Rambling to keep myself from the pile I have that needs cleaned up.

I've been giving my bedroom much attention today.  I washed and folded clothes all day.  (I watched two movies while doing it, which is probably a part of the time.)  I had clean clothes, but a couple of piles that needed tended to.  I had some things that were folded, but in fits of tiredness, I put them back in the basket back and forth a few times and that brought them to the state of unfolded again.  I washed our tennis shoes.  K- tossed a blanket in.  There were sheets and towels.  I got much done. 

Here's a tip!  I can't recall if I mentioned that the IKEA shopping bag is excellent for laundry hauling, is soft when you clock the wall with it and you can't put folded clothes into it really well.  It's my recent method of laundry hauling.  I love it so much that when we go back to IKEA, I may need to make certain to buy another bag just for laundry purposes. 

Then there is our desk.  Well, I should claim it as mine.  My big ole mess.  Y'all, it has lopped on over to the floor.  It has gotten bad.  The PTA ate my desk.  And it ate portions of my floor at this point. 

I have been sitting on my floor and doing the pitch.  There are many things that frankly, we don't need.  Do you ever get to cleaning an area of your house that you question why you kept something to begin with?  Yup.  I'm there.  Right there.  

Here's a sunshiny thing!  In a bag of death that Hubs created, I found a necklace that has been missing since August.  (He assumes that once it goes into a bag, it will be dealt with.  The bag only houses the items permanently and keeps it from view, silly boy!)  I bought a necklace at our annual sale at work, traded it up with the one that I was wearing and I've never seen it again.  I knew that I had carefully placed it into a jewelry zip lock bag.  I knew that I put it into my lunch bag.  I knew that though I didn't pay it for it, it was a $70.00 necklace.  Bezel set.  Anodized aluminum blue round with drilled "dots" and sandwiched in the bezel between a silver set and a quartz cabochon.  To most people, they probably didn't know why it was so much money and that was why I was able to purchase it for a song.  I was just thinking about that necklace the other day.  It makes me happy that she is back.  It was a lot of work for the gentleman to make (no, I don't recall his name) and I was getting upset that it had gone.  Hooray!  She has been resurrected from the bag o' death! 

Another happy thing?  Hubs yelled from the living room that a Pink Floyd special is on VH1 Classic.  Oh how I love Pink Floyd!  We saw them once.  Being tangential and all, I'll share that we went to see Pink Floyd maybe in 1994 at Cleveland Browns Stadium.  (Has since been replaced and I can't recall the new name of the stadium that has yet to inspire play-offs as it was assumed to do.)  At any rate, I was so sick.  I was bordering on pneumonia.  My parents offered to buy the tickets from me to keep me from going.  I declined.  When would I ever get to see them again?  Turns out, I don't think they've come back.  I can say that they were worth every penny spent and though I recall it being a might chilly, we had a wonderful time. 

K- kept herself good and occupied today.  I enjoyed seeing her flit from thing to thing.  She'd play with her Barbies for a while, she'd tidy those up and move on to Play Doh.  She tidied that up and started playing with her magic kit.  She set tables up, made tickets, issued money and put on a show (with intermission.)  She made bracelets.  She used her knitting machine.  She watched some morning cartoons, turned the TV off at 9 AM, but expressed interest in watching a program later.  I let her do that, she turned the TV off at 12:30 PM and didn't ask for it to come back on again.  My TV addicted child (not my fault) kept herself occupied and happily so all day.  She talked with her dolls.  She talked with the bits in the magic kit.  She came back and forth and hugged me all day.  It was a good day.

Today, K- had a jammie day.

Today, I had a sweat pants day.  I do not wear sweat pants.  I have yoga pants for exercise.  Since I haven't really exercised much in a while, I'm truly a jeans girl.  To see me slopping around in painty sweat pants, you knew I wasn't going anywhere.

And we didn't.  We stayed here.  I stepped out to get the mail and to retrieve the remainder of my Diet Pepsi.  (It was in a bottle with a lid.  It didn't lose its fizz or caffeine.) 

It was a nice day.  It'll be even nicer when I get rid of this moat of crap that I have piled on the floor.  Pardon me, as I can't roll the computer chair back for fear of rolling over Mt. St. Crap.  (No, it isn't of hoarder status.)

Have a lovely night!

When you have a Sam's Club veggie tray that is nearly untouched . . .

My father's birthday celebration was a little sparse on people.  My sister's family (usually numbering 7) didn't attend since my niece's face was blazing a rosie-posieness that my sister could see from the car while she was in the car conga line yesterday afternoon.  Turns out she was rockin' 102.5 F and they were out.  My brother, Billy, didn't attend and I don't quite know why.  Hubs didn't attend because he came home feeling this side of fairly unwell and called me to tell me that he was running a "low grade fever."  I flew through to grab up the dinner offerings, checked the memory on the thermometer and it read "99.2."  I chuckled, yelled bye and went.  It was when I got to my parent's house that I found that there were few people, they had eaten without me and I now toted in a $10.00 veggie tray that was going to go untouched.  I ate some, K- and M- ate some, but 90% of it came home. 

Soup.  When you have a warehouse store size veggie tray, you make soup.  I bought an onion today, pitched in some uncooked brown rice and uncooked barley, everything is pitched into the crock pot with a can of corn (I'm out of frozen), peas and chopped up potatoes.  Frankly, I'm looking forward to the Army-sized vat of soup that I have cooking overnight.  I picked up a round French loaf with everything bits sprinkled on top, so we'll have that with our soup tomorrow night.  Yum!

In other news, after 13 hours of sleep, Hubs woke up and felt like a new man.  Hallelujah!  Since Hubs worked a crazy schedule, he has weird days off this week to make up for it.  Today and tomorrow are a few of those days.  K- had today off because of a teacher in-service day (yes, in the middle of the week, I know) and since I volunteer at the school on Thursdays, I was free.  We decided to do a "we-wun" of Amish Country.  We went down, had the joint to ourselves -- well, mostly.  We enjoyed walking around, checking out some antique stores, having lunch and just taking time.  We weren't rushed and that was fine.  We even stopped at a Goodwill on the way back home and found a few books, a skirt and a pair of school-legal capris for K- to wear.  ($5.00 for all thankyouverymuch!)  We even found a 1953 copy of Little House in the Big Woods for K- for the bargain price of $2.00.  She was busy reading that on the ride home. 

K- is feeling a little off.  She said that she believes that her "allergies are kicking up" so we've started her back on her Claritin.  We kicked in an Oscillo just in case.  She has no fever and just has a stuffy nose.  We're rockin' it and hoping all is well. 

My house is beginning to smell like soup.  It'll be hot and ready to pack in K-'s lunch in the morning.  I'll have a hot lunch when I arrive home.  How I love soup!

Have a great day!

A leap baby!

My dad is one of those unique individuals born on a Leap Day. Every four years, we have a family dinner to celebrate his big day. An actual on-the-calendar happens rarely for him. So today we celebrate my dad. Happy Birthday, Dad!

Tales from the Trenches: Discussing Chardon with K-.

Many of you know that we live in Northeast Ohio.  Chardon is a jog down the road, but it certainly isn't states away.

Hubs told K- this morning that it's just up the road from where he grew up.

Afraid to think that K- would go to school, hear something and not know what the deal was, Hubs and I discussed the Chardon shootings and deaths with her.  I discussed with her how I've been at her school during lock down (real, not drills) on two separate occasions (one a child out of control and one special needs child thought to have gone missing) and I told her how everything is immediately buttoned up.  She feels good about lock downs.  She knows the drill and even giggled that they have to hide under the tables in the art room.  I'm glad that she feels safe.  I'm glad that they've built lock downs into their life so much that it is second nature, the kids don't panic and know exactly what to do. 

Still.

I admit that until lunch yesterday, I had no idea what had gone on.  I plopped K- on the school bus yesterday morning, went to two different groceries, got ready for work and left.  The radio station, a locally funded station, made no mention of the shooting whatsoever.  They may have considered that the media outlets were so incredibly saturated that at that point, people may need something to take a break.  Apparently, the feeding frenzy for information became so much that my friend said that they even had a breaking news bit on the fact that they were setting up a plastic table for an expected news conference. 

How sad it was this morning to hear that a second student has died. 

We explained the shootings.  We explained the deaths.  We explained that the child may have been made fun of.  We explained that even though Daddy and I were made fun of all through school, it didn't make us pick up a gun and shoot anyone. 

"But why did he take a gun to school?" 

"I don't know why.  I can tell you that Mr. B-, Mrs. B- and all the teachers and staff at school work very hard to make certain that you are safe.  You should probably thank them today for all of their hard work." 

I'm sure that there will be more questions.  We'll be there to answer them.  Until then and beyond, our condolences to the families who have lost and our prayers for the children hanging on and all those affected. 

How would you deal with the school shooting story with your child/ren?

A walk down memory lane.

LeAnne and I worked on Aunt Donna's memory boards this weekend.  We'll be having her Celebration of Life on Tuesday, and we really wanted to get this handled.  While we walked down that road, we talked, we cried, we laughed, then our Billy made us laugh to tears.  Thank goodness for text, the ability to send photos by phone (thanks for being a good sport, Rachael), and my brother's true sense of humor coming to the rescue when our weariness and sadness were getting the better of us. 

I admit that in the interest of getting these to fit on one scan, I have the ages in a bit of a hodge podge. 

Numerically speaking, here goes:

1.  My sister (who my niece J- looks remarkably like in this photo) is quite excited about a new pair of pleather zip-up boots while I, being surrounded by Tiddly Winks and a Charlie's Angel game am trying to figure out how to get that radio dog to work with nobs in places that I only recalled puppies to feed.  Yes, I did like Orange Crush.  Yes, it was the 70's.  Thank you for asking.  Age?  Probably 6.

2.  I was in the dugout at a ball game.  I don't recall this one, but I have to say that I was kinda cute.  I'm thinking that I was rockin' the age of 3 here.

3.  Oh yes.  The elephant ride.  There's a better photo on the board, but Aunt Donna took LeAnne and me to ride an elephant at the circus.  I recall having been so excited that it was all I could talk about.  I was determined that I was going to have an elephant as a pet.  My parents were unable to talk me out of it, so they bought me a Weeble Circus as a consolation prize.  When that didn't work, Mom wrote a book, submitted it to Golden Book and it got rejected.  I still have the book.  I have it put up and would like to have it printed and bound.  Here, I'm about 3.

4.  My text to several was that yes, we did go to Mom's Cuts.  Mom's response back was that we should be glad that she was such a talent with the shears.  My text back to her was a photo of my sister clearly looking as if she had been adopted into the Family Yoder, had been trained to work in the field and had become quite adept at her outhousing skills.  In all seriousness, my Aunt Donna took us for photos.  I was 6, LeAnne was 9 and Billy was 2.  This photo hung on her wall for as long as we could remember.  Well, at least up until about the last decade it hung on her wall. 

5.  4th grade.  My brother told me that I looked like a dork.  I told him that when you are rockin' the hair and teeth that I had at the time (spent years in prep for braces and braces themselves), you rock what you've got.  His text back was that at least I have teeth.  I laughed to tears.  You see, he got one of his teeth knocked out somehow (I don't want to know) and being in between insurance, he just has to go with a big front tooth and a half.  At least he owns the fact that he's looking a little off right now.  The tears of laughter did flow. 

6.  1st grade.  I found this dress in another photo of my sister or cousin at my uncle's wedding.  I think that I've figured out that this was the flower girl dress for my Uncle Billy's wedding.  He and my aunt had "Stairway to Heaven" played as she walked down the aisle.  While I didn't have that played at my wedding, I did have "Thank You" partially printed on our wedding invites and we did dance to that at our wedding reception.  It made me think of Uncle Billy.  It made me smile.

7.  My guess is that I was three here.  Look.  I mean, really look.  Could no one correct the fact that my skirt was way hiked up BEFORE they took the photo?  And Santa, was it necessary for you to wear all that rouge?  Wow! 

We discovered that my Aunt Donna was less than a stellar student.  Her report cards were suffering.  She did have a great sense of humor and we found so many photos of her on her graduation day.  She was in a dress and heels and they probably figured it was the last time that would ever happen, so they took many, many photos of her.  (Aunt Donna was a les#bi*an.)  We found a photo of her in a bikini, work ID's, her being the shirtless tom girl that we weren't surprised at, more photos than I can count of her smoking up a storm (I guess that I forgot that she smoked), in a professional baseball uniform (she played pro ball for a while), hugging my grandma, cooking on an open fire, fishing and having a great time being herself. 

How so sad we are that we don't have her around anymore.  She was a stubborn mule, but life is just not the same without her. 

We've had a hard time with the excessive time that has passed since she passed away and her Celebration of Life.  We held off so that her previous partner of 25 years would be able to attend (she had just had a hysterectomy the day that Aunt Donna passed away.)  They had broken up in a horrible divorce-style break-up, but in the past year or so, they reconciled, renewed their friendship and had been talking quite a bit.  To leave Marcia out seemed wrong.  Still, the time lapse has nearly killed LeAnne, me and the kids. 

To get her celebration finalized and actually happening takes us to a point of closure.  Sad closure, mind you, but closure.