Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Okay, I won't complain about rats anymore

I will no longer complain when the cat leaves an entire rat sitting in the doorway, because today, she left a partial one there. Yep, nothing but the head and tail and a few random entrails. NOT what I wanted to see when I got up this morning. But, dear hubby did his husbandly duty and took care of it along with the whole rat the cat also left lying there. Ugh, you'd think word would get out and all the nearby rats would look for safer pastures.

I was everyones favorite person today at bocce ball practice. I brought fresh bread, still warm from the oven for a snack for everyone. I don't think there's a person alive who can resist warm, fresh bread.

I discovered the other day that Angel #2 unfriended me from Facebook and she wouldn't refriend me. So, I did what any good mother would do, I started sending friend requests to her friends, explaining to them how mean she is for defriending me. I only sent it to one person, her best friend, since I don't know her other friends very much. Later I mentioned to her what I did, but didn't tell her who I sent the requests to. She, like any good teenager, overreacted and sent a message to all her friend, telling them to make sure they didn't friend me. Because of this, one of her friends (her former boyfriend, no less) searched my name and sent ME a friend request, just to bug her (in a friendly way). He also put the message she wrote on his page with an addition by him that everyone should friend me. I think it's hilarious that her attempt at damage control totally backfired on her. Sometimes, life IS fair. :D

Monday, September 28, 2009

Are you ready for some doughnuts?

On my way to work today I stopped by the bakery thrift store to pick up bread. My kids go through almost a loaf a day sometimes, so I've got to go cheap. Of course, I also make my own, but they don't like my bread and want the 'good' stuff, aka nasty, pasty generic white bread, so I go to the thrift store and stock up every couple weeks. While I was there, I saw they had boxes of doughnuts for $1 apiece and decided I'd be nice and buy a box for the guys at work. Then I thought I'd also be the worlds greatest mom and buy a box for the kids for an after school snack. Yeah, I'm da bomb. Angel #4, using her awesome math skills, figured out how many doughnuts each person can eat and I pity the fool who goes over their rationed amount.

Angel #2's cat caught ANOTHER rat this morning. That makes 4 in the last week. As much as I'm in favor of her depleting the rat population, I wish she wouldn't have to prove herself. Whenever she catches on, she lays it in the Angel's bedroom doorway, which thankfully, is outside, so she's not actually bringing dead rodents into the house. But, I have to walk right past that doorway to get to the washing machine as well as the rest of the basement. I go through there probably 5 or 6 times a day and seeing a dead rat lying right in my path is just not my cup of tea. And, due to my intense fear of rodents, even the dead ones, I can't even dispose of the stupid things, I just have to wait helplessly until someone gets home to deal with the nasty thing. Fortunately, hubby was still home this morning when I discovered it, so he tossed it into the brush and it was safe to go in the basement for another day.

I heard a story today that supports my feelings on nationalized healthcare. This June, when we were in Canada, I was talking to a friend who needed knee replacement surgery. She told me she's needed it for a year already but was on the waitlist for the surgery, which had to take place in a hospital 400 miles from where she lived because no doctors were available to do it in her area. Because of the long wait, she's also having back problems because of the way she had to walk to favor her bad leg. Flip-flop to a friend in the U.S. who also thought she may need knee surgery sometime soon. She called on Sept 21 for an appointment, got in to see the Dr on Sept 23 and she's going to have the surgery done so she'll be walking well when she goes to visit her children on December 22. My Canadian friend is hopefully getting in for her surgery on October 8. As messed up as it is, I'll take the US healthcare system ANY day.

Oh, remember the 16 glass glasses I bought a couple weeks ago? One broke in the dishwasher, so we're down to 15. I'll keep you updated on the survival rate of the remainder as time goes by.

busy weekend

Yesterday, hubby asked if I wanted to go to a Toastmasters competition with him. I went and met some very nice, interesting people. He joined Toastmasters, a public speaking club, and has really been enjoying it. He'd talked a guy into entering the competition and wanted to go to the competition to give him support. When we got there, the organizer said that they needed another competitor in a different division and asked if he'd do it. He agreed to if they couldn't find someone else to do it. He ended up winning and is now going on to the statewide competition on Oahu next month.

Today, our family went to Hilo for church. They were having a baptism and 3 friends were being baptized. Usually it's rainy in Hilo, but it was like the day had been special ordered just for the occasion, it was warm and sunny and we couldn't have asked for anything more perfect. The baptism was held in the river near a waterfall and it was beautiful spot. Afterwards, we had a potluck, then we all sat and visited while our delicious meal digested. On the ride home, we stopped by Tex Drive-in for malasadas, which are Portuguese doughnuts. Tex's has the best malasadas on the island and it's tradition for our family to always pick some up if we're going by. Since it's about a 2 hour drive, we don't go past very often, which is probably good or we'd all weigh about 300 pounds.

Hubby bet WE $1million that he couldn't be absolutely quiet for 24 hours - he only made it 30 minutes, which is probably a good thing since we don't exactly have the million dollars to pay off the bet anyway.

Friday, September 25, 2009

You-ew, my brown eyed girl

Yesterday, Angel #2 soaked her contacts in red food coloring and went to school with red eyes. It was real nice, her eyes matched her tee-shirt. She freaked a few people out though, including some poor clerk at Dominoes when she went out for pizza with her friends. It was kind of gruesome looking. Then, she decided to dye them brown so she and her best friend could have matching eyes today at school. But, she left the contacts in the dye too long and they turned really dark, so she's going to school with black eyes today. She kind of looks like one of the demon people on the tv show Supernatural, except #2 actually has whites in her eyes, which makes her just weird-looking instead of evil. Though, if Dean and Sam want to come over here to check the situation out, I wouldn't stop them...just sayin' ;)

Tonight is the Homecoming football game at the kids' school. Angel #2 has to go play in the band and I guess we're going to the game. Though going to a Homecoming game isn't nearly as much fun if you're not actually in high school, it's pretty boring actually. I just want to watch some football, not see all kinds of gushy ceremonies and rabid teens trying to out-spirit the other grades in their school. It's usually really crowded then too, since the football games aren't the main social event for the students here that they are for most schools on the Mainland. There tends to be more adults there to watch the game than kids, except for Homecoming, where all the kids show up to hear how their classes ranked in the spirit competitions. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be fun anyway.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Who you gonna call?

Last night Angel #2 announced that she'd seen WE's ghost girl the other day. She saw a girl, dressed in nice clothes, standing under the mulberry tree in the back yard. She wasn't sure if it had been a noise or what that made her look over by the tree. She didn't give any more details either, so I don't know if the girl just disappeared or what. Now that 2 kids have seen her, it looks like it needs a little more investigating.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Welcome to the 21st century

I stopped by Safeway today to pick up a couple dozen eggs - we seem to go through them really quickly. They've added something to the store since I was there last week, self check-out aisles. These are the first of these kind of things I've seen in any of the stores on our island, I don't think they even have them at the new Target. I'd never used a self check-out before and since I only had 2 items, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to try it out. It was fun playing store lady and bleeping and bagging my own items. I even managed to do it without needing the help of the employee they have standing there helping people get used to the new machines. I know these things are all over the place on the mainland, but we're just a bit behind the times here in the middle of the Pacific. We do catch up eventually though.

I just found out that the states solution to saving money is to have what they're calling "furlough days" at the schools. This means that, starting in the middle of October, there will be no school every other Friday. By doing a little math, I've already figured that the kids down here get 1 days worth of school LESS per WEEK than our kids got when we lived in Wisconsin. Now it's going to be even worse. Is it any wonder that Hawaii ranks in the bottom 5 in education among all 50 states? Angel #1 compares going to school down here like going to a commune hippy college vs. going to Harvard. He's also glad that high school diplomas are pretty generic and that employers don't put much stock in WHERE the diploma came from, otherwise, he'd be screwed. It's got to be pretty bad when a regular, just putting-his-time-in, high school kid is complaining about the quality of his education. Sad thing is, with the way this country is heading, it's going to get worse before it's ever going to get better.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

the sheep hits the fan

I ended up going to the football game Saturday with just the girls. Hubby and the boys all found something better to do. Our team pretty much dominated the game - it was to the point where I was hoping the opposition got some points so they wouldn't feel too badly during the 2 1/2 hour bus ride home they had ahead of them. Then ended up getting some points, though we still won 44-22 or something like that.

Our landlord brought over a huge bunch of bananas and they were all perfectly ripe and needed something done with them before the fruit flies took over. I ended up making 4 dozen banana muffins on sunday afternoon, the kids should be set for breakfast for a little while now. And I've still got enough bananas left to make a banana cream pie or two. Also, as a thanks to the landlord, I'm going to make him a mango pie tomorrow.

Yesterday, hubby went up to check on the sheep and found the mother sheep, Charlotte, dead. Charlotte was pretty stupid and she ended up strangling herself with a rope. Claudia and Charlie were pretty upset about seeing their mother in that state and spent a bit of time baaing pitiously, but they seemed to have gotten over it and were quiet today. Charlotte was the sheep I'd given a haircut to last week. Her wool was really gross and matted and we'd been waiting for her to calm down and get used to us before grooming her, but she was so spastic and the hair was getting so disgusting, that I had hubby hold her down while I gave her a cut. Guess I could have saved us some sheep wrestling if I'd have just waited, huh? Oh well, as least she made a well-groomed corpse.

Saturday, September 19, 2009

are you ready for some football?

Tonight we're going to the high school football game. It's against the next biggest school on the island and hopefully will be a good one. I'm going to remember to bring a butt pillow for hubby as well as myself this time since last game we went to, he gave me guilt feelings because he had to sit on the cement bleachers while I had the foresight to bring a pillow with me and he didn't.

Thursday there was a bomb scare at our Walmart. Someone had left a suspicious looking package next to the store with what could be construed as a threatening message written on it. The store was shut down for 7 hours before the bomb squad announced the box was safe. One of the bocce ball players works at Walmart collecting carts from the parking lot. I visit with him every time I see him there. Last night at practice I asked him how he felt and he said he was pretty scared. When I asked what he did when he found out about the threat, he said, "I ran real fast." I told him he did the smart thing. This particular guy has a special place in my heart. He's so sweet and soft-spoken, but what really clinched it was a couple weeks ago. I was chatting with him at Walmart a couple days after we'd done the Cop on Top Special Olympics fundraiser. I hadn't seen Ray there that weekend, so I asked if he'd been. He said he'd been there on Friday, which explained it since I was there on Thursday and Saturday. But it was what he said next that I loved. He told me that on Saturday he'd been "running at the hotel". I knew that there'd been a fun run for cancer at the 4 Seasons. I thought it was really neat that while we'd been raising funds for Ray, and people like him, because they needed the money for the Olympics, that he'd been out there raising funds for cancer. We thought he needed our help, while he was out there helping others. It all makes a full circle, doesn't it?

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

another family milestone

I've decided to live my life dangerously. You know, spend a little time on the edge. Cut loose and be free. What crazy, devil-may-care thing have I done, you wonder? For the first time in 17 years, I have bought GLASS glasses for my family's use. I am willing to give my family the opportunity to drink from glass containers and not leave them shattered on the floor. No more Tupperware for this woman - uh-uh, we've now hit the big time. I have to admit that I didn't go too nuts and buy expensive ones or anything. Actually the ones I bought were even cheaper than the plastic ones I usually buy (we break those reguarly, if you want to know the truth). I may be brave, but I'm not a spendthrift - if we can keep the $2.50/pkg of 4 ones intact, maybe some day I'll actually buy nice ones. I think I'll save that for when the kids all move out of the house. But, then again, that's probably what MY parents thought when I was a kid, but to the best of my knowledge, the Smurf glasses we collected on a weekly basis from a Hardees promotion back in the '80's still have a promient place in their cupboard.

Yesterday I went to help with the bocce ball practice at the park for the Special Olympics. There's a bocce division where a special olympian teams up with a non-mentally handicapped partner for a team competition and they were in need for some more non-mentally handicapped participants. I filled out the proper paperwork and (here's something I never thought I'd say) I'm now an athlete in the Special Olympics. :D

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Time to get out the Colgate

Angel #4 has been watching this 5 minute how-to show called Howdini on Hulu and has been paying special attention to the cake decorating ones. Today she decided to make a cake that looked like a pair of blue jeans. She talked her father into buying candy decorations and she used them heavily. So she made a strawberry flavored cake with cream cheese frosting and tons of Skittles and Good N' Plenties on them. I haven't even eaten a piece and my teeth are rotting.

Saturday night Angel #2 was out and told us that a boy was taking her home and she'd be here shortly. Soon after, a car pulled up at the end of the driveway. Explanation: Our driveway has a gate at the end which only opens via remote control, we also have a driveway that is a driving challenge in the best of situations and most people don't care to try it at night if they can help it. So, most people picking up/dropping off kids, just drop them at the end of the drive and the kid walks from there. Now, back to the story. Hubby notices the car at the end of the driveway and starts to think that maybe it's sitting down there with no outside action going on for a bit too long. But, he doesn't want to look like a psychotic, over-protective father (even though is kind of is one) so he wanders over by WE and whispers in his ear that he thinks #2 is making out at the end of the driveway and that WE should sneak down there and surprise her. Yeah, he's an evil dad. WE got about halfway down the drive when the car left w/out disgorging #2. False Alarm By this time though, WE can hear all the wild pigs that wander our yard snorting and grunting in the woods along the driveway and freaked out so when #2 and the boy really ARE at the end of the driveway for an inordinate amount of time, he won't go down there to 'surprise' them. Angel #2 should thank her lucky stars her brother's afraid of wild pigs.

#2 was also talking the other day about her unwillingness to empathize with others. She gets that from me whose attitude about complainers is that they should either suck it up or do something about it. She then tells me today that a friend of hers who thinks she's a bit of a princess complained on her MySpace status that she had "a horid day and it was all someone else's fault". My daughter, Miss Empathy, commented simply that she'd spelled horrid wrong. That's my girl!

Monday, September 14, 2009

One of those days

Yesterday was one of those days. Angel #2 wanted to go to the fair and we told her we'd give her $20. Wristbands for unlimited rides were advertised for $20 and she decided to put all her money into getting a wristband and use her own savings for necessities like cotton candy and caramel apples. You can't buy wristbands at the fair, you have to get them online and once I finished jumping though all the stupid hoops to buy the dumb thing and having to pay all their stupid extra fees, that her $20 ticket ended up costing $25, what a rip-off.

That afternoon, I decided to check on the sheep and discovered that Claudia had gotten her rope rapped around a branch and was stuck tight to it. I couldn't untangle her and decided to just break the branch off. As soon as it snapped, Claudia freaked out and started running around the tree - effectively tying ME to the tree in the process. I honestly couldn't get out and every time I'd try to lure her closer so I could untangle myself, she ran again. Thank goodness WE was home and he could hear me yelling for help or I would have been wrapped around that tree for who knows how long. Dumb sheep.

Later on, I went to do a load of laundry and noticed the floor was wet by the washer. We'd just fixed a leak there, so I knew the floor should have been dry. Then I noticed that the 'water' was blue. I know that in all the pictures of Hawaii, you see beautiful blue water, but my laundry water looks just like yours, water-colored. Turns out one of my big 64oz bottles of laundry detergent sprung a leak and 3/4 of one was all over the floor, under the washing machine and running down the wall from the shelf where the bottle was. I wasn't sure how to go about cleaning it up, then inspiration struck. Our basement is open, so I figured I'd just drag the hose down there and hose off the detergent, sending it right outside. I started spraying and building up a pretty good sudsy foam when I noticed that despite the fact that we live in hurricane and flash flood country, the person who poured our basement floor never thought to pitch it at an angle so any water there would flow outside. It was all building up in a very hard to reach corner of the floor. After a bit of broom contortioning I finally got it cleaned up, but the floor is still a bit damp down there and now I'm out almost an entire bottle of laundry detergent.

Whenever I'm writing something on the computer and don't know how to spell something, I click on Google and start spelling it to the best of my abilities. Google, intelligent program that it is, figures out what I'm looking for and offers the correct spelling. I figured that was how most people cured their spelling problems now days. Not Hubby though, he's been writing something tonight and kept asking me how to spell things. I would do my Google thing, then give him the correct spelling. After the 4th interruption though, I told him to just Google the blasted thing and leave me alone. He told me that I should want to help him and make life easier for him. Angel #2 (who'd also helped him spell some things) finally gave him these inspired words of advice: Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach him to Google and maybe he'll learn how to spell. Words to live by.

This entry is getting long and I still haven't told you all the latest news around here. I'll have to fill you in on WE's spy mission tomorrow if I remember. One more funny thing though. Remember a while ago I told you about the man named Dick Boner? I was talking to someone the other day and ol' Dick's name came up and my friend said he'd seen Dick the other day at the store, but couldn't remember his name so he avoided him so he wouldn't look stupid. My question is: How can you forget a name like Dick Boner?

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Huh?


This is an actual map the local paper had in explaining a detour going into effect next week. Is it just me, or is everyone else confused? Thing is, from what I read in the article, they're just reenacting the exact same detour we'd all been using for the last 6 months. Why not just say that? They'd opened the repaired road recently are are now reclosing it so they can put up power lines - though why in the heck they're just getting around to that now is anybody's guess. I read in the Wisconsin paper from where we used to live that the bridge construction they were doing was finished and they were going to open it two weeks early. Imagine that, EARLY! This little Palani Road addition they did, which involves about a half mile of road, has been in the works since 1997! Yep, 12 years to fix something that really only needed a stoplight put in in order to be more efficient. Some things never cease to amaze me.

The ducks discovered the water catchment tank in front of our house yesterday. It's the same big cement tank the kids swim in, and it's big - the size of an actual swimming pool. The ducks totally loved it, for the first time in their little ducky lives, they could swim and dive to their little hearts content. They even slept in it last night - it reminded me of when the kids were little and we'd stay at a hotel and have to drag them out of the pool at the end of the day. It was fun watching the ducks swim around, the problem is they're very verbal, even when they were just floating around if they weren't outright quacking, they were making that grunty kind of noise ducks make. The tank is under our bedroom window, so the ducks woke us up very early this morning. Poor Angel #1's bedroom door is about 5 steps from the tank (he sleeps in an enclosed area in our open basement) and was up at 5:30am yelling and throwing stuff at the dumb quackers. Of course, that didn't solve anything and he ended up moving his pillow and blanket up to WE's room and spent the rest of the morning sleeping up there. The ducks are going to get penned up tonight...it's either that or it's duck l'orange for supper tonight.

Friday, September 11, 2009

going to the fair

The fair is in town this weekend and the Angels are planning on going. It's not much, as far as fairs go. They're not even having animals there this year, so they can't call it the Big Island Family Farm Fair anymore, so now it's just the Big Island Fair. As Angel #2 said, it's just not the fair without a llama. We usually just dump the kids off there and have them call when they're ready to come home and we're going to do the same this year. Being at a hot, noisy, dusty fair isn't my idea of a good time - especially if there aren't any llamas.

You know the joke about the old timer giving someone directions by saying that you should turn right where Smith's barn used to be? For the first time ever, I heard someone give directions like that and he was serious. He told them to turn at the building after the one where Standard Kitchen Supply used to be. I about hurt myself laughing.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

this doesn't happen every day

I got paid to go shopping today. How awesome is that? Of course, it would have been even awesomer if I had something more exciting than carburator cleaner and motor oil on my list, but hey, can't argue when you're paying with someone else's money.

Winter's coming. I had to put a sweatshirt on this morning when I got up. Mid 60's is a bit chilly when you're used to warmer temps. Things got warmer as the day when on though and I was sweating again before you know it.

Friday, September 4, 2009

exciting bonus entry

I've mentioned before that I've got really long hair. After a shower I have to leave it hang loose for an hour or two so it dries enough for me to do something with it. This morning while it was hanging loose, I decided to transplant a couple pepper plants from the pot to the garden. I accidently buried some of my hair, people.

I do not recommend this as it defeats the whole purpose of showering in the first place. The End

Cops on Top

Yesterday afternoon Angel #4 and I did the Cops on Top fundraiser for the Special Olympics. There's a 20ft scaffolding set up in front of our local Safeway - and 4 or 5 of our guys in blue volunteer their time to spend Thurs morning through Saturday night on top, coming down only for stretch and bathroom breaks. The rest of us hang out down on the bottom and collect donations from shoppers. The guys have a sound system up there and played disco music the entire day - why disco? I dunno, but we were dancing to YMCA and Carwash, shaking our buckets and shaking down grocery shoppers for their cash. They also made use of the microphone, talking to people in the parking lot. One of the single cops was making it a point to talk to all the pretty girls - telling them if they want to call him to just dial 9-1-1. Yeah, he's a smooth operator all right.

Angel #4 collected about 5 times more money than me, she flashes that little blond haired blue eyed girl smile and, I'm not making this up, people would walk past me to put the money in her bucket. No surprise really, she's had 10 years experience getting things out of her father using her manipulating skills - at least now she's using her powers for good.

A damper was put on the festivities when we found out that one of our Big Island Olympians had died that morning. I don't know the details, but we decided to not tell the other atheletes working with us yesterday the news yet - I'm sure they were told last night after they got home.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

WWTP

There's a sign on the highway directing us to the WWTP. The road it points out doesn't seem to go anywhere (it's unfinished gravel with a gate across it - but for some reason, gets its own left turn arrow). Anyway, Angel #2 and I have enjoyed trying to figure out what WWTP stands for. Where Would Travis Pee was one of our suggestions, if you were wondering. But, ultimately, we've decided it stands for Whoa, What The Poop? Yes, we're juvenile, but we have fun.

I've got a busy week in WWTP land. Last night, after #4 have violin lessons, #2 and I headed out to the high school to participate in the drivers ed lottery. There are a limited number of spaces available and if they have more kids than spaces, they hold a lottery. Last year, there was room for 30 and 35 kids showed up, but fortunately, Angel #1 was one of the chosen ones. This year, there was space for 60 and 57 kids showed up. For some stupid reason, there has to be exactly 30 kids in each class or they won't hold it. A couple more kids trickled in as the meeting progressed, so it looks good. Angel #2 starts drivers ed the end of September. She's got to be to school by 7am, which will be a bit of a challenge for her, but it's only for a month and a half, so we should be good. Tonight is elementary PTO, which I somehow got myself involved in, after that is Bible Study. Tomorrow, I've volunteered to help with Cop on Top, which is where they erect scaffolding in front of the grocery store and cops hang out up on top while volunteers (aka me) stay at the bottom and collect money for the Special Olympics. That should be a fun time. I talked to one of our bocce ball players yesterday and he told me he and his partner took third in state a couple weeks ago in Oahu - so that was cool. I didn't feel so bad that he and his partner kicked my butt in bocce last month at a picnic we were at.