Lotza Laffs

Dorian: Knock knock!

Sebastian: Who's there?

D: Weneeda

S: Weneeda who?

D: We need a present! [cackles]

S: I think it should be "We need a pizza" because nobody really needs a present.

The home and garden report

Today's news brought to you by my dirty fingernails and eyeglasses.

It has been raining a lot here. Some might say too much. The only thing I can think of that is good about it is that I never have to water the garden. And lots of things are blooming!

The day lilies:

The rosebush I uncovered last year, and the bachelor buttons Dorian and I planted this year:

The miniature rosebush Christine gave me as a housewarming present last year:


And the copious amounts of grass I cannot seem to keep out of the kitchen garden. It rains so much that I can barely keep on top of mowing the lawn, much less weed. Because I'll tell you what: the kids want to go to the lake and so do I and it sucks to have to waste precious lake time weeding the damn garden. So, after I took this picture, I went back out and spent an hour weeding between rainstorms. The peas are almost finished, so I will be planting another batch soon. There are green tomatoes on all the plants except for Mr. Stripey. The second round of radishes is doing well, and there are baby cucumbers on 2 of the plants. God, that looks shameful!

And, I was a little overly eager in picking this carrot:

Lots of greenery, but not much of a root.

And now we go inside, where Jeremy and I have almost finished the wallpaper stripping and spackling in the music room. Soon, it will be painted and I can get the drum set out of my bedroom.

And because I don't want to leave you with that picture, here is a more pleasant one:

Jam! And lots of it. Last year, I didn't get to make any strawberry jam, so this year I have gone a little nuts. So far I have made

• 2 12oz jars,
• 4 8oz jars,
• and 4 4oz jars of strawberry rhubarb jam
• 8 8oz jars of strawberry jam

All of which required 5 lbs of sugar. Yum! That should last us until blueberry season at least. We now return you to your regularly scheduled web surfing.

All that was missing was David Attenborough

Yesterday we headed up to Mme. Sherri Forest for a little hike before the daily downpour. What we saw when we got there was totally crazy. The frogs and toads were so loud, it sounded like an alarm was going off. Then, we approached the pond to discover that toad mating season was in full force. There were at least a hundred toads swimming on the surface, most riding piggyback.

And then there was this*:

I know I bandy the term "cluster f*ck" around concerning things like traffic and PTA meetings, but this was the first time I witnessed a real live, literal display. There are approximately 8 toads all tangled up in that weird ball there, and they were just swirling and rolling for lord knows how long. It was happening when we got there and it was still happening when we left.

*Try clicking on the picture to enlarge. I apologize for the crappy photo. I'm still waiting to get the better camera back from the repair man.

Gimme a break

Give me a break and you know what I'll do with it? Waste it.

This morning Dorian went off to camp and Sebastian went to a friend's house for the morning which left me with 2 and a half solid hours of alone time. Time when I should have been giving myself a pedicure while watching crappy TV. Or reading a mystery novel and eating chocolates. Or just enjoying the silence.

Except that is not at all what happened. I said goodbye to the boys, and I vacuumed. Then I balanced the checkbook and paid some bills and filled out some forms. Then I realized what I was doing and squeezed in 20 minutes of stupid TV and 4 rows of the sweater. Then I realized I would not be able to go straight to the lake after picking up the boys if I didn't hurry up and make lunch and pack the suits and towels. So I started dinner (you know I always need to add at least one unnecessary task to the load), got the lunch and stuff together and had a quick conversation with our house painter and hit the road.

Chore time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Me time: 20 minutes

I'm a fool.

What happens when your baby goes to camp and your husband goes out for a drink

Yesterday, I became the sort of mother who freaks out that her "baby" is growing up. That's right. Look at him, so eager to leave me and go be with other younger, fresher, teenagerier women. This morning, he was in such a rush I had to holler to him to come back and give his Mama a kiss goodbye. Of course, I am proud of my independent boy, I just wish he had the sense to be more diplomatic and at least pretend he would miss me for those 2 and a half hours.

And then I reached my lowest low when Jeremy went out for a drink with a former co-worker. I... (Please forgive me!) watched... (I was bored and needed something in the background while I was knitting!) a certain show... (I swear it will never happen again!) on TLC... (It was a mistake, I admit it!) about a certain family and now the parents are getting a divorce. There! The truth is out. Man, that show sucks. I felt dirty just being in the same room with it.

The summer sweater

...for a summer which seems like it will never start. School ended on Friday. Dorian's camp started today. And yet it still barely reaches 70 and there is rain forecast everyday. Boo to that!

Maybe the weather is waiting for me to finish my sweater. If so, it will have to be extremely patient and perhaps wait until October. Last night, I finished the back. (Remember that it is A-line and that shape is not supposed to reflect my spare tire.) Now I just have 2 fronts and 2 sleeves and lots of sewing up to do.

It never ends...

Yesterday, by some useless miracle, I ended up being awake before the children. This would have been something to enjoy, except for the fact that it was the last day of school and Sebastian had a perfect attendance record to maintain, so he couldn't very well sleep the day away.

I head upstairs and open their door to Dorian saying, "Oh, no... I peed my pants." Coming from a child sitting in the middle of his bed, this of course meant stripping all the sheets and blankets and the addition of 2 more loads to my laundry day. Inwardly groaning, I tell him to hurry up and get downstairs and get out of his wet clothes.

[Cue Sebastian.]

"Mom, I don't understand why my pajamas are wet."

Good Christ, can this even be possible? Two wet beds on one day? When they both are consistently dry?

"Well, I guess you wet the bed, too."

"No, I didn't! I didn't pee! I didn't feel that happen!"

I turn from yanking bedclothes off of Dorian's bed to see Sebastian, sopping wet from nipples to mid-thigh.

"Sebastian, look where you are wet. You must have peed. It's not a big deal. [I mean, really, what's 2 more loads of laundry at this point?] Just go clean yourself up."

"But I swear it! I didn't pee."

And, thus, the first indignity of the day: kneeling down to a face full of ammonia smell, enough to singe the nose hairs. And so he was convinced, and so I donned my washerwoman attire.

Thomas the (Toilet) Tank Engine

What is it about my children that if they play at either of the train tables available at the two locations of the stationery/toy/candy store in town, they have to shit? For Sebastian, that means an accident in the store and, therefore, he has not been allowed to visit either of the train tables for over a year.

I thought I would be safe taking just Dorian today to get Sebastian's teacher an end of year gift. Sebastian wanted to give her a box of chocolates, so we headed off to the store where Dorian could occupy himself with the trains while I gazed longingly at all the chocolates that were not destined to enter my mouth and chose something for the teacher instead.

Ten minutes in, I was almost ready to make my selections when from across the busy store I hear, "MOMMMMMM!!! I need to POOOOOOOOOOP!!!" And so it was that I found myself wedged into a small stall in the next-door grocery store's bathroom asking myself how it is that this happens every goddamn time.

Is it germs? Is it weird subliminal messages? Is it a bizarre Pavlovian response based on prior experiences? Or is it just my bad luck?

My work here is done. Well, almost. I mean... sort of.

Today was the last All School Sing of the school year. Rock and Roll. Outside. I helped one of Sebastian's classmates win the dance contest. It was fun.

Then I went to a 2 hour (reduced from 3) meeting of the mostly new and slightly improved PTA board of which I am now Treasurer. It went reasonably smoothly and I only said "Keep It Simple Stupid" once and cussed 3 times, so it was better than I expected. Especially since I didn't cuss at anyone. I am currently under the impression that, after meeting with the former treasurer next week to get the lowdown on the books, I don't have to do anything PTA related until mid-August.

Tomorrow is my last healthy snack day of the year. And Friday is the last day of school until August 31. I am picking up the boy and we are kicking off the summer right and proper.

(Try not to remind me about how I will have 2 kids on my hands and lots of chauffeuring to camps. I am keeping my eyes on the sipping Dr. Pepper lakeside aspect of summer...)

Making headway

I resolved that this weekend I would complete a project because I am feeling a little overwhelmed by how many I have going currently. I also wanted to make progress on a couple more and have been pretty successful so far.

Yesterday, I inadvertently participated in Worldwide Knitting in Public Day by taking my summer sweater project to the lake. I am close to finishing the back, and that is certainly progress.

Then I came home and worked on my shirt for a while until the machine fought back and I surrendered. I got up this morning and finished the hemming by hand, which is actually the proper way to do it and the machine was really just stopping me from cheating. Remember, kids, cheaters never win.

So here it is:

I took on the bias tape and the interfacing and I survived. One project down, one million to go... Pardon me while I go back to stripping wallpaper.

Just because I have 18 projects in the works doesn't mean I can't have one more

I started on my shirt yesterday. And by started I mean that I cut out the pattern pieces, read through the pattern, realized I was missing 2 very important elements (bias tape and interfacing), and also realized that I don't know what I'm doing with either of those things and may be way over my head with what I thought was a pretty simple pattern. This will only be my second pattern ever, so I recognize that I am still learning and may make some mistakes. But I love this fabric and I really don't want to fuck it up. So wish me luck!

I'm not a total sucker after all!

Ready to be proud of me?

Last night we had our farewell game of RockBand with Dustin before he returns to his lovely wife on Thursday*, so I didn't go to sleep until around 1am. I had to be up early to be at school for healthy snack prep (only 1 week to go!) and was having dreams that we didn't finish playing until an hour before I needed to be at school, so I was not particularly well rested when I got up this morning.

I head into school, cream cheese the celery sticks and head down to the library for my Wednesday morning confab with Flapdoodle. The book fair is being held there currently, and I tried to let Dorian browse, but was interrupted by the woman running it. (A woman with whom I am now on the PTA board.)

"[Hott Mama], do you think you could work this morning? You know, I really need to go to work and our volunteer didn't show up."

"Well, I'm really tired and I need a cup of coffee and then I need to be back here for something at 11:40, so I can't do it."

"But I really should get to work."

At this point, I almost caved and said that I would go get a coffee and come back, but then I realized I don't have to do this shit if I don't want to. And you know what? I didn't want to.

So I didn't.

How liberating!


* I'm happy for her that he's going back, but it's no secret that I wish they were both here with me all the time.

What did you do this morning, Hott Mama?

Why, thanks for asking.

This morning I played the cowbell in front of about 400 people. I was not expecting to do this, but I did it. Apparently, the person who was supposed to warn me this might happen "dropped the ball." We can only hope that I didn't embarrass Sebastian too much, but just enough.

Bonus: I found another mother who wants to play RockBand. Can I fit it into my busy schedule before school ends? I think I have to.

Weekend run-down

My mother decided that she needed to see the cow parade in person this year, so we had a visitor starting Thursday. And we all know what visitors mean: lots of activity.

Thursday: Out for a sushi lunch after she arrived. Carried in 4 boxes of my old books from her car and spent afternoon exclaiming over each old friend I found inside. Also got a box containing my roller skates and skated awkwardly to the bus stop. Evening T-ball game. Cortney's yummy butter bean salad and squash biscuits for dinner.

Friday: Stop at Dunkin for coffee and the pleasant surprise of Free Donut Day on the way to Keene to check out the fabric stores. Mom has been "taken over to the dark side" in the quilting world, which sounds very similar to the dark side of the knitting world and includes amassing large quantities of materials you aren't sure you'll ever use and visiting every store that sells said materials wherever you go. I used my gift card from Diane to buy a few patterns and some fabric to make myself a shirt. Played a few games until Sebastian came home. Gallery Walk downtown with free Ben and Jerry's. Watched The Thin Man. It was awesome.

Saturday: Pancakes and bacon. Cow parade. Barbecue for lunch. Hike at Chesterfield Gorge. Side trip to Stuart and John's Sugar House for my favorite kind of ice cream. Jeremy contacted the company to find out where we could get it that wasn't the place run by fundamentalists. I had my beloved Bear Claw again! Home again home again. Jeremy and Sebastian went to the Swampbats game. My mom and I watched Transamerica which was funnier than I thought it would be.

Sunday: Exit mother bright and early for her 9 hour drive. Went to see Up. I was warned it was sad, but that did not stop me from sobbing and blubbering no less than 3 times. It was also funny and scary, but I have not seen anything so touching in a long time. Ignored the dark clouds and made a pit stop at the grocery store for a snack dinner on the way to the lake. I'm no fool and I know how cold movie theaters and lakeside can be, so I was wearing jeans and a long sleeved shirt. My children, however, were swimming and Jeremy was shivering in his shorts and t-shirt. (I was still just as cold as they were and lamented not bring my down jacket.) We huddled up for a windy early dinner of baguette and mozzarella balls, grapes and nuts. Then we headed home where I passed out on the couch for over an hour. After putting the kids to bed Jeremy and I watched Murder by Death (very funny) and I went to bed.

So there's the run-down of why I was so rundown I took an uncharacteristic nap.

Can you tell they were born here?

Weather: 66 degrees, cloudy with a chance of thundershowers, strong breeze
Children: in the lake

He's still at it

I am sitting in the living room minding my own business when...

Dorian: (in the dining room) Shit!

Me: groaning inwardly, concerned I have uttered this under my breath lately and he has picked up on it or something

D: Shit!

M: What did you say?

D: Shit. I'm spelling words and I made the word "shit".

I go out to investigate and he's using blocks to make letters. He then went on to spell "toot" and "rut" and, mysteriously, "hrut". Boy's got a knack for the scatological, though.

The pictures you should have had for the last post

zucchini blossom

azaleas

moon and stars watermelons

peas!

the sweater so far

(pinker than real life)

and a bonus shot of Sebastian's goofy outfit of the day. Sporty!

The post that should have pictures but doesn't

My aching back is a testament to all the things I've been doing but not documenting here lately.

I've gotten a lot done in the yard/garden in the past few days. Everything edible is planted, including my "Moon and Stars" watermelons which for some reason I thought were small melons, but, if the picture is to be believed, are actually ginormously long melons. (They get their name from the distinctive yellow markings on the rind that look like, you guessed it, a moon and stars.) I also purchased a couple more perennials for the bed out front-- poppies and coral bells. And the azaleas that I got for my birthday from my mother-in-law also went out front along the fence. Fence + shrubbery = more privacy. Oh, who am I kidding? This corner appears to be the least private spot in town.

I have been trying to get a little more exercise, and so has Jeremy, so Sunday we did a DDR workout which almost turned into a DNR. Then on Monday I did a bunch of gardening and went to exercise class which didn't have a whole lot of the ab action I need and instead crippled my glutes. Today was more gardening and lots of hobbling due to the sore glutes, but at least I had the sense this time to bring a chair to T-ball practice so I wouldn't hurt my back sitting on the lumpy ground. Go me!

I finally got around to cutting open the biggest squash I bought in October today. I have been more than a little afraid of what I would find inside after an autumn and a winter and most of the spring (that's 7 months, people!) of sitting on the floor of my pantry. Would it be rotten? Or just plain old moldy? Neither! Miraculously, it was still fine and smelled as sweet as a cantaloupe. So I baked the bejesus out of it (just in case) and mashed it. Then I made squash biscuits for tonight's dinner and my plan is to use the rest for a pie.

I also got a little more knitting in on my summer sweater. One and a half skeins down, 9.5 to go. I may not be wearing it until fall. Whatever-- it will get done eventually, along with all my other half-finished projects. Big knitted blanket... picnic quilt... wallpaper stripping in the dining room... baby socks for a baby that doesn't exist anyway...