Busy as a June Bug

This month has been pretty crazy. We've got our homeschooling (I am such a slave driver, but my kid is smart), we've got the summer library program, which is 3 and sometimes 4 days a week, we've got a garden, a grassy lawn and a pool, which all need to be tended regularly, and we've got a house with two active kids, which is hard to keep clean. Oh yeah, and I write the newspaper articles for that library program, so no ducking out for me. So it's been crazy nonstop. I haven't watched any tv (pbs kids does not count as tv for me), I haven't been able to work on my quilt (tick tock, Mandi!) or have much me time, but everything else is coming along nicely. Erin is having a bunch of fun with Ian home all the time. They play, fight, love on and screech at each other. This is the pinnacle of sibling affection, to me. My HC has been busy going to one training session after another. Some have been good and educational, some have been a waste of time. All I am concerned with is that he gets to eat out more than me. Aren't I so shallow? Then again, he did gain a little weight....lol. But being home trimmed it right off. No fair.
Now that June is almost over, Ian's favorite holiday, July 4th is coming up. The kid loves fireworks! And there are fireworks stands everywhere. We bought a few bucks worth of smoke bombs, sparklers and poppers and he is already putting in his order for the big day. Our town has an ordinance (there is an ordinance for everything...) that you can't let off any fireworks until the week before and the week after the 4th. The small noiseless ones are ok. They won't get you reported to the cops, anyway. And we don't go for the screaming ones anyway, since our kids are still little and our neighbors are close. But Ian is very excited. Of course, after the 4th, it is not long until his birthday, so that is thrilling for him too.


Saturday we went to see Toy Story 3 and since we couldn't find a theater that showed it in 2d, we were forced to watch it in 3D. We had promised the kids that we would go to see it in the theater, so 3D it was. Erin wasn't interested in wearing the glasses and I don't know how she wasn't cross-eyed afterwards, because the picture is blurry if you don't have the 3D glasses on. I will admit, though, that my HC looked adorable because the glasses are plastic and black-framed and he looked kinda nerdy. A new look for him, to be sure. Ian had to be reminded to put his back on. I was in and out with an antsy Erin. It made it worse that there were no seats together and we managed to find 2 on one row and one seat in the row directly behind it. Erin and I ended up sitting on the steps next to the seats for the last 30 minutes of the movie. Yippee.
Here are some pics of the kids, just in case you've forgotten what they look like. :)

My Lonely Bad Self

My HC is gone again, this time within driving distance. This is week 1 of Investigator school. What's the big deal about Investigator School? From what I gather, "it guarantees you'll never be put on night shift again." Which is a big deal to someone who spent the first 3 years of his law enforcement career in the dark. There were vampire jokes long before Twilight movies ever came on scene.
So here at the homestead, I am strangely getting a lot of stuff done. I'm not sure it's because I need to console myself because my HC is gone, or because his not being here frees up a lot of time...uh, I may just stop there. Either way, the house is pretty clean. Sort of. At least until Curious George is over and Erin starts up again.
Yesterday was our 6 month checkup at the allergist. It went very well. I can start weaning the kids from some meds and our next checkup is in a year. Yay! This is very good news. Our elimination diet (not eating the foods we are allergic to) and our rotation diet (testing our tolerance of foods we are allergic to once every 4 days) are working very well. We still have our meds for the odd flare up of symptoms (sometimes foods get cross contaminated or we have an oops moment), but I am very optimistic and pleased about the whole thing.
Ian was not happy about having to go back to school after our appointment, but he went back anyway for the last 2 hours. This is the last full week of school and I guess things are getting a little funner, because Ian hasn't been moaning or complaining half as much. No homework may have something to do with that. Hm...
Yesterday after school I decided to break out my new workout DVDs and try it out. Ian was gung ho to do it with me. We decided to do the kickboxing one. I pulled on the weighted gloves and committed myself to 10 minutes. Ian stayed for about 90 seconds and left me, the punk. Erin participated by riding her tricycle in front of the tv during kicks and lunges and imitating me (har har) behind while I was trying to do back kicks. It was very hazardous. I'm not sure if I'm sore from doing exercises improperly while trying to avoid my kidlets or because of the actual workout. I decided to finish out the DVD. By the last part, the ab workout, I was getting pretty frustrated with Erin. Ian had abandoned both of us for Lego Indiana Jones and Erin was convinced I was doing this to amuse her. The ab workout involved lying on the floor on a towel and contorting yourself into interesting positions to work your abs. There were a lot of chuckles behind me on the couch. No comment. Then Erin decided to improve my form/spot me by sitting on my stomach and hopping up and down. No comment again.
But I finished! Is there anyone close enough to give me a massage?!
Today is Track and Field day for Ian. He'll be in the gym doing 'real' exercises and tearing around vigorously. He has his running shoes, his 'fast' shorts on and his water bottle. I can't wait to hear about this one.
We finally finished Double Fudge. Now we are reading Otherwise Known As Sheila the Great. And while I was typing this, Erin decided to beautify herself with my makeup bag. She needs to go easy on the cover-up next time. Thank the Lord my lipstick is in my purse! Last time, it ended up in several lines all over the walls.

The Power of Styrofoam!

We are so happy about our Netflix Instant Play. I love watching nonstop seasons of Bones. Erin loves Caillou and VeggieTales. Ian loves the Mario Brothers Supershow, circa 1986 (save me) and Lilo and Stitch episodes. My HC likes to choose a bunch of B movies that we end up turning off. That's not always the case, but we're on a roll right now. But what we have watched at least 27 times in the past week (and I wish I were joking about the number) is Bolt. Erin always asks for it and Ian always gravitates to where it is playing. We all laugh at the same spots every time (well, we do not find the same spots funny, but I laugh at the hamster every time and Erin laughs at the cat every time and Ian laughs where Bolt gets the traffic cone stuck to his head every time. You get it. And just so he's not left out, my HC laughs at the hamster in the kayak, the hamster stealing a french fry and the animal control guy getting pepper sprayed in the eyes. Every time.) So when I say something like "You don't know the power of styrofoam!" or other related comments, especially those in the overzealous fan voice of Rhino the hamster, forgive me. It is now subliminally imbedded in all our minds.
We are in the last 2 weeks of school. Huzzah. So we are wrapping up homework, testing, the washing (again?!) of backpacks due to leaky thermoses. Sigh.
We also ordered next year's curriculum, which we may start half-time after school is out just to give us something to do.
(Ian just interrupted me. "Mommy, uh, are you wearing sunscreen?" "Uh huh," I said, "Erin and I went to the park today for Play and Learn." "Oh. I can smell it. I wanna go to the park."
Considering that when we went to the park today, I had to call in a broken step where Erin and I almost fell through, I'm not a big fan of the park. They did come and fix the step, where a bolt had broken on one side, but there are too many other areas that need repair (or broken things removed) that I'm not too fond of the playground at the park. But when school is over, we will be available to play with our other home school friends. Yay!
This week, my HC is home, having a normal (haha!) week. The laugh is because he's been having to be here and there at 5am yesterday and today to assist with this and that. And he's been coming home at the normal time. Next week he is starting his first week of Investigator school in Ada, OK. It's a bit of a drive, but he'll be home on the weekends. It is a very good thing to be in that school, however, as they handpick who gets to be in (everything is all about who you know. sigh!) and only allow 30 attendees at a time. I think there may be 2 such classes a year. So it is well indeed. Now about that supposed training class in Hawaii? (waaaah!) We'll see if that comes about. You'll hear plenty of whining and crying from the peanut gallery if it does (mostly from me and Ian the Vulcan (volcano lover)).
Meanwhile, we are enjoying the goodies brought back from New Mexico, including the cactus seeds we are attempting to grow. We'll find out in another couple of days if they will grow.
I got my sweepstakes prize in the mail today. It came FedEx and they called again to ask where my house was. 'Rural route what? Do you have a house number? Uh, that house number is not registered either (duh, if it was, we wouldn't have a rural route in town). Um. What street? Oh, hey! Didn't I just deliver something to you last month? (yeah, the Blackberry replacement). Oh! Now I remember your house. Alright, I'll be there in about 30 minutes.' (Uh, just how lost WAS the guy?)
So I get this box from Anchor Bay Entertainment and the first thing I think is Thomas the Tank Engine. Hmmm. Maybe the grandparents sent something? Uh. It was kind of heavy. Well, it was this:





Is this a sign? Mandi, you need some help. The first thing Mom said was "so they think if you do this video you'll look like her?" Clearly my mother is not a fan of the workout DVD. Not that I am either. I am not very consistent about such things. I get turned around when I'm facing someone chirping "Left! Left!" while they're going to my right. But these are a bit different. One is a boxing type DVD, another is pilates (I'm frightened) and they all come with something. Resistance band, weighted gloves, etc. I will report if they ever get used. Or unwrapped. Or if I can nag my HC into doing some with me, just for fun, in case he starts mocking me.

But he's just ignorant. Because he doesn't know the power of styrofoam.

Coming soon: my Mother's day present, as soon as it comes in the mail, barring any more complications from the FedEx guy or UPS.

I Just Won 11 Swag Bucks on www.swagbucks.com

I Just Won 11 Swag Bucks on www.swagbucks.com

Holding the Fort

My HC left this morning for a training session in New Mexico. Today has been crazy. I'm not sure if it is a result of him being gone or just a Monday or what. But come on! We were late getting up this morning. Erin has had a bad cold for a few weeks and it is on the downward slope with a bit of sniffles and coughing/asthma. Which means lots of breathing treatments and less sleep for me. So I'll try to quit blaming it on the kids and admit that I didn't get up when I heard the alarm and everyone was late. Ian had a bit of weird eye goop this morning in one eye, but we wiped it off and kept on. Erin's appetite is off due to sickness, so coaxing her to eat is time consuming and futile. So I spent the morning cleaning and finding blue play doh in strange places. My HC texted to say that he had to check his bag in because our tiny suitcase was too big to carry-on. I'm pretty ticked about that. Besides the cost, it was a pain in the butt to fit everything into that tiny suitcase. If we were going to check, we would have packed everything we wanted into a larger case...argh. But he made it to Texas and said he'd text when he got to NM. Meanwhile, Erin was fussy, the dog got into the shed outside and mutilated a bunch of stuff in boxes and had it strewn everywhere.
I finally sat down to finish Gosford Park and sew a couple of quilt squares.
Then I got a call from the school nurse. Ian's eye was red, swollen and itchy, they think it might be pink-eye.
It would be best if I came and picked him up and took him to the doctor. I called the doctor. They said "tomorrow morning ok?" I mentioned his kindergarten program tomorrow night and asked how long he would have to be on meds before he was out of quarantine. They said to bring him in, they'd fit him in somewhere.
So I got Ian from school, loaded his bike into the Jeep and got him from the nurse.
We got into the doctor rather quickly (shocker!), then went to the pharmacy.

Then we hit another snag. The cream the doc had prescribed wasn't in stock, but they would have it by tomorrow after 1pm. Argh! 24 hours of meds before tomorrow night? Yeah right. I called the doc, who called the pharmacy, who checked. Insurance didn't cover the other choice. On to Plan C. The doc was busy and had to sign off. We waited for over 45 min at the pharmacy. Since Ian has pink-eye, he is contagious. Trying to get him not to touch anything in a crowded, small town pharmacy? Nigh impossible. Erin's whining, squalling and meowing didn't help either. But of course everyone there thought she was cute as a button. They weren't holding her squirming, gymnastic little body, either.
We finally got some eye drops. The ones you have to put in every two hours the first two days? Then every 4 hours for 5 days after that. While Ian is awake, not during the night, thank you Lord! So no school tomorrow. If the eye gunk is drastically reduced by tomorrow night, we may make it to the kindergarten program/reward assembly. Otherwise, nope. As for Wednesday, how can he go to school when I have to give him drops every 2 hours? No one else at the school will/can administer them. And 5 days after that, every 4 hours? Argh! Oh well, I just hope that no one else gets pink-eye!

My HC landed in NM. They are an hour behind us, so that's neat. It looks flat and pretty, with mountains in the distance. Ian was disapointed that there were no cactus in the picture. My HC said he'd keep looking. I told him to eat well, because isn't there supposed to be some phenomenal Mexican food in NM? Mmmm...yeah yeah, thinking with my stomach.

He did end up having Mexican on the 70 mile trip from the airport to his hotel. And I haven't heard from him since, so he must be busy and having a good, educational time. :) Because that's what training sessions are for: learning. Right? We'll see, because really, it's all about hotels and restaurants. Mmmm... We at home will take this time to feast on cantaloupe.

An Interesting Week

This week has been interesting. Really interesting. It seems as if I've won some kind of sweepstakes through Redbook Magazine. It is my "grown-up" magazine that I get, though I am suspicious that my HC also reads it when he's bored. You didn't hear that from me. April was it's Sweepstakes Every Day month or something and I entered everything. I guess I was bored. Well, I got an email saying that I won April's Work It Out sweepstakes and I cannot for anything remember which one that was. I remember there was one for workout videos and one for athletic shoes and a few more that has something to do with 'Working It Out'. I guess I'll find out when it gets here in 3-6 months, like the email said.
Another interesting thing that happened. We opted out of Ebay and decided on CraigsList for selling our Xbox stuff and for the Kelty Kids Child Carrier (which we only used once for Hiking Devil's Den and then my HC was so sore from toting Erin around he vowed never to use it again! And we didn't.) Yesterday we got an email about the xbox stuff. Then came a flurry of texts resulting in a sale last night! It only lasted 8 hours before it was sold and we are very pleased. Now we are waiting to hear about the Carrier. Please, Lord let it sell!
These things, of course, will go into our Florida Fund. We are hoping to make a vacation-type trip sometime this summer. And my HC will be coming this time, too. Woo hoo! It was so bleak without him in January. Everything is always funner with Daddy around, as the kids will attest. And Mommy is a little more fun with Daddy around, too.
There are 26 days of school left and Ian is becoming increasingly difficult to get out of bed and to school in the morning. Sigh. At least we have the weekend to look forward to. Relief! Another Friday is almost over.
I am watching Gosford Park right now and finding it hard to do with Erin crawling over me like I am her personal tree/trampoline.
Everyone is almost better, just some lingering coughs.
The garden is doing very well. Some peas showed up, as well as a couple of watermelon and cucumber. The morning glories are sprouting up as well. Now we'll see if they get big enough to actually climb the fence. We'll see.

Fried Ears

The weekend was an incredibly busy one for us. Do you ever get those [incredibly rare] days when you just feel energized and actually get a whole list of stuff done? Then you spend the rest of the week wondering why you can't feel like that all the time and have a Donna Reed-esque life? Well, last weekend was incredible. We put our entire garden in, ironically the biggest one to date. We had said that we weren't going to do a garden this year, but we are forgoing the weed mat (waah!) and got the seeds very cheap at the local farm store. We did spring for chicken wire to put a barrier between the yard and the garden, to signal the dog to stop (it doesn't exactly keep her out).
We also changed our garden menu a bit. We are not doing corn this year, since it has been set upon by Japanese beetles every year and we only get a 1/2 gallon baggie of shucked corn total after they've finished with it. And we didn't plant anything that we didn't like this year. In the past, we've always planted okra since we love pickled okra. But there was never enough ready at the same time to pickle. And this year I am not making cucumber pickles because we have approximately 27 jars from last year that no one will touch. I am trying, but there was that one mushy jar....yuck. And I have discovered, by a majority vote, that no one else likes zucchini. And no one wants to eat any more zucchini bread or muffins. Ever.
So that saves me a bundle of work right there. So I get a break from pickling, harvesting gigantic okra that is inedible and shredding pounds of zucchini to freeze that no one will eat. I feel better already. Am I REALLY the only one that likes zucchini?! Really?!
I was outvoted again when I suggested opting out of the tomatoes. Phooey.
So this year's garden menu is: (drum roll)
Early Alaska Green Peas [along the whole back fence]
Maxi Beans (green beans) [3 short rows, bush style]
Carrots [a short double row]
Tomatoes (100 and Rutgers) [5 plants total]
Strawberries (Quinalt) [2 plants]
Crookneck Squash (yellow) [3 hills]
Cucumbers (burpless) [3 hills]
Cantaloupe [a short row]
Watermelon [4 hills, with 3 plantings in each hill]

Keep in mind that half of our garden is watermelon, since they need a lot of space.
We are hoping that the peas will shoot up and cover the whole 6 foot back fence, since the lot behind has been turned into a gravel parking lot...whee.
Personally, since we are not doing weed mat this year (bigger garden = more weed mat= too expensive...), I am hoping that a mulch truck will stop at our house and ask us if we need a ton or 2. In the meantime, we'll be out weeding....

So we spent all weekend outside, with the kids going in and out, depending on how many flies they wanted to let in. My HC got fried around his tank top and then burnt weird the next day, so from the back it looks like he was wearing a sports bra. It's a really good thing he can't see himself from the back. Try to smother a laugh or he will find you.
So all my lotion has been used up for the Greater Good (translation: HC). Erin's little pigtail part got red and she has a nice farmer's tan. Ian's nose is a bit red and my ears are fried to fire engine-like proportions. And I am sore all over from raking and shoveling and hoeing. My HC only had to do the rotor tiller, don't know what he has to be sore about. (I am only pouting a bit; watching him till with that thing was enough for me.) Erin also loved a few earthworms to death and pulled one apart ("Mommy! Wum boke!")

In addition to the garden success, my HC mowed and weed eated the front and back yard. We scrubbed all the winter muck off of the siding (as high as I could reach with the scrub pole), cleaned out the yucky corner of the house/yard, cleaned out the tupperware cabinet, cleaned out the shed, cleaned up some stuff to sell on Ebay, did all the laundry, etc. Still can't believe we did all that. Boo yah!

So you'll have to forgive me if I don't have any pictures, because I left my phone inside while I was performing all that manual labor. There's not much to see now except for dirt and hills, anyway.

But as with soreness, the after-effects remain. Now I have garden fingers, because my left hand is all scraped and rough from planting and there's dirt stuck in my nails that will just have to wear off. But I got me a garden, man!