Hannah has recovered

Hannah has been off her crutches now for the last couple of weeks. She is back to her normal self. She is playing softbal this season and all is well. Lucky girl. Lucky parents.

You really DO have to look both ways before you cross the road.

Just ask my daughter. She got careless and...got hit by a car. This happened last Thursday, Feb. 24.

I was in the house when my son came home from school. He walked in the door and went to put his back pack in his room. Suddenly, he screamed the longest, most shrill I'd ever heard him scream. Then came the words..."Hannah got hit by a car!" He saw her through his bedroom window, just after she got hit, laying there in the road.

We live in a rural area that has the mailboxes only on one side of the road. Our mailbox is across the street. I would let her check the mail for me every day. The bus would drop her off, then she would cross the street and check the mail. After checking the mail, she walked a few yards down the road, since the mail box isn't directly in front of our driveway. A car was passing her. The driver saw her and slowed down significantly. She was walking straight ahead and he had no reason to believe that she would suddenly turn into the road. Well, without warning, she turned and walked right in front of the car. He slammed on the brakes, but couln't avoid hitting her.

She was in the hospital for 2 days. She suffered several skull fractures, but no bruising of the brain! That means no concussion! She fractured her hip in several places. One fracture is a weight bearing spot. When she stands, it puts pressure directly on the fracture. So she has been on crutches.

Its been almost 2 weeks and she's almost back to normal, except for the crutches.

The children are not allowed to check the mail anymore.

This was a very serious situation that could have had devastating results. We are grateful. So grateful to have our beautiful girl with us.

Wade's Haircut

Wade cut his own hair.













So I had to cut it. I gave him a mullet, just to be funny.


Of course, the mullet didn't last. Now he just has short hair.

Just some ramblings

This post was originally written on Feb. 15 as an email to a friend.

Snow in Arkansas

The weather has been chilly lately, but it is warmish today, in the 50's. We got snow on Friday, and Redfield got more than everyone else, so Hypatia got busy making a snow man and then Sean took the kids to a little hill to do some sledding in these plastic disc thingies that he bought when he saw that it was snowing. I made hot chocolate and we got a fire going in the fireplace when they got home. As you know, snow in AR is a bit of a rarity, so we were geared up for fun. It melted the next day, though.

I really need to finish my education. Sigh.

I never graduated from college. And now, I'm getting to the point where I'm thinking about going to work. But I really need an education so I can get a decent job! I started nursing school in 2002, but I quit after one semester. To say I hated it would be an understatement. Just the thought of going back to nursing school is enough to turn me into a pile of mush, crying, with a sick feeling in my stomach. I just don't think nursing is for me, you know? So now I'm leaning toward teaching school. Having kids and teaching school seems like a perfect combination to me. Sean hated teaching, so he really thinks that I would hate it too. I just don't know. My sister teaches kindergarten and younger, and she won't go any older than that. She says to stay away from the older, middle school and high school aged children, that they are just intolerable. I am a notoriously bad disciplinarian (I pretty much let kids do what they want). So maybe I shouldn't be anywhere near a school! Sean is just convinced that if I just get the intestinal fortitude to make it through nursing school, I won't regret it. He may be right, but I just don't know if I can do it. Academically, I could handle it, but I hated being in the hospital, doing all that nursing stuff.
So, to get some idea of what its like to be in a school as a sort of teacher, I just signed up to do student teaching with our local school district. So, any day now, I'll start doing some subbing. They only pay $50/day, and I'll have to pay a babysitter to watch Wade, so really I won't be making much, but its more for the experience anyway.
I don't know where I'm going with all these ramblings I'm just obsessed with getting this all figured out! I want to start school again in the fall, and whatever I do, its my final choice. No more foolin' around! Good grief, I have about 100 credits!!! And I'm not anywhere near a bachelors degree! This sucks! I have practically no job experience beyond minimum wage jobs, and I've been a stay at home mom now for 10 years. I know I've been a good person, and a great mom and all that jazz, but career-wise, I've just gone nowhere! I'm almost 37 years old, but I feel like I just graduated from high school as far as my employability goes. Ok, I'll stop ranting. :)

Valentine's Day

The kids had Valentine's parties at school yesterday and they all came home loaded with candy. I was busy cooking a fancy Valentine's meal so I just wasn't really paying close attention, and by the time Sean came home, there was candy everywhere all over the house. This candy business just escalates first with Halloween, then Christmas, then Valentine's Day, then Easter! The candy just never ends! We've learned to just start throwing it away. When the children know you have their candy stashed somewhere secret in the house, they just wake up every morning asking for sugar!

We promised a motel...they got a tent.

We were going to have fun this past weekend. We told the kids we'd go to either Hot Springs or Eureka Springs. We even went as far as telling them we'd stay in a motel. That got them excited. Then the burn ban was lifted so we stayed home and burned. So we went to Hot Springs, which is about 1 1/2 hours away. Still we maintained the illusion that we'd stay in a motel. When evening rolled around, we realized that an hour and a half drive home was preferable to forking out more than $50 to sleep in a strange bed. So we drove home. The kids were disappointed. We told them we'd let them pitch a tent in the living room. That got them excited! Hannah exclaimed "This is the best day ever!"

So, we pitched the tent. Hannah and Hypatia were so excited. Dylan didn't really care and went to sleep in his top bunk. The girls cozied down for a good night's sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night, my Mommy Radar went off, and I woke up. It was Hannah, calling my name. I went in to check on her and she said "I'm not comfortable. I can't sleep." A half asleep 8 year old isn't capable of figuring out the solution to this problem in the middle of the night. Their brains just don't function at that time. So I said "That's okay. Just go get in your bed." So she did. And she slept fine. So much for pitching a tent in the living room.

Hypatia, on the other hand, slept soundly in the tent. She begged me to come and get her up in the middle of the night and take her to the bathroom so she wouldn't pee in the tent. She's a bed wetter and she was concerned about ruining the tent. I managed to take her to the bathroom during the night and disaster was averted.

Wade Story

I went into the children's bathroom and I noticed that he had written on the toilet. Sigh. Whatever. It's in pencil. Then I open the toilet seat. Ummm...he also wrote IN the toilet. The toilet bowl has scribble marks all in it! Ewww!!

Its a recurring theme: I'm stupid!

Ok, before you non-existent readers think that I have a low self esteem, I'd better say that I am a happy, well-adjusted, confident person. I know I have self worth and I am not depressed, or down in any way. Because of this I am quite capable of calling myself out on the stupid things I do. I love myself anyway, so I'm okay with it, you know?

Anyway, a friend of mine started back to nursing school today. She had asked me if she could drop her 2 school aged children off at my house before school, so they could catch the bus with my children. No problem! Well, I let everyone sleep in because we didn't get enough sleep over the weekend. When 6:55 am rolled around, I was only half awake and the children and hubby were asleep. Our house is big enough that we didn't hear any knocking on the back door (she knows to use that one, and besides, the front has a broken doorbell anyway) and I only realized that she had been there because I heard the car leaving our long gravel driveway! I ran outside and I couldn't catch her! I drove over to the school to see if she was waiting there with the kids. I called her house to see if she was there. I couldn't find her! I feel so bad! What a flake! My house was a mess. The dinner dishes were sitting on the kitchen table and no one was anywhere to be seen. (I'm sure she looked in the window and saw all of this, since the windows are right by the back door and you can see my kitchen and the table, in all it's messy glory.) I called and left a message on her home phone and apologised profusely! I hope she trusts me again! I'm usually not a flake, really I'm not!

We burned our yard...ON PURPOSE!

I never knew that out in the country people burn their leaves. Its against the law to burn when you live in the city. But not where we live! We live in a small town and unless there is a burn ban, you can burn, baby, burn. The weather had been so dry that we had a burn ban for a while. We hadn't raked our leaves, and we have almost 2 acres of yard, with plenty of trees. The leaves were thick. When the burn ban was lifted we did some burning. Our front and back yard are now a barren black wasteland!
This is our front yard. Now my house has soot tracked in all over. What a mess! But I expect that this spring our yard will be nice and green! I actually helped a lot with the burning. It was fun, and it didn't get out of hand or anything! Dh said I must really be enjoying myself or I wouldn't be out there helping him, because I never help in the yard. He's right, of course!

Why am I so stupid?

So it sit on my hiney all day and waste my time. I eat tons of homemade cinnamon rolls with yummy cream cheese frosting. Then when I start cleaning something, like maybe a couple of really gross toilets, my tummy starts to hurt really bad. I'm scrubbing the toilets, doubled over in pain, and its my own d*** fault.

Note to self: Half a pan of cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting can make you feel like crap if eaten in one day. Lighten up on the saturated fat, woman!

Man, am I stupid or what?

My daughter's deadly Christmas gift

Hypatia, my 5yo daughter wanted a musical figurine for Christmas. Luckily she got a snowglobe musical figurine thingy from Grandma, because Mom, Dad, and Santa failed to follow through. Anyway, she just loves it. She sleeps with it, and she takes it with her wherever she goes.

I was in the bathroom the other day, enjoying a few minutes alone. Who am I kidding, it was Christmas break and all my kids were home. No such thing as privacy. I didn't even bother to shut the door. It was wide open. After a minute or two, I hear Hypatia screaming in pain (Moms can tell by the quality of the crying). I immediately yelled at Dylan, her older brother "What did you do?!!" I said. She came into the bathroom just howling. When she gets upset and tries to talk, she is completely incoherent. She sounded something like "iiiigooossslleelllkksithhpoeldjthghhhelkllstkkkhttt." I was still sitting on the toilet, but Hannah was comforting her. She was trying to explain what happened. Finally she was calm enough to get it all out. The story goes: She had been laying on the floor holding her musical snowglobe up over her head so she could gaze into it, when, suddenly, it slipped out of her hands and fell onto her forehead. OUCH!!! She had quite a bump on her noggin. OOPS! I guess Dylan wasn't to blame!

Edited to add: Well the pretty music/snow globe thingy eventually broke and then Hypatia cut her finger on the glass from it. We couldn't tell if she needed stitches or not, so we almost took her to the emergency room, but then later decided to just seal it with super glue and duct tape. It was just fine and it wouldn't have needed stitches anyway.

Typical 2 year old
Wade is into everything. I'm glad I don't keep anything dangerous under the kitchen sink. I have a couple of jugs of vinegar that I keep there and I found him with an open jug. He had spilled it onto the floor (only a few drops, strangely enough) and he was sampling it by licking the floor. yuck!

Oh Cristmas Tree...How do I put you away?

Oh Cristmas Tree...How do I put you away?

About 6 years ago, my dh got all excited and bought a huge fake Christmas tree. I have no problem with the fake part. The huge part was a bit of a problem. We had just bought our first house and it was tiny. Only 1100 square feet. So, of course the living room was tiny, and figuring out how to fit it in was not easy! Then there was the added problem of where to store it during the months of January to November. The tree is 7 1/2 feet tall, which is not too tall, but it has a rather large base circumference, and is very full. Trying to squeeze that thing into a teensy weensy living space was a pain. Every year, I loved the tree (in a fake, modern, non-organic, commercialised Christmas sort of way), but hated dealing with it. Four years after buying it, we moved again and bought another 1100 square foot house. Sigh...more of the same. Squeeze the tree into a little living room. Finally my dh got sick of it too, and after last Christmas, we gave the tree to my brother and SIL.

Well, luckily, dh included the condition that we could ask for it back if we bought a bigger house. Because, guess what! Within a few months we bought a much bigger house (if I had known that giving the tree away would produce such results, I would have done it sooner!)

So we asked my brother if we could have the tree back, and he ungrudgingly returned it (thank you!). My kids and dh put it up in our spacious living room, and it wasn't in the way at all! The box in which it has been stored (lo these many years), had finally seen its last Christmas, though. It was falling apart. Dh hauled it out to the trash. The other day I finally got around to taking the tree down and now I have piles of fake tree branches in piles on my living room floor. Dh and I are trying to figure out how to pack the thing! We have plenty of storage space, just no box big enough to store the ginormous thing.

(edited to add: Its STILL sitting in piles in our living room a week later. Maybe we can just leave it there until next Christmas?)

(its now Jan 16, and the tree is now in piles in the garage/workshop. I've got to do something with it!)

(now its Jan 22, and we have it in some boxes, ready to go into the attic)
What does a 2 year old know about computers?

My 2 year old son, W is so smart. He knows how to get my attention when I'm on the computer. There are many options. He can push the little button with the moon on the keyboard, and that puts the 'puter in hibernation mode. Or he can push the power button on the tower, which turns the whole darn thing off. If I'm playing Zuma, he has figured out that hitting the space bar will pause the game, but he gets confused sometimes and hits the space bar even when I'm not playing Zuma and wonders why my screen didn't pause! LOL.

Anyway, My preference is the moon button...uh, oh, here he is...

Ok, I'm back. Anyway, the moon button doesn't shut down any of the programs, so I don't have a hard time getting back to what I was doing...which was wasting all my precious time on the stupid internet. Gee, maybe I'm missing a bigger lesson here. Maybe I should be the one to turn of the computer?

My final point

Which brings me to my final point. I have found that I waste too much time on the internet and computer. So, lately, I have devised an ingenious plan. When my 9 year old son goes to school, I have him lock the mouse and keyboard away in his treasure box. I don't know the combination, so I can't get to it. It has helped immensely! No temptations! I still have to talk myself into actually doing housework, but at least the computer is not available for distraction. I still find things to waste time on, though. I did 4 Sudoku puzzles yesterday.

Today I was a bad girl and "accidentally" forgot to ask my son to hide the mouse. So here I sit on my fat arse! Sigh. Will I ever change?

How do you explain daylight savings time? My little boy is growing up!

Daylight Savings Time

When daylight savings time ended last month, I tried to explain it to my 7.9 year old daughter:

me: Daylight savings is ending, so we gain an hour.

her: how?

me: Well, every year they change the time and then they change it back. So it will be 6 in the morning, but it will feel like seven!

her: (pointing to the calendar), so we get an extra hour here and here too?

me: No, we only get the hour just once, until they change it again, and then they take it away again, six months later.

her: I don't understand.

me: (more lame attempts at explaining, not doing a good job...)

her: Whatever, I just don't get it...(mumbled as she walks away)

My Little Boy Is Growing Up!

My youngest is almost 2. He's learning about how to notice bodily functions. The first step in potty training is learning to regocnise a bowel movement (hereafter referred to as poop). He's good at it, too. When he has a poop, he promptly removes his diaper, lays on the floor (carpeted), and calls for me until I come. Isn't that sweet? Well, the not so sweet part is the poop smears. I am getting tired of scrubbing the poop off the carpet every time this happens. I keep explaining to him that I would prefer it if he would let ME be in charge of removing the diaper, but he just doesn't seem to get it. Two year olds aren't very smart when it comes to things like this. What they lack in brains, they sure make up for in cuteness, though. I think its an evolutionary thing (humans are endeared to cute things, making toddlers much more likely to be hugged, rather than eaten). I may have to start duct taping the diaper onto him (something I did with my daughter for a while). These darn velcro diapers are just to easy for a two year old to remove!

My daughter's Letter to Santa

Hannah is almost 8. Here is her letter to Santa:

"I whant a BarBie Manted Bick. And a vibow now. And a BarBie Dall with a Brush a Boll hare."

Interpretation:

I want a Barbie Mountain Bike, and a Video Now, and a doll with brushable hair.

I just love the way kids spell!

I ink-thay at-they im-ay e-thay aziest-lay erson-pay on-ay e-thay anet-play.

Pig Latin

Dylan has been practicing Pig Latin today. One day he aspires to be fluent in the language. My hopes are not high. You see, his father spent many years in Germany and hardly speaks a word of German. I just don't think that our family is particularly gifted when it comes to learning second languages. Otgay atthey?

Its official. I am a slob!

Sean hates that I'm a slob. To be honest, I hate that about me too. I have actually started to think that I've really changed, and that I'm not a slob anymore. Well, I'm finding that I have a long way to go still. Sean goes out of town for two weeks, and somehow I just can't force myself to clean the house when I know he won't be coming home. I'm not a harried housewife. I'm just lazy! I have four children, yes. But 3 of them are in school during the day, and considering the inordinate amount of time I spend on the internet, I'm sure I could do something more productive. I have the time and energy to keep the house clean. What I apparently lack at the moment is the desire.

I change a diaper and just leave the soiled diaper sitting wherever I please, taking joy in my small victory, knowing that Sean won't be home later, saying "Laurie!!! why is there a diaper in the living room?" After a few days of leaving them wherever I want, even I am getting annoyed by the diapers everywhere. Sigh. The toilet needs cleaning. The floor needs vaccuuming. The dishes, well, I'm not even going to talk about them.

Sean will be home in less than a week and I need to start cleaning my house so he doesn't cry when he walks in the door.

Crapcakes and a migraine

Crapcakes, thats the name my husband gave to those little snack cakes. You know, like Little Debbie and Hostess cakes (Twinkies, Zingers, and the like). Although he doesn't want me to spread the word, the truth is that Sean used to buy these cakes with some frequency. He hates it when I tell people that (good thing nobody reads this blog, lol). He knows that they are yucky and yet he bought them anyway. He claimed that because he was denied these as a child, he had to get his fill of them as an adult, even knowing how disgusting they are. They are gross, you know. I remember that I never even ate them as a child. The few times I had a twinkie in my lunch, I gave them away. In fourth grade I gave them to Kyle Hogue (he was so cute), and he would sit on the package and squish them and then squeeze it out and eat it! I swear its the truth! I think that they were peanut butter flavored, too. Did Twinkie make a peanut butter flavored crapcake in the 70's? Anyone know?

Anyway, Sean has apparently outgrown his little crapcake obsession (he's moved on to gum! He buys gum constantly!). For some reason, though, he bought a box of Zingers the other day. My kids were excited. They had one for dessert. I gave Dylan, (9 year old son) one in his lunch. Here's the conversation we had after school that day:

Dylan: Mom, can I have a Zinger?
Me: No. You had one in your lunch, thats enough for the day.
Dylan: I didn't eat it though. Can I have one now?
Me: You didn't eat it?
Dylan: Weeeelll, I traded it for some Doritos. So I didn't get one like every one else (meaning his sisters, who also got one in their lunches). So can I have one?
Me: Looks like you got one, you just didn't eat it.
Dylan: Right, I didn't eat it, so that's why I need one now, because I didn't get one.
Me: You DID get one, you just gave it away, and I'm not giving you another one.
Dylan: I didn't get to eat it though! So, I didn't get one!!
Me: Yeah, you ate Doritos. That was your choice. End of story. You got one. No more Zingers.
Dylan: But MOOOOMMMMM! Please, please can I have one (he's working on a few tears, hoping that will help him plead his case).
Me: Nice try, kid. No Zinger.

I have to give the kid some credit for working with what he had. He figured he was entitled to a Zinger, somehow.

Meanwhile, Hypatia (my 5 year old daughter) walks in and ignores all reason, she doesn't care whether she's entitled or not, she just wants what she wants. She starts yelling:

Hy: I want a Zinger!!! (yelling at the top of her lungs)
Me: No
Hy: I want a Zinger!!! (this time her face is beginning to contort and she's starting to collapse).
Me: No
Hy: Please, please, I really really want a Zinger!!! Give me a Zinger now!!!! (at this point she's on the floor, wailing).

Now the Migraine Kicks In

Up until the kids got home from school, I was vaguely aware of the fact that I was nursing a bit of a headache. Somehow, and completely unrelated to the Zinger events, (yeah, right), the headache accelerated into a full blown migraine, complete with fuzzy vision. At this point, I informed the children that they had to keep their eye on the baby, and that I was officially sick, so don't bug me for a while. I took some Ibuprofin and retired to my room and fell asleep, well sort of. It's hard to go to sleep with 4 children running around the house. In any case, I rested. Luckily I don't suffer from severe migraines that last for days. I was mostly recovered within an hour and a half. My head was sore, but the headache was mostly gone. What's really lucky is that the children are all alive and didn't kill themselves while I was in my room, ignoring them.

The curse of the FIRE ANTS

We live on two acres out in the country. We have our own little piece of earth. Its a good feeling, you know, having more land than you really want to mow. Turns out, though, that we have squatters present. Fire Ants are going to rule the world before too long. They want us out, and they just might succeed. They are brutal. I think there should be a movie called "When Fire Ants Attack". We have waged war on them (well my husband does it all, but I'm there cheering him on). We are losing the war so far. The are everywhere. When they bite, it stings horribly, then it becomes a little pus pocket. My son who is two went out the back door for a minute with bare feet. I don't even think he went onto the grass. There was a Fire Ant pile right there by the sidewalk, and he of course stood right in it. 2 year old children don't grasp the idea that, in these situations, the best defense is a good offense. He doesn't run away from the pile! He just stands there screaming while the ants climb all over his feet, biting him. My daughter saw what was happening and started screaming. She grabbed him and brought him in and we proceeded to slap off the ants. He had maybe 100 or more bites on his feet and ankles. This happened a few weeks ago. He still points to his feet and says, "bite!".

He has since learned how to scan the ground and quickly spot the ants when he walks around the back yard.

Ok, I'm going to try to recreate the post that dissappeared. Its gonna suck, though, compared to the first one.

I haven't written for a few months. I got obsessed with some things and sorta stopped writing for a while. Now I'm back. I plan to write more often.

Its fun to read about the little day to day things that are inevitably forgotten. I've always wanted to inspirational, clever and wise when I write, but that's not me. I tend to be down to earth, pragmatic, and decidedly non-inspirational. I recently uncovered an old journal (remember those? We used to actually have to use a pen back in the days before the internet). It was tucked away in a box of my personal belongings and left to rot at my parents house. They finally got sick of having the boxes taking up space in their house and made me take them home. I found the journal tucked in between my old clothes I wore back in the 80's. I hadn't read the journal since 1990. Wow, did it bring back some memories. Apparently I was boy crazy at that age. Thats all I wrote about back then. I remember wanting so desperately to write something that was actually meaningful. I would sit with my pen at the paper and try to squeeze out a poem, something, anything! I'm no writer. I suffer from a severe lack of creativity. I actually managed to write a dumb poem about my inability to write poems. Sigh. It was the best I could do. I'll let you read it if you promise not to laugh in my face about it. Just make sure my back is turned.

Ok, its more like prose. I couldn't even get it to be poem-y.

Here it is. It doesn't have a title. I couldn't think of one.

The words aren't here tonight.
I cannot write.
Yet my pen yearns to move freely across the vast white expanse of the paper.

So I sit, and my pen moves, writing nothing of consequence to any other person.

But I would have it otherwise.
My thoughts are too clumsy to record, and my pen too slow to keep up with the constant flickering of ideas moving about within my mind.

What is it that I can do if I cannot write?
What is the gift I can give to the world?
That there is something to give, I do not doubt.
I feel it often enough.

Its that urge I have to stand where others can see me, and be touched by me, not physically, but spiritually, within the heart.

What song, what verse, what drama, is waiting for the moment to become a work of art?
What moment of inspiration awaits the world?
Some day it will sally forth its efforts and...

EXIST.

End of dumb non-poem-y poem.

Ok, I'm laughing at that last line. Sally forth??? Hahahaha. Ok, I'm laughing at the whole thing. I did write a few other romantic poems that are way too bad to even be put on a blog that nobody reads.

So I wrote this when I was 18 and I wanted to be famous. Maybe an actress, a singer or a writer. Truth is, I can't think of a thing on my own. I couldn't make up an original story to save my life. I kissed a creative person once (20 years ago). He recently became a rather famous playwrite, and won some really big award for a play he wrote, which was also made into a movie. So, he wasn't famous yet, and the kiss was closed mouth, so it doesn't really count does it? I was only 16 and I was a goodie goodie and I didn't french kiss. Needless to say, the future famous playwrite guy's interest in me rapidly waned. He quickly moved on to greener pastures, lol.

Now I'm 36 years old. I'm a wife and mother, so the only boys I blog about are the ones I gave birth to. I still don't have anything inspirational to say. My kids are my work of art, and my husband is a just piece of work. LOL, sorry hon, that was just a joke. :)

The last part of the lost in cyberspace blog that I wrote was all about how fat I am and how I'm going to be working on losing weight. It was humiliating enough to write the first time, I'm not going to write it again. Bully for you, my non existent readership. You have been spared the gory details.

Ok, so I haven't written anything in a few months. I'm fat, too. So there.

I really feel like cussing right now. I bleeping wrote this long freaking big post and when I clicked publish, it disappeared. Oh I'm so mad. ARRGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!! It was so good. So sarcastic. So not clever. I'll never be able to repeat this post. Watch. This one is gonna publish just fine. Man this sucks.

Hannah comes home! Yummy avocado dip.

Grandma and Grandpa finally returned our daughter last night. I think she finally started to miss us!! She was so excited to see us and we were happy to see her! Welcome home Hannah!

Yummy avocado dip:
2 avocados chopped up
1/3 cup chopped sweet onion
some lime juice (tsp or so)
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 can of Rotel Tomatoes, drained
1/3 cup sour cream

Stir it up and eat it up. Yummy!

We have moved

We have moved to a new (to us) house and I moved the computer, but the phone line hasn't been switched yet, so I haven't been able to blog lately. We should have internet access by Monday. I know no one reads this anyway, so it's not like anyone really cares that I haven't posted an entry for a week.

See ya.

West Nile Virus and my big Headache, and the neighborhood Ashleys help me out

Is it West Nile Virus?

We have had this illness that keeps striking the family, and after some research it sounds like West Nile Virus, but I don't know for sure if it is. Dh, Ha, D, and Hy have all (not at the same time--its been spread out over a period of a few weeks) had terrible headaches and fevers. D and Ha both threw up. They were really suffering, but they all got better. Today I have a headache, yuck.

Painting the house

I went to finish up some painting in our new house yesterday. We are a one car family at the moment, so I had to walk. It was hot, but not too bad. I took a couple of the neighborhood Ashleys (one is 11, the other is 9--there is another one who is 11 but she is a bit of a snot and wouldn't be caught dead playing with my kids, LOL) with me so they could play with Hypatia and Wade. They all played hide and go seek in the empty house and kept my little ones entertained while I painted. We are going to start moving our big things over this weekend, I think. Then we will start (ok, finish, ha ha) fixing up this house and sell it, or maybe rent it.

My head hurts to badly to write much more. I always said this was a dumb blog anyway.

You think she misses me? Whole wheat spaghetti noodles

I called my dd finally. She's been 500 miles away, at her Grandparent's house. Conversation goes something like this:

me: Hi Honey! How are you doing?
dd: Fine!
me: Are you having fun?
dd: Yes!
me: Do you miss me?
dd: No.

She's having fun and not really thinking twice about us. I'm pretty sure that if she thought she would never see us again she would consider missing us. She loves her grandparents and her aunts, uncles and cousins. Dylan was ready to come home after two weeks, and maybe she will be too. Maybe.

Sean isn't fond of spaghetti, and last night I made spaghetti (strike 1). I used whole wheat noodles (strike 2). No meat (foul). I was able to make some garlic bread (base hit). I didn't score any points with dinner, but hey, I didn't strike out!

Speaking of softball, the house we bought is just a stones throw away from the city's ball park. That means that we won't have to worry about getting our kids to ball practice. They can just walk! Right now we only live about 1/2 mile away, but Arkansas doesn't believe in walking and has no side walks or crosswalks. There is a major street to cross. Its not really safe for them to walk alone, so we either walk with them or drive them. The season is over now, but next year will be easier!