Why Don't Grandmas Look Like Grandmas?

Grandma 

My cousin Jenny just sent me pictures of her oldest child’s first day of school. Among those photos was a picture of Isabel with both of her grandmothers. Have you ever noticed that grandmas don’t look like grandmas anymore? Where has all the gray hair gone? Did their children not give them gray hair? How about those wrinkles derived through years of character development? And my goodness! I can’t imagine either of my grandmas donning a pair of blue jeans. I wonder, do they still make oatmeal-raisin cookies?

Boys Will Be Boys

The boys had a friend spend the night last night. Because his parents both work, he will be here until suppertime. The friend is a very nice boy. However last night, after spending a few minutes on the computer in the dining room while they were in the living room, I decided it was in my best interests to go down stairs – as far away from the noise as I could get. It wasn’t much better this morning. I’m trying my best to be on a different floor than they are. I also decided that it was in my best interests to be nowhere near them while they were eating. If you could call it eating. I think inhaling is a better word for how they consume food. In order to pry them off the GameCube, I told them they could have a cupcake or two. They decided to have a contest to see which of them could shove them in their mouths the first. Let your imagination run wild. It was even worse.

Hot, Hot, Hot, Hot, Hot!!

It is just WAY to hot!!!

Oh, the Places I've Gone!

I was browsing around some other blogs and found this cool site that will show you on a map all the states you’ve gone to. This is my map. I've been to the states in red. Ok -- so the only time I went to New York was to fly into JFK and take a bus to LaGuardia. (It was totally boring and I never even had a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.) And the only time I was in Florida was to fly into Jacksonville and drive up to Georgia. I was there!

I would really love to go out East and see some of the Revolutionary War and Civil War sites. One day….

If you want to see where you have been, click on the title above.

Mount St. Helens

Sam has business in Seattle next week so he decided to come up and visit for a few days this week. On Saturday we went to Mount St. Helens with one of co-workers. Unfortunately, while we were able to see most of the mountain, clouds covered most of the crater. It was fun to go through the information centers again, but it was much more exciting the first time I went up and saw the steam plume!

(Click on the title above to see a live picture of the volcano!)

The Finch Saga Continues

I never realized how smart birds are. The finches had two more babies a while back. About three weeks ago I decided it was time for the babies to live in their own cage because they were in the teenage phase of their lives. I always know when this happens because it sounds like WWIII broke out. The babies and parents constantly fight and make a horrible racket.

In order to separate the birds, I always put two cages together so they can go back and forth for a couple of days and get accustomed to their new home. However this time was different than before. The parents, especially the dad, got extremely agitated. Then I noticed that the parents NEVER let the babies enter the second cage alone. They could be alone in the main cage, but not the second cage where I have always put the babies. The mother also abandoned her nest full of new eggs to help protect her babies. One day I saw the babies in the second cage and got up to see if I could separate them before they started moving around. The father saw me get up and sped into the second cage faster than I have ever seen him fly. He deliberately kept me from separating them. So much for being a bird brain – mine are smart!

A Taxing Week

Well, it is that time of year again. Taxes. Sigh. On Monday I decided I’d better get with it and get them done. The boys were in school and I wasn’t working, so it should have been a simple. But naturally it wasn’t. After working on it for eight hours and visiting the online help section of my tax program, I had to throw in the towel. The next day I found a tax preparation place that claimed to know how to do clergy taxes. Although doubtful, I made an appointment for Wednesday.

Mike was suffering from the delusion that I would go to the appointment on my own. Silly man. My taxes are easy. His are hard. He could just go suffer along with me. It wasn’t MY fault it was Holy Week! Ok, maybe it was at least in part because I left them for so long. It took both tax workers and me to figure it out, but we finally did it. Whew!

I’m all for a flat tax. If 10% is good enough for God, it should be good enough for Congress!

The New Babies Have Flown the Coop!

Here is one of the two new babies. This is the first batch since the seven that hatched in December. Both came out today and were traumatized by the camera. (Josh is peeking in on the other side of the cage.)

My Day Thus Far…

Today is going to be one of those days. I stayed up WAY to late last night. Jeremy was still up at 10:00. He heard a banging noise outside his window. I told him that it was probably just the neighbor putting out his dog. Jeremy didn’t buy it, so I told him I’d let the dogs out in case there was a raccoon in the yard.

Since Jeremy was still up so I decided that I’d work on some Christmas cards. I went to a friend’s house to do some rubber-stamping the other day. One of them had the most gorgeous Christmas stamp that said “Joy”. I stamped and colored several of them in there and brought them home to mount onto cards. So I did one, then another, and another. Before I knew it, it was 1:30 a.m.!!!

I went to bed and next thing I knew I was having one of those weird dreams. In my dream, I heard the beeping sound a truck makes when it backs up. Now this sound had nothing whatsoever to do with my dream. Finally, it dawned on me that it wasn’t part of my dream. It was Mike’s alarm clock going off at 5:30 a.m.!! Mike, of course, was up at the church working on his sermon. I finally figured out how to shut it off and went back to sleep.

The next thing I knew was Jeremy coming in my room at 7:00 yelling at me that it was time to wake up. I was not amused and told him to go away. He then came back at 8:30 and woke me up again. He had fallen back asleep on the couch and had 15 minutes to dress, eat breakfast and leave for Sunday School.

I decided to take a shower after he left. I opened the shower curtain and saw about 10 spiders. Although I was still not awake I did recognize that they were plastic and managed not to panic. (Such sweet boys!)

On Friday Joshua had gone to an overnight youth group function to see the Seattle Sonics play and then to an overnight indoor amusement place. He slept yesterday morning and this morning rolled out of bed at 9:15 – very late for him.

I made him clean all the spiders out of the tub so I could shower. After telling him to get ready for church a dozen times, I finally had to point out that he had 15 minutes to get dressed, eat breakfast and walk to church. He finally left three minutes before the service started. (I have no voice, a sore throat and a headache, so no church for me today.)

After Joshua left, I decided I’d really better go take a shower. So I went in the bathroom. This time there was pee all over the toilet. Is it really too much to ask to be able to go to the bathroom and not have to wipe off the seat?????

I figure the day can only go uphill from here on out.

Bye-Bye, Birdies!

The baby birds have finally flown the coop. Ok. I kicked them out of the coop. There was just no living with them! I had a nice quiet mom and dad. The babies weren’t bad at first. They were extremely ugly, but nice and quiet. Then they grew. They became cute little fuzz balls. Then they found their vocal cords. (Do birds have vocal cords???) There was no living with them once they reached the teenage stage of life. They could fly and eat on their own. Then the fighting started. It sounded like WWIII was going on. The birds are kept in the basement, but you could hear the racquet throughout the house!! I had a new home all lined up for them and was finally able to separate them from the parents. I left them in their respective cages for a day or so, giving them time to adjust.
Once the babies could eat on their own, the poor mom started taking out her feathers to prepare the nest for the next batch of eggs. (Ok, so I didn’t know I was supposed to provide the nesting material!! She just used the corncob litter the first time!!) We now have four or five eggs in the nest. For some reason they always hide the eggs from me. Go figure.

Ready or Not, Here Comes Middle School!

Today we went to Joshua’s orientation at Mason Middle School. (Click on title for website.) It is a school of about 850 students. I don’t know who is more nervous – Joshua or me. I’m kind of nervous because I had 50 students in my class, not 280. Joshua is nervous because it is a new school. However, he felt much better today. Several people from his old school were there as well as friends from church, Tae Kwon Do and the swimming pool.

Joshua’s homeroom teacher is his science teacher. We talked to her a bit today. It sounds like science will be fun. She is even planning on getting leaches for the class this year. I mentioned that Josh loves science and used to watch Bill Nye. She said she once proposed to him. He was engaged and told him if it didn’t work out, she was available! ;^)

Boyhood Friends

Two years ago Jeremy became fast friends with a boy who lives close to us. They played together nearly everyday after school, and often spent the night at one or the other’s house on weekends. They were joined at the hip.

Last school year Jeremy and his friend were in different classes, but still played at recess and after school. That all came to a screeching halt one day. They had a nasty argument at school. You are probably thinking it is over some trivial matter like sports that boys often get into rifts over. Not these two boys. This clash was over schoolwork.

Jeremy had read more books than the other boy. Kids at school get rewards for reading books. The other boy is VERY competitive and told Jeremy he may have read more books, but HE had a higher reading level. Jeremy decided that he wasn’t going to stand for the unjustness of this comment. The boys quit speaking to each other.

Now this didn’t work out at all well for the boy’s mother and me. We often use each other for childcare. Naturally, we didn’t want to give this up. So, after months of strife, the boys have again established a relationship, albeit a tenuous one. (Mostly because it is summer and they have only each other to play with!)
Now the start of a new school year is quickly approaching. (Nine days, eleven and one-half hours, not that I’m counting!) What will happen, I wonder, if they are in the same class and Jeremy gets a better grade than he does? Oh, joy!

Ah, Modern Technology

Our new church secretary figured out that we could have our pay checks directly deposited. We live about ½ to ¾ of an hour away from the nearest branch of the bank. There are some grocery stores that have mini banks in them, but they don’t deposit the checks for 24-48 hours. There was also the option of putting the paycheck in an ATM. While that is ok in a pinch, but once we lost a paycheck in that process. It wasn’t good. A year or so ago our bank started cooperating with other banks as far as depositing each other’s paychecks. That was much more convenient, and made my life much easier. However, I still had to track down Mike and get him to sign the paycheck. That was not always easy.

Yes – modern technology will make this aspect of my life much easier.

After we had been home from our trip for a few days, Paulie, Jeremy’s parakeet died. We buried him in the front flower garden and Jeremy made him a tombstone.

It reads:

(Polly is under this)
R.I.P.
Here lies Polly
the dead bird.
Please do not
disturb.

We have since gotten a pair of finches. They are very nice birds and have a sweet chirp.

Bubba's Single-Wide on a Stick

Sam is SUCH a meanie!! When I visited last year, I refused on principle to go to the Clinton Presidential Library. (click on title for link) On this trip, we all loaded up into the cars because he was going to show us all around Little Rock. Somehow we all arrived at the Clinton Library. Sigh.

At least it wasn’t a complete waste. They had a replica of the Oval Office and another of the Cabinet Room. That was really interesting.

I still preferred the neighborhood tours of Crepe Myrtles and the game "Guess what the neighbors are like". ;^)

The Big Bang

Mom had a few odds and ends of fire works that she let the boys shoot off, or did for them. The fun really began when Ray arrived. Then the smoke bombs came out. Ray also let the boys get creative when it came to setting off firecrackers – in cans, under rocks, even trying to shoot them with the BB gun!

The boys had a blast in Iowa. Not only did they sleep in the tent, they also got to shoot Rays old BB gun. They spent three hours on that the first day. They started out either standing or lying on the ground to shoot the target. After a while Mom and I went into the house for a while. When we came back out, Larry, Mike and the boys had lined up the lawn chairs and were passing the gun back and forth, not even bothering to get up to shoot! ;^)

Jeremy had a blast terrorizing the cows across the road. When the cows came up to eat, he crossed the road and started mooing at them. The poor things were so frightened of him that they wouldn’t go near the food. Jeremy thought this was great and tried to repeat the process every day.

Jeremy also spent a great deal of the time in Iowa trying to catch a rabbit. This is turning out to be a tradition for him. When we were home last time, he asked Mom to leave the trap up – until Easter. He was worried the Easter Bunny wouldn’t visit if he tried to catch rabbits.

Joshua enjoyed catching fireflies. He had a jar, but was not happy to discover that they generally don’t last the night in a jar.
Larry let the boys drive the riding lawn mower. They had a blast doing that!

Sleeping Under the Stars

(Photo by Jeremy)
Mom thought it would be fun to set up the tent for the boys to mess around in during the day. Then she decided to offer Jeremy $5 if he would spend the night in it. Of course Joshua had to get in on this great deal.
We sent them outside for the night knowing they would last about half an hour, tops. They actually lasted the night! (My boys are serious about earning money if there is no work involved!!)

Little Big Horn

We went on a car trip back to Iowa and then to Little Rock this summer. On the way we stopped at Little Big Horn. (Click on title for link.) We were only able to stay a short time as the park was closing, but it was really interesting.

Family Camp

We had church family camp this weekend. Mike and the boys went for the entire weekend and had a great time. I just went for the day on Saturday and had a great time at home by myself! ;^)

While at camp, Joshua got first hand experience of why he should avoid poison ivy. It was not a pretty sight. Here you see Jeremy on the giant "spider web". It has here he learned about mosquitos. They can't wait to go back next year, of course!