Friday, July 25, 2008

Remember Making Mud Pies?

Well, this week I was the proud recipient of some fabulous drywall cakes.






Toys Are Totally Overrated



We like to play with our dad's stuff instead.

Drywall Is Beautiful



Friday, July 18, 2008

Weird Housekeeping

I don't read Good Housekeeping. Who needs that pressure? Martha and Heloise can kiss my- oh, wait, I actually like Martha.
Anyway...
I am married to a contractor. I have a house that is presently lacking a kitchen and is covered on demo dust. I have a big tub that I hate to clean. Besides, I usually use the shower.
Except today. Today I wanted a bath. And the tub wanted to be cleaned first. But it didn't tell me that until I was standing naked inside of it surveying the tubscape. Yuck!
So I grabbed the Soft Scrub and a white wash cloth and scrubbed that monster down. Naked. In the tub. I have heard of people doing this and I have always thought they were nuts.
Can I just say that this was the easiest tub scrub EVAH? Yes it was. And when it was sparkly clean I plugged it and sat down in the warm, clean water.
So, what is your wackiest housecleaning trick?
Cuz I'm pretty sure I will be cleaning my bathtub naked from now on.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Goodbye


The ugly chandelier- not the handsome husband!

I Like My Kids

Really.
And I like that they like to play together.

Last Friday I had to go put out some small fires. That meant that I had to pick my kids up from VBS and run down the road about 35 minutes away. At lunchtime. We took care of business as fast as possible and then stopped at the grocery store to get lunch. In an area of town that I don't like. In a store that I didn't know. With 5 kids. Who all had to pee. And did I mention we were all hungry? I managed to get our lunch before I went on full overload and had to leave the store. With my kids wailing. Because they thought we were going to eat in the store. And I couldn't.
I did know of a nice park only a few minutes away. So I took them there. They grabbed lunch and headed for a picnic table while I chatted with a friend I saw- 35 minutes from home. They were sitting there sharing lunch when I said goodbye. When they were done with lunch, I told them I was going to set my alarm for 30 minutes and then we would have to go home. All understood. Good.
I went to check on them and this is what I saw:

My kids playing together on a previously empty merry-go-round. Laughing and squealing in delight. Attracting other children like bees to honey. Which is good. Unless the other children have "Helicopter Mothers." You know the type. They hover. Basically, they irritate me. If you are an HM- sorry, you bug me. Well, boys being boys, a little bark was thrown in brotherly competition. The HM snapped at my son to not throw bark- before I could even open my mouth! (I was 5 feet away.) I called my children over and asked them to please go do something else, because the other mother was irritating me. Yes, I told them that. She might have heard. I don't know. And I don't care.
So Jesse and Jonah went off together and the 3 middlest children went to do this:

And suddenly the merry-go-round lost all interest for the other children and sat deserted again.

I like my kids.
Really.

ox·y·mo·ron

ox·y·mo·ron [òksee máw ròn](plural ox·y·mo·ra [òksee máwrə] or ox·y·mo·rons) n expression with contradictory words: a phrase in which two words of contradictory meaning are used together for special effect, e.g. "wise fool" or "legal murder"
[Mid-17th century. <>


Yes, those would be my girlies- pulling nails for their daddy- in their good dresses.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

No Dishes

My husband said I should take a break from my kitchen duties for a while.
I guess he was serious.

So this is what we have been doing instead.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Joke Of The Day

What did one saggy boob say to the other saggy boob?

Monday, July 7, 2008

What's More American Than Baseball?

Our crowd in the stands
watching the Everett Aqua Socks play the Yakima Bears.

Or not watching, really.

And not sitting.

And pouting because, "This sucks."

So what, I ask, is more American than baseball?

Perhaps spoiled children who won't be pleased with anything their parents try to do for fun.

We left the game before the 7th inning stretch.

Does anyone know how it ended?

Friday, July 4, 2008

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
John Hancock
New Hampshire:Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Simple Math

26 lbs of strawberries+15 lbs of sugar+9 boxes of pectin+6 hours=

40 cups of strawberry jelly+ 1 bowl for immediate consumption+ 5 two cup packages of strawberry puree for use as smoothies or future batches of jelly+1 big fat colander full of berries for indiscriminate munching+
One HUGE mess

Strawberries!








Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Re-MeMe

I was tagged to do this post- which I have already done- by Kathi at Feathering My Nest. But in the name of good sportswomanship, I'm going to repost it.

I'm not sure why I even bothered to go blog surfing tonight. I have a basket of socks and undies to fold- I am a good sock folder. I do that job well. (That was for you, Debbie- and I didn't major in anything but kids when I went to college. I had 3 by the time I finished my AA!) I was also planning on going to bed early and, well, never mind. But the computer always whispers that it wants to be turned on when I walk by. Hmm, well, never mind. Anyway, I got tagged. So here are the rules:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you.

2. Post these rules on your blog.

3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.

4. Tag six random people at the end of your entry.


I chew my fingernails- and my fingers when I am out of nail. Gross and embarrassing. It just lends to the stubby sausage look I already have going on.


I sucked my thumb in public until I was 10, and in private until I was 13. My family swears up and down that I was 18- but truly, I WAS 13!


My favorite shoes are my pink low-top converse. When I was in 5th grade the high top kind were all the rage. Poor me. Anything that had a "label" on it was out of the question because it was too expensive.


I went to MOPs convention in Orlando last year. The problem is that I hate to sleep away from home. Vacation would be great if I could just sleep at home every night and still go to far away places.


My favorite color is red. It makes me happy. I have 2 west walls in my house that are bright red. I'm trying to figure out which west wall to paint red next.


I had 5 fillings done in Romania this year. I went thinking I only had one to do. It turns out that what I thought was a cavity is just a chip on the edge of the filling material, and I had 5 other big cavities. Just one more reason I am done having kids.


No one is tagged for this post, because, frankly, my friends don't play along that well.



Is It Just Me?

Or do the rest of you own WAY more size 3T shorts and underwear than t-shirts?

Is it just me?
Or are there other people who can calmly tell the man at Lowe's, "By the way, my child just peed on your floor. We're leaving now."

Is is just me?
Or do some of you know how to make your offspring sprint to the little boy clothes at Target and look for that little red sticker on the shorts tag. The one that says, "Yes, we may be a desperation purchase, but dadgummit, you're gonna get us for $1.98?"

Is it just me?
Or do you waffle when the choice is 8 pair of Target brand underwear (that you don't actually need at home) for $7.99, or 3 pair of Lightning McQueen underwear (a more reasonable number for an emergency purchase) for $6.99?

Is it just me?
Or have you ever stripped your child down in a parking lot on a 300 degree day to peel off diarrhea lightning McQueen underwear that you just bought?

Is it just me?
Or is there some question in other people's minds whether to bag up the brand new Lightning McQueen underwear or to just throw them in the trash?

Is it just me?
Or would the rest of you have pitched the trip across the parking lot to Costco to pick up the rest of your Wellbutrin prescription? After all, you do have 80 pills in your purse. Who cares if they still owe you about 10 more?

Is it just me?
Or have you been here, too?
Please tell me I'm not alone.