The Tortures of Cleaning One's Room

For the love of PETE. 

Kloe has been in her room for FOUR HOURS, "cleaning".  Argh.  I was ready to jump in there are three and a half hours ago to do it myself, but then I got the 'She'll never learn to do it herself if you keep jumping in there to do it' speech from Derrick, so I withdrew.  Talk about torturing the both of us.  If I wasn't determined to clean her carpet tomorrow I would just give up. 

Not worth it. 

BUT, since giving up isn't an option for either of us at this point, and she only has thirty-five minutes left before bedtime, I've had to resort to threatening to keep her lizards in my room for a while.  I actually hear a lot more movement in her room, so maybe everything will be work out?  A lot of flinging and flouncing actually.  I'm definitely not on her 'top five parent list' at the moment.

Derrin's still working in his room too.  He's doing the finer details, like figuring out what to do with all the shoes lining his walls.  I think it only took him so long because I found a really cool fish tank for his room today, so he was moving his little bug-eye goldfish "Wolf" over to his new home and coaxing him to eat.

We bought Wolf yesterday at Walmart.  I'm hoping that he lives longer than any of the other fish I've bought from there.  Usually they only make it a week or two before floating belly up.  He (*as in DERRIN, not WOLF- thanks for calling me about that Renae-haha* :) was willing to go grocery shopping with me if I took him to Pet Smart, but then Pet Smart was closed.  He was one sad little guy.  Getting the fish at Walmart made the sad face go away.  Hopefully it's not back in a couple weeks.

While Derrin and I were out fish/grocery shopping, Derrick took Kloe to get a new bike- her feet were draggin on the ground on her old one. By their bike riding accounts, a good time was has by all (as in Kloe and Derrick- Derrin and I were on the aforementioned grocery shopping expedition).

Okay.  The moment of truth is coming up (13 extra minutes, hopefully spent well).  Time to go check out the rooms and then kiss some kids before sleepy time.  Hoping Kloe's lizards aren't coming into the Gramma Lizard's room.

Being Finite is Lame

It's 9:10 am.  I'm sitting here drinking my coffee, wondering why in the world I feel so anxious. 

I've been off work for almost two weeks now.  If things were going according to plan, I would be rocking life at this exact moment.  Instead I am sitting here completely overwhelmed and kind of sad. 

It's raining again out there, buckets of the stuff.  It's darkish for morning.  I can hear the rain pelting against our roof.  It's so quiet in here. 

I have so much to do.  My house has still not completely recovered from the camping bomb.  I need to reconcile quick books, pick up the mail, and do some business stuff. 

I wanted to run this morning, but running in the rain just isn't as magical to me as it used to be (and that is said with sarcasm). 

I have friends and family I'd really love to be visiting, and I hope that the last couple weeks isn't a preview of this summer, or I'll never get to just take off to be with them. 

And yes, I do realize that I just got to go camping with a bunch of friends this weekend.  But I feel like complaining, and this is MY blog, so complain I will. 

Is it too much to ask for to have infinite time for:  Being with friends and my family, taking pictures, learning to play my guitar better, painting, learning how to make stamped jewelry, working in my yard, blogging, and reading?  And is it so much to ask for the sun to just keep shining and for the darned rain to just go away? 

I don't think so.

Regina Spektor- Laughing With

Found the guitar tabs for this today.  The guitar part isn't too hard, but the vocals are. :) Love this song.

Regina Spektor~official' Laughing With' Video (not great quality tho)



No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one's laughing at God when they're starving or freezing or so very poor
No one laughs at God when the doctor calls after some routine tests
No one's laughing at God when it's gotten real late and their kid's not back from that party yet
No one laughs at God when their airplane starts to uncontrollably shake
No one's laughing at God when they see the one they love hand in hand with someone else and they hope that they're mistaken
No one laughs at God when the cops knock on their door and they say, "We've got some bad new, sir"
No one's laughing at God when there's a famine, fire or flood

But God can be funny
At a cocktail party while listening to a good God-themed joke or
Or when the crazies say he hates us and they get so red in the head you think that they're about to choke

God can be funny
When told he'll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie
Who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus

God can be so hilarious

No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one's laughing at God when they've lost all they got and they don't know what for
No one laughs at God on the day they realize that the last sight they'll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes
No one's laughing at God when they're saying their goodbyes...

First Camping Trip of the Year

This weekend was better than I expected.

Pretty much every memorial day weekend for the last five years we have gone camping. 

Pretty much for the last five years it has rained over memorial day weekend. 

I have vowed (for the last five years) that I was never, and I mean NEVER, going camping over memorial day weekend again. 

And.  

It rained this weekend, as expected.

It was still fun though, even through all the rain and the cold wind that blew through our camp in freezing bursts.

The number of people camping at our site grew from day to day.  We were camping with Steve and Sabrina (ubber social butterfly types) so it wasn't surprising that a lot of friends had been invited. Four days of living commune style with a lot of people I don't know that well was a good thing for me.  Situations like that force me to talk to people, and least more than the prerequisite awkward 'greet then run' I usually do.  Even made some new friends.

We ate a lot of good food (Steve is a fantastic Camping Chef- he has it down to a fine art), played a lot of games (including late nights of Texas Hold 'Em, my new favorite), and spent hours sitting around a blazing campfire, talking and trying not to choke on the smoke. 

The guys did a lot of fishing, and managed to catch a trout and a pike.  I pretty much lost interest in that activity after trying to cast my line, only to discover I had cast straight to the top of a tree.  If I had been 'birding' instead of 'fishing', it would have been a really great cast.  Neither the birds or the fish were really biting, at least not to the satisfaction of my attention span, so I soon found myself back at the campfire trying to warm up.

The kids (of course) had fun.  Derrin and Cameron rode their little motorcycles around and around, sounding like giant mosquitoes buzzing in and out of our ear shot range. 

There were lots of little foresty areas, perfect for kids pretending to be deer, or being other animals of prey, hiding from their brothers and parents. 

Kloe, throughout all of the cold, rain, and wind, only wore a fleece (I was up to three layers by Sunday), and until Saturday I don't think she even bothered with wearing shoes.  Shoes would have cramped her style while she was dancing around in the mud anyways. 

We (as in grown ups) were playing a game of botchee ball when we heard Darby scream down by the water.  We ran over toward the sound, and saw red running down her face.  It was one of those fishing accidents that always seem to happen around kids- we thought at first it was a fish hook from when Derrin cast his line, but it turned out to be a strike from the giant weight needed to cast in that windy fishing environment.  Hit her little noggin' right above her hairline and gave her a little cut and a goose egg.  After that trauma, a lot of time was needed in the camper with cartoon therapy (yes, there was a television, cartoons, and video games on this camping trip).

Speaking of camping trauma, the next day I tried to show Kloe how to ride Derrin's motorcycle.  After sending her on her way, I realized I had spent a lot of time on shifting, how to use the gas handle, and where the foot brake was, but I had neglected to mention a very important tidbit- letting go of the gas is a very important factor while trying to stop. 

She took off like a bullet, and my omission of that fact became instantly apparent.  I took off running after her screaming "KLOE!!!! LET OFF THE GAAAAS!!!!" over and over, but she continued to accelerate.  She flew over ruts in the road.  She bounced over big rocks.  She blasted through all plant life.  Her feet were all but flying out behind her as she clung to the handles, in true superman fashion.  Finally there was the inevitable and impressive crash. 

I finally caught up to her, my heart doing flip-flops.  She just looked a little stunned, and then she saw my face of terror.  It then occurred to her that this was definitely a moment to cry.  So she sniffled a little bit as we (as a couple other from our group had caught up at this point) checked her over.  Fortunately,  there was just a little scrape on her tummy from when she hit the grass.  More cartoon therapy was in order at this point, so we made our way back to the trailer.

Besides that, it was all fun, games, hanging out, eating, gathering firewood, and relaxing.

The whole weekend was actually a great kick off to summer.  I'm looking forward to more weekends like this one! 

And now it's time to start the loads of camping laundry.  *sigh* Real life begins.

Is this FUN or what?!?

Muddy Little Girl Feet

Double fistin

Day One- Hair still under control.



Hot Dogs!



Steve and Bean

D n Me

Sexy Much?

Camping and Ping pong.  Why Not.

Manly art of camping.

Learning to Build a campfire

More campfire schooling

Chef Steve

Campsite

Fun with Glow in the dark sticks

Our Group



Aw, my friends!



Art and camping.  Why not.

Didn't want to leave!



Last day shot.



Balancing

I reconciled quickbooks all by my little ol' self today!!  No help!  And it BALANCED!!!! 

There were moments of insecurity, of course.  Moments of questioning my intelligence. 

Moments of cursing my youthful disregard of all things accounting when I was younger and in school.

I doubted.  I even got a little choked up once.



 But ultimately, I prevailed!! 

And now I am done with that.  For the day.



I have a talk tonight at meeting.  I will feel much better tonight when it is done.  But still glad to have had one.

This weekend we are going camping. We parked our camper earlier this week to ensure an awesome camping location on Memorial Day Weekend.  We parked it on TUESDAY.  I just know there are people heading up there today thinking they are being all vigilant, only to curse the campers that got there on Tuesday. 

It's right by the water.  It is major flooding season out there right now.  I called that I get two points if our camper gets washed away by flood water before we even get there.  If it doesn't get washed away, I have to make cookies for everyone I was giving a hard time about the campsite choice (mainly Steve). 

Seems fair to me.

We are bringing the motorcycles, so that'll be fun.  There are also supposed to be pike in the water up there.  But, in case it rains (which it's looking like it will), there are lots of games and I will be bringing my kindle.

Anyways, I doubt I will be on here blogging for the next couple days, as I will be off the grid.  Hope y'all have a good weekend:)

Running Talk: Litter, Bad Parking Choices, and Flower Stalking

Today while running, in the theme of pretending to be elsewhere, I imagined I was in Mexico.

Some of the key things I remember from my Mexico times are warm breezes, ocean air, and the trash piled up for miles along the road.  I actually did experience two out of those three things today.  One of those things I did not enjoy.  At.  All.

Most of the time I just try to ignore the litter, but some times it just makes me SO MAD.  Ugh.  I hate terms like "trashy people", but maybe some people have earned the title with their joyrides at 2:30 in the morning where they fling beer cans, bottles filled with chewing tobacco, and fast food bags indiscriminately out their car windows and into ditches.

Pieces of litter feel like little brain bombs just waiting for me to see them. They burst into my happy little bubble of jogging and appreciation of nature.  I have to fight dwelling on them, because they drag me down.  It's hard to keep running when I feel angry and depressed about other people's selfish choices.  Just as in life, I have to look back up, forget about the trash, and move forward.

While I'm going down this negative road filled with memories of road trash, I think I will mention one more unpleasantry I've encountered out there:  Random cars that drive past me and then park right along where I will have to run past. 

I'm not talking about people in residential areas who are pulling into their driveways.  I'm talking about a dirt road that goes for miles, where you have the choice to park anywhere along those miles but you still choose to park directly in my path.

I don't care if you are an eighty year old woman who is making the choice to pull up and park right in my running path; it creeps me out!  I don't know that you are an eighty year old woman; all I know is that there is a car that may or may not represent danger to me. 

Obviously these people don't realize I am packing a very dangerous and loaded can of pepper spray which I HAVE PRACTICED using.  It sprays a full eight feet, Buster, and I'm not afraid to use it.

Speaking of creepy, how weird (or criminal) would it be for me to start meandering into people's yards to take snapshots of their flowers?  There are a lot flowers I'd love to shoot when I'm out jogging by houses. And I don't mean little blackberry camera shots; I'm thinking of bringing back the big camera that I wish I was tough enough to carry while I run.

Anyway, I'd probably only give flower stalking a 4/10 rating of creepiness..

Random Things I Saw While Running Today

Baby Cows!

Lots of Dead Things!

Flowers and Mountains!

~Dog Art~

It's not too hard to decipher what Kloe is thinking about these days.  With her laser like focus, she will have one of these guys before too long.


Looks like a Black Lab.



He will be protective.

Maybe a Yellow Lab?

Her dog will be very happy.

Beautiful Rain

It is raining outside this morning.  A LOT.  The plants are soaking it in though.  On days like this I like to pretend I'm somewhere more exotic, like Ireland or Scotland. 

It gets so green here this time of year.  If you were to put pictures of Ireland right next to pictures of our area during Springtime, you'd see a lot of similarities. 

Now, if only we could have cooler accents.

I planted some of flowers this weekend- mostly some dahlias I bought awhile ago. All this rain is soaking into their little roots right now.

I also planted a big pot with a dahlia plant and some bulbs that are supposed to turn into big green leafy things. As soon as they start to come up, I'm going to finally do the running water from a flower pot to a buried pot (love water sounds) project (it's in my 'Projects I want To Try' file to the right). I have the water pump, the ten gallon bucket and the flower pots, but I still need some hard wire and big rocks to put over the hole with the big buried bucket.

My Peonies, sitting around, just being beautiful.

I'm hoping it clears up this afternoon. I'd love to go for a run. I did the six miles yesterday where I speed walk uphill (in a residential area that is straight UP) for three miles, and then run the magic dirt road the 3 miles back home.

This is my most favoritist time of year to run. Seriously, it is breathtaking how pretty it is out there.