Hey, just so you know.

It's 138 days until we need to put our Christmas tree up and 177 days until Christmas.

My youngest son just counted it up.

Something that I've been enjoying this week.

Resolved.

Okay, I didn't even bother with resolutions at the new year.  I postponed them until after Easter.  Since then I've exercised, by walking and getting in the pool, sporadically, but a couple of days ago I decided that I'm going to get in the pool every day (unless it's storming) until it gets too cold this fall.  Once I get in the pool, I will exercise, so it's the getting in that is the difficulty sometimes.  So far, I'm doing pretty good.  I've gotten in the pool every day for the last 3 days.  Unfortunately, it's so hot, we have to leave the cover off to keep the water from heating up above 100 degrees and bugs are attracted to the water and come and drown themselves so the first 20 minutes every day is spent scooping out the bugs.  I hate that.   Last night, when my daughter and I were swimming, there were flies buzzing around driving us a little bit crazy.  She grabbed the pool net and said she was going to hunt flies which led to me saying "Be vewy quiet, I'm hunting fwies"  and much laughter.  Then when I looked at her, intensely scanning for flies I looked up and there were 2 on her goggles which she had on top of her head, which I thought was hilarious, because she was hunting them and they were on top of her head.  :-)  Bugs bunny probably did that to old Elmer Fudd at some point, didn't he?

Marigolds.

This is another mom funny.  It's a good thing, a really good thing, that I can laugh at myself.

My daughter and I were walking around in Walmart and I said that I wanted to go to the gardening department because:

Now I meant to say, that I read that if you had a lot of mosquitoes, that planting foul smelling flowers like marigolds would help keep them away from your house.  but, I started out by saying "I read that if you have a lot of marigolds flying around your house ..." and that's as far as I got.  We laughed till we cried right there in the Walmart.  Such a funny mental picture.

Then yesterday I went out and planted the marigolds and my daughter said "You better make sure and bury the roots deep, we don't want them flying around ... "

Another funny mom moment.

Last week, after my daughter and I had been watching TV for a while, I looked at her and said "I really think we should do something useless."  It wasn't until she gave me a very funny look as if to say "more useless than watching TV?"  that I realized what I had said.

I mean useful.

The Day After Easter Breakfast of Champions.

2 eggs for protein

and a nice big carrot.

Slacking.

My youngest son has been procrastinating about math this

week, but today he did 4 math lessons in a row, so he only has to do 1 tomorrow and then he'll be done for the week. He told me that he wasn't going to do that last lesson because he'd "been working hard all day, except when I was slacking. And, just so you know, the slacking was really fun and I did a lot of it." At least he's honest. :-P

Right now.

The University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville are playing the championship game. Both of them are close to here, but we're not really fans of either. My daughter says she likes UK better than U of L because she likes blue better than red, but really, we don't watch the games so that's the only opinion about it any of us has. Not so my town, though. We just got back from the grocery store and the town was nearly deserted. There was maybe 10% of the usual traffic and very few people in the grocery store. :-)

Pre-Easter Thoughts.

When did Star wars become part of our Easter tradition?

Is a Cadbury egg for breakfast pretty much the same as a regular egg?  I'm pretty sure it is.

We still have our let it snow wreath on the front door.  I noticed it last night and was going to take it down but my youngest said, "No, leave it up.  I'm dreaming of a white Easter."

I guess it was

a busy-enough weekend that it left me no time to blog!  Truth is, I opened blogger a couple of times over the weekend, but just didn't have much to blog about.  Compared to last weekend, it was very relaxed.  Saturday, the girl and I went to a women's luncheon and then she went with her Mamaw and her cousin to Michael's crafts to spend some of her Christmas gift card money.  (While I got to come home and do medical transcription!)  She came home with pom-pom yard and knitting needles.  it seems that Mamaw had taught her to knit.  Yesterday was a pretty good Sunday because we had choir practice and that terrible, awful, scary duet that I had been worrying about so much got changed into a sextet and now I don't have to sing my part alone.  It's a very difficult song and I'm not really a soprano so it's really, really, really, really high for me.  As you can imagine by the number of reallys in that last sentence, it did not sound good.  :-P    

It is 9:30 on Monday morning and I have not decided whether we are going to do school this week or if we are going to do spring cleaning.  I'm leaning towards the cleaning.  I'd better decide soon because the teens will be up soon and anxious to get some work done.  (Ha ha, did you see that funny I made there!?)  (Yeah, right.)  We have 154 days of school in this year and so we are in a really good position to take some time off and put the house in order so that spring cleaning bug will leave me alone.  I do intend for the kids to do the majority of it this year because they are capable and they do not have jobs that the would have to take unpaid leave from, like me.  The oldest one had a job interview week before last, but I guess maybe it didn't pan out because they didn't call him.  :-(

Oh well.  Back to work for me now.

Good morning ya'll.

Procrastinating.

I'm very tired and I should be going to bed, but I'm procrastinating about it, because my youngest 2 kids had informed me that before I go to bed, I have to play secret agent laser obstacle bedtime.  Apparently, this is a new requirement around here.  The "lasers" are being played by a yarn maze all over the living room.

Well.  I guess I can't put it off anymore.

Good night.

Math Problem.

My daughter started her math lesson and got all the way to problem 25 (actually she's ahead and it's tomorrow's lesson) and then wandered off to make everyone a grilled cheese and some French toast.  While she's gone, I'm sitting here at my computer which is right next to hers, working and when my work pauses I look over at her screen and read this problem.

"Ralph can lay down a floor tile in 5 seconds.  Bob can lay down a floor tile in 4 seconds.  If both boys work together, how many seconds would it take them to install 450 floor tiles?"

I have some additional questions.

What is Bob's phone number?

What is Ralph's phone number?

When can they come over?

I have about 400 floor tiles that need to go down and I'm pretty sure no one in this house can put one down every 4 seconds.  :-D

A conversation in the car.

Scene:  Daughter and youngest son are in the back of the car, eating Lunchables (which they rarely get), on the way home from the grocery store.

Daughter says:  "You know you can just pull that off"  indicating a piece of plastic wrap son has left hanging off the side of his lunchable.
Son does not reply.
Daughter says"  "Pull it off, it's bugging me."
Son does not pull it off.
Daughter says:  "Just give it here", takes it and proceeds to pull it off.
Son says:  "Do you feel better now?"
Daughter says:  "Yes."

They're so funny.

Yes, it's a little bit of OCD, maybe not the disorder, but the prequel? What To Do When Your Brain Gets Stuck; A Kid's Guide to Overcoming OCD

No school.

We didn't do school today because it was President's day and the girl talked me into it.  She was still tired from her busy weekend.  After I finished work, we went to a 4H Health and Safety Fair which was kind of fun.  We got all kinds of freebies and got to take a look at a fire truck and meet our county's K-9 unit.   Amongst the free things, my youngest son was given a box of raisins, which he doesn't like.  He carried them around politely at the fair, then when we got home, he wrote "eat these raisins please" on the box and put them on his brother's desk.  We also had plain yogurt with fruit which I kind of liked and my daughter really liked, but youngest son most definitely did not. 

Can you imagine?

What would we have thought, back in the past, if someone had come to visit us from 2012 and told us that every day we'd have to prove we are not a robot?  We would have thought they were crazy.  Yet, here we are.

Type these words to prove you're not a robot.

I did it again.

I said a silly thing to my kids and now they won't let me live it down.  Last week when I took my daughter to her guitar lesson, I realized when we left there that I hadn't mailed the Netflix.  So I was going to say, "Everyone look for a mailbox" but instead I said "Everyone listen for a mailbox."

Now we'll be driving down the road and one of the kids will say,  "Shh, I think I heard a mailbox!"  or "Did you hear that?"  and I'll say "What?" and they'll say "I heard a mailbox."

:-P

A quiet Sunday afternoon.

I have these really silly sounding hiccups.  I get them quite frequently, but fortunately, they don't last long.  A few minutes ago, I had a bout and I had this funny thought.  Some day my kids will look back on this quiet Sunday afternoon, an audio book playing, the dishwasher humming, the low sound of my oldest son practicing guitar in the other room, my daughter crocheting, the crazy chiming clock announcing that it 5 till some hour (always wrong), my youngest son playing with his Yugioh cards and mom, sitting in the corner, clucking like a chicken.   :-P

Sleep!?

My youngest son has been trying to burn the candle at both ends, staying up late at night as usual and then setting his alarm for 6:00 a.m. to get up and do his school work before his sister.  Yesterday, he did it, got up, did some of his school work and then played with Yugioh cards and listened to an audio book and procrastinated about his math all day and then finally fell asleep at 8:00 p.m. and didn't get his math done.  He's got to get his math finished today or else, no privileges this weekend.  I have no doubt that he will do it when he gets through sleeping off his sleep deprivation today.  I've told him that teens need their sleep and he should just sleep and not mess with his sleep schedule but he does not listen to me because he is male. :-P

I have a different sleep issue going on.  I went to a pain clinic to try and see if they could help me figure out the left lower quandrant abdominal pain that I've had since last May.  They have diagnosed interstitial cystitis and wrote me 5 prescriptions.   Two of the prescriptions I did not get filled because together they would have cost approximately 500 dollars per month and the other 3, totaling 30 dollars I did fill.  The only problem is one is a muscle relaxer and 1 is an antihistamine and they both cause drowsiness and I have had a very, very difficult time getting out of bed in the morning.  I just want to sleep and I feel kind of dopey.

It reminds me of the time when my son had his tonsils out and the nurse told him that when he woke up he would feel like 3 of the 7 dwarves at the same time, sleepy, grumpy and dopey.

Saturday.

Last night the roving teenagers that go through this house after midnight, were rapping.  Saturday.  No School.  Saturday.  No School.  Saturday.  No School.  Word.

The Give Up and Escape Button.

My youngest son was playing one of his video games tonight and said that he had messed up so he had to push the "Give Up and Escape button".  Oh, wouldn't it be nice to have one of these in real life?  Like when you impulsively get in a drive through line for a snack and then you're there for 20 minutes and you think that you really didn't want a snack that bad anyway ... hey, it's Give Up and Escape button time.  Haven't you been to parties that make this seem like a good idea?  Classes?  Can you think of any other real life applications?