Any Joys?

During joys and concerns at church 6yo dd held up her hand. Her joy?
L- "My brothers are going to be gone at camp all week!"
Minister- "Is that your joy?"
L- "Well duh!"

Ah, so eloquent my daughter.

Hmmm

This is the part where I'm supposed to make some dazzling or witty entry. (taps foot waiting for inspiration) { Well, we had to replace the motherboard on my washer. I hated spending $200 freaking dollars!!! but the hand wringing each load was getting tiresome. I set the boys to the task and they tied the sheets to a limb and took turns twisting. A great plan except for those *$%@ dirt stains on the one end. I had my garage sale, gave away everything that didn't sell and still have far too much stuff. I need to pick up dd from camp tonight and then deliver C and S to camp next week. And school starts in 3 weeks Wah! Wah! Wah! I hate school.} (Gives up tapping foot and admits there is nothing witty or dazzling here.)

Boooorrrriiinnngg

It never fails to amaze me how a whole chunk of the day can be wasted doing stupid errands. I left home this morning about 9:00 and drove 40 miles to retrieve dd's saxaphone. I took it in to be cleaned, etc in prep for the coming year. (Oh goody, more saxaphone concerts.) We went on to the kids' clothing resale shop where I sold some stuff and bought some shoes, a lunch bag and a dress so L would have at least one. I had taken the older boys with me and we drove cross town to a trade/sell video store. I know how they feel when they are shopping with me now. I find the whole gaming thing dull, dull, dull. They made their trades. We then drove back to our nearer town to get ds an actual hair cut. I've always cut the kids' hair, but since he's entering middle school he thought a style that doesn't rely on his constant movement to look even would be a good idea. I then had to go to the bank to cash in change (especially since I had just been all these places). An entire four hours wasted, when I could have been reading more of my book, wah!!!

Feeling hot, hot , hot!

Like the rest of the country, we are suffering from a heat wave. Yesterday the heat index was 106. Personally, I think once it's past 95 they ought to just say it's hot as h*ll and leave it at that. This morning (before it got hot, lol) I took the kids and did some errands. As a treat (for them, certainly not for me) we stopped last at the 4-H fair. This is a really rural fair, there are no rides or carnival games. We admired chicks, and pigs and goats and starter calves. Except for a slight bought of fistcuffs near the giant cabbage display, we made it out drenched in sweat but alive. We stopped at the dairy stand and I bought chocolate milkshakes for all. Mel is still clutching the cup, hoping it will somehow refill by magic. I'm off to soak in my bathwater temp pool now.

Whew!

I realize it is of no import to anyone but a mother but E recieved 8 blue ribbons (two with special merit) and 1 red (judge did not care for her use of color on her trash can). She was disappointed because she likes perfection, but I told her that a different judge on a different day might have felt differently so....MOVE ON! LOL! I took her back to church camp today. She has been asked to be a Jr. Counselor for a young girl with Down's who will be attending camp. I felt like that was quite and honor to have people place faith in her abilities.... even if she can't cover a trash can.

Blog Junk Food

Judging all day Tuesday and today so all you get is a pre-packaged blog entry :-P

You are dependable, popular, and observant. Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness. In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do. You are unique, creative, and expressive. You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while. And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

4-H

Where have I been? In a whirling vortex of pain known as 4-H. I bet you didn't know one of those H's was for h*ll. Ok, maybe it's not that bad. I don't even have to do the projects per se, it's just there's always something more to help with or buy that we forgot. This week we covered a trash can and bulletin board, I helped her learn to make french knots, I got matting and framed a painting, bought more potting soil and decorated her flower box so she could repot her flowers, proofread a book report and bought scrapbooking stuff to make the reading bulletin board, and a bunch of other things. Oh, and sat through her making four batches of yeast rolls, to get six perfect ones. During one of the hottest, humidest stretches of summer. Why did I get blessed with a perfectionist?

What else? The air could be cut with a knife, baseball finally creaked to an end, attended a chess tournament (rather like watching paint dry), and began rooting through everyone's belongings to organize for a rummage sale. In black and white that is even a more pathetic use of time than it seemed as it crawled by. This coming week is 4-H judging so that will fill many hours with scintillating copy for the ol' blog. On the bright side, we refused to allow them to do farm animals, meaning I do not have to live at the stinking (literally) hot fairgrounds all week.

What If?

This is sort of an old piece, but it really tickled me.
If Men Could Breastfeed

Is There A Market For That?

Heard from the cheap seats...
11yo-"I'm going to be a veterinarian."
9yo - "I'm going to be a math professor at Harvard."
4yo - "I'm going to be a dragon."

No, silly, where are you going to work?

4yo - "At a castle, where else?"

Home

Neither heat nor headache nor 6 mile traffic jam will keep this mom from picking up her kid from camp.

So Much For Relaxing

Yesterday was slated to be a quiet day, but you know how that goes. Dh's sister and BIL and niece stopped in on their way home to MI. It was good to see them. I then had to run to town for some things resulting in it suddenly being 12:30. I quickly packed for dd and we left at 2:00 for her camp. She was fine with me leaving. In fact her words as I tried to kiss her were "yeah, yeah, you can go now." We got home at 5:00, I threw food at people and we made it to the ball park by 5:30. E played at 6:00 in the championship game and they won! Woo hoo! Now, as dh says, we have a $.50 cent trophy instead of the usual $.25 one. Ds played at 8:00. They were in the losers bracket but managed to pull out their second win of the season that night, so he plays again on Monday. I'm not sure how L's t-ball team did. I can't say I missed trying to squeeze in a third game at a second park. I guess I'll call her coach when she gets home to see if she's still playing. After all the baseball fun, dh decided to tear up the subfloor in the bathroom, so we are down to one bathroom again for who knows how long. And I was just getting used to being a two bathroom family, darn it!

In Bullet Points

* the festival was very fun, including too much noise, grease, noise, fun, noise, activity

* the wedding was beautiful but 19 seems very, very young

* the town fireworks were traditional, down to L sitting in the van screaming during the whole show

* we played, swam and ate on the 4th, none of which I have pics of because the *&%#$@ batteries died

* I knew it wasn't safe to let the kids have fireworks, but I am having serious doubts about dh too

* tomorrow my 6yo leaves for church camp, how come she is fine with being dropped 2 hours from home where she doesn't
know a soul, and I am the one who's feeling iffy about it?

Independence Day

Click here to read The Declaration of Independence.

A Fabulous Festival

This weekend is our little town's summer festival. It will feel even more like Mayberry than ever. Today there are all kinds of rummage sales, and the used book sale at the library (my personal favorite event.) This evening is the parade. Three of the kids are in it this year with their ball teams. Ball teams, chuches, 4-H, girl scouts, boy scouts, lot of tractors, the bank will all be there along with bands. I could be riding on the church float but decided to sit on the sidelines and let the little two collect candy. I just enjoy seeing them react. Parades are still a novelty to them. After the parade there will be a concert but my family and I will buy elephant ears and stand around visiting with friends. Saturday is full of events (oreo stacking, pedal tractor pull, family fued, etc.) We, however, will be attending a wedding in the afternoon. Let's see, Saturday night there is a rodeo. Sunday is a town wide church service, a demolition derby and fireworks. I should be quite thoroughly exhausted by Sunday night.