Owl Fan

Happy Birthday M

2011-03-26T21:00:00.004-05:00

Happy, happy birthday M! It's hard to believe its been 15 years. This last year has seen a lot of changes. You finished up middle school and moved on to high school - into a very demanding magnet program where you have thrived. Your dad and I are very proud of how well you have handled yourself. There have been a few mis-steps along the way, but overall you have stepped up to the plate, getting your work done (even mostly in a timely manner - and when you have had to stay up too late, you are learning how to cope with tiredness the next day) and getting great grades!

You finally got to be as tall as Dad last year when you turned 14, but you have grown several more inches since then. You are at least 5'10" now, and not showing any signs of being done growing. It's hard to believe that when you were little all the predictors said you would top out at around 5'9". Now predictions are anywhere from 6 feet to 6'1" or even 6'2". This makes you very happy.

I didn't get any pictures of birthday celebrations this year, but we had a lovely dinner out at an Italian restaurant and then back home for the (traditional for several years now) "perfectly chocolate chocolate cake with perfectly chocolate chocolate icing". Quite yummy and we will be enjoying it for several days to come.

I hope your next year will be as good or better than this year!

Ready to Garden

2011-02-28T22:10:00.002-05:00

The weather here has been so nice (read as unseasonably warm - almost 80 degrees at the end of February!) that I have been itching to get into the garden. So far I have managed not to jump the gun too much, but I have gotten some onions, chard, and mixed lettuces planted. They are all even starting to come up. It's about time to put in a second planting as I started the first lettuce and chard about 10 days ago.

We've also done a bit of digging in the garden. I really wish I could go back in time to when they were building my mom's house and convince them not to bury all the trees they cut down - right where we want to garden! I've got a mass of tree trunks and branches at least 2 ft x 2 ft. It's not a solid mass, but I can't tell where one begins and another ends - and its all about 2-3 inches under the soil level! I did manage to dig out a whole bucket full of tree pieces yesterday and today. If we can't come up with some way to dig it out, we either have to try to arrange paths over that area (may be difficult as we may find yet more tree under new areas we are adding to the garden) or decide that that area will be a raised bed and bring in some fresh soil and heap it up there. It's very frustrating as it means that digging up new area is hugely more difficult than it should be.

Meanwhile I'm waiting for the results of the soil sample I dropped off last week, so we know what sorts of amendments the soil needs. And I think it is time to plant potatoes - last year it was way too cold/wet to work the dirt in Feb and we never did plant potatoes. I looked for seed potatoes a couple of weeks ago, but didn't find any. I need to look again.

Happy Thanksgiving 2010

2010-11-25T22:19:00.002-05:00

Another great Thanksgiving on the books. It was just the 4 of us plus my mom, so the table was not so full as she would have liked, but several extra people were invited, but already had plans.

Menu:

Turkey

Stuffing

Cranberry sauce

Gravy

Sweet potato casserole

Green Bean casserole

Rolls

Olives

Pumpkin Pie

Cran-Apple pie

Apple-Cherry pie

All very tasty and wonderful - and leftovers of all exist! Yum. I think I like eating the leftovers as much as eating it the first time. And pie for breakfast tomorrow. double yum!

Popcorn Delivery Time

2010-11-06T21:01:00.004-05:00

A and I went out and picked up our order of popcorn from the Popcorn Kernel this afternoon. Once we got home, he got into uniform and off we went to deliver it. He got 13 orders delivered today (20% of total). I'm hoping that between church and another round of delivering in the neighborhood tomorrow that he can get over 50% delivered. We may have to take a thermos of cocoa with us tomorrow, though. It was quite chilly today. Not so bad if you are just walking to the car, but pretty chilly for dragging a wagon around for over an hour.

Daylight savings also makes the deliveries more difficult, as I don't really want to be wandering around in the dark trying to deliver popcorn and too many people aren't home until dark once the time changes tonight.

Brrrr

2010-11-05T21:44:00.002-05:00

It got cold today. Not just a little cool, but cold, windy, and wet. We even had some sleet, even though the weathermen were saying it was only well north of us. It was chilly in the house this morning, but we were all moving around and didn't feel it so much. Then I had errands to run, then bustling around putting stuff away and making lunch. I didn't really feel it until I went to sit down here at the computer (and instantly got a cat in my lap) and found my mouse hand getting very COLD.

So, once the cat left me, ON went the heat. First time of the season.

I covered up more of the garden than I had initially planned, because several of the peppers and tomatoes still have so much produce on them. I picked another 13 hot peppers today, plus some green tomatoes (the ones that had at least a tiny bit of red/pink on them).

Jack Frost vs the Garden

2010-11-04T20:18:00.002-05:00

We've got a freeze warning for Fri, Sat, and Sun nights currently. I'm not sure it will actually get down to 32 or below any of these nights, but I suppose I must be prepared, for the sake of the garden.

I know the garlic (coming up nicely) and parsley will be just fine. I think we're going to cover the cherry tomato plant, as it still has a couple dozen unripe tomatoes on it. I'll pick any that are even remotely turning red, but then cover and hope for the best. I need to look at the other tomato plants more closely, but I'm leaning towards just picking all the tomatoes and pulling up the plants. Probably the same for the bell pepper and hot pepper plants, though all are still producing well - especially the banana peppers and jalepenos. I picked a good dozen today, off 2 plants. I may just try to cover them, after picking all the good size peppers.

The only other things still in the garden are the basil (almost dead), cilantro (self-sprouting like crazy), and the late potatoes. I know that spring planted potatoes are put in well before the last frost, so can they take a frost?? I've never planted potatoes before, so this is a total experiment...

What's for Dinner

2010-11-03T18:16:00.002-05:00

It's been a cold, dreary day today. M says that we have skipped fall, but we haven't. If it were sunny, we would be enjoying the low-to-mid 50's of today, but combined with rain, it is just plain yucky.

The house was chilly, so what better than to crank up the oven and cook. Actually soup might be better, but we just finished taco soup and M dislikes soup in any form. So, dinner was:

roast chicken

roasted potatoes

green beans

garlic bread (yeah, so we probably didn't need another starch, but it looked good at the store)

apple pie

The house smells delicious now. I can't wait for my pie!

Growing and growing

2010-11-02T21:47:00.003-05:00

I decided to measure the kids today, and yep, they are both still growing like weeds. M currently measures 69 1/2 inches (5' 9.5") and A is 59 1/4 inches (4' 11.25").

What I find really interesting is that A is the same height that M was on 3/30/08, or 2 years 7 months ago - whereas A is 2 yrs 10 months younger. So A is just slightly ahead of M's pace. This could be A is going to be taller, or A is peaking slightly sooner or just chance. Who knows. I suppose we won't really know until they are both done growing.

But due to all this growing going on, I'm not buying A a hiking backpack anytime soon. I've been told that they will cover about a 9 inch height range, but given that M is a good 10 inches taller than A now, and both are still growing, I think any pack I get now, A would outgrow in the next 3 years. He's borrowed one from the Scoutmaster for the campout this month. It will be a very gently intro to backpacking.

Garden update

2010-11-01T20:55:00.004-05:00

I dug the sweet potatoes today. The nights have been getting cooler lately and it is supposed to rain tomorrow, so it was time. Unfortunately the sweet potatoes didn't seem to do as well this year as last year. Last year we had some gigantic sweets. This year, the biggest ones were about 4.5 oz. (vs almost 2 lbs last year). Our entire harvest this year was only about 4.5 pounds.

We thought about harvesting the sweet potatoes a few weeks ago, but I'm sure they would have been even smaller then. And I just checked - this years harvest is one week later than last year, but last year we had already turned on the heat by then. This year we haven't yet, we've only had one night barely dip into the upper 30's.

I'm not sure why they did so much worse this year. Perhaps because I planted them in-between rows of green beans and they got robbed of sun or water or soil nutrients? I had planted the beans well before the sweet potatoes would be ready to go in, but then my first planting didn't germinate, so I was 2 weeks later. And then the beans just kept on producing, so I didn't pull them out as soon as I had anticipated. I'd been trying for a bit of the square foot gardening/interplanting techniques and making better use of my space, but if that caused my poor yields, I'm not sure its worth it. Alternately it could be that we went on vacation for 2 weeks and the garden didn't get watered as regularly. or just the vagaries of weather. I wish I knew....

The hot peppers and the cherry tomatoes are still plowing on full steam ahead. I picked 8-10 cherry tomatoes today and there must still be dozens on the plant. Last week, one branch of the cherry tomato plant broke off (with a half dozen green to slightly red tomatoes on it), so I brought it home and put it in a vase of water. The reddish ones have fully ripened now, and most of the others are turning red - just one resolutely green tomato.

I'll have to try to add pictures tomorrow...

Waking up A

2010-10-15T18:54:00.002-05:00

It happened for the first time this morning. I had to wake up A. Normally he wakes up on his own, generally between 6:15-6:30. This morning, I had to wake him at 7 - still in plenty of time to get ready before the bus at 7:45. It's pretty good to go 1/4 of the school year though.

Speaking of 1/4 of the way through the year, it was progress report time this week. Both kids did well. A managed all A's, without too much difficulty (and the one class that was giving him trouble was mostly with remembering homework issues). M managed A's and B's, with more A's than B's. He's been putting in a lot of work, but not necessarily to the best effect (forgetting some assignments, not keeping up with studying his Spanish, etc), but overall he's doing well. We're proud of both of them!

Pathfinding in Old Town

2010-10-06T21:07:00.002-05:00

A and I took a walk around Old Town today, for work on his pathfinding merit badge. He had a blank map of the area and had to mark all the streets and alleys as well as a bunch of different types of places from churches to sandwich shops to car repair shops and the fire station. It was a truly lovely day for a walk - not too hot and not too cool. And the people at the welcome center were very helpful, providing us with a map, website info and a local history page.

In about an hour A got the small map all filled out and a few questions answered from the police station. He's still got to fill out the county map in a 3 mile radius from the Scout Troop meeting site.

Plumbing Success

2010-09-24T21:07:00.002-05:00

A week or so ago, I noticed that everything under the sink in the hall bathroom was wet. Further investigation revealed a slow drip from the cold water supply line - from before the shut-off, it seemed. Humph. I cleared out the cabinet and put a bucket under there - it would catch an inch or two a day. I tried shutting off the cold water line and it still leaked. Grrr. I wasn't sure what the problem was, but guessed it might be in the shut-off valve. The bucket contained the problem for the moment and I figured I would deal with it "later".

Well, last night, I was walking down the hall and heard water running. I thought, oh, A is running his bath now, good. Except A said that no, he wasn't. *cue ominous music*, as I stepped into a puddle on the bathroom floor! I opened up the cabinet to find water spraying everywhere. I turned off the shut-off valve and A and I proceeded to mop up the bathroom floor and cabinet. Then I got to sweep out the garage. And give thanks that the bathroom is over the garage and not a finished part of the basement! D got to escape this fun, having taken M to a school function.

This morning I called the local Ace hardware and determined that I needed to bring in the old supply line (I had a feeling that if I didn't call they would ask some question I couldn't answer). After much contorting, with a headlamp and 2 pairs of pliers (and finally help from my mom (Thanks MOM!)), I got the line off and headed off to Ace. They had exactly what I needed and reinstalling the line was FAR easier than taking it off.

Even better, that original leak I had. GONE! It must have been the very beginning of a leak in the supply line that ran down onto the valve. We now have water in the bathroom again and I can put the stuff back into the cabinet once it finishes drying out.

First Class Scout

2010-09-22T09:33:00.001-05:00

A had a Court of Honor last night at Scouts. They only hold these a couple of times a year, so this was for all the merit badges and rank advancements since May, including summer camp.
A ready for CoH:

A getting his rank advancement, 2nd class and 1st class ranks. This is pretty impressive since the Scouts like to claim you can reach 1st class in a year and A has only been a Boy Scout since February (7 months).

They call a parent up there with the Scout, so that the Scout can pin a parent's pin on as thanks for the parents involvement in the Scout's journey. A managed to pin my pin on with the pin part under my collar - and I didn't discover that until almost the end of the evening.

Happy 1st class Scout!

A also got to participate in an Eagle ceremony that was held immediately after the Court of Honor. He got to light one of the rank candles (in the dark the picture came out extremely blurry). The Scout who made Eagle was a sophomore at M's school, so we got to see a lot of M's teaches there (and his middle school English teacher, who was disappointed not to get to see M - he stayed home to do homework, rather than get free food and sit through a ceremony).

GA baby quilt

2010-09-20T09:36:00.000-05:00

I made a baby quilt for some friends who are expecting their first baby - a girl, as you can probably guess from the colors. And if you look closely, you can see that it has 2 different UGA fabrics, as they are huge GA fans.

Here is the quilt in the natural light out on the deck:

And here Pounce is enjoying it inside:

Happy parents to be, at a baby shower:

A with the clarinet

2010-09-18T09:38:00.000-05:00

A finally got his clarinet and the first bit of instruction in playing it last week. He seems to be enjoying it so far, though his says they have only learned to play 2 notes.

Study Skills

2010-09-02T21:03:00.003-05:00

Both kids seem to be in need of some better study skills, though not necessarily the same ones.

A is having issues with remembering:

1) what he has for homework

2) to bring home the necessary books for said homework

3) to take the completed homework back to school.

He has an agenda, but he only really uses it for the classes that require him to (and it only helps with #1). So this afternoon I cleared an even larger area of the dining room table (his preferred study location) of anything extraneous and filled a pencil box with basic supplies. We went over his agenda and I filled in extra assignments. Then we checked the area and the agenda at the end to make sure that all the homework was back in the backpack. I'm sure this will help in the short run and I'm hoping that some of it will stick for the long run.

M is having more issues with time management, trying to multi-task homework, videos, facebook, iPod, etc. And then still be doing homework at 10pm, when he is well past his optimum thinking. He just finished up tonight at 10 and headed off to the shower. He has also had a few issues of forgetting what the homework is or not checking the online sites to see if he has any. He also has an agenda, but I think it gets even less use than A's does!

I know its still reasonably early in the school year, but I also know that things tend to slide rather than improve spontaneously. We'll see. I have a conference scheduled with one of A's teachers next week.

I'm trying to come back...

2010-08-28T20:12:00.002-05:00

It's been a long time, as my mom reminds me, since I have posted. I feel like I should go to confessional (and I'm not even catholic).

It's been a long, HOT summer. The heat is finally breaking, but oh, my it was hot. Yesterday was the first day in at least 2 months we've been able to use the attic fan. And it was lovely! It's running again right now. I love having all that breeze when I sleep.

The kids have been back in school for a month now. It does and it doesn't feel that long. But progress reports are due next week, at the 1/4 of the semester mark. M is amazed he has already finished 1/4 of the semester and 1/8 of the year. His freshman year! I can't believe I have a middle schooler and a high schooler this year. They are growing up so fast.

Both kids are handling the transition of schools reasonably well. M is buckling down to the MUCH increased level of homework expected - and with minimal, pro-forma type complaints. The grades are still bouncing around a bit, due to increased expectations and with so few grades, one bad one makes much more of an impact currently. I expect things will settle down as the year progresses.

A has different types of homework than last year - not necessarily more, but he feels he has less time to do it as he gets home 2 hours later than last year (and the starting an hour later is nice to him, but doesn't make up for it to him). He has remarked that he wished he was still in elementary. I'm still clueless as to how A is doing in science as his teacher has not posted any grades. I guess I'll wait and see next week...

Swim Meet

2010-06-17T22:16:00.003-05:00

Swim meet tonight and oh my, but it was HOT!!! Sweltering hot in the sun, not helped by the fact that we got a brief bit of rain that made everything seem like a sauna. It was bad until the sun went behind some clouds and then started going down.

Luckily the meet went fairly quickly- over and done by just after 8:30. Our team was much bigger than the opponents, so it was fairly obvious that we would win. I don't think they even announced who won. If its not close, they just announce the winner, if it is reasonably close they will announce the score.

M had a pretty good night. He had a very competitive breaststroke race and he took off over a second and maybe close to 2 seconds off his time. He's down to 45 point something seconds for a 50. Nice! Oh, and took first place in the race. Most of the kids on the team who can beat M in breast either swim high school or year round. The coach suggested that he would do well swimming high school. M is not yet convinced.

Long time no post

2010-06-16T21:21:00.003-05:00

It's always hard when I don't post for a bit, because then I wonder how I can catch up. Well, I guess I can't. Maybe at some point I will put up some photos of the past month or so - or maybe not.

Anyway, the house has been quiet this week. D is in Colorado, with some students. He and they seem to be having a good time. They are enjoying MUCH cooler weather than we are. They had snow flurries - meanwhile we're having triple digit heat index days.

A is at Scout camp. I went out there tonight for parent's night and enjoyed pizza and desserts - what a healthy combo! At least I drank plenty of water (thanks to the heat index). A is doing fine and having fun. He doesn't seem overly bothered by the heat. He says the food is good - they cooked themselves spaghetti yesterday and hot dogs today for lunch. He is swimming at least once every day (swimming merit badge plus some free swim).

The Scouts were going to have ice cream after all the parents left, to help console the Scouts at their parents leaving. This is a slightly foreign concept to me - A is having a blast, he won't need consoling. One of the other parents said she had asked her son if he was homesick or crying and he said yes. It hadn't occurred to me before that to ask A, but then I did. A's response, "no, I'm not homesick, but I miss the computer".

A was happy to see me, and the stuff I brought: googles, spray sunscreen and a book. He'll be happy tonight eating ice cream with his friends too. And tomorrow doing his activities.

Meanwhile, back at the home front, M is hanging out in his room on the computer and reading. I'm trying to get him to tackle his summer work little by little, so it doesn't ruin his last week of summer. He misses his friends, but doesn't want to initiate any plans for getting together.

Me, I'm trying to tackle bits and pieces of things around the house and getting ready for our vacation. It sure is quiet.

Field Trip Frenzy

2010-05-09T20:44:00.000-05:00

It must be nearly the end of the year - the field trips are flying right and left. It's not usually this full of field trips, but both kids have an extra trip to go visit their new schools for next year. A to visit the middle (where M is currently) and M to visit the high school (where D teaches).

Even without those new school field trips, M had 2 field trips in the last week, one with just his art class and one for his whole team to a science museum. A has a field trip coming up this week to see the play the middle school is putting on.

Rain, rain everywhere....

2010-05-03T20:40:00.002-05:00

except in the house! 2.5 inches and fairly hard at times, but no rain in either the basement or the garage. Maybe I can actually hope this time that we are done with flooding. We did take measures to correct both problems - new siding along the basement and silicone caulking there too. And a rain barrel to divert rain away from the foundation to the garage. Bonus that we have a supply of water for the blueberries for when its not raining.

31 cent night at BR

2010-04-28T20:19:00.002-05:00

Yum! We took the kids up to BR for their 31 cent/scoop night. Conversation in the car:

M: I think I really want an eclair.

me: No, we were going there for the 31 cent ice cream.

M: I didn't know that - it could have been a random act of kindness

me: It's a random act of cheap kindness

The garden is starting slowly

2010-04-16T20:19:00.002-05:00

The garden seems to be progressing slower than last year. I know some of that is that it was cold and wet over winter break this year, so we didn't do any ground breaking then. So, once spring break came, we had to do the new ground breaking plus some planting.

So far we have planted:

lettuce - something is coming up, but it doesn't look like lettuce

swiss chard - coming up slowly

green beans - planted 2 types, one is coming up, the other not yet

corn - some is coming up

parsley - nothing yet

Hopefully this weekend we will get some tomatoes and peppers in. Those will be plants, rather than the sees like the others.

Oh, and D planted some amaranth here in the yard - nothing coming up from it yet either.

Taxes are finally DONE!

2010-04-15T21:07:00.002-05:00

Actually I finished them up yesterday morning, e-filing our Federal return. I had to wait for D's signature last night on the state return, though, because it annoys me WAY too much to pay $19.95 to e-file the state return. Besides, why do I want to pay them just so they can get my money faster???

I was amazed when I went to the post office this morning and found NO line. I was in and out of there in mere minutes, having seen my return postmarked.

Shadow gifts us

2010-03-27T13:39:00.003-05:00

Evidently Shadow has realized that it is birthday time around our house. Yesterday he brought M a birthday gift of a snake (small garter snake) and today he brought me a lizard. Such a thoughtful cat. He likes snakes and lizards, so why wouldn't we like them too...

Too many deaths

2010-03-22T14:43:00.000-05:00

We've had a run of 3 in deaths in the last 3 days. That is WAY too many. And it is actually 4 deaths in 3 events. First my great aunt passed away (the last of her generation) on Wed, then one of M's classmates (along with her brother) and now a member of our church.

Enough already! And we have dueling memorial services scheduled for Sunday afternoon, luckily only 2, not all 3. We'll be headed to the memorial service for M's friend, taking something for the reception. They are predicting 150 people. I expect that that is wildly underestimating the numbers.

I really hope that things come only in 3's and that we are done with death for a good long while.

M's First Concert

2010-03-06T17:00:00.003-05:00

M went to his first concert last night, They Might Be Giants (TMBG). He had wanted to go to a concert back before Christmas, but since it was on a school night, during finals week, we vetoed it. This time, however, it was a Friday night and a band that D was reasonably interested in. So off they went - and both had a good time.

The opening act was Jonathan Coulton - M had seemingly heard of him and had one of his songs. They bought his CD and M is enjoying some of the other songs that weren't played Friday night. Then there was an long, 45 minute wait before TMBG came out. M knew about 5 of the songs already, D knew more, but not all.

M's verdict seems to be GOOD, but long, late, and loud. It was after 11 by the time the concert was over and well past midnight when they got home.

Our Blackberry Patch is Gone!

2010-03-05T20:29:00.002-05:00

I was over at the elementary school today, waiting to pick A up from his field trip, and because the bus was late, I decided to walk around the track. I was astonished to see that they have completely cleared out the blackberry canes! They have also cut down some trees and other brush. Some of the blackberry canes were not terribly productive, but about a third of them produced nice, big, fat, juicy blackberries.

I am really going to miss the blackberries, especially those big, juicy ones - and especially since they were away from traffic and close to home. Now, this spring, I have to be on the lookout for the telltale white flowers that tell me where the blackberries will be in the summer.

It's Happened

2010-02-28T22:10:00.002-05:00

I've been expecting it for a while now, but it's finally confirmed - M is taller than I am. And still growing... D is expecting to be outgrown by M's birthday in just less than a month.

Not to be outdone, A is keeping up the pace. I measured him the other day and found that he was almost exactly the same height as M, with less than a month's difference in ages at the time. I had to send A back to change clothes this morning as both his shirt and his pants were noticeably short on him. Even then, the second pair of pants was still a bit short. I guess it's time to go through his drawers again and do the pants sort.

M's in to Magnet!

2010-02-27T22:00:00.002-05:00

M got the official notification today. He got into the Magnet high school for Science and Technology. M is happy, we are happy, all is good. M actually heard unofficially last night, as D had heard from one of the teachers on the selection committee, but today was the official letter.

M and his friends have been tearing up facebook, as various people waited for the mail truck. M says that almost all of his friends who applied have gotten in. I had to remind him, that it is really just almost everyone who has reported, got in (only one person posted that they had not gotten in). I'm sure that he will hear more tomorrow and especially on Monday at school. For now, though, they are all happy to have gotten in. As I told M several years ago, most of his friends applied to Magnet and will likely be there next year. And I'm sure he will make more friends from the kids from other middle schools.

A's Campout

2010-02-22T16:08:00.003-05:00

A reported that he had a great time on his campout with the boy Scouts over the weekend. He was very happy to report that he has earned his first Merit Badge - Indian Lore. They cooked an Indian lunch, made an Indian longhouse, a tomahawk, and a dreamcatcher. They also learned some Indian history from a Cherokee Indian. All in all a great success!

A and Boy Scouts

2010-02-19T21:33:00.002-05:00

(Sorry for the long dearth of posting. Once I miss more than a few days, it's hard to get back into the swing of posting. I'm going to try to be better.)

So, A and Scouts. Long story. After Christmas, his Webelos II leader had to bow out due to job issues. There were really only A and one other boy coming regularly, and both of them had already earned their Arrow of Light, so the decision was made to just send them on up to Boy Scouts a few months early. They would have been going up in March anyway. A decided that since he was really close to earning all the Webelos pins, he wanted to finish them up.

While school has been out this week, we plowed through the last few requirements. This week, A painted 2 wooden objects that he made at day camp as a Webelos I, and fashioned a picture frame out of cardboard and natural objects (sticks, pine cones, and sweetgum balls). So, now that those are all done, A is ready to officially move on to Boy Scouts (he has been attending their meetings for about a month already).

This weekend, A is on his first campout with the Boy Scouts - without us. One of us could have gone with him, but we decided that it might be best for him to figure out his place without us. And yes, this was fine with A. And, since he has now finished the Webelos pins, D turned in the official Boy Scout application and now A is able to start earning merit badges (handy since they are working on the Indian Lore badge this weekend. It sounds like it should be fun (and maybe a little crazy since evidently the adults were only given their assignments of what to teach this evening)).

More ice than snow

2010-01-08T21:47:00.003-05:00

I woke up this morning to the sound of D telling the kids that, yes, in fact, school was cancelled - in spite of the fact that there was only about 1/4 inch of snow. There was barely any snow on the yard where I had raked and none on our driveway and nothing that we could see or feel on the road in front of the house. However, no school due to "icy conditions". We thought it a bit silly.

Later in the morning, we walked down to a friends house to look at the ice on the lake. Not so much ice as yesterday, she said, but still quite a bit for our area. We amused ourselves for a while throwing sticks and rocks out onto the ice to see if we could break it. Mostly not. We did crack some right near the edge and see that it was only 1/2 inch or so thick. Lots of warnings to the kids about not going out on the ice! There was some ice in an old rowboat on shore that got up to about 2" thick - its been plenty cold here.

On our walk we did find several patches of ice on the roads, even after noon when we were walking back home. And the radio kept announcing icy patches and accidents all over the metro area, so I suppose it really was a good idea that school was cancelled. D's poker night was cancelled too, as the roads were still bad near the host's house.

Since it never broke freezing (I think we hit a high of 26), a reasonable amount of the snow is still around, and I'm afraid that there will still be icy patches on the road tomorrow. I guess I'll hear tomorrow since D and M have to head out early for magnet interviews and testing in the morning.

Snow?

2010-01-07T21:13:00.002-05:00

Well, yes, technically I think it is snowing now, not just sleet or "wintery mix", but it is a very light snowfall. It does not appear to us that school will be out tomorrow, but I suppose we won't really know until morning.

The weathermen have been playing up this storm for days now, with it slowly getting less and less predicted snowfall. As late as 2 pm today, the prediction was for it to snow for 7-8 hours. We have had off and on snow/sleet/winter mix since about 3 pm today, but the actual predicted snow has really just started. It will probably snow until about midnight. It has started sticking on the deck and on the holly leaves so far. I can't see much more than that (and the steps are starting to get icy).

Earlier today I predicted we wouldn't have school tomorrow, but because of ice, not snow. Now I think we will, but if not, I still think it will be for icy roads. Time will tell...

Back to School

2010-01-05T21:48:00.002-05:00

Today was back to school day, hooray. OK, the hooray was just from me. I was glad to get a little peace and quiet in the house today, just me and the cats. And since it was COLD today, the cats were inside virtually all day - periodically they would venture briefly out and come dashing back in. Bus time temps were in the upper teens, with wind chills around 7F. Brrr!

I did my good deeds by driving the kids down to wait for the bus, and then inviting into the car the others who were also waiting. I did venture outside this afternoon to blow off the driveway and the deck and do a little raking - all because the weatherman says there might be snow later this week. Of course, I've probably jinxed our chances, now that I'm ready for it, but its so much nicer to roll snowballs when there isn't all that pinestraw and sticks in the snow. We'll be watching the weather closely...

Happy Anniversary to us

2009-12-29T23:31:00.002-05:00

It's hard to believe that it's been 19 years (and even harder to believe that both D and I thought it had been 20 - it took my mom to correct us). It has been 20 years since we got engaged though. Either way, it really doesn't seem that long. I certainly don't feel 20 (or even 19) years older - and I periodically get comments that I don't look old enough to have a teenager. M may only just be a teen at 13, but I am quite clearly plenty old enough to be his mom.

We've had a good 19 years and decided we would renew for another 19 (as long as the renewal rights were there again then, lol). This next batch of years will see the nest slowly emptying, rather than filling, but I expect it will be just as interesting.

We had a delicious dinner out tonight and good conversation. I couldn't ask for more.

Ready or Not, here comes Christmas

2009-12-23T22:59:00.003-05:00

And no, I'm not really ready, but I know that won't stop Christmas from coming - any more than the Grinch managed.

What is ready:

the tree is up (on Monday)

all of my packages I ordered have arrived

most of the presents are wrapped

we have menus for Christmas eve and Christmas day

What isn't ready:

I haven't found the stockings yet

the Christmas letter is half-written

no pictures printed

no cards signed or addressed

no sticky buns made

Christmas spirit is lacking

I have a lot to do still, obviously - and quite clearly our cards this year will be late - maybe they will make it by New Years...

Not dead yet...

2009-12-20T22:29:00.002-05:00

Although my blog may have seemed dead, I'm not - just got too busy. Plus once I go a few days without posting, it just seems like I don't know where to start. I know I haven't posted since Thanksgiving - lots has happened since then.

We went to VA to visit D's folks for Thanksgiving. Best decision to split the driving up over 2 days. It meant a bit less of people sniping at each other and we could arrive at a decent time.

Came home and almost immediately the hard drive crashed on the PC. We're still eeking a little bit of data off it - it will run for 15-20 minutes so we can copy off some files. In the meantime, we got a new hard drive and windows 7. Because of this, all my pictures are still on the camera, not on the PC where I can post them. Must remedy this soon...

Last week was brutal - finals to give for D, finals to study (ha ha) and take for M and 3 projects for A. So D was late almost every night, I was trying to nag M into studying and A into working on his projects. All while baking biscotti for teacher gifts and breads for class parties and trying to fit a little bit of Christmas shopping and wrapping in there. I'm so glad that week is OVER!

We finally got a tree today. It is in the stand and "relaxing", so that the branches will fill out before we decorate tomorrow.

Crazy week

2009-11-20T22:09:00.003-05:00

This past week or so has just been crazy busy. Especially for and with regards to M. Over the weekend he had to finish up his science experiment, write it up and do his triboard. Tuesday he had math team practice starting at 7:30, then parent breakfast at 8:15 and science fair project due. Then they took the Explore test (some sort of pre ACT I think) all morning. Then after school he had a game design class. Home for a quick supper, then he and I went off to the magnet school to hear about their program that he is applying to for high school. Last it was hurry up and finish packing for the 8th grade trip to Savannah. Whew. Makes me tired just remembering all that. Luckily D could take him to school early on Wed to catch the bus for the trip - they had to be there by 7:00.

The rest of this week has been busy enough, even without all that. A had his usual afterschool activities on Wed and Thur. I've been trying to get us ready for Thanksgiving - baking quick breads and making lists. And realizing that Christmas really is coming up faster than I'm ready for and I'd better start thinking of getting ready for it.

In the midst of all this, A had another project for school. I don't know why the teacher is so insistent that all these projects be "illustrated" in color. We don't currently have a color printer, so anything we print out has to be hand colored - and A HATES to color. He never has enjoyed it, so its a rather tiresome requirement - and one that I really can't see how it adds to the educational knowledge. On top of that, D was gone last night for the last of the info sessions for the magnet school while A and I went to his pack meeting. They were serving dinner supposedly around 6:30, but when we got there, no dinner in sight. In fact, they hadn't gotten started fixing it yet. We finally ate at 7:45. Had I realized it would be that late, we'd have eaten at home! We usually do, but last night, because it would only be A and I at home, I thought it would be easier to have dinner there - and they were serving pancakes - yum. They were good, but not enough of them - I only ended up with 2 pancakes, so I came home hungry.

All in all, a crazy week. I'm glad we've got next week off. But with both kids wanting computer time, I may not get much time on here myself.

Popcorn, popcorn everywhere

2009-11-08T22:12:00.001-05:00

This weekend has been all about popcorn. First up on Saturday morning I had to go pick up our pack's popcorn order. I fit over 70 cases of popcorn into the back of the van, even though the estimated number of cases was 60. I didn't have a lot of spare room left, though - and the front passenger seat had popcorn in it too.

Then after I got home, I had M help me unload it. I learned a few years ago (the hard way) that if you let a bunch of microwave popcorn sit in the car, even overnight, your car will smell like a movie theater - for a good long while. So, we promptly unloaded the car. M decided we needed a "fortress".

It was impregnable to ordinary people, but not to Pounce. She quickly found the path off to the right and proceeded to wander through the popcorn arena all afternoon.

Yesterday afternoon I had most of the people show up to pick up their orders and one dad got his this evening. I'm down to 5 orders to get to other pack members and the pile of popcorn is MUCH smaller.

Equally good news, A managed to deliver a lot of popcorn around the neighborhood today. All but 5 orders in walking distance. Unfortunately we didn't do quite so well at church this morning, so we have a good bit to haul back there again next week. But the pile is definitely diminishing.

Dinner

2009-11-02T22:05:00.003-05:00

M has not been overly fond of our last few dinners. In fact, he asked me the other night, "is this your way of putting me on a diet, fixing meals I don't like?" Well, actually no it isn't. It's just that the rest of us like soups and stews and chili and all sorts of other things M doesn't.

Tonight's dinner was:

Chicken and rice - with some leftover plain rice for M

Baked sweet potatoes (from our garden) - one bite for the kids plus raw carrots for them

Broccoli - raw for M

Fruit and seed bread

A loved it and wanted a second chicken leg - good thing I cut up 5 leg quarters for the pan. We'll have this meal again (mostly) in a few days. I thought it was a very good thing to fix on a night I had to go pick up M after his robotics. The chicken & rice and the sweet potatoes went into the oven about 4:45 and then the bread went in to finish up cooking a bit after we got back. Broccoli in the microwave and we were set to eat.

Oh, and leftover cherry/apple pie for dessert. I was impressed that M actually wanted to try it. His verdict: ok, but not great. He had Halloween candy for dessert instead. Fine by me, all the more pie for me. Mmmmm.... pie - there's still some left that may be part of breakfast tomorrow.

Caring for Creation Conference

2009-11-01T20:19:00.004-05:00

Friday I went down to Macon (a bit over an hour away) for a conference at Mercer University titled Caring for Creation. It was "a scientific and theological response" to the subject of climate change.

I was a bit surprised overall at the casual atmosphere of the whole conference - I guess I'm too used to industry type conferences, whereas this was clearly aimed at the Mercer students. Check-in was a student writing down my name and not really knowing if I'd already paid or not, parking was free on the street, and our lunch ticket was evidently the fact that we had the green bags from the conference and looked too old to be students (students were supposed to swipe their ID for the meal). The speakers were all quite interesting. I wish I'd been able to clone myself to go to more of the talks.

At the first group plenary session, I was quite pleased to meet Amy, whose blog I read and get lots of good info on when to plant and harvest my garden. We each knew the other would be there, but not how to find each other. Because there were mostly students in attendance, it was easier, but I was still surprised that we connected even before the session started.

Amy posted a very nice synopsis of the conference sessions. I won't repeat it all (also because my notes weren't nearly so detailed), but note that I also initially found out about the conference from Sharon's blog - and the fact that Sharon would be speaking is the main reason I went. I really enjoyed both Sharon's talks and chatting with her a bit afterwards. She was just as interesting and entertaining in person as she is on her blog. And she seemed quite pleased that Amy and I had each come from over an hour away to hear her speak.

During the final break-out session, while Amy went to hear Farmer D, I went back to hear Judith Curry, who had spoken in the morning. She was going to be talking more about what climate change will mean for the Southeast. I must admit that I was a little disappointed - I didn't think that she added all that much new information over what she had presented in the morning. She discussed how we will see more extremes in temperature and rainfall - more flooding as well as more drought and more of our rain in big rainfall events rather than slow, gentle rains. She pointed out that even a fairly modest average temperature rise of 2 degrees F might lead to a maximum temperature for a specific area of 7F more. Dr. Curry also said that climate scientists knew that there was a reasonable probability of a flood in the Atlanta area a month before our recent flood and that there was a high probability a week in advance - but nothing was done to prepare the area or the residents.

Based on her comments, Dr. Curry had heard Sharon's plenary talk, where she told us that a very high percentage of climate researchers thought that it was very likely that the earth would warm by 4 degrees C by 2100. Dr. Curry heard this and did not seem to disagree with it (though all the information she presented was of a lower level of warming), but said that she didn't think she could go so far as to stop watching her big TV or traveling by air. If scientists in the field of climate research aren't willing to change their behavior, I worry how other people can be convinced to conserve and change.

I like Wednesdays

2009-10-28T21:25:00.002-05:00

I've decided that I really like Wednesdays at the moment - not necessarily more than Friday or the weekend days, but definitely better than Monday, Tuesday or Thursday. Why? Because I don't have to pick anyone up at school on Wednesdays. And I've got an extra almost 2 hours on Wednesdays too.

The first Wednesday of bliss was 2 weeks ago. It was quiet for so long that it was almost eerie. Then last week, I took advantage of that extra time and my mom and I went out to Kennesaw mountain to a program there with a pair of reenactors and had lunch. We even had time to go to an upscale farmer's market (where I bought wheat germ and beer (lots of beer - because our local liquor stores are sort of boring in the beer they carry)). Nothing too exciting today, just plenty of lap time for the kitties. I can tell that Wednesdays are going to be my day for Christmas shopping and baking as it gets closer to the holidays.

The Last Super Buccaneer

2009-10-27T20:41:00.002-05:00

We just had our very last Super Buccaneer awarding tonight. A is now a 6 time winner. Hoo-rah. Somehow after so many times, it isn't quite as exciting as the first time. But, A is happy. And he should be, to be honored in the first quarter. I asked A if he knew why he was getting the award and he said, "because I get good grades". Well, I'm sure that's nice, but no - this is supposed to be an award for good citizenship. I doubt you could get the award if you didn't tend to do your homework, but grades aren't really supposed to enter into it.

Sweet potatoes

2009-10-24T21:13:00.000-05:00

Here are the first sweet potatoes we dug up last week - these were just the ones that I could see poking up above the soil. That one on the right, nearest the phone is almost 2 pounds!

Here's another picture of all of them (sorry its on its side, I'm not going back to fix it now). The one on the upper right is the same big one as above.

I estimate that all these, plus the 2 we've already eaten, the 2 more my mom found a few days later when she used the shovel to dig up the whole area and the couple I left at her house - all told I think we got about 12 pounds of sweet potatoes. I could tell that we got more sweet potatoes from the areas where we had amended the soil better. There were a few plants at the back or right at the edge of the garden that didn't produce as well. Guess we know what we need to do better next year!

The first cold snap

2009-10-17T20:53:00.002-05:00

Brrr. The weatherman just says "unseasonably cool", but when the high for the day barely hit 50, to go along with rain/mist and wind, I say 'brrrr'.

I had the fun of taking M to his walkathon this morning, not realizing just how cold that upper 40s was going to feel. I'll tell you, it felt COLD. I had grabbed a scarf this morning, but left it in the car, thinking, "naw, I won't need it". After standing outside for 10 minutes, I went back and grabbed it.

M managed to get in 3 miles and lunch before it really started raining. It was misting off and on for the 3 miles, but not badly - and he had a hoodie. But once it started actually raining, we decided to head back home. Not nearly as many kids showed up this year - not sure if it was the weather or other activities or their new system. In the past, they've given the kids forms and asked them to collect money for walking. This year, they wanted us to provide names and addresses and they were going to send out letters. Well, I wasn't about to provide friends and neighbors addresses - I really dislike getting those sorts of money requests in the mail. I know that many of the people who sponsored M in the past gave him $2 - $5 and would probably do so again (but wouldn't likely respond to a form letter). He raised $200 mostly in this manner last year. So far this year $40 (just from us and my mom). He didn't like that they were stressing the form letter fundraising, and discouraging the in-person.

The house had been staying nicely near 70 during the day, dropping a bit at night, but not bad. But after several days of rain and cooler weather, today's 50 didn't do anything to heat up the house, but rather let it keep cooling down. When I realized at one point that the reason I was cold was that the house was down to 61, I caved and turned on the heat. And reset the programming to winter temps, so that the furnace wasn't trying to heat us up to 80.

The furnace is running again right now, which feels rather nice. I decided that if its cold enough for the furnace, its cold enough for flannel sheets! So it should be a bit warmer when I climb in bed tonight - and then in the morning the heat will turn itself on at 8 - so nice to have warm air blowing when I get up...

Enough already with the rain!

2009-10-15T20:55:00.003-05:00

If there is an antonym to drought, then that seems to be what we are experiencing currently. We had 4 inches on Monday (and more water seeping into the basement). Then I spent Wednesday worrying that we would get yet more water in the house. Luckily, it was a slow steady rain of only about an inch total all day, so we stayed dry inside. But I got to dry off wet cats a number of times. Yet more rain today, but again, mostly slow and misty - and with the wet cats again. I'm so glad that wet cats don't smell like wet dogs! They don't particularly smell at all different, its just not so pleasant to have wet fur in your lap.

They say we might see the sun tomorrow. Hooray! And an even better chance of sun over the weekend.

Fallingwater

2009-10-14T20:59:00.002-05:00

It's finally done! Hallelujah!! Here is A's model:

and then a side view:

As you can see, we didn't bother with fancy bits like railings on the terraces, which D thought we ought to have. Yes, it probably should have them, but A was having trouble with cutting through the foam board and I was getting mighty tired of cutting foam board with him. A's been working on this building for a solid week (with varying amounts of help), from finding scale drawings and getting them printed out big enough to work with, to finding materials we can cut to cutting, positioning, glueing, etc. I'm almost positive we have the plunge pool elevated when it shouldn't be, but there was NO way to get teeny tiny stairs to descend that much elevation in the little space we had (plus I think the river was supposed to be a bit wider there). But its DONE! finis. complete. at least as much as its going to be.

And, of course, while all this construction was going on, A was also trying to write a paper. Someone needs to teach a class for these kids on how to write a paper. I just thought tonight that of course, what I should have done is have A make notecards. It would have been easier to manipulate the info (and make sure that it was in his words) with notecards. But I only thought of it tonight, not a couple of weeks ago. I talked with A's teacher today and we both agreed that they need to do something to teach how to research because clearly most of the kids don't know how to do it effectively - from a book or from the computer.

Last, but not least, A has to give a presentation on his paper/project - which we weren't completely clear on until this morning. The rubric the teacher sent home didn't mention any oral presentation (and my message to her over the weekend evidently ended up in her junk mail folder, until I called today), so he didn't practice any until tonight. I caved and typed up notes from the paper for him to have for the presentation. I wish we'd had time so I could make him do them, but it was almost 9:30 by the time he went to bed as it was - and that was with me typing the notes and him only practicing once. I told him he needs to practice the presentation at least twice tomorrow morning before school.

The final fun will be tomorrow morning when I get to drive the project over to his other school. I don't think that asking him to lug the project on 2 buses is a good idea.

I hate projects!

2009-10-10T21:28:00.003-05:00

A has a project to build a model and write a paper for one of his classes. This is turning into a LOT of work, for A and unfortunately for me. When M took this same design class 3 years ago, they had to draw out a house plan for a specified situation (so much money, so big a family) and they did it all during class time.

Now, when A is taking the class, they are writing a paper on a building. Now, they did do some of their research in class, but they had short class one week due to conferences and they had no class at all last week due to a furlough day. So, he had chosen a building and done some (but not nearly as much as he should have ) research. Therefore, all week here during break, I have had to assign him tasks at the computer - go over the assignment with him and break it down into parts. ie, now write a paragraph about Frank Lloyd Wright's background, now about when and where and why he built Fallingwater, now about some other famous buildings he built.

Yesterday and today have been all about trying to build a model of Fallingwater. My word, but that building has a LOT of ins and outs! We found some plans online and D managed to blow them up and print them out. Then I helped A to trim the pages so we could tape them together. Next we traced the footprint of each level as well as the footprint of interior space on each level. Then pinned the level on some foamboard and cut it out. A did a reasonable amount of each of these, but some of them took more than 2 hands, and the cutting was a bit tricky. He did some of that, but the foamboard is a bit tricky for him to cut all the way through. He did much more of the cutting on the styrofoam by himself. Then he started gluing pieces together.

More gluing to come tomorrow. I need to remember to get him to glue the 3rd floor together before church, so it can be dry by afternoon. Then we can try to match up the 3 floors and try to glue them all together. Or maybe we need to figure out how to get the whole thing up off the board a bit so the stream can go underneath.

I will be SO HAPPY when Thursday comes and this project is done. Of course, between now and then, he still has to finish the paper, practice his presentation, and finish the building!

I imagine that the teacher didn't really intend for the building to be quite this involved, but I can't figure out how to make something that looks at all like Fallingwater otherwise. I did see that you can buy a Lego model kit of Fallingwater, but I'm not spending $100 on an elementary school project. (plus its backordered even if I had been tempted).

Dinner and Snack

2009-10-05T22:57:00.002-05:00

Tonight's dinner was by A. He chose to make baked ziti. He would have been content to leave it at that, but was "convinced" that a vegetable was necessary - we ended up with a spinach and mandarin orange salad. A thought that the oranges would be enough. no.

I've been enjoying the partial break from the kitchen this week. I informed the family right before break that each of them needed to cook at least one meal. So far D has made pork steaks and lentils. A made the ziti. M made ravioli and has plans for pizza later in the week (after a planned trip to Trader Joe's to get some of their pizza dough).

In celebration of the lack of dinner cooking and the general cool weather out, I made some pecan apple bread tonight. Yummy. I think it will be even better tomorrow morning, toasted. It was a big hit with everyone except M, who thought it was just ok, but too raisiny. That's odd - no raisins anywhere in it. Evidently he thought the apple bits were raisins.

Fall is here

2009-10-03T22:09:00.002-05:00

How can I tell fall is here?

Yesterday I had a cat on my lap at least 5 different times, for a minimum of 30 minutes each time. (Why yes, I did get a lot of reading done yesterday.) Both cats had their turns, and I didn't have to pick them up any of those times.

We had lentils for dinner yesterday (it just feels too hot for them much of the summer).

M started wearing a pajama shirt to bed. - long sleeved even

Taking the shortcut through the woods in my sandals got too many bits of leaves in the sandals.

I've started thinking of pies.

No attic fan or ceiling fan at night - that would be too cold.

Pounce has been spending all night in the bed with us.

I'm enjoying the fall weather. I hope it lasts a while longer!

Fall Break

2009-10-01T22:29:00.003-05:00

We're off for a longer fall break than usual this year, thanks to budget cut furloughs. The kids were going to have a half day today and no school tomorrow, with the teachers still going through Friday, but now everyone has been home today and will be for 10 more days.

It was lovely to sleep in this morning and sort of laze through the morning (and afternoon). However certain someones couldn't keep their hands off each other and got banished to their respective bedrooms for a while. I hope that they got that out of their system for a while, because I'm tired of people attacking each other.

Show and Sell Popcorn Sales

2009-09-26T21:24:00.002-05:00

A and I were up bright and early today for a popcorn sale. 7:45 am found us in front of a gas station/convenience store, for 2 1/2 hours. A was good for about the first 2 hours, then he was ready to GO. Our location sold for about 3.5 hours and some other pack members had another location, in front of Lowe's, for about 4 hours.

Sales seemed to be down, compared to show and sells we did several years ago. But, donations were up. I'd guess there were a lot of people who didn't want to/couldn't swing the cost of the popcorn, but wanted to support the boys anyway. Between the 2 locations, we sold over $550 of popcorn and collected another over $200 in donations. Wow! And to think that certain people thought that it wouldn't be worth our time. I think it was. But, I'm just as glad we're done and that we sold out (all but one) of our least expensive product - so we really don't have the product to have any more show and sells.

Now, we have some data on what we might be able to sell and how much. So, next year, whoever is doing this (not me, as we'll have moved on to the troop), can decide how much to order more realistically - if they choose to do show and sells.

No more rain.

2009-09-22T21:08:00.002-05:00

Hooray. All we got was 0.1 inch of rain last night, even though they were predicting more storms. We even saw the sun today. What a pleasant surprise, after days of cloud and drizzle.

Even better, the basement did not get any more wet, perhaps even dried out a bit. Of course, it is still a big mess, with things all pulled away from the wall and no carpet next to the wall. But still, no squishy spots is a GOOD thing.

It was very strange having the day off school, what with the very nice weather out. We kept hearing on the radio about roads being closed in other parts of town. My mom went out today and reported no problems along her route. The paper did say that one of our rivers was supposed to crest mid day today, at 21 something feet, with 11 feet being flood stage and 20 feet being major flooding. I'm gad we're not along any of the rivers.

Back to school tomorrow. I'm sure I'll be confused about what day it is for the rest of the week, though, after this day off.

Where's Noah when you need him?

2009-09-21T21:24:00.002-05:00

We're flooding here - in more than one sense. It has rained here more in the last week than I think it has it forever (at least the 10 years we've been here). They are saying that some parts of the metro area have gotten over 15 inches in the last week. I've lost track of our totals, but it was 3.5 inches today, with more expected overnight.

I had to go pick M up from school (from his robotics practice) after school today and I was honestly concerned that the river might cause a problem - it didn't, but it was higher than I've ever seen it. It appeared to be inches from the bottom of the bridge.

When I went down to the garage to get some ravioli for dinner, I discovered water in the garage. Not just a little bit, but at least a half inch, well into the garage. Then we found water in the basement too. M got deputized to watch dinner while D and I started cleaning up.

After dinner, we managed to borrow a wet vac from a friend and tried to suck up the water, but finally decided that the carpet needed to go. We removed about 4 feet wide by 10 feet long section of carpet from the exterior wall. One pice was so heavy that we had to drag it out the side door. We found that the best way to dry things up was sopping it up with a towel, wringing out the towel and repeating.

The garage has stayed mostly dry, but the towels in the basement still seem to be sopping up more water. We'll wring them out once more before bed. As well as empty the dehumidifier, which will be working nonstop for weeks, I'm sure.

We're not sure if the water is coming in through the wall, under the door, or up through cracks in the floor. Initially we thought maybe it was through the floor, but now the wet seems to be more at the wall and less at the crack.

It is a huge mess.

Meanwhile, evidently the water is continuing the rise in the rivers - they've cancelled school for tomorrow, citing public safety. We've heard of several roads being impassable. So far I haven't heard of any roads in our county washing out, although there are some in the area. One county even had their water treatment facility flood, so they are without any water. At last count there have also been 5 deaths due to the flooding. When I hear that, suddenly my wet basement doesn't seem quite so bad. It's bad all over.

High Finance

2009-09-14T20:50:00.003-05:00

Money has been changing hands right and left the last few days in the owl household. M sold his old (less than a year old) iPod touch to A. Then M used said proceeds, along with allowance and saved money to buy a new iPod touch. If that wasn't enough spending, M and A each then bought a game - M one for the PC and A got one for the Wii. Plus A bought a 3 month subscription to an online game site.

Whew. You would think that would lead to 2 broke kids. Well, you would be half right. M is broke, but A is still flush with cash. Being on the cutting edge of technology is expensive.

Both kids are quite happy with their purchases however, so all is good. M declared today to be a very good day. His iPod touch arrived in the mail and we had a favorite dinner tonight.

Feeling like Fall

2009-09-11T22:09:00.002-05:00

Today has been the first day to really feel like fall, not just late summer. It was cool and drizzly this morning. Then it stopped dripping, but never really warmed up - I think it topped out at about 74. I wore a long sleeve shirt over my t-shirt most of the day. So, when it came time to think about dinner, I thought warm food thoughts. Of course, since I hadn't known it was going to be cool today, I hadn't planned a fall type meal. Truth be told, I hadn't really planned any meal for tonight - that is frequently a problem by the end of the week. Thinking over what I have on hand (and what A's friend who spent the evening (and now the night) might like), I decided on chili. Luckily it turns out that A's friend does like chili. So chili and cornbread it was.

Unfortunately, M, who last winter had gotten to the point of eating the chili, not happily, but eating it - decided not to eat it tonight. So, he ate about 4 bites of the chili and his cornbread and then decided he'd rather go hungry. His choice.

H1N1

2009-09-09T20:58:00.003-05:00

No, we're not sick here - at least not yet. But seemingly the flu is running rampant at A's school - they've had 15% absentee rates yesterday and today. That's more than enough to warrant notifying the state and the parents, so we got a lovely letter home today - reminding us to cover our mouths when coughing, wash our hands and for heaven's sakes, stay HOME when sick.

At this rate, we may not need a vaccine by the time it finally arrives next month or so. I hope we don't get sick, but now I'm seeing that they are recommending reserving Tamiflu for people at higher risk of complications (which none of us are). A's teacher says that many of the kids are being out for 3-5 days.

I'm beginning to think that making up a batch of chicken soup and portioning it up in the freezer wouldn't be a bad idea...

Words I never thought I'd hear

2009-09-06T21:47:00.002-05:00

or at least not for a long while. M said tonight, "I'm full." He was too full to finish his hamburger. Amazing, coming from the bottomless pit of a 13 yo boy. Of course, an hour later, he was hungry again - he ate the last 2 bites of his hamburger, a cupcake, and an apple.

Your own website as direct mail?

2009-09-03T20:26:00.002-05:00

M got some very interesting mail today. As a result of scoring well on the SAT (for the Duke TIP), he has gotten mail about various programs and now about boarding schools. Note - we're not actually looking into boarding schools, but these are very interesting mails to receive. They are generally offering to have him compete for a scholarship.

Today's had an interesting twist - they personalized it. The front says "M's got talent". Then on the back of the postcard, they list a personalized website: firstname.lastname.culverscholarships.com If you know M's name, you can plug in his first and last names and see it. M is not at all interested in boarding schools, but he was intrigued by this mail and went to look at "his" website.

He'll be taking the PSAT through school this year (funny how he took the SAT before the PSAT) - all the 8th graders take it in our county. I don't know if they give out the kids info from that, but I've already warned M that in 3 years or so he won't be asking me, "did I get any mail today?", but rather, "how much mail did I get today?"

Another early fall day

2009-09-01T20:49:00.002-05:00

Today really felt like fall. Albeit a rather cloudy, muggy fall day. I'm not sure the temp ever got over 70 today, and although it was supposed to be partly cloudy, my description would be completely cloudy. Still, it was cool and pleasant. I baked banana bread and granola this afternoon - and the kitchen didn't feel particularly warm. The windows were open all day - and will be open all night.

Tomorrow looks like it might be a little warmer, upper 70s and partly sunny. I hope so - it sounds delightful.

Dino quilt

2009-08-28T12:07:00.001-05:00

I finally got the top all pieced to my dino quilt. This was completely done off the cuff, as you can probably tell by how the blocks rotate as various angles and the blocks are not always centered. It was mostly fun to do, but I had to rip out more than a few seams when I realized that my blocks weren't going to end up anywhere near the right size (8.5" square) or even worse, anywhere near right angles.

I'm still trying to decide whether to put a border on the whole thing. So far, theoretically it is 40" x 56", so not a bad size for a kids cuddle quilt. I didn't make it with anyone specific in mind, so it will likely be a donation quilt. I hear they have more girl quilts than boy often, so when I saw the half yard of this dinosuar fabric in my stash (I have no idea where it came from), I thought AHA.

Finally!

2009-08-27T20:49:00.001-05:00

Our giant Jarradale pumpkin/squash vine:

This vine has been growing and growing and growing all summer. First we saw lots of flowers, but no fruits. Turns out that the first flowers are all male, so no fruit setting there. Then we saw a few fruits that start out looking like this:

All too soon, though, they all seem to end up like this:

Sometimes they would get a little bigger than this, but they all seemed to wither and die. Imagine my surprise, then, to find this growing down the slope, away from the main plant and in the shade:

This beauty is 6 inches in diameter. Yes, I measured it, so I could be sure to let D know how big it is. We don't have any idea why the others didn't develop. Was it too much sun, not enough fertilizer, wrong amount of water, too hot out. Who knows?

I would have dragged D over to marvel at the pumpkin tonight, but it was raining. Definitely over the weekend, we'll check it out. I just hope it keeps on growing properly!

Procrastination and morning people don't mix well.

2009-08-25T21:09:00.003-05:00

Not me. No, no, no - I am definitely NOT a morning person. However, the rest of my family is. And it is causing M some problems recently. You see, he likes to procrastinate - play on the computer after school and wait until later to do his homework. Only, when his homework requires him to actually think (like math is now) and it is getting late, say after 8 pm, he doesn't think so clearly. He did the first part of his math just fine, then he started getting fuzzy.

Finally I told him to go take his shower and go to bed. He'll get up early tomorrow and do the math - and I'm sure have much less trouble with it then. We discussed how he really needs to do his math earlier, even if he waits on the rest of the homework. M agrees in theory - we'll see how well that holds up in practice.

We saw this same issue over the summer with his online Java class. Only it was worse then, because the assignments were due at midnight, so he couldn't go to bed and finish up in the morning when he was thinking more clearly.

Don't bother to bring your bags

2009-08-24T21:24:00.003-05:00

to the Dekalb Farmers Market. I went out there yesterday and was pleased with myself for remembering to bring my own bag. The farmers market is a relatively organic and natural and even has composting along with all sorts of recycling in their parking lot, so I figured lots of people would be bringing their own bags.

I saw the sign at the door saying, "large bags must be checked", but I assumed it meant backpacks and such - and I swear it used to say something like that. So, I ignored it, thinking I have an empty bag. Well, part way through my shopping an employee came up and said I had to check my bag, giving me a claim ticket. And that I could pick it back up when I was ready to check out. I'm not quite sure what the point of this is, since IF I was going to stash stuff in it, I could do it after I picked it back up and before I went to the checkout. It was rather a hassle, so I won't bother to take my bags again - too much chance I'll forget to pick them back up or have to wait to check them or redeem them. No wonder I didn't see many other people with their own bags.

Fall in August?

2009-08-23T21:20:00.002-05:00

Not that I'm complaining, but its positively odd the weather we're having. It was only 60 degrees outside when I got up this morning, after 8 am. So, presumably the low was even lower, perhaps even the 57 that the thermometer records as its lowest low (since I last reset it a month or two ago). If it was 57 last night, it would match the record low for the date, set in 1930!

Mid August is much more commonly lows in the mid to upper 70s in my recollection, though the paper says that the average low is 69. And the high today was only supposed to be 84 - I'm not sure it even hit that. I was wearing long pants all afternoon and even in the sun, wandering through a parking lot it wasn't bad.

Tonight its supposed to get down to 62, so another very pleasant night with the windows open and the fan on. And a cool house in the morning. I love this weather - I hope it lasts!

Strep

2009-08-19T20:59:00.002-05:00

Yep, A has strep. And really, really swollen lymph nodes inside his mouth - it looks like the sides of his throat are bulging out towards his tonsils. But, he's on antibiotics and ibuprofen (more for reducing the swelling than anything else). After dosing him up tomorrow morning, he shouldn't be contagious anymore, so unless something changes, its off to school for him. And he wants to go to school tomorrow as its his Challenge day.

A has been the wellest sick kid I've had in a while. Granted he didn't have too much fever today, just under 100 this morning, but he acted like normal - never napped or looked droopy. I did have him read quietly some this afternoon and he got really into the book and read for about 2 hours. I had thought he might drift off, but nope.

Lets hope that this is it for this round...

Good News/Bad News

2009-08-18T20:41:00.003-05:00

Bad: A said he didn't feel so great at breakfast this morning.

Good: No fever, no throwing up, so off to school he went

Bad: 102 degree fever when he got home this afternoon, so no Scouts tonight and no school tomorrow

Good: M dressed nicely to give a presentation at school today

Bad: M called me just after he got to school saying he didn't have his flash drive. I couldn't find it here or along the street

Good: M took the initiative to call transportation and have the bus driver search the bus.

More good: I finally found the flash drive (hiding in the USB port) and took it to school

Bad: M had realized just before leaving for school that he didn't have some info on his project that he needed

Good: M talked to the teacher this morning (well before class and when he was still missing the flash drive) and she said he could do his presentation tomorrow

More good: M added (most of) the missing info and practiced his presentation some

Bad (in M's opinion): M has to dress up again tomorrow (collared shirt)

Good: I found a missing library book

Bad: it was 2 weeks overdue

Bad: the cats evidently brought a bird into the house

Good: D managed to get it safely outside where it flew off, seemingly unharmed

Initial popcorn goal met

2009-08-16T21:00:00.002-05:00

A started selling his Scout popcorn last Sunday and now, 1 week later, he has met his initial goal of $600. Way to go A! My unofficial tally is $675. That is enough to get him:

1. dues paid for this year

2. clock radio with iPod dock

3. pie in the face or dunking (they haven't decided which yet) a leader

Now, A says his next goal is a total of $1500, which would net him an extra $50 gift card, over and above whatever other prizes he chooses. He is very interested in the getting the prizes, but less so in going out and selling the popcorn. Or rather, he isn't interested in getting off the computer and heading out - once he is out there, he will stick with it and do fine for a reasonable period of time. A says he wants me to "remind" him periodically about popcorn, so I will, but I'm not going to push. After all, the more he sells, the more I have to help him deliver.

Facebook

2009-08-15T21:05:00.002-05:00

M has an assignment for Language Arts to create a (fake) Facebook/MySpace type page for one of the characters in the book he read for summer reading. He seems to be enjoying this assignment more than a traditional type book report.

The assignment also seems to have gotten the kids talking about Facebook pages and who is on there. Leading, of course, to M wanting to get onto Facebook. D and I discussed it and decided that he could make a page, with certain restrictions, namely, he had to friend us and only friend other people that he knows in real life.

M complained at first about having to friend us, but then one of his friends, J, sent D a friend request. And I think perhaps he heard from some friends that they had their parents as friends also.

Anyway, I've set up a page now. I don't know how much I'm going to do with it, but I guess we'll see. I find it odd some of who it says I might want to friend - some people I know, some people I went to college with (but don't remember knowing) and some people who seem to be just random. Including one person who sent me a friend request within 10 minutes of setting up my account. I have NO clue who she is and I only know one person on her friend list. Weird.

If you know me, feel free to send me a friend request. Otherwise, for now, I'm not particularly searching out people.

Defrosting the freezer

2009-08-12T21:02:00.002-05:00

Note to self: do not think that just because it is only supposed to get to 85 (and only late in the afternoon) that it would be a good day to defrost the freezer. It's NOT! It was incredibly humid today. I was really hot and sweaty feeling, even with my hands in the freezer this morning. That 75-79 degrees felt like over 90. And it was a bear to try to dry off the freezer - it kept condensing from the air.

But, now it is all nice and frost-free again. And, even better, I don't have items dive bombing me when I try to put something else in there. I had to throw out a single serve Indian dinner that evidently escaped the freezer 2 days ago and had sat on the floor for at least 36 hours.

Popcorn Sale Season starts

2009-08-09T20:21:00.002-05:00

Cub Scout popcorn sale season has begun. Actually A could have started selling last weekend, right after I went to the Popcorn Kernel kickoff meeting, but it didn't seem quite fair when none of the other Scouts in his pack had their materials. But then on Tuesday I went to a leaders meeting and handed out a few packets, so at least 5 or 6 Cub Scouts had their packets and I assume all the Boy Scouts got their packets, so I figured why not. Plus D and I both had to be at church early this morning to man our booths for the ministry fair (listing all the various opportunities to be involved at the church) - so selling popcorn would keep A busy and not bugging us.

A sold almost $200 of popcorn before and after church, even with 2 other Scouts also selling popcorn there this morning. So, quite a good start. He's even got one more person who said to talk to them next week.

Then after dinner tonight A and I went out again. Mixed success - no one said no, but he only sold to 2 people even though we knocked on about 10 doors. 1 person asked him to come back tomorrow and 1 person was only housesitting, but the other 6 houses either weren't home or weren't answering the door (and we saw a person in at least one house and lights or TV in several others). We won't necessarily cross those houses off the list just yet, but it was a bit discouraging. Still - over $200 is a great start. A's initial goal is $600, so he's a third of the way there.

Indian for dinner

2009-08-07T21:55:00.002-05:00

I went to Trader Joe's last weekend and among other things I picked up some Indian food. We had some of it for dinner tonight:

Punjab Choley (chickpeas in sauce) with added chunks of chicken, over rice

Vegetable Samosas

Naan

green (and yellow) beans from our garden

3 of us thought it was all quite tasty (and I'm sure you can all guess who didn't like it so much, though he only ate one bite of samosa and one chickpea).

Even better, there is one serving of the main dish left for a lunch and 3 more samosas for another night in the freezer. Maybe we'll have the samosas when we try out on of the sauces I got.

Another Open House

2009-08-06T20:49:00.002-05:00

Let's see, it was the 3rd open house tonight - this time for A's gifted program. He's happy with the classes he got: chess and an architechture/design class. We got to visit the classrooms and meet the new teacher (he's had the other teacher before). This program will start up next week and (as always) be the highlight of A's week.

We still have curriculum nights ahead of us. And I'm still buying back to school supplies. I'm sure A will come home with a list of things next week, but so far I know he needs straws and pins for the design class. And I still have to get M some oil pastels - I'm hoping to get those with a coupon at Michael's or Hobby Lobby next week - somehow I don't think Target was going to carry them... Maybe by then I will be done with buying school supplies... at least until next semester.

First Day of School - 2009

2009-08-03T20:33:00.002-05:00

This is the year for both kids to be "big kid on campus", M in 8th grade and A in 5th. It's hard to believe that next year I will have a kid in high school. sigh. It all happens so fast - and I'm sure it will feel even faster this year as we will be starting the application process for the magnet high school before Thanksgiving.

The morning started out well enough. I woke up a bit early, so I could cook eggs for A - he likes them as a breakfast taco. He got ready in good time and we headed out for the bus early. Bus came, right about on time, all was good.

I got home to find M already up and D finishing up fixing his lunch. I had breakfast with M (I had a breakfast taco, and M just had scrambled eggs). We headed out plenty early for his bus.

and this is where things started to go haywire.

First M realizes that he didn't bring anything to write with. He wants to know if I have any pencils - no I don't carry pencils in my shorts. I suggest that I can try to go back to the house for pencils, but no guarantee I'll be back before the bus. Then we think we hear the bus - or maybe it could be a garbage truck. My mom was going to call me when the bus passed her house, just in case it didn't turn down our street. Second problem - she calls the house phone instead of the cell phone - so by the time I call her and verify that the bus has passed, it is probably well down the street. I race back to the house, grab M some pencils and get in the car. I pick up M and our 2 neighbors and start chasing the bus. We've done this before and always caught it. Today though I don't see the bus before the first big turn - hmmm, not good. I keep going, past the spot I can usually catch it, past the furthest we've ever caught it, past the pool - still no sign of the bus. We hit the end of the subdivision and it is obvious we're headed all the way to the school.

We see a bus up ahead, but the kids aren't sure it is the right bus as it is stopping in places it didn't last year. But there are about 6-8 cars between us and the bus, so they wouldn't be able to catch it anyways. Later as it turns, we see the route number and realize that yes, it was their bus. We follow it all the way to the school. And then get to wait in the carpool line as the school isn't open yet.

Then its back home to put out the laundry, grab the library books and grocery list and head towards town to pick up my mom, where she's dropped her car off for service.

This afternoon A got home sooner than the bus person had told us to expect - amazing for the first day of school. And M said that they talked to the bus driver (new person than last year) and that he dropped them off at the end of the street. Now lets just hope that he'll pick them up at our stop tomorrow!

Furlough day

2009-07-31T22:05:00.002-05:00

Today was D's first furlough day for the school year. They are currently planning on 3, but ominously they (and we're not quite sure who got permission from whom) got a waiver for up to 10 furlough days. Of course, since the teachers work an extra 10 or 11 days over the 180 days the kids are in school, and they have already worked 4 of those days, if they were to furlough for a full 10 days it would knock the kids out of school some.

We are certainly hoping that there are no more furlough days, although I'm sure that many of the kids wouldn't mind. The state budget is not looking very good though - and it doesn't help that they are still doing things like the current tax-free holiday for school supplies. Some of the counties have managed to find money in their budget to not furlough the teachers. Our county has not. I imagine that if more furloughs come along, some more counties may find money to offset them, but that the initial counties won't be able to continue to eat the furlough cuts.

Since school starts on Monday, D still had things to do at school, so he went in - furlough day or not. But since it was a furlough day, he was able to sleep in and not work a full day. In that sense he said it felt a bit like a Saturday, so today was dubbed the first Saturday, with tomorrow being the second Saturday.

Garden pics

2009-07-27T20:25:00.002-05:00

Here's our first cantaloupe. rather ridgy, but decidedly a cantaloupe.

And here it is after we cut into it. It was still just a little bit green. I think it would have been better if we had let it sit for a day, but it was just too exciting to try.

We actually have another cantaloupe in the fridge, probably to be eaten tomorrow. It had been hiding back in the back corner of the garden bed, underneath cantaloupe and squash leaves. I think it was the fact that it had started turning yellow was what finally let us see it.

And then there is our squash/pumpkin. We think this was supposed to get a good bit bigger, but it had stopped growing, so we finally picked it (a few days after this photo was taken - it was even darker orange and the bottom wasn't yellow anymore).

Unfortunately, it also was a bit under-ripe. The flavor was good, but it was very dry. D had wrapped it in foil with butter, cardamon, allspice and thyme. A thought that it tasted like sweet potatoes and was tasty, but dry. D thought it reminded him of the white sweet potatoes (boniatos) that we had in Puerto Rico. And M thought it was like a potato - yucky. I wasn't quite sure what it reminded me of. I wish I knew how to tell when it is ripe.

Our very own cantaloupe!

2009-07-25T21:47:00.002-05:00

My mom called this morning and said that the first cantaloupe was ready. She had gone out to check on things and the cantaloupe came off the vine. Wow. We split the cantaloupe and we had some of ours with lunch today. It was quite good. And there's another, larger cantaloupe still on the vine, nearing ripeness.

I'll try to post some garden pics tomorrow...

brownies from chocolate butter

2009-07-24T21:39:00.002-05:00

I went to supercook.com and found a brownie recipe that looked like it would work. I put in a bunch of normal baking type ingredients and then highlighted the chocolate and butter.

I baked them tonight and they are good, but they don't really look like the picture - mine seem to be more cakelike than the photo. Of course its hard to know if I really got the cream all the way to butter - and how to know when measuring out chocolate butter if you are getting the right amount of butter or not. But it worked and we have something tasty out of it. I still have some more of it left - I guess I need to measure how much chocolate butter I have and then do something with it.

Side benefits of cooler weather

2009-07-22T22:17:00.002-05:00

Yes, we're still having unseasonably cool weather - NOT that I'm complaining. Nosiree, not complaining here. I'm enjoying it. No AC again for a few days now and M keeps trying to steal my slippers. He's grown out of his and his feet are now as big as mine - and soon to be bigger I'm sure.

The slippers and cats sitting in laps and such are expected benefits of the cool weather. The unexpected was making granola tonight. When I can open the windows by 8 pm, I don't mind running the oven for 45 minutes. So we have fresh homemade granola with our sun-dried blueberries in it. They are mostly blueberries we U-picked, not our own, but they are still home dried. I can't wait to have some for breakfast tomorrow morning! Probably with fresh blueberries on top too, just to be decadent.

climbing

2009-07-21T23:20:00.000-05:00

A went to Webelos encampment recently and D 'got' to spend one day out there, so I have a few pictures. (He 'got' to spend the day and night with them because we didn't have another person who was willing to spend all 3 days, so 1 leader was with them the whole time and D and 2 other parents each took one day).

Anyhow, when D arrived, the boys were headed off to the climbing/rappelling area. There were a bunch of boys eager to have a chance, so they each only got to rappel once. Here's A at the top of the tower:

Now part way down:

He said it was lots of fun!

Then on to the climbing wall. The boys evidently complained that some of the holds were too far apart for them - maybe they were set up with older Scouts in mind. But fun anyway.

Chocolate ... butter?

2009-07-19T22:00:00.002-05:00

Yes, seemingly M made chocolate butter tonight. He was trying to make chocolate mousse, but evidently he missed stopping at the "soft peak" stage of whipping the cream and headed into the butter stage.

You might wonder why I wasn't watching more carefully (after all, it's not like M whips cream frequently (or ever before)) - well, perhaps because M chose to start the mousse right before I started dinner. So I was rather preoccupied with fixing dinner - and then eating dinner.

So, no mousse for dessert tonight. Instead I have a bowl of chocolate butter in the fridge, trying to figure out what best to do with it. It consists of 10 oz whipping cream and 3.5 oz dark chocolate, now as a mass of grainy butter and some liquid.

So far I've thought of trying to turn it into a buttercream frosting (not sure how the texture would do). Or trying for some sort of muffin or quickbread that calls for butter and chocolate/cocoa powder. Any thoughts?

M's been growing again...

2009-07-18T20:17:00.000-05:00

Proof positive that M's been growing - he is now taller than my mom. Just a few weeks ago when they checked, she was still taller, but not now. M is very proud of his new height.

Flag Quilt

2009-07-17T12:15:00.000-05:00

I saw this lovely flag quilt on a blog I read and was almost instantly smitten with an I could do something like that. Of course, then, once I got started, Pounce felt that she needed to help me. You can see you very helpful she was being!

But, I did finally manage to get it done without too much kitty help and here it is, finished by Friday!

Now, I just need to get it hung on the wall. I realize it is past 4th of July, but I can always be patriotic, right?

Blackberry Cobbler

2009-07-16T20:24:00.001-05:00

I LOVE blackberry cobbler. Especially when its hot and with a generous helping of vanilla ice cream on top. YUMMM. I made this cobbler last week with berries we picked behind the elementary school. It was good. The only problem is that was - its all gone now.

I may have to go pick blackberries again soon in the hopes of having another cobbler. Unfortunately, the berry patch at the school is smaller than it used to be - there used to be some patches back into the woods and they are basically gone now - I think the trees grew up and shaded them out. I'm lucky if I can pick a quart when I go over there - nothing like the patches of my childhood, where we would each get closer to a half gallon and my dad would usually be threatening to spill berries out of his gallon milkjug. That would be berries enough for multiple cobblers plus jelly.

I never minded picking blackberries (the payoff in cobbler was definitely worth it), but my kids don't quite share my enthusiasm. A helped a bit this last time and he does enjoy the cobbler, but M doesn't care for cobbler and would rather not pick anything.

Cool Weather coming to an end?

2009-07-12T22:17:00.004-05:00

So far July has been much cooler than June was. June got awfully hot, awfully early - multiple upper 90s days in a row. Whereas, the last week or so, possibly as long as almost 2 weeks (I haven't really been keeping track, but its been an unusually long while for July) has been delightfully cool - days in the low to mid 80s, nights in the mid to upper 60s - and NO AC for almost a week.

Yep, today the AC kicked in for a few hours, starting just before dinner. I think it has been at least since last Monday since it was last on. Amazing! The new attic fan is more powerful and the weather has been so cool at night. I even had to put a second quilt on the bed (just for my feet) over the weekend to keep warm. (Also D was gone that night - out at Webelos encampment with A, so not there to help keep my feet warm.)

Well, now looking at weather.com, it says that maybe we'll be staying in the 80s for another week or so, whereas when I looked this afternoon it was saying some of the days were headed for the 90s. The weather outlook is changing - seemingly hourly! Quite frustrating when we are trying to plan a day to go to Six Flags. We'd really like a day without rain, or at least with only a short rain. But when the weather reports change so frequently its hard to know until the morning of what will happen. And even then, its not so predictable. One day last week, I happened to be looking at the hourly forecast and saw that it was 5% chance of rain - well, it rained (and HARD) during that hour. Humph.

I guess we just have to wait and see. Oh, and enjoy what cool weather we do get. Attic fan is going at the moment and the house is quite pleasant. Shadow is enjoying it too, sitting in my lap more than usual for the summer.

Dinner by M

2009-07-11T22:02:00.003-05:00

M was assigned to fix dinner a few nights ago. He was not particularly enthusiastic, but he did decide on a menu - spaghetti. Now, M likes his spaghetti plain (or with parmesan cheese) while the rest of us like sauce. We insisted that he had to heat up some sauce, but no doctoring of the sauce was required (I usually saute some green pepper and onions to go in there at least).

M's menu:

spaghetti noodles

spaghetti sauce

meatballs

mushrooms

cheese bread

All of these were separate items on M's plate. I, however, cut up my mushrooms and put them and the meatballs in with the sauce on top of my noodles. It may not have been the finest gourmet meal, but it did feed us all and M did it basically all by himself. Up til now I've been providing more help, but he did well. I wonder what he'll fix for us the next time? But first, it will be A's turn to fix a dinner - I'll have to get him thinking about a menu before I go to the grocery store next.

Fun time-waster

2009-07-08T20:10:00.002-05:00

Lately I've been having fun with a web paint by number site. Click on random puzzle and give it a try. A has gotten rather interested in doing them too, mostly with me rather than completely on his own - but, if he sticks with it, he's pretty good at them.

Harvest continues

2009-07-06T21:28:00.002-05:00

Our harvest from the garden is continuing nicely, although we have learned some things we want to do differently next year - like plant more beans. The first planting of beans was 3 rows and that was ok - it meant we could have beans almost twice a week and so could my mom. But this second planting was only 2 rows - it takes multiple days to get enough beans for a meal. So far off this planting, we have only had one or two meals with beans (and even then one night the adults had beans and the kids had frozen peas). The next planting of beans should be better - I think there are 5 rows, so hopefully we'll be eating beans at least twice a week, maybe 3 times one week.

Last night we had quite a bit of our own produce for dinner. We had chicken fajitas with:

the last of our onions

the first of our green peppers

the first of our full size (not cherry) tomatoes

a bit of our chard

I know at some point we will probably be swimming in tomatoes, but for now the tomatoes are just barely keeping up with our desire to eat them. And the green peppers aren't keeping up - I'm flat out of any peppers and ours are coming in rather slowly. The hot peppers are doing better so far.

quilted bag

2009-07-03T14:56:00.001-05:00

I guess I took these pictures sideways, since the handles of my bag are off to the right (not very visible, being navy blue against the dark wood). But this is my latest project and it is finally done.

This side was an orphan block. I made it in a workshop on learning paper piecing. What I mostly learned was that paper piecing can be a real pain. I still don't understand why the first 2 went together fine, but on the 3rd quarter, I had to redo I piece at least 4 times! After that experience, I wasn't about to make any more of this particular design. So, making it into a bag made sense.

Now for the other side of the bag. Hmm. No orphan blocks that really looked right with it, so I had to make a block. I found a block of this design (but non-compatible colors) and decided I would do another of the same type.

It took me forever to find a pattern for this - finally on the 3rd time through one of my drawers, I found the template to cut the pieces out.

Overall I'm rather pleased with this, though I wish I'd remembered how much of the side seams gets taken up. I would have made the side borders wider.

Hump Day of the Summer

2009-07-02T15:00:00.003-05:00

I looked at the calendar today and realized that yesterday was hump day, in more ways than one. Yes, it is the traditional hump day of the week, but for us, it was also the hump day of summer vacation. We are now on the downward slope of summer vacation, hard as it is to believe. It's been 4 1/2 weeks of summer.

So far this summer we have:

had a complete swim team season

M has been to Scout camp for a week

Both M and A have been to robotics day camp for a week

D went to a week long AP Physics workshop

Still to complete:

A has Webelos encampment next week

A has science day camp

M is still in the middle of 'Java programming for video games' online class

back-to-school shopping for school supplies

probably pants shopping with M*

getting through the rest of the summer without anyone throttling each other (I hope)

*M is in a very difficult size pants-wise at the moment. I got a bag of pants for him off freecycle and so far a pair of 27/30 jeans fits perfectly and a pair of size 18 khakis are a smidge long, but passable with shoes. Note that both these sizes are extremely difficult to find in any store!

Taking Advantage of some cooler weather

2009-06-30T22:46:00.002-05:00

We're having some lovely cool nights this week (and somewhat cooler days, only low 90s not mid to upper 90s). So, with the lovely new attic fan, we've been cooling the house down quite nicely. This morning the house was nice and cool at 68 degrees!

So, while the outdoors was a cool 67 (but rising) I decided to get cracking. First up was blackberry picking at the elementary school. My mom and I headed over there and picked probably 3 cups each. Not a lot, but they are good - and the big ones are still ripening, so we should be able to pick a few more times still.

Then it was home for breakfast and since it was still relatively cool, I mowed the front lawn. Meanwhile D had attacked the back yard with round-up. Again. We've let our back yard turn into somewhat of a jungle, helped by all the rain we've gotten this spring. It is time to take it back. Due to generous helpings of poison ivy mixed in, we have to take it a bit slow - and much of the vegetation requires 2 sprayings of round-up. But already we can see a bit more ground and we have a wide path to the wood pile again.

It's supposed to be cool again tonight, getting down to 65 they say. We've already had the attic fan on for almost 3 hours and the house is delightfully cool. And, the house stayed pleasant today without needing the AC. Yay!

County Meet

2009-06-27T22:09:00.002-05:00

It's the end of the swim team season for another year. This season seems like it has flown by! I know that part of that is that they didn't practice the last week of school (they usually do) and then that both kids missed practice for a week during robotics camp. Then there was also the fact that the pool has been closed for most of this week due to some sort of pump problem. So, really the season was shorter and there was a lot less practice, especially for M. I counted up and realized that M only went to 5 days of practice this year. So much for swim team being good exercise for him...

This year D and I wised up and split up with the kids for the county meet. I went with A in the morning and then D came with M in the afternoon. Made for a much more reasonable day. A complained that we were there sooo long, but really, from the time we got there for warm-ups until we passed the cooler and chairs to D and M, it was just under 4 hours. D and M were there for about another 4 hours in the afternoon. 4 hours is much better than 8 hours (or the roughly 11 hours we were there 2 years ago! - due to computer issues and such). I missed being able to see M swim, but it was worth it not to have to stick around for so long. Luckily next year, both kids will be swimming in the same session (and will be attending the same practice), so it will be less time consuming all around.

No pictures as the bigger pool and being indoor was not conducive to photos. I know A got a best time in his breast stroke. No clue about anything else. I guess we'll find out tomorrow at the end of season party.

Flowers in my yard

2009-06-25T22:01:00.000-05:00

The new gerbera daisy I planted this spring. It lives out by the mailbox so I see it every time I come home.

I really like these day lilies. I don't even remember where I got them from.

This patch of daylilies is very interesting. I would have sworn that last year it was all one color, the darker yellow in the front (that M says should be gold lilies). But when they started blooming this year at first it was the gold lilies and the lemon lilies, then all of a sudden the orange ones started blooming too. I guess the orange ones migrated around the corner (I have a patch of them 10-15 feet away, on the other side of a large azalea). I thought I might not like a mix of colors, but these look really pretty together to me. It convinced me to go ahead and transplant a bunch of day lilies to near the mailbox, without worrying about whether they are all the same color.

Blueberries!

2009-06-21T21:36:00.000-05:00

Our blueberries are starting to come in. Yay! and yummy!

I picked this many yesterday (we ate them all just out of hand) and then I picked a few more, but still just a handful today. Those we'll have on cereal tomorrow.

Also, my mom says that the sign was up at our U-pick blueberry place on Saturday and there were quite a few people there. I can't wait, but I think I must - if there were a bunch of people, it usually means that they have picked over the berries, picking too many of the almost ripe ones. I think I'll wait until Tuesday or Wednesday to go pick my bucket full. In the meantime, I'll get a handful each day from our bushes.

Today's Harvest

2009-06-20T22:11:00.001-05:00

Before it got too hot out this morning, we all headed over to the garden to do some harvesting. We finally pulled the last of the red onions - this is about 1/3 of the total onions we got this year. None of them are very big, probably due to planting them a bit late.

A cucumber (and we left another about this size on the vine for my mom to pick when she's ready for it), 3 cherry tomatoes (A wanted to know if the tiny one would get any bigger - no, not if its already red!), and a sprig of parsley (just because).

Some Swiss Chard. D thinks maybe we are picking it too early, that it isn't getting as big as it could (and he's probably right that it would get bigger), but he wanted chard with dinner and I think its tastier when its smaller/younger.

A few green beans. These are about half from the first planting of beans we did (10 weeks ago) and half from the second planting (7 weeks ago). The first set of plants is about done producing. There are still a few more small beans on them, but very few - as soon as we get some more bean seeds, we are going to rip up those plants and compost them and plant some more beans. The first packet says we can plant beans through July in this area, so we'll plant more and hopefully harvest beans at least through August. I don't know how they handle the heat in August, but I guess we'll see.

We had to buy about this many more beans to really have enough to enjoy beans for dinner. Luckily the beans at the grocery store looked decent enough, unlike last week when they looked old and wizened.

Heat and Swim meets

2009-06-19T22:10:00.002-05:00

It's been hot, hot, hot here. 85 by 10 am and it just got hotter. I think the high was 94 today and it is still 77 at 11 pm. It's going to be even hotter tomorrow - 97 or 98 is the prediction. That is just way too hot for mid June.

I think it was somewhere in the low 90s last night too - and of course we were out in the heat at a swim meet. Otherwise known as an event where the kids swim a bit and generally stay cool and the adults sweat... a LOT - or at least last night we did. I know I drank at least 3 16 oz bottles of water and probably more like 4 1/2.

It was a good meet last night though, even though our team lost (even though we beat a team that beat them - just depends on which of your swimmers show up each night, often). A's strokes are looking better. I didn't see any problems with his breast stroke and his freestyle looked much better (just a little like slow motion). I peeked at the results after the meet and it looked like A finally will get some best time ribbons. I think that getting the strokes technically correct is the first step to getting faster. A had 2 sessions this week with an older swimmer to work on his strokes and I think it is paying off. He was massively unhappy about the lessons, though, because he thought kids were going to make fun of him for needing/getting help. I think the only person who would (did) was M - unfortunately. We had to have a chat with M about that.

M also got some more best times, despite missing practice all week for robotics camp. He really could use the practice to work on stamina though - his strokes look really nice, but (except for breast stroke) he is clearly loosing steam on the second lap - he'll keep up or ahead of another kid on the first lap and then slowly fall behind after the turn.

We have another week of practice next week (and both kids should manage to make practice all week - amazing!), so we'll see what that brings...

Blackberries!

2009-06-17T22:29:00.002-05:00

The first of the blackberries are ripe. Yum. We all sampled a few and I have first dibs for my cereal tomorrow. I found the first 2 ripe berries in our yard and that convinced me to go check out the berries behind the elementary school. Yep, ripe berries - not a lot yet, but there were some, and they were worth picking, thanks to all the rain we've gotten this spring. All told I got maybe a cup full, so they'll all be gone tomorrow I'd guess. But now I have visions of blackberry cobbler.

M's first meet this year

2009-06-16T10:55:00.002-05:00

We had another swim meet last night, our 3rd for the year, but the first one for M as he missed the 2 last week due to Boy Scout camp. And, of course, he missed practice too, so I wasn't sure how he would do.

Well, he did great! He took seconds off his times in all 3 individual events he was in, at least 8 seconds off his butterfly, 6 off his freestyle and 2-3 off his breast stroke. WOW! I guess all that growing taller did some good for his swimming. He did look (and say he felt) tired on the second lap of his swims so his endurance evidently was hit by not practicing. And not being helped this week by missing practice again. Yes, this week both kids have robotics camp in the morning. They are enjoying it (and its FREE through the school system) so I think it is worth while, but I do wish they weren't missing the practices.

The only decent photo I got of M all night:

I kept trying to get a picture of him swimming, but I kept getting shots with his head under water. I'll try again at our next meet...

Sleeping well

2009-06-13T21:53:00.002-05:00

We all slept well and cool last night - and without the AC even. Why? Because we got a new attic (whole house) fan. It was marvelous to have an attic fan again (our initial fan up and died last fall) and this new one is more powerful, so it creates even more of a breeze. This morning the house was down to 72. We had the windows closed up again by 9 and the house stayed below 80 all day. Ahhh, so nice. I think it might have hit 81 in the house just about the time we opened up the windows for tonight, but it didn't feel warm sitting in the living room with the ceiling fan on.

Tonight will be another cool, breezy night in our house. I just have to remember to check that the fan will be on ALL night and not go off at 4 am like last night.