Wednesday, April 29, 2009

the influenza of the pigs will kill us all

Not really, but Angel #2 is teaching herself Spanish and this is one of the phrases she's learned - it ought to come in about as handy as the other phrase she's learning: I have taste of the sauce of bar-b-q on my rice. Um...yeah

Hubby is feeling better today - so it looks like the influenza of the pigs didn't do him in. Since there wasn't time to do the moped trip, he and Chris took Debbie (the car) around the island instead. They weren't sure if they were going to camp somewhere overnight or not, but they came wandering home around 9 pm, so I guess they decided that a real bed was better than a sleeping bag on the beach.

Angel #2 is taking pictures of the two of us at the moment and I've decided that I'm the most unphotogenic person in the universe. I always look awful in pictures-or maybe I just look awful and pictures are showing the real me...I prefer to think I"m just unphotogenic. :P

Monday, April 27, 2009

oink oink

Okay, it's not the Swine Flu, but some kind of flu bug is still working its way through the house. Hubby came down with something last night and has stuck pretty close to home all day today, which is a bummer. He and his buddy Chris had an epic trip planned and it was set to begin today. They wanted to ride mo-peds around the island. They figured it would take about 2 days and since Chris is scheduled to leave on Wednesday, they had to leave today if they wanted to do it. Chris said he wasn't feeling well today and I also had to pick WE up at school because his stomach was acting up again. This does not bode well for the rest of the week. I'm afraid I'll have kids dropping like flies as the days progress. I think I"ll pick up a little blue surgical face mask, just to be on the safe side.

trying something new

Sorry the picture I posted yesterday was so small, but for some reason, I can't get it to go bigger, even though it's bigger on my computer. I never claimed to be a picture posting genius, actually, I claimed the opposite, didn't I? I am the UN-photographer. :)

I like hummus, it's so tasty with pita chips, but it's kind of costly at the store. So I decided to make my own. Turns out that it's really easy to make and the biggest challenge was finding tahini, which doesn't make sense at all considering the number of Asians who live here. Safeway had an entire aisle on food like that. I finally found two lowly cans at the very end of the Asian food aisle. I doubled the amount of garlic my recipe said to put in, which not only made it taste even better, but now I'll be able to easily keep random vampires away from me and anyone within a 20 foot radius of me.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Yay for pictures

I'm so glad for people who take tons of pictures. If it wasn't for them, I'd have empty photo albums. Today, my friend Judy sent me some pictures she took while she was on vacation here a month ago. They're the first pictures I have of the 6 of us since 2006. So, in celebration of me having a family picture, I thought I'd post it here. You can probably figure out who everyone is, except for the lovely little Hawaiian lady with us, that's Auntie Violet and the picture is taken in front of her house. Auntie V is one of my favorite people I've met down here. She taught me how to make pickled pipinola and gives me gardening hints.



In other news, I met with my writing posse again today, which was fun. We critiqued each others work, then they helped me brainstorm a problem I was having with the manuscript I'm working on. It helped and I think I'm ready to continue writing now, yay!

Thursday, April 23, 2009

bugs of all shapes and sizes

We've got some kind of bug going around our house. We started it by getting sick on Tuesday, Angel #4 got it Tuesday night and stayed home from school Wednesday and I got it Wednesday afternoon. I think that's all so far, hopefully the rest of the family doesn't come down with it - though, for a virus, it's not that bad. You just feel icky and nauseous for a couple hours and that seems to be it. At least around here.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Get a piece of the rock

Last night, Angel #2 decided to make peanut butter fudge. She's got the same fudge making skills as her mother because her turned out just like mine always did. Once she got it pried out of the pan, she started chipping away at it with a knife. We're using the crumbs as ice cream topping. I tried whapping it on the side of the counter to break it up, but it didn't even make a dent. The few times I've made fudge, it's always turned out hard and nasty too. Guess candy making isn't our forte'. I had a friend who loved making candy. She's make things like peanut brittle and chocolate covered cherries and they were just awesome. I suppose some people just have the candy-making gene and others don't.

WE loses his shoes all the time. Saturday he lost his flip-flops when he was trying to stay away from the guy beating up the druggie on the beach when they were camping (long, weird story). Sunday when we went to church, he couldn't find his tennis shoes and his flip-flops were still at the beach (maybe the druggie is wearing them) so he stole Angel #2's flip-flops and wore those. Now, he's done this before and never puts the other person's stolen shoes back where he found them. Since it's usually #2's shoes he steals because she's very scrupulous about always putting them in the same place so she can find them (as can someone who wants to swipe an easily accessible pair of shoes in a hurry, #2 gets pretty mad about it. Last time he did it, we told him he'd be kicked off the computer for a week if it happened again - so that's what happened Sunday. We told him the only way his sentence could be lightened up is if #2 did the lightening. Yesterday, he asked his sister what he could do to get his computer time back. They all have to work a half hour in the yard before they can turn on a computer and he'd just finished his 30 minutes. #2 asked how much time she had left and it was about 15 minutes - and she looked pointedly at WE, then at the rake, then at WE again. But then she changed her mind, deciding that yard work is good exercise and she needs the exercise. So, WE's punishment was to WATCH #2 do her yard work. He sat there on a rock wall, watching his sister pull at weeds and renegade vines. When her time was up, they both bounced off into the house, him to play WoW and her to make rock-hard fudge. It didn't seem like much of a punishment to me, but it worked for both of them and I guess that's all that really matters. But I think if he steals her shoes again, she won't let him off so lightly.

Monday, April 20, 2009

there's no accounting for taste

We've got a friend who lives a couple miles away. His wife works nights and has a condo comped from work, which is over an hours drive away, so she doesn't come home every day, so he gets relatively lonely by himself at home. Once a week he comes over to our house in the evening and joins in our family Bible study and often joins us for supper. Things were in its usual chaos around here, supper was being made, a tree house was getting built and WE decided he wanted to make a pumpkin pie, which involved preparing an actual pumpkin someone had brought over, and roasting the seeds for munching. There was also a chess game going on along with the usual arguing and horseplay. Then, our friend said he came from a family of 10 kids and he enjoys coming over here for the familyness. I can't help thinking that after a couple hours of familyness, he enjoys returning to his nice quiet house.

Yesterday, Angel #4 has a band concert. Every year they hold family fun day at the high school. Different agencies and schools put up demonstration booths for things like composting and nutrition, there are bouncy houses for the kids and free cotton candy, sno cones and chili for everyone. Also during the day is constant entertainment from school groups. The high school band played, the intermediate school Polynesian dance team did a couple dances and #4's elementary school band played. They've added a new song to their playlist since I saw them last and they now can do Old McDonald. They were also giving away some awesome door prizes, but I didn't win any of those. Last year there were about a gazillion people there and I really didn't want to go again this year. Others must have felt the same way since there was only about half a gazillion there this time, which made it much nicer.

#4 also had a friend over Friday night, Angel #2 had 2 friends overnight and WE and hubby went camping. So, Angel #1 was home with six females, 2 of which were cute 15 year olds, though he didn't really seem to notice or care. Fortunately for my nerves, he's still more interested in computer games than girls. But it was #4's friend's mother who I fell in love with. She said: you've got a 16 year old? You must have been awful young when you started having kids. I almost gave her a hug right on the spot. Of course, #4 was quick to chime in that I was actually really old and just turned 41 last week. Kids, don't you love 'em?

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Slacky McSlacker

Boy, haven't posted since I went zombie hunting on Tuesday. I'd like to say it was because my life was so exciting I just didn't have time to write, but then I'd be a liar as well as a slacker.

Angel #4 has a friend over, WE went camping with hubby, #1 is drooling in front of the computer and #2 is wandering town with her friends, and it's pretty quiet around here. When I pick up #2 though, I'm also bringing 2 of her friends here too, so things won't be quiet for long, I'm afraid. Both the friends are vegetarians who like to sleep in in the morning, which is massively different from her other friend who's up at 6:30 (on a Saturday morning!) and frying slabs of Spam for breakfast. Though I like all her friends, the smell of Spam in the morning isn't something I like to wake up to.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

I won't be calling him to go zombie hunting

This morning I was telling hubby about a dream I had last night. I was being chased by zombies and, like all dumb women in horror movies, I thought hiding out in a cabin in the woods by myself was a good idea. So, there I was in my cabin, killing zombies like a regular Buffy. I told hubby that the odd thing was that all I had to do to kill the zombies was to stab them anywhere with a knife and they'd go down instead of having to shoot them in the head. The hubster gave me a blank look and I said, you know, the real way to kill zombies is that you have to shoot them in the head. Then he revealed to me that he didn't know that you had to head-shot a zombie to kill it and I was amazed at his ignorance. Latter I was telling my brother about hubby's cluelessness regarding the disposal of zombies and my brother - my own brother who is closer to me personality-wise than anyone else in the world - told me he didn't know you killed zombies via the head. I thought that was common knowledge. Doesn't everyone know you have to shoot or otherwise debrain a zombie in order to kill it? Personally, I'm appalled at my family's ignorance regarding self defense against zombies. If we're ever invaded by hungry zombies, they'll be lucky to have me around, I can tell ya that much.

Talk about my brother. My family practically never calls me. The last time my dad called, my first thought was that somebody must have died...I was right. This morning, my brother called me to wish me a belated happy birthday. I was surprised to hear from him, but it was nice to sit and chat with him for a bit. Within an hour after I hung up with him, one of my sisters called me. Two family phone calls in one hours time - it's a new family record! BTW, she called to tell me that she was mailing my birthday card today. It looks like the guilt induced by forgetting your sister's birthday prompts people to pick up the phone and call. My sister, Kim, is the only person who managed to get me a birthday card by my birthday this year. So, if you see Kim, give her a big atta girl! (for you late ones, I'll be expecting lots of chocolate compensation :P )

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

aerodrone

After this crass promotional message by Angel #2, we will come back to our regularly scheduled blog post.
angel #2 has an awesome playlist! go to myspace.com/imurpeep to hear coolness that will blow your eardrums!!! be my friend =]

Isn't it pathetic that she has to go online and beg for friends?

you're one to talk!

btw I'm jacking her computer! the entire USA must send me a dollar (that would be per person) or I will wipe out your favorites! bwahaha! anyway...

Angel #2 had a can of Mountain Dew when she got home from school. Her caffeine tolerance is pretty much nil and she's been bouncing off the walls and basically driving us all nuts. Now she can drive you nuts too.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Happy Birthday to me!

My birthday this year is on a day also commonly associated with candy - mainly chocolate. Coincidence? I don't think so. Neither did my family, since my birthday presents consisted of 2 Hershey bars (one plain, one king-sized w/almonds) 2 bags of Doves chocolates and 4 king sized bars of Cadbury chocolate. I think I'll be set with chocolate for a long time. Angel #2 (the one who gave me a tube of wrinkle cream last year for my birthday) also got me a book from the library book sale we went to yesterday titled Fit After Fifty. She thinks she's soooo funny.

In honor of my birthday, in true daydreamer family tradition, we did something new and exciting. If you call mucking mud water out of a big rock wall swimming pool thing new and exciting, that is. There's this big circle-ly thing in our backyard, that kind of looks like a silo (you can see it to the right on the picture below. Well, it was full of weeds and muck, a perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes and noisy frogs. We had most of it drained, but it still had water about mid-calf in it that we couldn't drain or siphon. So today, hubby decided that the whole family was going to work together to get it cleaned out. We did it, but not without getting covered in muck in the process. You can't really tell by the picture, but the round rock wall is about 10 feet high, so a lot of the draining was filling 5 gallon buckets with sludge, pulling them up with a rope and dumping it over the side. Not particularly a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Angel #4 tripped and ended up covered in crud. When we finally finished, the boys, Angel #4 and hubby decided to clean themselves off by jumping off the roof of the house into the huge water catchment tank we use as a swimming pool. Angel #2 and I took a more traditional route and just showered off in the bathroom like normal people. Eventually, the whole area will get cleaned out and become my garden. This picture was taken about 2 weeks ago and the area looks incredibly different already.


Afterwards, I got a real hankering for KFC, and I was pleased to find out that they were open tonight, despite its being Easter Sunday. I sent Angel #1 out to get me a bucket of original recipe for our supper tonight. I figured KFC was the least my family could do for me since they made me muck out a round stone thingy on my birthday.

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Experiments

WE had invented a time machine. It consists of standing in a cardboard box filled with empty tin cans, placed next to a running microwave. He said it was hard to explain, but it had something to do with radiation going through the metal of the cans and speeding up time. It's still in its experimental stages though. He's lost interest in it at the moment though and is arguing with his brother about whether or not it's easy to build a nuclear bomb.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Bigfoot lives

It was a Sasquatchy sort of day today. It started last night when WE was hiding in the bushes and jumped out to scare his friend. The little boy said he thought it was a sasquatch. Then, this morning, Angel #4's friend called Angel #2 a sasquatch. This afternoon we were talking about the strange noises I heard last night (more on that later) and our friend, Chris said that maybe it was a sasquatch. Finally, #4's friend's dad came to pick her up. He was talking about mythical creatures, unicorns, WE being well-behaved, Pegasus, sasquatch. Seriously, how often do you hear sasquatches mentioned? Maybe every 6 months? a year? None of the four people that mentioned them today heard the others talk about them. All the mentions happened hours apart when the other mentioners weren't around. How weird is that?

As for last nights weird noises. I was lying in bed around 10pm, when I heard this thumping noise, like someone walking back and forth across a room. I thought it was the boys, though they were up in their bedroom, so it really didn't make sense because they're in a different part of the house than me. After about 10-15 minutes, the noise stopped, which was good because I really didn't feel like getting out of bed to yell at whoever was making the thumping noise. This morning, the mystery of teh thumps was solved. Angel #2 said she was walking 'the ramp' last night. Instead of steps leading to our basement, we've got a ramp. Walking on an inclined surface is a good workout, according to #2, so she walked up and down the ramp to get exercise. The ramp is situated directly under our bed. I told her in the future to start exercising a little earlier in the evening. Tonight, at 9, I could hear here thump-thumping up and down the ramp.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Poor little crippled kid

WE has decided that he needs a wheelchair. Since we don't actually own one, he's using a roll around office chair. He announced: can't you people see I have medical problems? Uh yeah, could he leave that one any more open for discussion? There is a small snag in the plan, since it's bedtime and his bedroom is upstairs. You can't expect me to just jump out of the chair and walk up the stairs like it's a miracle, he says. Life with the handicapped, it's not easy, lemme tell ya. Sad thing is, hubby and I are just sitting here in the living room with our feet up, like it's perfectly normal to have your 12 year old son getting pushed around in an office chair and getting slammed into walls by his siblings.

I had a moment of thankful silence this morning that the kids are back in school and I survived 2 weeks of spring break. Hallelujah! My life is once again my own.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Getting back to nature

I planted part of the garden today. I now have cucumbers, green beans, zuchinni, onions and pipinola growing away. The place where our garden is is the original garden spot was for the house way back in the old days when this was a working farm. It's a walled in spot that's been neglected for 5-10 years and was way overgrown with grass. This isn't regular grass like we had in Wisconsin, this is huge, 10 foot tall blades of death. Hubby and the boys hacked away at it with machetes. Then we hauled all the downed grass away and have been trying to dig the roots up. The roots are so tight and compact, that we're using a pickax to chop away and loosen it before chopping chunks of it loose with a shovel. It's hard work, but we're getting there. About 2/3 of the garden area is cleared out now and I wanted to get things growing. Hopefully we'll get the rest cleared out in the next week or two and have the whole area ready to go. It'll be nice to have fresh veggies again.

The flowers must be peaking lately or something. Every night the air is just heavy with the smell, it's just heavenly. I wish it was a little bit warmer outside so we could open the windows and let the scent flow through the house. Instead, we just stand out on the porch and inhale. Life is good.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

What a crazy random happenstance

Today I was at the grocery store, looking for a can of black beans. I knew I was in the right aisle, but not exactly sure where the black beans were. Then, about 10 feet away, a can fell off the shelf onto the floor. There was no one near the shelf where it fell off and no one had been near it recently that I had seen. I thought that was rather odd, but wait! It gets odder. When I walked up to the possessed can I read the label and it was a can of BLACK BEANS. But those alert readers out there probably already guessed that. I picked up the can and tossed it into my cart and went my merry way. Strange thing, when I was in the produce aisle about 10 minutes earlier, I was debating if I should buy another bag of potatoes or not and, wouldn't you know, there was a bag of potatoes lying on the floor in the middle of the aisle in front of me. One more odd shopping experience. This morning, Angel #2 was telling me about a dream she had about making 3 angelfood cakes (1 for starving kids in Africa and 2 for everyone at church). We love angelfood cake, so when I saw it on sale today, I decided to buy all the mixes they had. There were, you guessed it, exactly THREE boxes of angelfood cake mix on the shelf. *insert Twilight Zone music here* I think Safeway is haunted....maybe by the ghost of Mr. Whipple, though I didn't buy toilet paper.

Another funny thing that happened at Safeway about a month ago. I was half listening to the PA and it was playing an ad for some kind of contest the store chain was putting on. It must have just been a canned announcement that the main office put out because it was telling me that some lucky person could win a trip to Hawaii! I was less than excited. I think I spend too much time at Safeway.

Friday, April 3, 2009

Pit

I see from Deb's comment that, to my shock and disbelief, not everyone is familiar with the card game Pit. Pit is an old game - not sure how old, but I DO know that we learned how to play it when we were little kids with the old deck at my grandparents house. I know of people who've played Pit that think it's an "ok" game - they've obviously never played with my family. Let's put it this way, my family (meaning my siblings & I) are about the most non-competitive people you could ever find, until you put a Pit game in front of us. Then blood will spill. To help you understand the bizarre hold the game has on us, we (no lie) played the game the night of my mother's funeral. It's based on the stock exchange. Pit has 9 cards each of 8 different suits (corn, barely, wheat, etc) and you have to trade cards with the other players until you have all the cards of one suit in your hand, then you yell Pit and that hand is done. Each suit is worth a different number of points ranging from 50 to 100. If you're not the winner, you don't get any points, UNLESS you end up with one of the two specialty cards, the bull or the bear, which is where WE's struggle comes in. He ALWAYS ends up with either the bull or the bear, because each of those cards are worth -20. There are a few other rules, but that's the basic jist. It's the trading of the cards that gets everyone excited, because you have to call out the number of cards you want to trade and find someone else who wants to trade the same number of cards. It sounds complicated, but it's actually a rather easy game to play and SO much fun (at least if you're playing with my family it is). Here's the Wikipedia entry explaining the game.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

This day is so annoying

April Fools day is such a pain. When something legitimate actually does happen on that day, no one believes it. I even got caught a couple times. Our friend Mark called to see if we were selling a moped; he needed new transportation because his truck started on fire. Since that is exactly the sort of thing that would happen to him (he's the guy who accidentally drained our water garden a couple months ago and killed all the fish), I gave him some sympathy, but also laughed. He continued with the story and I said, that's unbelievable! He said, of course it is, it's April fools day. Grrr Then I asked him if the story his youngest daughter told me about being bridesmaid at her older sisters wedding to another woman was another April Fools joke, that though, is true. I guess that shouldn't surprise me either.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

some people just don't learn

We played Pit again tonight. Out of pity, when WE hit -140, we brought his score back up to zero. He still came in last place with -20. The kid REALLY sucks at Pit. Since it's a game we play a lot, our cards are starting to get a little beat up, especially the bear card, which gets used and passed around the most, so tonight, after WE failed to ditch the bear card because we all recognized it and wouldn't trade with him, we modified one of the other, little used cards and made that our new bear card. It'll put things on a little more even playing field again. We had to do this with our last Pit game also, actually we had to modify a new bear card twice because the originally modified one got as beat up as the real bear card did. We eventually retired the whole game and got a new one. If you haven't noticed, our family really likes to play Pit. It was our favorite card game when I was growing up and I passed the love of the game on to my own kids and husband. My family loves the game so much, that one time, back when my little brother was in his mid-20's and still a bachelor, he came over to our house to play. He kept getting phone calls from his friends wanting him to meet him someplace or go to a party somewhere, and he kept turning them down so he could continue playing. I think it's a sickness.

Due to the lack of a ride the NOT boyfriend didn't come over today, but is supposed to come tomorrow instead. We'll see how he handles things here. He's an only child and our family is a bit exuberant...we may be too much for the poor kid.