In Which We Find a Gentle Reminder

This was a challenge from Abby... last year. I stumbled across it in my archives today while I was searching for something else. (one day I should go back and read my blog from day 1). I decided to repost it, as a gentle reminder to myself. Today I feel like I really need it.

I am.... A mother. A wife. A raving lunatic if I feel someone I love has been wronged. A bit dramatic sometimes. A little more passionate about somethings that I should be. A damned good friend.
I want.... To send my children off into the world as capable young adults who feel ready and able to take on the world. I want them to feel that they will be able to make it on their own. I want them to know that they have all the skills they need to do whatever it is that they desire, and also a place to fall back if it doesn't work out.

Ode To My Family

I hate to say this out loud, and I will deny saying it to the grave... but I don't enjoy Ms. Thang's birthday parties. I enjoy celebrating her birthday, but I don't enjoy the actual party itself. Mom comes for her yearly visit, and usually our party is the first time she's seen my brothers and their respective others. Throw into that mix my dad and my in laws and it's a bit crazy. I don't much mind the catching up, except for that my MIL over exaggerates EVERYTHING and makes it sound so much worse than it is.. which bugs the crap out of me. I don't mind the "reunion" bit as much as I used too... except for the fact that my brothers do a lousy ass job of keeping in touch with my mom (except for one of them) and she hates it and it comes out in her tone/some of the discussions they have with each other.

In Which We Find Some Random Things...

Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes for Ms. Thang. She is home now, showered and sound asleep up in her room. My mom is coming in for a visit and arriving tomorrow, so we had to free up the guest bed. We dragged A's mattress back into her room and set up a "make shift" bed. (you'll remember that we are waiting (notsopatientlyonmypart) for her floor to be sanded and refinished. She's excited to be in her "new purple room" even if it is on the floor. I'm happy to have her home. She had a great time at camp. She's a very social child and I didn't doubt for one second that camp wouldn't be right up her ally. I would love nothing more than to be able to send them both to camp next year (Mr. Man loved his week there for 6th grade environmental camp).. But $640 per kid is a lot of money, even if it would be for 2 weeks.

In Which We Find a Birthday....

Every year on her birthday, I am reminded of how lucky I am to have her here. Every year that she giggles and laughs and jumps up and down for joy at turning another year older, I jump up and down for joy inside that she is here to see this next age. On a typical birthday we would spend the day celebrating and doing fun stuff (the joy of having a summer birthday) and then have a special dinner and cake and presents and all that good stuff. She would go off to bed, full of happiness and delight, and I would go off to some quiet place in the house and thank God for sparing her life and my own. In her eyes, her birthday is a day of celebration. In my mind, her birthday is a reminder to me of how close I came to losing her and myself. I celebrate her birth day all year long. Every time she comes over and gives me a giant hug at school in front of all her friends. Every time she calls me from a sleepover to tell me goodnight and she loves me. Every time she laughs at a joke, or rolls her eyes, or hollers at her brother. Every day I am reminded how lucky I am that she's here.

In Which We Find a Mystery....

Back around the beginning of the month, I stumbled across a Mystery Knit a Long. Ok, I didn't stumble either.. I was blatantly shoved by Steph. She went on and on about how fabulous it was and this, that and everything else.. and I felt the tug. I waged an internal argument with myself.

scardey self: I've never knit lace before
rational self: This is a perfect opportunity to learn, 3,000 other people will be knitting with you (that number is up to over 6,000 btw)
scardey self: I've never used such thin yarn, what if it's expensive and breaks easy?

A Bit of This... Some More of That....

What a whirlwind the last few days have been. Yes, I finished HP. I won't tell you how late I was up Saturday night (cough*2:30am*cough)... but I had read 12 chapters while Mr. Man was busy playing X-Box with his dad (priorities... sheesh!) and he had gone to bed.. so at 9pm I picked the book up and finished it. I'm glad I did, because he didn't finish until lunch time today. Let me just say.. It was a fantastic book. I've read series that kind of petered out at the end... but not this one. It had me right up until the very end. I'm sad that it is the last one. I could read a new one every few years and never get tired of the story.

Late Night Musings

In 5 short minutes, my local bookshop will kick off their official Harry Potter Book 7 launch party. They have a big to-do every time a Harry Potter book is released. Hagrid rides a motorbike into the store at 12:01 to deliver the first books and a grand time is had by all. My son, would've given his left arm to be at that party tonight. I've never gone, and seriously toyed with making an exception, for this.. the last book. The idea of getting home after 1:00am, and having to get up 5 hours later to get going on errands and getting Ms. Thang ready to leave for camp was the only thing holding me back. It makes me feel old. Normally by this time I'm exhausted and half asleep, or already in bed. In a few minutes I'm off to bed, and I feel slightly bad. Maybe I should've sucked it up and gone.

Random iPod

All I need is a bitter song
To make me better
Much better
All I need to write is a bitter song
To make me better
Much better

It found me to hold me
But I don't like it at all
Won't feed it,
Won't grow it
It's folded in my stomach;
It's not fair,

A Short Tale... (actually, it was a long tail!!)

*disclaimer* this post is a tad bit graphic in nature (photo to follow below)

So a while back ago when I cleaned my pantry, I noticed we had been visited by a mouse. Nothing new, although we've done a pretty bang up job of sealing off the many nooks and crannies that mice have been getting in through and haven't had one in the house in quite a long time. Our older cat does a stellar job of killing them and leaving them out in the yard. Since the weather is warm, she spends a lot of time outdoors and so this mouse had been happily doing it's thing in the house. I got the pantry cleaned up, and have been investing in Lock and Lock storage containers, a few at a time.

End of the Week Wrap Up

In keeping with tradition, it rained the first night of our camping trip. (we think The Boy is a curse, he claims it has rained every time he's ever gone camping) I take that back. It didn't rain.. it poured buckets. The kind of hard, driving rain that sends you to bed and then you have a hard time sleeping because it's so loud. But it ended during the night and then we had gorgeous weather. The kids went swimming after we set up camp Wednesday, and then spent a good part of the afternoon on Thursday lounging about in their tubes and enjoying the lake. We went fishing and didn't catch anything, and had fun around the camp fire. All in all, it was over way too fast. Ideally we like our trips to be one day longer than this one, but we were pressed for time on both ends, so it didn't work out. In looking at our crazy summer schedule, this seems to be the only camping trip we'll get in. We are going away to the lake the week before school starts, so I'm OK with it.

In Which We Find Some Photos of my Garden...

I don't want you to miss me too much while I'm gone off camping for the next few days... I leave you with a photo tour of my garden. Don't you just love baby vegetables??






Side View of the Vegetable Boxes.

In Which We Find A Random Post...

I've been meaning to blog all week, but I just haven't. A few times I wanted to come here and rant, and decided I was tired of ranting. So today I will share with you some random things and share about my week. After all, it is a rather random kind of day.
First, let's talk about our dog. Cassie is a Irish Setter/Chocolate Lab mix. She turned 6 years old in April. Mostly I like her OK. Once the weather warms up, not so much. See, Cassie has this misguided idea that not only is this HER house, it's HER yard and HER neighborhood. Nothing furry is allowed in HER yard. No dogs are allowed to walk by HER house. It's not OK for the kids to be outside playing in the yard, because she has a canary. But if I put her outside, she barks like a fool and I have to bring her in. She spends a good chunk of her day going back and forth to windows and wining and whimpering and carrying on. Makes.Me.CRAZY.

In Which We Find Some Quiet Busy-ness

How've ya'll been? It's been a little on the hectic side over here at Chez-Too-Much-To-Do. It's amazing how much stuff you put off when you're busy, busy, busy with work and life and general hecticness. So I've been trudging away at my spring cleaning (I know.. I know!) which is coming along fabulously. I've gotten 6 rooms done so far and I started on the Barn. The Barn is one of those things that gets done in spurts. 180+ year old dirt and grime doesn't mix well with my allergies. But I did get a whole section of it done today, along with weeding my flower garden and mowing the lawn.