Last Friday night we decided to go to the drive-in theater. The Owens Theater in Seymour is one of the few left in this area. I never have been able to figure out why a Theater doesn't do well in the city, it is so much fun!
The theater was showing "Ice Age 2" and the kids waited with anticipation all week. We arrived about 30 minutes before the show started; we've driven by the theater hundreds of times and rarely are there very many cars there. As we approached, we could see that the field--yes, it's nothing more than a field--was packed!
The Owens Theater boasts that it's been family owned since the 1910's. As we approached the pay booth, we realized the man at the counter must be the original Mr. Owens. A little, old man was manning the booth and he yelled at us "How many?". Dh pointed to the back of the truck and told him we had 3 kids, 2 adults. Mr. Owens said "how many 5 and under?" Dh said we had 1 under 5 and 2 other kids. Mr. Owens chastised dh because he turned his head away and he couldn't hear him so dh repeated himself. Then Mr. Owens said that kids under 12 were $1 and adults were $5. Dh told him we had 1 kid (dd's friend) under 12 and 3 adults. Mr. Owen said "heh? I can't hear, how many you got?". Dh explained that we had 1 child who was five, one who was 12 and one under 12. Mr. Owens looked at him with a glazed look on his face. I couldn't stand it so I piped in, yelling that we needed to pay for 3 adults and 1 child, but I was all the way over on the other side of the pickup and he couldn't hear a word I was saying. Mr. Owens exasperatedly threw his pickled old hands up in the air and said "I don't know what you got!". I told dh just to give him what we owed and move on before the poor old guy had a stroke so we threw $16 at him and drove off.
Since it was opening night of "Ice Age", we had to park at the very back of the field. Once we got situated and comfortable and got the kids in their positions in lawn chairs, we looked up and realized we could barely make out the characters on the screen. There was nowhere else to go so we hoped that our eyes would adjust.
The girls wanted to go to the concession stand almost immediately so we gave them some money and sent them off. They were back within a few minutes, empty-handed. "The line is too long", they said so they sat down to watch the previews. 15 minutes later they decided they couldn't wait any longer so were back off to get popcorn, nachos, and soda. The movie had started by this time so we hoped it didn't take them too long. About 30 minutes later, the girls finally arrived with armloads of concessions, never mind that the movie was half over. Ds was enjoying it immensely, he could almost make out the wooly mammoths on the screen.
At one point dh looked over at me and said "wanna make out?". I laughed and said "sure" but right then ds fell through the sliding back window of the truck and said he was cold. The last time we went to a drive-in ALONE was 22 years ago when we were in high school.
We had a good time; I think the movie was good. The mammoths were cute, anyway.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Descent into Booger County
Every 4th Friday I must make the journey into Ava to pick up our groceries and run a few errands. I've always heard people refer to that area as "Booger County", assuming that it's because it's sort of out of the way and you could hide yourself, a meth lab, or a dead body in the Ozark Hills pretty easily-don't worry, I'm not considering knocking off anyone. There's a couple of intentional communities, as well. I've been told that "East Wind" is a sort of hippie community where they make nut butters and hammocks, reportedly in the nude. There's also a Gay Sanctuary somewhere in the midst. I love Ava, it's a charming town that for all of it's "boogers" seems more progressive than other towns of it's size. The square has a Health Food store, an art gallery, antique stores and a pet shop, among other things.
We belong to a food coop which ships once a month and we pick our items up at the VFW building just off the square in Ava. We are able to get the same stuff the health food stores get, only at a significantly discounted price. The group also buys organic produce and ships it in for pickup on the same day. Therefore, we have wonderful fruits and vegetables for about 2 weeks so we eat mostly raw meals and juice a lot. The other 2 weeks we resort to the frozen and canned foods and I actually have to cook!
The excitement my family reserves for coop day just goes to show how very strange we are. It is a big deal to plan our order the week before the pick-up and then we must wait patiently for the big day. Everyone helps to clean out the pantry, the refrigerator and the basement where we store all of our excess canned foods and the deep-freeze. We make sure we have enough jars and baggies to divide those things that need to be divided and frozen, i.e. raisins, cashews, barley, carob chips, to name a few. Most things are purchased in bulk so storage is a must. To go grocery shopping, we need go no further than our basement!
We never know what time the truck is going to arrive on the pick-up days until the night before it arrives so the entire day must be reserved. Before going to get our order, we always make a stop at the health-food store for the few items that I can't buy through the co-op (or that are simply too expensive to buy in bulk). Jean's Healthway has the best chocolate drops that we buy for a treat and I usually pick up milk for the kids that is supplied by the local dairy--they don't treat their cows with hormones or antibiotics. Jean's also has hard-to-find bulk herbs and spices.
There is a pharmacy right down the street from the building where the coop meets. The kids and I always make it a point to stop in and have an ice cream cone. They have an old-fashioned soda fountain complete with red vinyl barstools, black and white checkered floor and a jukebox. Most notably, ice cream cones are $.05 a scoop! The atmosphere and the price make it a nostalgic event (for me, anyway) that we look forward to once a month.
Around the corner from the soda fountain is a pet shop. We went there for the first time last Friday and it is delightful! The man who was working there was happy to let the kids hold the myriad of hamsters, guinea pigs, ferrets and bunnies and littlewho even held a python (don't be too alarmed, it wasn't much bigger around than my thumb). They had lots of birds, 2 of which were quite large and spoke very eloquently. One bird, if I remember correctly, was a Cockatoo. She was a beautiful, whitish-coral color and loved people! She would climb outside her cage, hang on with one foot and stretch the other out, indicating that she wanted to sit on your arm. I held my arm out to her and she hopped right onto it and proceeded to chant, "Dolly's a pretty girl, SQUAWK, Dolly's a pretty girl, HELLO!"
After killing time and not running into any "Booger-men", we converged on the VFW building like locusts to pick up our food; rushing in and out to get the items into our vehicles before it spoiled and then we headed home. By coop day, everyone is craving something besides beans and rice and it's like Christmas! We all stand around the kitchen and taste everything in site, avocados, mangos, strawberries, baby spinach, yummm! Shopping this way is much more economical; I save about $250 dollars a month and I rarely ever have to go to the grocery store. I would do it for that reason alone, even if it didn't save me money!
We belong to a food coop which ships once a month and we pick our items up at the VFW building just off the square in Ava. We are able to get the same stuff the health food stores get, only at a significantly discounted price. The group also buys organic produce and ships it in for pickup on the same day. Therefore, we have wonderful fruits and vegetables for about 2 weeks so we eat mostly raw meals and juice a lot. The other 2 weeks we resort to the frozen and canned foods and I actually have to cook!
The excitement my family reserves for coop day just goes to show how very strange we are. It is a big deal to plan our order the week before the pick-up and then we must wait patiently for the big day. Everyone helps to clean out the pantry, the refrigerator and the basement where we store all of our excess canned foods and the deep-freeze. We make sure we have enough jars and baggies to divide those things that need to be divided and frozen, i.e. raisins, cashews, barley, carob chips, to name a few. Most things are purchased in bulk so storage is a must. To go grocery shopping, we need go no further than our basement!
We never know what time the truck is going to arrive on the pick-up days until the night before it arrives so the entire day must be reserved. Before going to get our order, we always make a stop at the health-food store for the few items that I can't buy through the co-op (or that are simply too expensive to buy in bulk). Jean's Healthway has the best chocolate drops that we buy for a treat and I usually pick up milk for the kids that is supplied by the local dairy--they don't treat their cows with hormones or antibiotics. Jean's also has hard-to-find bulk herbs and spices.
There is a pharmacy right down the street from the building where the coop meets. The kids and I always make it a point to stop in and have an ice cream cone. They have an old-fashioned soda fountain complete with red vinyl barstools, black and white checkered floor and a jukebox. Most notably, ice cream cones are $.05 a scoop! The atmosphere and the price make it a nostalgic event (for me, anyway) that we look forward to once a month.
Around the corner from the soda fountain is a pet shop. We went there for the first time last Friday and it is delightful! The man who was working there was happy to let the kids hold the myriad of hamsters, guinea pigs, ferrets and bunnies and littlewho even held a python (don't be too alarmed, it wasn't much bigger around than my thumb). They had lots of birds, 2 of which were quite large and spoke very eloquently. One bird, if I remember correctly, was a Cockatoo. She was a beautiful, whitish-coral color and loved people! She would climb outside her cage, hang on with one foot and stretch the other out, indicating that she wanted to sit on your arm. I held my arm out to her and she hopped right onto it and proceeded to chant, "Dolly's a pretty girl, SQUAWK, Dolly's a pretty girl, HELLO!"
After killing time and not running into any "Booger-men", we converged on the VFW building like locusts to pick up our food; rushing in and out to get the items into our vehicles before it spoiled and then we headed home. By coop day, everyone is craving something besides beans and rice and it's like Christmas! We all stand around the kitchen and taste everything in site, avocados, mangos, strawberries, baby spinach, yummm! Shopping this way is much more economical; I save about $250 dollars a month and I rarely ever have to go to the grocery store. I would do it for that reason alone, even if it didn't save me money!
Friday, April 21, 2006
Square Foot Gardening
For months I have been desperately trying to figure out how to have a garden on this rocky mountain. Dh has made several suggestions such as, 1) put in at the bottom of the hill by the pond (the only flat spot for miles)--oh sure, and the deer, armadillos and rabbits will eat everything as fast as we can get it planted, 2) plant everything into the compost pile--which would have enough room for one tomato and one cucumber plant, 3) forget the garden and buy everything from the Amish--NO WAY!
I love gardening. There is something so life-giving about being outside in the sun, getting your hands dirty and seeing the delightful surprises you end up with. My family knows that if they want to see me in the spring, they must get involved in gardening with me. This is the time of year when it is the absolute most difficult for me to keep on track with homeschooling.
I was starting to wonder if I was even going to have a garden this year and I was to the point that I was ready to sell the house and buy some flat land! Then, "The Old Schoolhouse" magazine came in the mail. It is a homeschooling magazine and they include a section on Natural living in each issue. As I was perusing it, I came across a short article by Mel Bartholomew, the Square-Foot-Gardening guru.
Several years back, I read Mel's first book on the subject. It seemed like a great idea--you make the most use of your gardening space by eliminating rows but the plans he had laid out for developing a square foot garden seemed daunting, and impossible for me or dh to do. In this article, Mel explained very clearly how to build your own simple, raised beds. Dh seemed willing to go along with the idea and decided to take a day off work to help me get our garden up and running.
I know now why dh stayed home. He thought if he wasn't there to keep a rein on me, there's no telling what I would do; I might actually believe what this magazine article was telling me (gasp!) and try to put together the type of wooden boxes Mel recommended. Of course my ideas are not always the best ones, and any woman who has been married for very long knows that sometimes you have to let your man figure out for himself that you are somewhat capable of making a good decision.
We set out early in the morning to the local garden centers. First of all, for all of his superb qualities, my dear husband is not a carpenter. He will work harder than anyone I know but is quite challenged when it comes to building anything. So our first stop was "Klier's", the feed store, (go figure). Dh wanted to see if they had anything already put together that we could use. He eyed some big, round, steel watering tanks and said "hey, think of all the plants you could get in that thing!". I said, "yes, but it will look like a flying saucer has landed on our lawn". He tried to talk me into some old half-barrels that had once been filled with some black, tarry substance--most likely oil--probably wouldn't qualify for an organic garden. Then he tried to talk me into buying plastic buckets for planters; see what I'm up against? We didn't find anything we could both agree on so we moved on.
Our next stop was the Antique store, don't ask. Dh was determined that we could find something better than a wooden box so he pointed out anything and everything that could be used for a "garden", up to and including an old bathtub. I said, "while you're at it, let's just have my front teeth removed, throw away my shoes and take the tires off of all the cars." Sorry, that's not nice but I wasn't about to have a bathtub in my yard.
Finally, after hours of trying to find something suitable, dh decided that maybe we could just build some boxes out of wood; what a novel idea! We went to the lumber yard and had twenty-four 1x6's cut, each one 4 feet in length. This was enough for six boxes. We bought deck screws to put them together, predrilling the holes first. The lumber was pine, I didn't want anything treated, so dd and I rubbed linseed oil into the wood as a protectant. It took about an hour to build the boxes and cost about $50.00.
Our biggest challenge has been trying to find compost to fill the boxes (I can't even begin to imagine filling that big watering tank!). Mel recommends a 1:1:1 mixture of Peat moss, vermiculite, and compost. We had some compost from our own pile but not nearly enough. Mr. Safety doesn't want to get compost from the City of Springfield's pile because he dumps stuff from the streets there and says there are too many chemicals, hypodermic needles, etc. that go into it.
Yesterday, dd and I carefully plotted out how many square feet we needed for all of the things we wanted to plant. Dd calculated that we would need a total of 128 square feet of space (you didn't think I'd let an opportunity for a math lesson slip by, did you?), and we only had 6 boxes (96 square feet), so we purchased enough wood to make 2 more boxes. Mel emphasizes laying out a grid over each box, dividing each square into 16 smaller squares and then planting one seed per square foot. We did this by buying some unfinished 1x1's, cut them to size and screwed them together at the joints. We placed the boxes in 2 rows across our back yard, approximately 3 feet apart in order to be able to walk easily between them.
The overall effect of our garden is very pleasing and even dh agrees!
I love gardening. There is something so life-giving about being outside in the sun, getting your hands dirty and seeing the delightful surprises you end up with. My family knows that if they want to see me in the spring, they must get involved in gardening with me. This is the time of year when it is the absolute most difficult for me to keep on track with homeschooling.
I was starting to wonder if I was even going to have a garden this year and I was to the point that I was ready to sell the house and buy some flat land! Then, "The Old Schoolhouse" magazine came in the mail. It is a homeschooling magazine and they include a section on Natural living in each issue. As I was perusing it, I came across a short article by Mel Bartholomew, the Square-Foot-Gardening guru.
Several years back, I read Mel's first book on the subject. It seemed like a great idea--you make the most use of your gardening space by eliminating rows but the plans he had laid out for developing a square foot garden seemed daunting, and impossible for me or dh to do. In this article, Mel explained very clearly how to build your own simple, raised beds. Dh seemed willing to go along with the idea and decided to take a day off work to help me get our garden up and running.
I know now why dh stayed home. He thought if he wasn't there to keep a rein on me, there's no telling what I would do; I might actually believe what this magazine article was telling me (gasp!) and try to put together the type of wooden boxes Mel recommended. Of course my ideas are not always the best ones, and any woman who has been married for very long knows that sometimes you have to let your man figure out for himself that you are somewhat capable of making a good decision.
We set out early in the morning to the local garden centers. First of all, for all of his superb qualities, my dear husband is not a carpenter. He will work harder than anyone I know but is quite challenged when it comes to building anything. So our first stop was "Klier's", the feed store, (go figure). Dh wanted to see if they had anything already put together that we could use. He eyed some big, round, steel watering tanks and said "hey, think of all the plants you could get in that thing!". I said, "yes, but it will look like a flying saucer has landed on our lawn". He tried to talk me into some old half-barrels that had once been filled with some black, tarry substance--most likely oil--probably wouldn't qualify for an organic garden. Then he tried to talk me into buying plastic buckets for planters; see what I'm up against? We didn't find anything we could both agree on so we moved on.
Our next stop was the Antique store, don't ask. Dh was determined that we could find something better than a wooden box so he pointed out anything and everything that could be used for a "garden", up to and including an old bathtub. I said, "while you're at it, let's just have my front teeth removed, throw away my shoes and take the tires off of all the cars." Sorry, that's not nice but I wasn't about to have a bathtub in my yard.
Finally, after hours of trying to find something suitable, dh decided that maybe we could just build some boxes out of wood; what a novel idea! We went to the lumber yard and had twenty-four 1x6's cut, each one 4 feet in length. This was enough for six boxes. We bought deck screws to put them together, predrilling the holes first. The lumber was pine, I didn't want anything treated, so dd and I rubbed linseed oil into the wood as a protectant. It took about an hour to build the boxes and cost about $50.00.
Our biggest challenge has been trying to find compost to fill the boxes (I can't even begin to imagine filling that big watering tank!). Mel recommends a 1:1:1 mixture of Peat moss, vermiculite, and compost. We had some compost from our own pile but not nearly enough. Mr. Safety doesn't want to get compost from the City of Springfield's pile because he dumps stuff from the streets there and says there are too many chemicals, hypodermic needles, etc. that go into it.
Yesterday, dd and I carefully plotted out how many square feet we needed for all of the things we wanted to plant. Dd calculated that we would need a total of 128 square feet of space (you didn't think I'd let an opportunity for a math lesson slip by, did you?), and we only had 6 boxes (96 square feet), so we purchased enough wood to make 2 more boxes. Mel emphasizes laying out a grid over each box, dividing each square into 16 smaller squares and then planting one seed per square foot. We did this by buying some unfinished 1x1's, cut them to size and screwed them together at the joints. We placed the boxes in 2 rows across our back yard, approximately 3 feet apart in order to be able to walk easily between them.
The overall effect of our garden is very pleasing and even dh agrees!
Thursday, April 20, 2006
SNAAAKE!!
A couple of weeks ago littlewho was playing outside and came running into the house yelling, "a BIG snake, a BIG snake!" (as opposed to the hundreds of little garter snakes we see around here). Dh went outside to look and there was a snake hiding in the block retaining wall behind the house. Littlewho had been playing on the wall and heard a rustling sound and looked down into the blocks and saw the snake. It appeared to be a Blacksnake so, unlike my big, brave, rugged, fearless daddy who shoots every snake he sees, we left it alone. (Dad says NO snake is a good snake).
Yesterday, we were outside again, minding our own business when we looked up and saw the snake. With a quick 2nd look, we realized there were actually 2 snakes entwined together. If you know anything about snakes, you know this is their mating ritual. The snakes were entirely too busy to mind us so we were able to observe them for hours (apparently males snakes REALLY enjoy mating-DUH!, and keep the females attached to them for a very long period of time). We proceeded to learn more about snakes and their mating habits--homeschool moment--and discovered that these were Speckled Kingsnakes, not Blacksnakes. Kingsnakes are good snakes to have around. They eat other snakes, including Copperheads and Rattlesnakes whose venom doesn't affect the Kingsnake, and they eat rodents. We also learned that Kingsnakes are constrictors, they inject poison into their prey and then squeeze them to death.
Littlewho was "petting" the snakes and shouted "EW!, They're having a baby!". Upon closer inspection I did see that something red and ugly was coming out of the male and penetrating the female. Hmmm, could it be? Yes, snakes have penises. How else would they get the job done? I don't know what the female counterpart is called but it was a strange sight, something I had never seen or thought about before. Littlewho was disgusted and didn't want to watch them anymore so we gave them some privacy and got back to gardening............
Yesterday, we were outside again, minding our own business when we looked up and saw the snake. With a quick 2nd look, we realized there were actually 2 snakes entwined together. If you know anything about snakes, you know this is their mating ritual. The snakes were entirely too busy to mind us so we were able to observe them for hours (apparently males snakes REALLY enjoy mating-DUH!, and keep the females attached to them for a very long period of time). We proceeded to learn more about snakes and their mating habits--homeschool moment--and discovered that these were Speckled Kingsnakes, not Blacksnakes. Kingsnakes are good snakes to have around. They eat other snakes, including Copperheads and Rattlesnakes whose venom doesn't affect the Kingsnake, and they eat rodents. We also learned that Kingsnakes are constrictors, they inject poison into their prey and then squeeze them to death.
Littlewho was "petting" the snakes and shouted "EW!, They're having a baby!". Upon closer inspection I did see that something red and ugly was coming out of the male and penetrating the female. Hmmm, could it be? Yes, snakes have penises. How else would they get the job done? I don't know what the female counterpart is called but it was a strange sight, something I had never seen or thought about before. Littlewho was disgusted and didn't want to watch them anymore so we gave them some privacy and got back to gardening............
Monday, April 17, 2006
"All For Love"
Yesterday was Easter. I was at work. One of the great things about working in the medical field is that you get to spend holidays with everyone but your family. In my case, any holiday that falls on a weekend, I'm at the hospital. Of course Easter and Mother's and Father's day are always on a Sunday but this past Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day all fell on the weekend. Oh well, there's always Memorial Day and Labor Day.
Anyway, since I wasn't home to see the kids through Easter, I got up at 4:00 am so I could hide their baskets and eggs. Easter was always my favorite holiday growing up because my mom would write "clues" to help us locate our impossible-to-find goodies. Once we discovered that bunnies don't lay eggs, it sort of took the fun out of it for mom so she created her own fun. We would wake up early Easter morning with a poetic rhyme pasted on our headboard that would read something like...."Good morning Sunshine, hope you're feeling fine, the day is just beginning and you're gonna be grinning cause the bunny is feeling funny and your first clue is where you keep your money!" I would then proceed to look in my purse (yes, I still insisted on this tradition when I was 18, what of it?) and there would be another clue and another verse and so on until the last clue would give the exact location of the Easter basket. My mother did this faithfully every year that I can remember for all 4 of us kids and we loved it!
Needless to say, I don't do it for my kids. It's not that I can't come up with phrases that rhyme, I just never seem to be able to find the time (see, I CAN do it). So I woke up at 4, got ready for work and hid the kids' gifts. They already had candy because Grinny and Papa came bearing Easter baskets early, so all they got from this Easter Bunny was a chocolate rabbit and some clothes. Where, oh, where is that creativity gene? At 6 am I was outside hiding plastic eggs filled with quarters and dollars (the kids never once asked to color eggs so I didn't volunteer). I left dh instructions to read the children the story of the resurrection in the Bible story book. I found out later that there was also a note from the Easter Bunny saying he had been at our house to see two good kids...... where do we come up with stuff?
Before going to work, I stopped at church for an Easter sunrise service. The music, the message, the feeling was amazing. The theme was "All For Love", that God gave us His son, and Jesus endured tremendous suffering out of love for us. What a gift, to be forgiven again and again because Jesus shed HIS blood for us! Love was the motivation for all Jesus did. When He was betrayed, Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends." It's never too late to open our hearts to His love and experience the joy that can only come from knowing Him.
Anyway, since I wasn't home to see the kids through Easter, I got up at 4:00 am so I could hide their baskets and eggs. Easter was always my favorite holiday growing up because my mom would write "clues" to help us locate our impossible-to-find goodies. Once we discovered that bunnies don't lay eggs, it sort of took the fun out of it for mom so she created her own fun. We would wake up early Easter morning with a poetic rhyme pasted on our headboard that would read something like...."Good morning Sunshine, hope you're feeling fine, the day is just beginning and you're gonna be grinning cause the bunny is feeling funny and your first clue is where you keep your money!" I would then proceed to look in my purse (yes, I still insisted on this tradition when I was 18, what of it?) and there would be another clue and another verse and so on until the last clue would give the exact location of the Easter basket. My mother did this faithfully every year that I can remember for all 4 of us kids and we loved it!
Needless to say, I don't do it for my kids. It's not that I can't come up with phrases that rhyme, I just never seem to be able to find the time (see, I CAN do it). So I woke up at 4, got ready for work and hid the kids' gifts. They already had candy because Grinny and Papa came bearing Easter baskets early, so all they got from this Easter Bunny was a chocolate rabbit and some clothes. Where, oh, where is that creativity gene? At 6 am I was outside hiding plastic eggs filled with quarters and dollars (the kids never once asked to color eggs so I didn't volunteer). I left dh instructions to read the children the story of the resurrection in the Bible story book. I found out later that there was also a note from the Easter Bunny saying he had been at our house to see two good kids...... where do we come up with stuff?
Before going to work, I stopped at church for an Easter sunrise service. The music, the message, the feeling was amazing. The theme was "All For Love", that God gave us His son, and Jesus endured tremendous suffering out of love for us. What a gift, to be forgiven again and again because Jesus shed HIS blood for us! Love was the motivation for all Jesus did. When He was betrayed, Jesus said, "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends." It's never too late to open our hearts to His love and experience the joy that can only come from knowing Him.
Friday, April 14, 2006
Happenings in "Whoville"
Whew! It's been a hectic week or two. Last week we went to the Nature Center for a "Little Acorns" presentation. All of the little preschoolers were sitting on the floor while this nice man talked about racoons. He asked the kids if they knew why his job was important and littlewho yelled out "so you can make money!". True, but not really what he was getting at. After about 15 minutes of listening quietly, ds then raised his hand to speak. Mr. Conservation called on him and littlewho said "I think I have a tick". Mr. C politely explained that mommy would check on that when they were done and I tried to become invisible in my chair but ds ran over to me and said "Mama, is this a tick on my neck?". Happily, it was just a mole.
While we were there, things were stolen from my car. I had forgotten to lock it, grrrr! Fortunately, I had locked my purse in my trunk so I didn't have to deal with the mess that would have created. The thief took my new "Bento Bag", a designer bag I ordered online that holds a recycled plastic lunch box and perfect portion-sized containers, a stainless steel drink container, and stainless steel soup thermos-very cool and convenient but quite pricey. I ordered it from www.laptoplunches.com. I decided I had to replace the bag so I explained to the owners what happened and they are shipping me out a new one for half price. Several days after the robbery, I realized that the thief had also taken another bag that I carry with me and it had my makeup in it, none of which was Cover Girl, if you know what I mean. All totaled about $300 worth of stuff was stolen =(.
I was off work last weekend, the first in 6 months and now I know why I rarely take off. It was nice to be at home but I do appreciate my job. I have always said--jokingly--that I go to work to rest and now I realize I wasn't really joking! When you only get to stay home 3 weekends a year, you tend to want to make the most of them so I had all sorts of plans made for us. At one point dh looked at me and said "you're not taking off again for awhile, are you?". Even the kids were exhausted and are happy to send me off to work again this weekend.
Dh says he moved me out to the boonies in order to keep me from doing too much. I love it in the country but occasionally we need to go into the "city". I had a staff meeting so a friend of mine watched the kids for me. When it was over, I picked up the kids and her 4 year old daughter and took them to the park. The kids were playing on the jungle gym when a woman started screaming at ds. I heard her yelling "where is your mother? WHERE IS YOUR MOTHER?!!!" I approached her and asked what the problem was and she said--screamed, rather--that my son had pushed her son. It was diffucult to stay calm but it was apparent that this woman had forgotten to take her medicine that day so I said "if you will calm down, I will address this problem, but please stop yelling, there are children here". That just made her even more angry and she got right in my face and put her hands on my chest to demonstrate the atrocity ds had committed on her son. I quietly explained to her that if she touched me again, I would notify the police at which point she started jumping around and screaming "go ahead and call the police, you need to control your child!". It had actually become quite ridiculous by this time and there were a couple of men there who pulled the lady away from me. Ds said he wanted to apologize to the little boy so he walked toward him but the mother ran to her son, grabbed him and said "NO!". Ds just walked back to me and very maturely stated that she must just be upset because she was worried about her little boy. Hmmm, she could learn something from this 5 year old "bully", I think. Afterwards, 3 parents came up to me and thanked me for staying calm, all the while shaking their heads in disbelief.
Dd turned 12 on April 7th. She wanted nothing but a cell phone for her birthday, much to my dismay but dh thought it would be a good idea so we bought her a prepaid phone. You know, the kind where you purchase minutes ahead of time and when they are gone, you're done. It seems like a good idea but each minute costs $.25 and dd's allowance is only $7 a week! Of course, she has to text her friends who live 1/2 mile down the road and my goodness, it's just not cool to call someone on those old-fashioned wired telephones! Dh (Mr. Safety, remember?) wanted her to have it so he could call her home in the evenings when she is over at the neighbor's riding horses, down at the creek catching crawdads, or in the woods searching for who-knows-what.
Last night she and her 2 little girlfriends wanted to go on a hike and it was getting kind of late so we told them to be back before dark. Well, apparently they were having so much fun walking the creek beds that they lost track of time. Before they knew it, they were a couple of miles from home and it was dark. We suspected what had happened and all 3 girls have a cell phone so we would just call them, find out their location, and go pick them up, right? Turns out that none of them took their phones with them! ...."but honey, we'll always be able to reach her.......".
While we were there, things were stolen from my car. I had forgotten to lock it, grrrr! Fortunately, I had locked my purse in my trunk so I didn't have to deal with the mess that would have created. The thief took my new "Bento Bag", a designer bag I ordered online that holds a recycled plastic lunch box and perfect portion-sized containers, a stainless steel drink container, and stainless steel soup thermos-very cool and convenient but quite pricey. I ordered it from www.laptoplunches.com. I decided I had to replace the bag so I explained to the owners what happened and they are shipping me out a new one for half price. Several days after the robbery, I realized that the thief had also taken another bag that I carry with me and it had my makeup in it, none of which was Cover Girl, if you know what I mean. All totaled about $300 worth of stuff was stolen =(.
I was off work last weekend, the first in 6 months and now I know why I rarely take off. It was nice to be at home but I do appreciate my job. I have always said--jokingly--that I go to work to rest and now I realize I wasn't really joking! When you only get to stay home 3 weekends a year, you tend to want to make the most of them so I had all sorts of plans made for us. At one point dh looked at me and said "you're not taking off again for awhile, are you?". Even the kids were exhausted and are happy to send me off to work again this weekend.
Dh says he moved me out to the boonies in order to keep me from doing too much. I love it in the country but occasionally we need to go into the "city". I had a staff meeting so a friend of mine watched the kids for me. When it was over, I picked up the kids and her 4 year old daughter and took them to the park. The kids were playing on the jungle gym when a woman started screaming at ds. I heard her yelling "where is your mother? WHERE IS YOUR MOTHER?!!!" I approached her and asked what the problem was and she said--screamed, rather--that my son had pushed her son. It was diffucult to stay calm but it was apparent that this woman had forgotten to take her medicine that day so I said "if you will calm down, I will address this problem, but please stop yelling, there are children here". That just made her even more angry and she got right in my face and put her hands on my chest to demonstrate the atrocity ds had committed on her son. I quietly explained to her that if she touched me again, I would notify the police at which point she started jumping around and screaming "go ahead and call the police, you need to control your child!". It had actually become quite ridiculous by this time and there were a couple of men there who pulled the lady away from me. Ds said he wanted to apologize to the little boy so he walked toward him but the mother ran to her son, grabbed him and said "NO!". Ds just walked back to me and very maturely stated that she must just be upset because she was worried about her little boy. Hmmm, she could learn something from this 5 year old "bully", I think. Afterwards, 3 parents came up to me and thanked me for staying calm, all the while shaking their heads in disbelief.
Dd turned 12 on April 7th. She wanted nothing but a cell phone for her birthday, much to my dismay but dh thought it would be a good idea so we bought her a prepaid phone. You know, the kind where you purchase minutes ahead of time and when they are gone, you're done. It seems like a good idea but each minute costs $.25 and dd's allowance is only $7 a week! Of course, she has to text her friends who live 1/2 mile down the road and my goodness, it's just not cool to call someone on those old-fashioned wired telephones! Dh (Mr. Safety, remember?) wanted her to have it so he could call her home in the evenings when she is over at the neighbor's riding horses, down at the creek catching crawdads, or in the woods searching for who-knows-what.
Last night she and her 2 little girlfriends wanted to go on a hike and it was getting kind of late so we told them to be back before dark. Well, apparently they were having so much fun walking the creek beds that they lost track of time. Before they knew it, they were a couple of miles from home and it was dark. We suspected what had happened and all 3 girls have a cell phone so we would just call them, find out their location, and go pick them up, right? Turns out that none of them took their phones with them! ...."but honey, we'll always be able to reach her.......".
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