feathers. It’s a new cockatiel, and his name is Churt. Weird name, I know, but it’s starting to grow on us. Are you surprised? No, of course you aren’t. Thanks to the magic of freecycle, and a family out there who didn’t think they could give this little guy the attention he deserved, we now have him.

Here’s a picture of Popcorn and Churt. Popcorn is in the front, and Churt is in the back. They are not totally identical. Churt has a little bit of white on his head, so we can tell them apart, but not from far away.

When I brought in the cage with our new little friend in it, Popcorn immediately flew down to investigate. “Wow!” he said, “It’s someone who looks just like me! I think I’m in love!” only it sounded like chirp, chirp, squawk to us. But since he’s been here, Popcorn has been close by. If we take Churt out to play with him, Popcorn flies down to be with him, too. It’s cute.

Sundance, our wise old bird who we’ve had for over 15 years, is less than interested. But I kind of figured he wouldn’t care. He’s old and doesn’t really want to play anymore, but we hope that Popcorn and Churt will get along and play and be friends. Right now Churt is in his own cage, but Popcorn is often in the cage with him, or on top of the cage, or by the cage. I’m hoping to someday get everyone in the same cage so we can do away with the whole two cage thing, but for now I’m ok with two cages.

So, in case you were counting, that brings the bird total at our house to 8. We’ve got the three cockatiels, then there are 5 parakeets up in the girls’ rooms. Yes, that’s a lot of bird seed.

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