Friday Evening

It's almost 10 p.m. on a Friday evening, and I finally have all the kids in bed. K has been up crying a lot. N has a fever, and he's been up to complain about it. Maybe K is sick, too, and I just don't realize it. I can tell she's cutting at least one molar. That might be what is interfering with her otherwise pleasant personality.

I'm trying to figure out what to do with my evening. Considering how late it is, I'll finish typing here, wash my face, brush my teeth, and possibly put on a DVD with a TV show such as MacGyver. At least I can't lament the exciting Friday nights I had before I got married and had kids because I didn't have many. Staying home is pretty much what I've always done. Going out was the exception.

I got a 10-day package of Crest Whitestrips premium, and I'm hoping to remember to use them to bleach out my teeth a bit before I go home next month. It's been three years since I've seen a lot of people, and I know I've got a lot more gray in my hair. I'm not ready to color it, but perhaps whiter teeth will take the years off. What vanity! How awful it must be for my parents to see me with graying hair. I know I'll feel near-death when I see N, J, and K going gray.

All of a sudden I'm getting really tired. I don't think I'll be watching a DVD tonight. I guess it's bedtime.

Back to School

The kids have been off school for a three-day weekend because of Memorial Day. We've spent a lot of time playing with their friends, going to a rock shop, gardening, running/getting fixed a rock tumbler, fishing, and picking cherries.

N, J, and Mr. K are at Chick-Fil-A because it's their school's PTA's fundraiser night there. K is asleep, and I was able to convince Mr. K to take the kids since I so hate being in a fast food restaurant that is packed with elementary-aged kids. I at first suggested maybe we could just do the drive-through if I took them.

I made a cherry pie this afternoon with cherries from our sweet cherry tree. In general, we are beating the birds to them for the first time this year. I'm hoping it will be good.

I saw at the Trixie Clubhouse that there is a "You know you're Australian if..." thread. It was interesting, and quite obvious I'm not Australian. Pretty much I didn't understand most of it. I did learn that the Australian $1 coin is bigger than the $2 coin.

K and I had lunch again at El Toro Loco with my friend from my old job with whom I occasionally have lunch. We'll try to squeeze in one more lunch before N and J get out of school for he summer. I doubt I'll try to meet her for lunch when I've got three kids to manage.

I was able to take the row covers off my summer-type squashes. Some of them have begun to bloom. I planted my beans this weekend (soy, yellow wax, bush green, and pole green). I also got in my Swiss chard. I forgot what Mama P called it. I think it was silverbeet.

Since I'm not making it out for dinner, I guess I should go open a tin of kippered herring or sardines or something so I'll have some protein before I load up on pie.

School Woes

Shortly after that last post, N's vice-principal called me. We had a speaker phone conference with me, N, his teacher, and the vice-principal.

N and another boy (the one we're going fishing with tomorrow morning) were being vulgar around other classmates and discussing private body parts and perhaps toilet paper, and refused to understand that their vulgarity was upsetting their classmates. (I'm not certain what was really said and I'll probably never know.) N told me his classmates are a bunch of tattletales. He has no remorse for his vulgarity. He has little respect for his teachers, also.

The other boy's mom was volunteering at the school so she got dragged into this before I was.

N won't be home directly after school today, either. He's going home with another friend from school, and I think he'll be staying for dinner.

N's dad is going to be enraged by this probably. I'm just disgusted that my son's manners are so poor.

My friend had a baby!

I have a friend with three kids who used to go to playgroup, and although she's older than I am (she's 40), she wanted another baby. I think her due date was yesterday. I called this morning to see how she was, and her mom answered and said she'd had her baby that morning. It's a girl!

I'll have to see if I have any old K stuff in good enough condition that she might be interested. She already has twin 7-year old girls and a 4-year old boy (or perhaps he's five by now, but I think he turns five this summer). She was done having kids after she had her son, so she got rid of all her baby and maternity things. She had a couple oopses after that which ended in miscarriages, but only after she had reconciled herself to expanding her family so she was sad. She thought about having the fourth child, but decided not to.

Then her baby turned four. She said at that time she just wanted another baby so much that they decided to proceed, and thank goodness, she promptly got pregnant, and all went well.

Just Life

K and I made it to playgroup this morning. Then we went to a local plant store, and I picked up a hanging basket of New Guinea impatiens. We took them to my friend's house. She's the one I used to work with and with whom I go to lunch every so often. Her 47th (I think) birthday was yesterday. We left the flowers for her on her porch, since she was at work, and I brought along a shovel that I used to dig up some of her hostas and a few black-eyed susans. She's getting an addition put on her house, and she said I could take all the black-eyed susans I want and up to half the hostas. The addition will be wiping out the flowers. Somewhere between the plant store and her house, K had fallen asleep.

Then K and I went to a rock store. I had to wake K up to go in. We had a long wait because the owner was so distracted. His wife was in the hospital. He sold me a rock tumbler with a starter kit. N has developed an interest in rocks and would like to polish some. Mr. K thinks that's a good idea.

After that, K refused to quit crying and screaming in the car. We stopped by one of the playgroup lady's house and I gave her the black-eyed susans since she had mentioned wanting some more. Then we drove to the gas station, K screaming all the way. I filled up my tank with 89 octane gasoline selling for $4.04/gallon. Yikes!

We drove back home, with K still yelling. Her dad was home between appointments, and he got her to quiet down, and fed her some lunch. Some of her troubles were hunger; I hadn't anticipated how long we'd be gone on errands, and all we had to eat were Ritz crackers.

K refused to nap after we got home, but I'm hoping that will work out well for us. She was up at 6 a.m. by herself this morning, crying and getting into things. I don't get up until 7:15 normally, but I had to get up early today because of her. I'm hoping she'll sleep in properly tomorrow since she should be very tired tonight.

Camping Trip

I put this in a Word document, and I'm pasting it here. It's long, and it hasn't been proof-read.

Keith and I drove to the campground separately in case he had to leave and go to work while we were there. We arrived with each other, though.

One of Nick’s friends, Eric, and his dad, David, were in a site not far from ours, and we spent a lot of time with them Friday night and Saturday morning. They were only staying one night, while we were staying two. I asked him where Laura (his wife) and Sophie (his daughter) were. He said Laura’s idea of camping is staying at the Marriott. They were remaining home and were probably out shopping.

We got our tent up, and left to find the pavilion where we were having a cookout with the Cub Scout pack and then a pack meeting. The food was great (hot dogs and hamburgers), but the actual pack meeting was long and hard to hear since we were outdoors. It was extra long because each den had a ceremony as the boys went up a level to the next kind of Cub Scout. Nick went from Wolf to Bear.

The meeting ended around dark. I had forgotten to bring a jacket, so all I had was a sweatshirt I had brought to sleep in. I mentioned it to my friend Suzanne, and she lent me her fleece jacket, which I returned today. She wasn’t staying the night so she didn’t need it. I was glad to have it because Saturday morning was rather cold.

We went back to our campsite, and Nick’s friend and his dad joined us. We built a campfire, and they stayed and had s’mores with us, and we made plans to meet in the morning to go fishing before the Cub Scout-arranged orienteering class at 10 a.m.

The ground was hard, and the cough from my cold kept me up as the temperature dropped, raising the humidity. I woke up around 2:30 a.m. and went to the bathroom to pee. We were right near the bathroom (good and bad) so our site had quite a bit of light. I didn’t fall asleep until after Jessica had got me up a couple times after that to take her to the bathroom. I drifted almost to sleep, but by about 5:45 a.m., I gave up and got a shower.

When I got up, I set up my propane camp stove and heated water to make myself some instant coffee in hopes it would warm me up. It was cold enough I could see my breath in the air. Keith got up very early for him. It was before 7 a.m. This never happens unless he has to get up.

Shortly after we were up, Eric and David dropped by to see if we were ready to go fishing. We weren’t because we were making breakfast. Keith was making sausages in one frying pan, and pancakes in the other. (After I got everything set up for cooking). I had trouble boiling water because the gas was so hot and difficult to adjust without shutting it off. I’ve never had water boil so fast. That is mostly why Keith took over the cooking. David left Eric with us for pancakes and sausage and made a McDonald’s run. He brought Keith and me back real coffee, and he had a hash brown for Kate (she loves them).

I got the dishes washed (with warm water made with boiling water on the stove), and we left to go fishing.

Kate was pretty bored, and we kept worrying she’d fall in. After I’d helped Nick and Jessica fish for a while with Keith taking charge of Kate, I took Kate off to some swings that I saw farther back from the shore, and I played with her on the swings so Keith could fish in peace. Mostly we caught small bluegills and sunfish, but Nick caught a little yellow perch, and Keith (and Kate) caught a small shiner. Nothing was big enough to bother keeping. We would have fished longer, but we had to leave to make the orienteering training by 10 a.m. I promised the kids we’d come back and fish that afternoon or evening.

During the compass lessons, Keith and I spent our time keeping Kate out of trouble. Also, David brought a GPS, and he was showing it to me and pretty much has me convinced I want my own so I can try geocaching.

Then we went on a couple-mile hike. Keith had to carry Kate a lot of the way, but he did it with no complaint. We saw a chimney in the woods that had been a house once-upon-a time, a pit that had been the well, and a pit that had been the smokehouse. We saw the remnants of an old cemetery. I had David record the GPS coordinates, and I’m hoping he’ll e-mail them to me so some other time, I can check them out. We saw what had probably been an old church or an icehouse, and we saw what had once been a road. Then we went back.

We went back to the campground, and Eric and David packed up and left. We had ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch (minimal cleanup).

After lunch, we drove up to a playground, where we met up with other people in the den. They walked and we drove because Keith would have had to carry Kate. After the playground, Kate finally fell asleep in the tent.

Jessica found the younger sister of one of the boy’s in Nick’s den to play with (Sophie), and Nick made friends with a boy in the den for boys a year older (Patrick). All of them spent the afternoon riding their scooters all around the campground. Keith and I sat in lawn chairs and read magazines. He read Fur-Fish-Game, and I read Everyday Food.

Nick and Jessica had a wonderful time on their scooters. We don’t live in a neighborhood, and the kids just can take off on our busy street. They’ve never had the independence of going off to play with friends. They had such a good time, they didn’t want to go back fishing.

I spent some time talking to some of the other mothers of Cub Scouts. One was Patrick’s mom. She also has three kids. Her youngest is three. I think they were spaced the same as mine, but she began one year earlier. (3^rd grade, 1^st grade, and 3-yr-old). Her baby had been a surprise, though.

As it got dark, we had the kids come back to the campsite, and we cooked some of the leftover hotdogs the campout coordinator had generously foisted upon me. She was giving out leftovers left and right from the campout the evening before. We had s’mores again, and one by one (Kate, Jessica, and then Nick), the kids got tired and went into the tent to go to sleep. I think it was only 9:15 p.m. when Keith and I started winding things down to go to bed ourselves. Getting up so early had made us all so sleepy.

I slept better the second night, and woke up around 5:30 with no trips to the bathroom this time. It was light enough I could read a book in bed, so I got up just after 6:00 a.m., and started packing up what I could. Not a lot later, Keith and the kids got up, and we took down the tent and loaded it up.

We left and went home. Keith stopped at the doughnut shop on the way home, and brought us doughnuts and coffee just like on any Sunday, but much earlier. I think he and the coffee arrived home around 8 a.m. so had we really wanted to, we could have gone to church.

After unloading the stuff, I took a shower. Then I had to put everything away. That took a while. In the afternoon, both girls fell asleep for long naps. I went to bed just after 9 p.m. The camping trip wore us out, but we had a great time.

Back from Camping

We had a great time.

Sick

I started coming down with a horrid cold yesterday. It started with congestion and a sore throat. I slept very little in the night, waking up at least once an hour. N woke me up once when I was asleep because he wet the bed. He hasn't done that in years. I took one look at it and covered it with a rubberized crib pad and told him to sleep on that and I'd change his sheets in the morning.

When I got up in the morning, I started throwing up, and I had a horrid headache. I finally got rid of most of the headache later in the morning once I was able to keep enough food down so that I could take an Excedrine (aspirin, acetaminophen, and caffeine).

I was supposed to go the gym this morning and then to the office to pick up our corporate monthly reporting material and overnight it to the corporate office at the post office. Instead, the office manager stopped by here this morning so I could check off the stuff as she put it in the envelope (a new system we use because the corporate office started claiming things were missing--they lost the stuff). She then took it to the post office. I was very glad because I was really to sick to get in the car.

The nausea stopped by lunch time, and with the headache under control, things are getting better. I'm certainly hoping I'll get more sleep tonight, but we'll see. I've got a Kleenex with me right now to catch all the drips flowing out of my nose. It's a good thing we don't transmit diseases over the Internet.

I was able to make dinner, and I made an emergency run to the budget hair cut place (no appointments necessary). I always go there, but I think it's been about six months, and my hair has started knotting in back on the underside, and the tangles are coming out in my brush, which is very painful and reduces the thickness of my hair. I had about five inches knocked off. It should wash and brush out with ease tomorrow. I really wanted to get it cut before we leave for that camping trip (I'm assuming I'll just have a regular cold by then). I'd hate to have long, snarled hair on a camping trip.

Last night I went to the church I attend for three-hour sexual abuse training. Now I will be eligible to volunteer in the nursery during vacation Bible school.

Two nights ago, I took J to her first Daisy Girl Scout meeting. We've been on a waiting list since last fall, and a new troop just formed in the area. It's a different elementary school, but is no farther from our house than the kids' elementary school. Fortunately, J is a people person and doesn't mind having to go meet new kids at a different school. Mr. K, N, and I aren't like that. There will probably be only one meeting this school year, and then a couple field trips in the summer. Next school year (starts in September), we'll get on track with monthly meetings.

It's Friday!

I finally got the kids in bed. I let N and J stay up a little so they could finish seeing a MacGyver episode with me. I'm planning to see at least part of the next episode as soon as I get off the computer.

N has a birthday party to attend tomorrow. I picked up a frog Webkinz for him to give to his friend as a birthday present. I found it at J. C. Penney's. I was there because I had a coupon for $10 off any item worth at least $10. It excluded many, many things, such as Webkinz, so I got a shirt that was on sale for $12.99. In the end, I paid just $2.99 plus 5 % sales tax on it. It's like a white t-shirt, but its neckline is a little fancier in cut and is embroidered and beaded. It probably is nice enough to wear to church. Of course, most things are; I wear jeans to church most Sundays now. I suspect the shirt is of low quality, and I'll either wear it out quickly or stain it badly. Since it is pure white, though, I can repair most stains with my favorite stain remover--bleach.

I'm sleepy so I'm off for a few more minutes of MacGyver on DVD and then sleep.

Trying to Get the Kids in Bed

No one will go and stay there. They all have excuses. K keeps calling for me. She isn't tired, either. I am, though, and would like everyone to go to bed so I can.

I was at Walmart today, and I got J a $5 pair of imitation Crocs to replace her real Crocs she lost in the creek last weekend. I also got K a Sesame Street toilet seat insert in the hopes it would help her use our toilet since she seems to prefer playing on that over using her potty. Amazingly enough, the potty seat wrapping proudly indicated it was "Made in the USA." The fake-Crocs, of course, are made in China. My real Crocs made in Mexico. The kids real Crocs were made in China.

We actually signed the lease with new tenants last Friday on the place that had been vandalized while vacant. We're hoping that is the end of any crime against the place, and that having tenants will keep it safe. The new tenants woke me at 6:45 a.m. today (half an hour before my alarm goes off) to ask me when trash day is. I told them I didn't know, and when I went to get the city utility number for them, they said they already had it. Hopefully they will be good tenants and will pay rent on time.

Right now we only have four tenants (out of six) who seem to be paying rent close to on time and without court proceedings. We have court dates for the other two.

This is going no where, and I have to go tuck N in since he finally got himself to his room.

Out at a party

My neighbor, the one who hasn't finished fixing up her house yet so who doesn't actually live in her house, knocked on my door as I was making dinner. She invited us over for a Cinco de Mayo cookout. I told her we'd have to come after dinner since dinner was almost done. (She invited us over for a cookout right while I was making dinner last week, too, so I sent the kids over to eat because they'd like her food better. I came after dinner). Anyway, the kids and I went over after dinner. Her nieces and nephews were there so the kids had a great time playing with other kids. Where we live, there are no other kids so they've found both invitations to be wonderful. Both nights there has been a campfire as it got dark.

Mr. K didn't go over either time. He's not very social. I could probably go over there by myself right now because I see the tiki torches are still lit. My neighbor's sisters are probably still over there. The sister with the small kids left about ten minutes before we did. I'm not going over there, though, because I'd rather wash my face and go to bed when I get off the computer. I'm only slightly more social than my husband. J is the only one who actually loves to go to parties in our family.

Anyway, it's been nice being invited to cookouts even though I miss eating the food each time because the invitation arrives as I'm making dinner.

I'm getting really sleepy and I'm not sure how coherent this post even is. I guess it's bedtime.

View of Road 2

View of Road 2
Originally uploaded by greycharleigh

This is the second video during which I point the camera up and down at my road and talk a bit. In this clip, it becomes obvious that I live on a pretty busy street. With the woods and chickens, I try to pretend I live in the middle of nowhere, but no matter what I do, I can't avoid the sound of cars driving by all day; I just ignore them and grow things in my back yard to screen my view of the road.

Actually, there is a benefit to living in the middle of everywhere. I'm one mile to the nearest store, and about two miles from two hospitals. I think the mall is three or four miles away.

View of Road 1

View of Road 1
Originally uploaded by greycharleigh

I've got more talking as I point my video camera up and down my street. Since my drive meets the street at two places (U-shaped driveway), to keep it short, I took two videos. This one was first.

A Visit to the Creek

The Pond2
Originally uploaded by greycharleigh

We all walked down to the creek this morning to go fishing. J lost her Crocs in the creek, so I took all the fishing stuff back home, got her another pair of shoes, and picked up my camera so I could get some pictures. This is the pond that is fed by the creek. I have a few more pictures at the flickr web site.

K fell into a little mud hole near this pond so her clothing is in the washing machine right now after having been soaked in detergent in the sink. She had the good sense not to lose any of her clothing.

The Weekend Begins!

It's Friday evening. I was lazy and ordered pizza for dinner. I gave Mr. K a choice, pizza or I'd make bacon and pancakes. It wasn't a hard decision for him.

For whatever reason--virus or old age--I ache all over and my sinuses are sore. I had been hoping to relax in the tub this evening, but I forgot it was bath night, and all the kids are using the tub. I'm last. Before I remembered this, I took ibuprofen and an antihistamine/decongestant. I expect to get too sleepy to bother with a bath soon, but I hope not. Unfortunately J has guessed that I'd like a bath, and she's already making plans to annoy me when I'm in the tub by coming in, talking at me, and dropping in bath toys she plays with. My preference is just to have a bath alone and read a book in the tub, something I can't do with J talking at me.