Tending laundry is more important than posting.

I have laundry to fold and put away.

I have Amish men coming at the crack o' dawn to deliver and build (worth the extra money) K-'s new play set.

I have obligated myself to volunteering at Field Day all day tomorrow. K- has a friend coming over for a play date tomorrow after school to test out the new play set since it will be built and done while we are gone.

K- has Lowe's Build and Grow on Saturday morning.

After that, we will be running a water station at the church sponsored Safety Fair.

Sunday is church, then my nieces swimming (a little early for that I would have to say) party.

I still have plants that have yet to see their proper place in the ground.

My weeds are overtaking the perennial beds. I keep pulling and they multiple right in front of me. Chuck, the resident chipmunk, probably laughs inside of his pesticide free home.

So much to do and so little time.

Figured out that my migraines are from my clinching my teeth from being overwhelmed and stressed.

The end.

Brring-brrring, Google calling!

One of those things that make me laugh. Look where I've been showing up. I'm sure that I surprised a few people.

- 6 year old stomach ache on and off. If I kept my child home every single day that she said that she had a stomach ache, she would never go to school. Most of the time with K-, it is a 15 minute affair and away she goes. You should see how fast she runs into school. "LOVE YOU, MOM!" With the flash of a flying lime green flowered LL Bean back pack, she's off!

- Tercel snow. Yes, we own one. Yes, it drives well in the snow. We call it the motorized snowball.

- Where do Bailey seeds come from? Don't know.

- Lipitor husband wants a divorce. Really? My husband doesn't mind that I take Lipitor. If it keeps my heart from getting gunkified with crapola, he's good with it.

- Reed Timmer NW Ohio. Yup. He was here. Traveled here from Norman to chase the 5/7 storms. Tune in this fall to Storm Chasers to see if he saw anything. Honestly, he was right where they did have tornadoes, so I have to go with the thought that he did. Storm chasing in Ohio. Whew-whooo!

- Men toe ring. Didn't know that they made them, but remember what I've told you about foot maintenance.

- L'Oreal stem cell mascara. Really?

- Virgo weed killer, lawn booster. The Virgo weed killer? That would be vinegar.

- Discontinued Clark's flip flops. Say it ain't so! I love my Clark's flip flops!

- Dad smells from the nose. What else is he suppose to smell with?

- Bailey leaf for bad breath. They have this new gum now. It'll kill what ails you, but the taste is a little weird. I think that it might be Stride with cardamom. That would work for you.

- Digestive problems completely fixed. If that is the case, I congratulate you! Now, if you have tips for my husband, he has been suffering for more than 7 years. Oh, he's seen probably 10 doctors. Do tell.

- How do you spell agida? Um, that would be it. Check your urban dictionary. It'll take you where you need to go.

- Snow storm thank yous. For neighborly services? For the day off? For the nice plow people that eventually come to you and seal your driveway shut with road goo because there isn't any place for it to go than for it to pile a foot and a half high at the end of your driveway?

- Bailey leaf cure. I've got nothin'.

- Allergic reactions to L'Oreal Paris 24 hour boosting serum. Well, it made my eyelashes fall out, but there are plenty of people out there that absolutely love it.

- Saving an underwatered tomato plant. Well, it is very difficult to kill a tomato. Just water it. You'll probably be fine.

- How to get back my nose to smell. Hmm. A decongestant? Some saline? The neti pot that I refuse to use because it completely grosses me out?

- No red Santa. Well, I've always seen Santa as a German looking Caucasian guy. Who knows?

- Adoptive tales from the trenches blogspot. Ah, yes. That would probably be the post where I talked about dumb things that people said to us about adoption. Hurtful stuff. Things that made me want to poke people in the eyes. Yup. I remember it.

- LL Bean daily mark down Storm Chaser. I believe that is the coat that I purchased on Thanksgiving Day for $40.00. I got it for an absolute steal and it keeps me nice and toasty as I walk K- to and from school.

- Expiration cream cheese pink tinge. Um, it is supposed to be white. Please don't eat it.

Smiles in my day:
- Being able to walk K- to school today. Tuesday was the Kindergarten musical and I had to go straight to work and Monday was rain-- lots of it. We also got our "bike walk" in this evening. We talked and decided that we really missed our nightly bike walk.
- The delivery for the swing set is set for Friday while we are gone at school all day. (Me, too. I'm going to help with Field Day.) K-'s friend, B-, will be walking home with us for a play date. We're so excited for the new swing set to arrive!
- I ate the last of the sympathy food pork chops from Heather this afternoon for lunch. I believe it might be a really long time before I eat pork chops again. Good, but lots of them!

Have a great day!

Tales from the Trenches: Weird invitations and omissions

Okay, so I scheduled this to post at midnight on Wednesday morning and not Tuesday at midnight. Well, I suppose I don't need to worry about creating another post!

I was reading Dear Abby and started to laugh. Here:

Dear Abby:

With graduation announcements pouring in every day, I think I have seen a new low.

I actually received a photocopy of a high school graduation announcement. There was no picture, no personal note, just a photocopy folded into a cheap envelope. The "real" ones had been sent to more "important" people.

Should I send the kid a photocopy of a congratulations card and a photocopy of some money? - Flabbergasted in the South

Dear Flabbergasted: If you have not seen the graduate since grammar school and aren't particularly close to the family, just toss it!

We've all gotten those invites that make us tip our heads in misunderstanding. "Hmm. Why exactly was I on the invite list?"

Many years ago, I was invited to a wedding shower for someone that I previously went to church with. We were a small church and I knew the girl, but we had parted churchly ways and I hadn't seen her in years. Unknown to the bride was the fact that I had lost my job and was getting my very little bit on unemployment. I went with a friend, we put a gift together from both of us and that was fine.

A few weeks later, I received an invitation in the mail. It has been an invitation to her wedding-- in Virginia. Inside was a wonky cut strip of paper announcing that everyone had been so generous to them with the bridal showers, so they were requesting cash as a gift so that they would have money to start their lives together.

Really?

I sent a congratulatory card. That was it. I acknowledged, but didn't send anything more.

I've just been invited to a graduation party for a young man that I haven't seen since he was three years old. He is not related and is the son of someone who's house I hung out at in college with my ex-fiance. They had invited me to their daughter's graduation a few years back and I sent a gift and an apology for my inability to attend. I think that this year will be a repeat.

A few years back, there was a family shower. This portion of the family is one not often visited with. Nothing wrong with them, just the wedding and funeral visiting with kind of folk. At any rate, there was a family baby shower. Invitations had gone out and I had been asked about my attendance. "What shower?" "Oh, so-and-so is having a shower and you didn't get an invitation?" "Uh, no." "Oh. Even such-and-such who lives out of state was invited." Now, it seemed weird that I wasn't invited since I had just spent quite a lot of time talking with the party giver just the week previous to the invites going out. She ended up seeking me out, talking recipes, about Hubs' job, my job and whatnot. We had decided that since the invite said "Regrets only," that I would not bother to attend or send a gift. It was just so weird, but it wouldn't have been acceptable to phone to ask about the unreceived invite.

Speaking of unreceived invites, we had an incident with our wedding. When my sister was doing my hair for my wedding, the phone rang. It was a previous neighbor that I used to babysit for about 9 years previous. She said that she hadn't received an invitation to my wedding. My sister whispers, "You have to take it!" "No I don't! I can't take it! Just tell her that we didn't receive her RSVP, but just assumed that they were coming and marked them down for two." She told her that and all was well. The neighbor brought her daughter and the world was a happy place.

Why didn't I invite her? Well, for one, I hadn't seen her in a sweet forever. The other? They had folks that rented part of their house. Wherever this particular family went, the odd ball people went with them. They were rude. They were drunks. We didn't want them at the wedding.

Remember the weird wedding invitation to Virginia? Well, it seems as though the old church directory was dusted off again for the baby shower. I went again with the same friend. I don't quite know why I felt obligated to go, but I did. It was fine. I brought something thoughtful, but not overdone.

So, what are weird invite stories that you have? Aw, come on! Share! We all have weird stories!

Smiles in my day:
- Hubs spent all day working on G I Joe toys. I have no idea, but whatever takes him where he needs to go.
- It's my mother-in-law's 65th birthday! They had a nice time going on a trip to the casinos. No, they didn't bring home a million dollars, but they did bring home hundreds of memories!
- Apparently, this is the last week for homework for K-! I'm good with that!
- K- had a solo in the Kindergarten musical today. 2 of the 4 classes put on a musical for the parents and it was wonderful!

Have a great day!

Oh my ailing plum.

First things first. My friend Heather called this evening. On top of healing from a ruptured appendix and the beginning of an abscess, Ryan now has C. Diff. He is in his early 30's and is just so ill. Please consider praying for him.

Hubs called me while I was on my way home from Heather's house. (She was overrun with sympathy food and needed me to take some off her hands.) "I don't want you to freak out when you get home, because I had to cut off a lot of the plum tree." (I told him he needed to check out the front tree because it has developed a sudden funk. He thought I was talking about the black knot that is already funkifying it, but this is something completely different.) He said that it has bug scale. It was literally killing branches, so Hubs wanted to remove as much of it as he could.

Y'all, my tree looks like crap. He says that it will fill out. I'm not so certain.

Our tree has been ailing for probably 4 years from just the black knot alone. This bug scale was not there last week. I was talking with the neighbor yesterday, went to straighten the bird house and I felt a mist coming down on me. I looked up and noticed that the leaves all appeared wet. I felt them. They were sticky. That is no wetness. I went to the front of the tree and it was dry and unharmed. I started to really look at the branches and they looked overrun by some mutant lichen. Sadly, bug scale is not lichen.

Our plum tree has taken to being infested with Japanese beetles every summer now. The infestation is so bad that they swarm the tree when you hit it with water.

Before you ask, we garden largely (though not 100 % completely) organic. Just as with the Japanese Beetles, we won't hit the tree with poisons. Our kid plays in the yard. The neighbor's dog believes that our yard is her toilet. We eat things that come from our yard. If the plum survives it, we'll love her for it. If not, we'll be on the hunt for a disease resistant tree.

When we bought the plum, we purchased it primarily for its height. The purple was a striking color that caught our eye. We also knew that it would be a flowering tree. We didn't do any homework.

We should have.

The next tree we have our eye on is a Sweet Gum. We'll do more research, but an arborist has suggested it to me a few years ago because of the disease resistance. If I recall correctly, a slower growing tree is a more disease resistant tree.

So sad.

Smiles in my weekend:
- It was family birthday weekend. It was B-'s 3rd birthday party on Saturday and my nephew, L-'s, 1st birthday party today. K- had so much fun playing with all the kids!
- I was able to go to the nursery by myself to purchase plants with my Mother's Day gift certificate from Hubs and K-.
- I was able to plant three tomatoes, a green pepper, a red pepper, basil, onions and pineapple sage in our herb garden. I was also able to plant flowers in 3 planters. I have a bit more planting to go, but at least I put a good dent into it.
- Dinner from Heather. So kind of her to share.

Have a great day!