The Tree Guys Cometh

A little over a week ago we had some Tree Guys come and take down 4 of our trees, plus trim another. And then we decided, with a neighbor, to also have them take down a triad of trees growing on our property line.

Apparently Tree Guys attract a lot of attention - not only were all the neighborhood children out to watch the excitement, but the neighbors on each side of our house also got in on the action, having some trees removed while the equipment was here. The Tree Guy said that was not uncommon.

Despite being very exciting, I got few action shots. But here's a few from the experience.

The Tree That Started It All ~ We've wanted this sad looking Juniper Tree out for years:

We actually missed that one coming down because there were enough guys that they did that one while we watched another one. But here's the cool looking aromatic cut end, Juniper smells a lot like cedar. One neighbor and one tree guy took home the biggest of the juniper logs, apparently it's sought after like cedar, too. Who knew?

Here's the little red machine that squeezed into our back yard to take down the tree by the fort that was back in our "woods" ...

And here's the little red machine when it's sprawled out, ready to maneuver the Tree Guys into the places machines can't drive:

And extending it's cherry-picker part to get up high in a tree somewhat behind:

Here's the neighbor's very tall pine losing it's upper branches:

And our Ash running through the chipper:

The bonus trees between our house and the neighbors. They braced the trunks with this claw machine thingie (That's the technical term, right Kelly?) and then a guy cut them with a regular chain saw while the machine controlled where they fell.

And, for Kerri, the picture she was waiting for:

And, perhaps, the best part of all the tree cutting - leaping off the trunks and stumps. No, the boy was not near where they were cutting. These trunks were left for the neighbor, who cut them up into firewood for his family and ours. Wow, thanks, nice neighbor!

Oh NO, I was tagged for the one I was avoiding!

Ahhhh memes. You come across them all the time. Do you hope you're tagged? Steal it for your own blog without being tagged because you love it so much? Or cringe and hope you don't get tagged?

For me it depends on my mood and busyometer reading and the meme itself.

There's one that's been out there that I've been ducking and running when I see. I thought it would be really hard and too personal and all that. So When Terra Incognita posted a comment that she tagged me I was curious, but have to admit I shrunk a little when I saw which meme it was.

A memoir in six words.

Anyone who knows me knows I've got more than six words in me on EVERYthing. I'd say words ooze out of my brain when I sleep, only that sounds kinda gross. They don't, really. Although occasionally I do talk in my sleep. But that's rare. And usually embarrassingly disconnected and nonsensical. Especially if I try to explain why I said what I said.

Anyway. Terra's entry starts, "I thought I would be agonizing over it. But I wasn't."

And I shook my head. Knowing that I would be agonizing over it. Trying to figure out how deep I'd want it to be, and then of course cutting out the other 42,615 words that summed up my memoir.

But, surprisingly, it came to me, in 7-8 words. Which is almost worse, it's harder to cut words out and still have things make sense when you start with so few. Cut one word out and the whole thing becomes a grammatical nightmare, you know?

Of course, I didn't START with what I figured out, and now it's floating out of reach in my brain again. I should have started with the six words. Live and Learn. Wait, that's only three words, and wasn't it.

Here we go. Wait, I'm not sure it counts as a memoir if it's based in the future, and isn't MY reflection but what I hope others can see when I die. But it's what I have. So if it doesn't actually meet the criteria, we'll just say I kimodified it.

That's what, at the end of my life, I'd like you to see in me. I don't think I'm there yet, but that's what I'd like you to be able to say was clear about my life, when I'm old and - oh, wait, I'm already gray. When I'm old and/or gone.

I guess I could make it "memoirish" by changing the I to she, but I want it to me more than a secret in my heart that I felt. I want my life to be unmistakably clear, that I loved the Lord and lived for Him.

How's that for turning 6 words into a novel? :-)

I won't tag you. But I'll encourage you to think about it a little. It wasn't as bad as I thought. Thanks, Terra. I think I needed to think about this, today.

One of Those Days

It's another one of those days ... I think I have too many of them.

Our morning was spent simply trying to get the 'daily' chores done. They were done yesterday, so how did they get so out of control or take so long this morning?

I gestured to the posted schedule/list and explained how the before breakfast jobs should be done before breakfast, and that ideally the after breakfast jobs would be done by 10 (we do have a late breakfast and slower start than some industrious families, especially during the summer) and that would give us a nice 2 hour block to enjoy relaxing and playing in the clean house before lunch and lunch chores. They all looked at me rather blankly.

Some barely found time for lunch before quiet time began, squeezing their last chores in in a panic. One chose to miss lunch rather than complete the assigned work (which was by no means too much for the child). Several lost their computer and technology time for the day, as well.

And yet, it doesn't seem to matter to them. They are as content to lose official desired play times/privileges as they are to squirrel away the morning playing in 10 minute bursts before being caught and sent to finish their work.

We have had good times, good seasons, where they seem to engage in their work quickly and take pride in a job well done, and look forward to being done to move on to bigger and better things. But this has not been the case lately.

Little ones sometimes nap well and sometimes rest well and other days don't ... today was a don't. While they were relatively quiet (a requirement of quiet time) they were not asleep, which led to extra potty breaks and such, which led to many interruptions to my dozing, which meant I never really took the *nap* my tired pregnant body seems to need right now.

So somehow we muddled through and most of the jobs were done adequately by some point, the house never really had that clean, fresh, and done feel to it. Add to that one tired and crabby and worn out mommy, and it means all the other things on my mind reduce me to tears.

We're reaching a stage with my older daughter where she wants to do more Youthy things. I am willing to begin to grant some additional privileges and responsibilities, but the options available are not always what I would choose. Our church is big and huge and, from what I see helping with the children's choir during the school year, the youth group spends a lot of time running around unsupervised in the hallway, giggling and being cliquey and looking very much like I remember junior high. I would love for my daughter to be involved with some other girls growing into young ladies, but I am not seeing the youth group as the best path to that. I would like to hang out with other like-minded families, but those we are closest to do not have girls in the same age range. I don't want to "throw out the baby with the bathwater" with the church and youth group -- certainly there are some good people involved and some good things happening. But I can not sort out how to add the good without taking the package deal - in fact, sometimes the few things we have interacted with have seemed like high pressure sales pitches for the whole program, and that does not seem to be what we want or need right now.

I don't really know where this is headed. I'm spending time in the Word and prayer over all this, but right now feel like I'm spinning my wheels. Maybe because I keep crying, thus making slippery mud beneath me. Don't overanalyze that, I just said it because it sounded funny. So I could end on a light note. Ha. ha. huh.

Boring Life Rambles

I have pix of things to blog, and other stuff I could write about, but it's not coming together and the laundry is waiting, so I thought I'd just ramble, quick.

I almost took a picture this morning of a pile of spoons and bowls and boxes of cold cereal. Some people (see me not naming names? But you know who you are!) were under the impression that I cook "cool" breakfasts all the time. I don't. I just only take pictures and post the pretty ones. Most of the time we have pretty lame breakfasts. Worse than that, despite all my nutritional beliefs, most of our cereal right now is the name brand sugary stuff. I'm pretending, at this stage in my life, that the "made with whole grains!" blurb on the side of the box means something.

We had some trees taken out last Friday, which was exciting. I took a lot of pictures, once I weed through them I'll post a few.

I also had a library book I wanted to get -- I found it on some blog that I'd surfed into from somewhere, I don't know how I got there, and don't think I could get back again if you paid me. My library had it and I wrote it down on the list when the kids went with mom to the library. Then, when they came home, I threw out the list. But I didn't think to ask if they'd picked up that book. They hadn't. So then I thought what a bummer it was, because I couldn't get back to find the book again. But THEN I remembered I'd actually put it on to my electronic "my list" that the library account has, so I will be able to get it, after all. Phew. Of course, my dream is to get it and read it, but my actual "let's be realistic" plan is that I'll check it out, not read it, it'll come due, I'll renew it, not read it, it'll come due AGAIN, I'll renew it again, and still not get around to reading it, and then it will be too late and I'll return it. And then I'll never check it out again because it will be a discouraging reminder of my inability to follow through on reading things I WANT to read at this stage in life. There are a lot of books in that "discouraging reminder" category.

I'm also toying with the idea of doing a summer project or two, you know, the before and after visible progress sort of project ... only I'm afraid to pick and commit to one because I'm just not really sure I'll do it, and then that project will also become a discouraging reminder of the things I don't do.

Speaking of the things I don't do, I did mention laundry waiting for me, didn't I?

Remember how Dr. Science knew more than you do?

I went blog surfing this morning. Found my way from blog to blog to blog to ones that were full of funny hip young people.

It reminded me of Dr. Science - where you were supposed to ask him your questions, 'cause he knows more than you do. Only I was thinking you should just read those other blogs, 'cause they're funnier than I am.

Only I really don't know them, or how I got there. I'm sure they'd think I was a weirdy if you all went there and said I sent you. It would be yet worse if you linked back to me and they were appalled at how this boring stranger found them and linked to them. Freaked out, I think.

So ... no linky love for my surfing.

You might be wondering what I'm doing posting in the middle of the morning, anyway. Or, if you're like me, you just assume that the blog entry was written whenever you were *reading* it, so you didn't think twice about it being posted in the middle of the morning, because surely you are reading this in the evening, after your day and work is done and the children are nestled all snug in their beds.

But I'm writing it in the middle of the morning, still in my fuzzy-wuzzy robe, with my KOOL socks on.

My excuse for this, in addition to the week of sleep I promised myself last week, is that we have sickies in the house. Always an occasion to stay in jammies and do nothing in my book. The Grand Lunar didn't feel well yesterday. Tobiwan Kenobi had a headache which turned horrible and resulted in unhappy barfing. Gark also developed a headache. And I have a gassy tummy ache. Which is probably more than you want to know. 'Cause talking about kids barfing is under mom-blog-topics, but gaseous anomalies really are not. I wonder why that is? I wouldn't mention the tummy ache except I've had it for a few days. What's up with that? And then my friend told me to eat charcoal briquettes or something. No, no, she didn't really say that. But she said I should get some activated charcoal or something, and since I'm not leaving the house today, the briquettes are the closest I could come. Or maybe the graphite in pencils is close enough?

What? Where was I?

Oh yeah. So one of my children is running around in a Captain America muscle suit, two are wearing winter hats and gloves for unknown reasons, and one decided he'd feel much better if he had some computer time. ::Insert suspicious look:: That's only four. Two haven't woken up yet. These two have inherited their father's capacity to sleep. I used to be able to sleep late, too, but not since I turned mommish.

I have fun pix from the park yesterday I could show you, but I guess maybe getting showered and dressed might help me become productive today. I have some laundry to sort-and-fold. Other than that, it looks like a low laying video day for the household.

Oh, and the Grand Lunar said I should change my name in the internetosphere to "sarcastic sugar" ... what do you think? Of course actually changing it anywhere is probably too much effort for me, but I have to admit it has the ring of accuracy to it. Except for maybe the sugar part. Maybe I'm more of a sarcastic lemon. Oh, or Splenda, the Fake Sugar. I could be Sarcastic Splenda, The Fake Sugar With a BITE.

72 hours until I can pass out ...

Today is Eminoodle's 9th birthday!

Lemon Poppy Seed bread for breakfast

After making breakfast I ran out before lunch to pick up Iliacat from her play rehearsal, a few groceries, drop some breakfast bread off for the Grand Lunar, then home for a quick lunch, then out to see our cute old house, which is on the market with a sale pending and I asked a Realtor we know if I could maybe, please, please, go through and see it one more time. I don't know if it's been sold to "real people" or to the Powers That Be That Tear Down Old Houses Downtown To Turn The Area Into A 'Green Belt' and I didn't want to risk it being suddenly gone without one last good bye. My spiderwort and transplanted lilac we left in the yard were doing well. I loved that old house.

Anyway, I hurried home to make Eminoodle's birthday cake according to her quite specific instructions. Right down to candle placement. See the little diagram she made for me?

Then we had a hurried dinner (for Gark and I, anyway) - Aunt C handled chopping up all the fruits and veggies, which was wonderful. Then Gark and I were off for his opening night and my chaperoning duties. The first night went very well, from what I could tell backstage. If you're local, check Thursday's paper for a little blurb and some pictures! Unfortunately they don't post the pix online, but here's one someone else took -- Gark as Augustus Gloop, up on an 8' platform:

We made it home just before 10 to serve cake to Eminoodle and let her open presents. Managed to whoosh everyone into bed by 11 pm. Here's noodle with two of her aunts, C and L!

Three more nights, four more performances, and then I plan to collapse. Although my sister & her children are coming to town on Saturday, so I can only collapse for a little while, since we definitely want to play with them. I'll be glad to be off theater duty for awhile. It's been a busy last few weeks, at least for us. I can't believe there's people who are busy and running all the time like this!

And I suppose, on that note, I really ought to get some sleep.

You Can't Waste Good Sauce

After the waffles yesterday, I had about a cup of sweet cream cheese sauce left over.

It would be a shame for it to end up like so many leftovers gone before it, shoved to the back of the fridge and forgotten until it molded.

Besides, who says you can't put sweet cream sauce on fresh, hot, chocolate-chip banana muffins? Not me, that's for sure.

Now that's breakfast.

Once in a Great While

Mmmmmm homemade waffles.

With fresh strawberries.

And a sweet cream cheese sauce.

Yummy.

And Now I Need A Plan B

It was supposed to be hot, today. First I read 88. Then I read 90. Then I read 92. Then I quit reading weather reports because it was getting hotter each time.

This morning, way back when the prediction was for 88, they also gave us a 20% chance of thunder showers. It hasn't looked like rain all day, so I didn't think twice of it.

bought some ribs while I was out.

Made an Alton-Brownish Rub for them.

Dragged the grill out to an away-from-children corner of the deck. The children were playing in the sprinkler because it was a beautiful sunny, hot day.

I put the last of the charcoal in the grill and lit it up. I was off to a beautiful start.

I turned around and the sky went black.

It started to rumble.

I held out hope for quite awhile. Brought in the grill's grill to clean off, moved the grill a little closer to the overhang. It seemed to be handling the sprinkling well.

I checked the local radar. This did not bode well.

I'm somewhere along that right edge of that pretty rainbow line.

And then ... it started to pour and thunder in earnest.

That's when I decided I needed a plan B.

I need a knitting project

I'm sure I'm due for a better update than this, but I'm tired and kinda brain dead right now.

But several times over the last few weeks I've thought I want a new knitting project. I do have some started (droid hat, droid hat, socks) but they either feel out of season (droid hats) or too much work (2nd C3PO hat) or too much of commitment right now (socks)

SO ... I want a new project. Something fun and maybe kinda quick, and small, that I could tote around in my purse and work on in the little minutes. Not that I have a lot of little minutes right now. But when I DO have them, I'd like some project in my purse. I have lots of yarn in the house, so something that doesn't require me buying yet more yarn would be nice.

Any ideas? :-)

If you needed a low-stress summer knitting project, what would YOU tackle?

Beauty In The Little Things -- An Entry In Two Parts

The First Part:

I have to confess, I have another blog - a new blog - with a very narrow focus. I haven't shared it with you because it's very new, in part, but also because ... hm. It's kind of hard to explain. I didn't really want it "out there" where people were surfing to it and stuff. Why not? Mostly because I don't want people to get the wrong impression. You see, the point of the new blog is sort of like a journal and idea place for myself. Trying to choose to put little bits of beauty into my home.

I spend a lot of time trying (badly) to clean and tidy. Hopefully you all know me well enough to know that. And of course you know my decorating skills leave much to be desired. The end result is that my house is far from "House Beautiful" and always will be. But I wanted to focus not on the BIG things like picking up toys and scrubbing spots on the carpet (not that I do that) and decluttering, but on the little extras. "Curlicues" that add a little whimsy or something special to the every day stuff.

BUT the result of blogging just those things, as a little inspirational and putting-into-practice journal for myself, is that it's a blog where you won't see as much of the REST of me. You'll see my nicest picture of by flowers on the table, or plant cuttings in water. I will have carefully cropped out the pile of blocks on the floor beneath, or wiped away the standard cheerio coating from the table. Because I want to focus on and remind myself of the little extras, not just get bogged down in the daily stuff which sometimes consumes me. But if you were to just stumble across my blog, you might think I had it all together, and my house was all picture-perfect artsy-farsty. I don't want to deceive anyone or inadvertently discourage anyone by only showing my well-cropped good side. I've read too many well cropped good side blogs, myself, and know I am often discouraged by them. And I'm not putting them out there to show off that tiny part of myself, but more for myself, as journal and inspiration. Working on the little things also reminds me to do the daily things -- flowers on the table don't make a lovely home if lunch is still abandoned on the table, you know?

But then I don't want to hide those things from my family and friends who do know me and might enjoy the 'curlicue' journey with me, by keeping the blog a total secret. I'm too much an extrovert for that.

So. If you're interested, pop me a comment that includes your email address, and I'll let you in on the Top! Secret! Blog! -- just don't go thinking I'm all artsy and decoraty and got it all together.

And on to Part Two:

Beauty in the littlest things of all:

The Newest Addition to the AndFam collection, shown here at almost 13 weeks on May 29th, due to arrive in early December. You can't tell here, and I can't tell yet, but it proves to be a very wiggly addition.