Bowling for Ants

Well, the ants are losing their appeal. I'm not finding them so fascinating anymore. They've come into this house everyday since Sunday. From under the window sill by the kitchen table. Which is now caulked. CB and I couldn't find where they were coming in from outside either. But we sprayed anyway. Just to have the rain wash it away. It rains every day so that's not helping.

This particular group of ants prefers FM#3's high chair. Let it be known that I sweep almost every day and I clean his tray after every meal. This group has a very keen sense of smell.

Case in point: the cleaning ladies came yesterday so the floor was really, really clean. FM#3 dropped one drop of his ice cream and within 5-10 minutes they had detected it and come in FROM OUTSIDE! Not a lot. Maybe 6 or 8. Just the scouts, I think. But I couldn't see where they were coming in. Annoying.

Back to the ice cream.

Some friends asked us to go bowling yesterday. Lovely surprise. We had a great time. We discovered that three of the four of us really, really like bowling shoes.

It didn't take FM#3 long to catch on to the object of the game. His big bro helped him push his ball down the lane and when it knocked over quite a few pins, he threw up his arms and gave a big, "Woo hoo!!!"

His ball got stuck in the lane twice. It was going so slow it just stopped.

I wish I had video of my two older boys. Their technique was quite, um.....interesting. Not a lot of bending at the waist which just results in a horrible cracking sound when the bowling ball hits the wooden floor.

Ouch. Wish you could've been there.

Afterward, since it was so hot we stopped for ice cream.

Today I'm sore in strange places.

But now I think I have to buy bowling shoes.

I Tell Ya!

I've had a busy/crazy week over here.

Had a fender bender which FM#1 pointed out didn't involve the fender at all. I got rear-ended with all three kids in the car along with someone else's child, too! That isn't supposed to happen! This mom was very calm about it though. Bless her heart. Although I attribute it to the fact that she's been on prescription narcotics for three weeks.

Everyone was fine, and to quote Pastor Bob I Ran Over a Chicken on my Way to Poughkeepsie, "Thanks be to God!" FM#2 was in the Way Back! No damage to my car either.

Then I had an eye appointment. Now, I must say that I have been wearing corrective lenses since 5th grade. They were the wire frames shaped like a stop sign. Cool, I tell ya!

Then I upgraded to the huge plastic frames popular in the late 70's. Cool, I tell ya!

Then I got the plastic frame/metal side variety. Again, I'm telling ya -- cool!

10th grade was the Year of the Contacts. Freedom!

But HolyChow still wouldn't let me wear mascara, only blush and lip gloss. Not cool, I tell ya. Yes, I'm still bitter.

I've always been a good contact lens wearer. The longest time between appointments for me was six years, until last week. I thought it had been eight, but they told me it was nine.

How did they know? They took my glasses to check the prescription and came back and said the prescription was nine years old. I'm convinced it is a conspiracy among the optometrical society whereby they insert a microchip into your lenses stating the date on which the prescription was given (and it probably lists things like "naps too long in her contacts" or "needs to cut fingernails").

Scoundrels!

Okay, okay, so it's been nine years. My doctor didn't chastise me or anything so he gets a repeat visit from me and maybe, just maybe, it will be less than nine years from now.

My prescription hadn't changed that much and I don't need bifocals. Hurray!

The purpose of this visit was to get new contacts and glasses. I'm taking a leap and getting disposable contacts. This guarantees I'll have to go back in a year. Although just between us (shhhh!) I'm going to try and wear them longer than a month. I'm a really good contact lens wearer, I tell ya!

I let the 24 year old assistant help me pick out frames for my glasses. I wanted to go with the rimless variety, but she insisted that would be a big mistake. She personally hates the rimless kind (something about "old lady") and said it would be "a whole lotta lens" with my prescription.

So I put my trust in her and ended up with a small rectangular frame. Quite a change from my tortoise shell frames that cover half my face and are a great source of humor for my kiddoes. My sister even laughed at them!

I'll also have to get a part-time job to pay for it all because we don't have vision insurance and - man! It was expensive, I tell ya!

Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

We went camping with the Cub Scouts last weekend and my fingers are finally thawed out enough to type. It was cold, campers! How cold? I've heard it was in the 30's.

The weather was beautiful, but cold. Did I mention it was cold? Friday night when I jumped into my icy bed, the one comforting thought was that I could always go to the bath house and sleep. It was warm in there and I could just turn on the air hand dryer every now and then. But thankfully that wasn't necessary.

I hopped from fire to fire all day Saturday it seemed, to spite the fact that I was wearing three layers plus gloves and a hood. Still cold.

But the most important thing is - was I warm at night? Yes, due to warm layers, a down comforter, and two bits of advice from CeanBounter:

(1) Put on clean dry socks at night.

(2) Something must go between you and the air mattress (which in our case was a wool army blanket).

Both nights I was surprisingly toasty. Except for my nose which had to stay out from under the down comforter so I wouldn't suffocate on my own carbon dioxide.

Another good thing about the campout was the fellowship. I got to know several of my fellow Christian homeschoolers a bit better. We probably had 12 or more families there. FM#1's group of teens and pre-teens totalled probably 10 or 12. They were great! They huddled together periodically to play dice games, but they also socialized with the adults and the younger set. They even got the whole gang together for kickball and they participated in our campfire with a funny skit - all of them! They were stupendous!

Quotes from the weekend:

FM#2: This is the best campout ever!

FM#3: I want to go home. (because he was a popsicle)
This campout is really hard! (because he was still a popsicle)

Dream a little dream with me

Last night I dreamed that I was following EuroMom in my car. We were going to her favorite spa downtown while our kids were in school!!!

I have an announcement to make...

I have picked a tile! (roar of the crowd, applause, applause)

Okay, so it's not as exciting as Sheller's, but I'll be living with it, too, for the next 18 years. At least I'm pretty sure. I have to go to the manufacturer's store and look at several of them to check the color variation. If it's a 'go' then the destruction of my house can begin!

On another note, we've started school. Celebrate good times, come on! To quote Kool and the Gang. We're off and running and doing an adequate job thanks to lesson plans. Why didn't I do these before?

On yet another note, can we believe our Shellers is preggers? This is going to be fun. Let's start thinking of names.....Sugar Snap, Snow, Crowder.

Mmm, Peanut Butter

It's been a blow slog week. Things have been either too mundane or too salacious to write about, but I'll give it go.

A friend called the other day to ask me two things: (1) if I wanted to go to an informational meeting about a co-op and (2) since it was near my house, could she leave her son here during the meeting. Yes, to both counts. Really, whether I went to the meeting or not her son was welcome. Are you kidding me? An impromptu visit from a friend? To play? I can just hear it now, "Mom! You're the greatest! We love you! What can we do for you, oh, Beloved Mother?"

I was still basking in Fun Mom Status from last week. FM#1 planned a patrol meeting and in order for one of the guys to make it we brought him home from a birthday party the day before to spend the night. I had seven Boy Scouts in my house on Friday. They were good kids. Worked hard. Produced a good looking patrol flag. Anyhoooo, the look on FM#1's face was most excellent when I told him Adam was coming over.

Now, I wasn't looking for a co-op, mind you, but thought I'd go anyway to check it out. I hadn't seen the hostess in forever and at the very least I'd get to spend time conversing with other women. While we were gone CeanBounter and the boys taught our guest how to play poker, quarters, dominoes.

So I went and the co-op looked good, oh so good. In attendance were four women I knew and liked plus others I had met here or there. Good crowd. The cooperative effort would be to teach ToG Year 2, but they were starting in Unit 3. This sounded pretty good because we're in Year 2 although Week 8. No prob. We could work around that. The classes are grouped according to Lower Grammar, Upper Grammar, etc. which means my little FM#2 would have his own little Lower Grammar class complete with age appropriate material and projects. They primarily concentrate on history, literature, and timeline. They add in some geography and vocabulary every now and then. The hands-on is done there. And the best part is they do NOT generate writing assignments every week - maybe a report here or there or an oral presentation. And they do not grade anything. And the first semester ends before Thanksgiving. Oh, and did I mention they have a nursery? See? Good!

Now the bad news. It's almost 45 minutes away. Yuck. Ick. Boo hiss. I joined a local homeschool support group in order to be able to have groups like this close to me. I am tired of driving to that side of town. I did it for three years for scouts. ShelledPeas and I have been doing our own little co-op and if she wanted to join this one it would be over an hour drive for her from Tornado Alley! I even put out an email on my local group's email loop asking if there were any co-ops out here. Wouldn't it be great to find another one like this and close to home? It's been two days. No takers. Absolutely none. Crap. What to do.....

So, today we're having lunch with Grandpop. Hoping to bring over rice krispie treats. We're trying them with peanut butter.

The Sweet Life

My phone rang the morning of July the 4th. It was EuroMom wanting to know if I wanted to go out for coffee. I did, of course. A couple of hours later we were sitting in a local coffee shop talking non-stop about a myriad of things. Kids, vacations, school, relationships, our current phase of life. We were there close to three hours and could've stayed a couple more. I love that she called at the last minute for an impromptu get-together. I'm already looking forward to the next time.

I love having friends who are so comfortable with us that they invite themselves over. That's what our dear friends, the Willi, did a couple of Sundays ago. They rightly suspected we weren't doing anything on the 4th and suggested we get together for food, fellowship, and fireworks. What a great time we had. It rained on and off, mostly on, but that didn't stop the kids from playing outside. We moms didn't care. We were enjoying appetizers and Soco and lemonade inside.

Grandpop came over and even he, being the loner that he is, had a really good time talking about his pre-retirement days here, former church members, and reminiscing about Nana. Now she would've had a grand time that day.

After stuffing ourselves on brisket, sausage, garlic potatoes, baked beans, cobb salad, and cookies we went outside for the pyrotechnic extravaganza. It's been rainy before on the 4th, but this year broke the record. There's nothing like rain, heat, and mosquitoes all at the same time. The kids played in the rain, ran through the smoke, oohed and aahed at the show all around us. The older kids even got to light a couple of fireworks which further fed FM#1's love of fire. Every year CeanBounter fine tunes his fireworks purchases and vows to "buy more of those next year".
I think it was our latest night yet with these friends. At the end of the evening we were stuffed, tired, hot, sweaty, but what sweet fellowship we enjoyed.

Looking back on the whole day, what jewels God has given us in friends like these.