I need to get out more

I got two emails in the last couple days.  One is of hubs posing with who appears to be Miss Hawaii and the other was of Angel #2 and a guy dressed up like Dr Who (#9, my favorite Doctor).  Hubs was helping out at Special Olympics state games on Oahu an #2 was at Comic Palooza in Houston.  The highlight of my day was that I got the garden plowed.  I think I need a life.

It was graduation night last night, since we didn't have anyone graduating this year, I got to stay home, but both WE and Angel #4 went.  #4 had to perform with the band and WE has a lot of friends who were graduating, especially one of his very best buddies.  It's always so hard to say goodbye to friends you've spent so much time with and though they'll still have the summer, it just won't be the same anymore.  It's all part of growing up.

Talk about growing, I got some of the garden planted today after it got plowed.  It was kind of funny in a warped way - I'd asked our neighbor if he could plow our garden, but because he had disc surgery on his back a few months ago, he's unable to to the twisting and turning involved in plowing a garden, so he sent his brother over to do it.  When he was a teenager, his brother was in a horrible accident and lost both his arms and I think one of his legs(?).  It just struck my as kind of weird that he sent over a no-armed, one legged man to plow because he wasn't physically able.  Anyway, he did a great job a I got my corn, peppers, tomatoes, and other stuff in.  I'm trying some new vegetables again this year, last years kohlrabi were a rousing success.  So the new veggies of the summer are brussels sprouts and leeks.  I also put in heirloom tomatoes a tomatillo plant, I'm looking forward to trying those babies out this summer.  I just hope the poor things don't freeze out there, the stupid temperatures are peaking out in the upper 50's the last couple days - the calendar says it's almost June, but I'm not believing it.  All the farmers seem to be optimistic, tractors have been going by all weekend getting their plowing and planting done.  I got stuck behind one of those tractor thingys with the huge 6 foot tall wheels that are so high it can drive above the corn plants, it kicked up mud all over the front of my van, I was just thankful it wasn't a manure spreader.

Angel #4 is tent camping with friends for the weekend, I hope she doesn't freeze her butt off.  Oh well, even if she can't go swimming or anything, I'm sure she'll have a great time.  I avoid camping at all costs, especially tent camping, so this is definitely not something she'd experience with her mother.

The End....I think

I think last night was my last track meet of the year.  Since we've been averaging about 3 meets/week for the last month, I can use the break. Freezing my  butt off on the bleachers was getting old.  Fortunately, it was a beautiful day yesterday for the Regionals, so I really enjoyed last night's meet. It helped the WE was really in the zone and did great.  He managed to place in all four of the events he was in and will be going on to Sectionals for all of them.  Sectionals takes place in a town 80 miles away and I'm not planning on making the drive, so my little boy is on his on Thursday evening, but I'm sure he'll do fine.  He's the first runner in the 4x100 m relay and the 4x200 m relay and the long jump.  He also managed to get into sectionals in the 100 meter dash, which is pretty amazing since I don't recall him ever even competing in that event before and his coach just kind of threw him in there as more of an afterthought and told WE to just run his best.  Everyone was surprised that he finaled, including the coach, who was pretty much bursting his buttons over it.  I've been jokingly calling WE and his buddy Grant the coach's golden boys since both of them managed to get a spot at sectionals for all 4 of their regional events.  Grant's parents said they'd cheer WE on for me on Thursday since I wasn't going to be there to do it myself.  Also, since it was regionals our school was competing against schools the same size as theirs, as opposed to regular conference where there's a pretty large discrepancy between school sizes, some of them over half again the size of ours. So our team standing was really good last night as well.  The kids all did great and it was wonderful seeing them enjoying the weather and their sport.

Angel #4 is going to meet with the chief of police and have lunch with her this week. I guess she did good in some kind of good citizen incentive thing and the reward was pizza with the police.  I'm so thankful that when I hear about my kid's brushes with the law, they've all been good brushes.  Plus, it's cool that the police take time to build good relationships with the kids, it'll help things along in the future.  Though, from what I've heard, the biggest problem the kids at the high school seem to have is doing 360's out on the country roads at night- we're not exactly inner city Detroit around here, for which I'm immensely thankful.  All our kids have guns, but around here they're used to take out coon and whitetail, not rival gang members.  What a different world some people live in.

done - ish

Wednesday afternoon the first coat of paint went on the kitchen ceiling with no problems.  Thursday came the second coat, which went a bit slower because my arms were hurting from the day before.  Friday, I did the walls and brush painted around the trim.  There's a LOT of trim in the kitchen because    even though my kitchen is relatively small, there are six doorways in there.  They liked doorways in the old days apparently.  Eventually in the probably very distant future, we're going to switch the bathroom around so we can have the door going into the laundry room instead of into the kitchen, that'll open up a little bit more wall space so I can put in some cabinets or something and give me a little bit more storage room in there because right now I've only got one wall of cabinets (the other 3 walls are covered in doorways) and one peninsula thingy we sort of plopped in there so I had a little counter top space.  I don't know how they got anything done in this kitchen back in the day.  But anyway, my kitchen is all pretty and colorful and my arms are killing me.

Today the weather was nice, so I did a bunch of laundry, then thought I'd go over to the garden and see how the raspberry bushes were getting along.  One thing led to another and I started pruning them back, then weeding them.  Then I moved on to the flower garden/herb bed next to the garage.  I got that about 75% weeded and cleaned out before I pooped out and retreated to the front porch with a good book.  Oh, and I also planted a lilac bush I picked up at the store the other day when I got the paint for the kitchen ceiling. It's called a double bubble bush or something like that because it flowers in the spring like a normal lilac bush, then a second time later in the summer.  More lilac for your buck!  I like that.  Lilac are my favorite flower and I can't wait to have some wonderful smelling blooms right outside my dining room window.  I've planted tons of lilac bushes over the years, but never get to enjoy the flowers because by the time they're established enough to put out blooms, we've moved on to the next house.  I hope we'll be around here long enough to enjoy the fruits of my labor for this bush.  A nomadic lifestyle does have its disadvantages.

A cats trust is a precarious thing

This winter, someone dropped a kitten off at our house and it's been living in our barn. We started feeding it about 2 months ago and slowly it's gotten used to us.  It used to hide when we put out the food and only eat once we left, then it would watch me fill the  cat dish, but wouldn't come any closer.    Then it started meeting us at the top of the ladder as we came up (it lives in the haymow) and soon we could pet her - we finally figured out she was a girl. She even - reluctantly - lets us hold her.  Until today.  She was all loving to me, wanting me to pet her and stuff, then I thought she walked away to eat her food, so I started leaving.  I didn't realize she started rubbing against my legs until I accidentally kicked her.  Not hard or anything, just enough to make her think I'm a meaniepants.  When I told her I was sorry and tried to pet her to make up, she hissed and scratched at me.  I hope she gets over it by tomorrow.  I'm trying to get everything in line so we can get her fixed before it's too late and it will be a lot easier to get her to the vet if she lets us pick her up.  BTW, since she's accepting us, I decided she needed a name.  Her name is Tuna Catarole - Tuna for short, it was either that or Purrrsephone.

WE came home from school yesterday and modeled his new FFA jacket.  Somehow, he's not exactly sure how, he was elected as an FFA officer for next school year, so he needed the required blue corduroy jacket complete with embroidered name and office on the chest.  This being a rural community, FFA is a pretty popular school club, WE's girlfriend and other friends have gone to dairy competitions (this IS Wisconsin, you know) and all kinds of stuff.  I think WE joined because they eat a lot of ice cream at their club meetings.

Hubs finally got my kitchen ceiling all drywalled, mudded and primed, so today I picked up some paint and put the first coat on.  I'm painting the kitchen ceiling the same lime green color that the dining room walls and stairwell are.  Once I'm done with the ceiling, I've got to repaint the kitchen walls, they've been about 3/4's done for over a year, but it didn't pay to finish until the ceiling got done.  So, once I've got the ceiling finished, I'll do the walls turquoise blue and repaint the white trim.  Then a few touch-ups on the orange cabinets and it'll be all painted.  Then the next step is new flooring and I'll have a gorgeous (and colorful) kitchen.

Angels and weddings

Angel #2 came home on Thursday.  Our dear friend Sarah got married on Saturday, so #2 came home for the nuptials.  Angel #1 was going to try to come home as well, but his bossy Uncle Sam wouldn't let him.  What a meanie.

I really missed #2 and it's been nice having her home again.  She was supposed to head out this afternoon, but her flight was cancelled.  This will actually work out to my advantage since Hubs is flying out tomorrow morning, so I'm taking them both to the airport together since #2 is now rescheduled to fly out on the same flight as her daddy.  The inconvenient part is that we've got to leave home at 4:30am to get them there for their 6:30 flight.  

Sarah's wedding was beautiful on Saturday, the weather didn't cooperate, it was cold and rainy, but since it was an inside wedding it really didn't matter anyway.  But, it is nicer to have a sunny day for your wedding.  Oh well, she's just as married no matter what the weather.

I'm having way too much fun at work as a lunch lady and apparently I've infected the children.  Part of my job consists to entering in the kid's ID numbers when they are in the lunch line so they can be charged properly.  If they don't have enough lunch money, it pops up on my screen and I remind the kids to tell them at home to send some money in.  That got a little boring, so I jazzed it up a bit.  I started telling the overdue lunch money kids that if they didn't bring some money in, they were going to have to sit under the tables instead of at them.  Then I would tell the other kids standing around them in the line to make sure not to kick them when they were eating.  I also told a few that this could work out to their advantage - if someone drops their french fries, it would be an added bonus to the under the table kids.  The other day, I told a kid he needed to bring in some lunch money and one of the other kids in the line said: Jordan, you're going to have to eat under the table today!  I've taught them well. :)

body parts in my kitchen

I had to tell hubs last night to not eat the pancreas sitting in the kitchen.  Normally, a pancreas wouldn't be that tempting to start snacking on, but this particular pancreas was made out of Rice Crispy treats and Trix cereal.  WE's anatomy teacher has some odd assignments.  A couple weeks ago, he made cookies that looked like brains.  Lovely.  WE posted a picture of his pancreas on his Facebook page, his buddy said that it had nothing on his beautiful thyroid creation.  What happened to the old days when we just dissected a rat and called it a day?

We spent the weekend in Milwaukee.  Hubs had a Toastmasters convention (sadly, to late I discovered it had nothing to do with making the perfect breakfast side dish) and we decided to all go together for a little get away.  WE decided he'd rather stay home, so Angel #4 brought her friend, Jenna, along.  Friday night hubs and I mixed and mingled, then Saturday morning we were getting ready to head out again.  Hubs took some business cards out of his wallet and just happened to read one of them out loud.  He said, "A2Z Dreams."  Then Jenna (#4's friend) said, "hey, that's my cousin's business!" How strange is that?  It just happened that the cousin was doing a presentation that afternoon, so we told the girls to come to the convention center and listen.  Angela (the cousin) was so excited to have Jenna come listen to her.  What are the odds that #4's best friend's cousin just happened to be giving a presentation at a convention 100 miles away from where we live at the convention we were at?  Life is odd sometimes.  In other odd things, another convention goer happened to be someone I went to high school with, she graduated two years after me. Weird, huh?

On our way home on Sunday, we stopped by The Domes in Milwaukee, a conservatory with tropical, desert and show plants and trees.  It was a pleasant little side trip and brought back some memories of Hawaii.

Jeannie, our track team is so small compared to other schools that there's very little chance of the team itself ever winning a meet, so they're more about bettering their own records though winning is fun also.  :)  I'm guessing you must not have the lightning issues we've got around here.  Commonly, rain brings lightning and having people sitting in metal bleachers or kids standing around in a flat field surrounded by huge light towers isn't an ideal situation, so it's a safety issue.  That, and standing around in pouring rain in 40 degree weather can't be good for keeping muscles warmed up before events and, to me, would be just begging for more injuries.

dodged that one

There was supposed to be another track meet tonight.  After beautiful weather mon-wed, last night around 6, a cold front moved in and it got COLD.  With wind and highs of the mid-40's, I really didn't want to freeze through another meet, but fortunately for me, it started pouring about an hour before the meet was to start and they cancelled it.  I'm sure WE will be a mixture of relieved and upset.  Yesterday, he tried pole vaulting for the first time in practice and his coach decided to have him compete in tonight's meet and WE was pretty nervous.  Maybe next time, I'm kind of excited to see him try something new.  At his meet on Tuesday night, he did really well in the long jump and made a new lifetime personal record of 18'5 1/4", it wasn't enough to place, but he was pretty excited to make such a good jump and improving his previous record by over 8 inches.  He also finaled in the triple jump, which is pretty amazing since he hasn't done the triple since he was a freshman, once again, he didn't place but in track, it's more about beating your own records than beating someone else.

It's my little WE's birthday today.  He's 17 years old, I can't believe how grown-up my kids are getting.  I got him a cake at the local cake store.  I always used to make birthday cakes for the kids birthdays, but since the cake store opened, we've been getting them there instead.  We aren't real cake fans, so whenever I made a cake in a 9x13 cake pan, I'd end up throwing half of it out (unless Angel #2 is around, she LOVES cake).  The cakes at the cake shop are smaller, they cut into about  6 nice sized pieces, just enough for one for each of us and a couple extra for the birthday boy/girl.  Not only are they better tasting than mine, they sell for the ridiculously low price of $8, they could easily get double that, but I'm not going to tell them, I prefer getting them under priced, because I'm a cheapskate that way.