Christmas achieved

Good moring!  I have been busy buying Christmas presents and having the usual family crises that arise this time of year. I am happy to report that I finished all my Christmas shopping, save a few small things and I have even wrapped everything.  I am one of those people who get pretty anal about the wrapping.  I love it and it is one of the few things I consider myself good at.  This year I took stamps and using a heat gun, embossed recipients names on their packages. Easy to do and unique.  The tree is up, everything is a go.  This weekend, i will devote myself to baking, like we are supposed to.  I found the most amazing recipe for snickers cookies, I'll link it when I re-find it.  Hope everyone is trucking along well.  Only 3 weeks till we can declare the "season" over!

! 

thats one way to try to get new glasses

Got a call from my husband this morning.  per usual, he sounds like death warmed over.  Getting up with our son when he works late is hard on him.  Husband calls and the first thing I hear is, "come tell mommy what happened".  this is usually a bad way to start a conversation.  I get the following from the 4 year old:

 

"i used the potty and daddy flushed it and i bumped him and his glasses flushed down the potty"

I picked my head off the desk and heard my husband tell me he caught them before they went all the way down, but being the germaphobe that he is, he says he can never wear them again.

 

Happy Friday all.

the doctor is in

my (super) hero

Does that make him a super villain then?

text I just received from the husband after I asked if he wanted me to pick up dinner:

 

"Sure, Jackson and I are playing pretend.  He is Super Jackson and I am Bad Daddy.  Super Jackson's super power appears to be the ability to try to shove a lincoln log up my ass"

 

Can't wait to get home tonight...

Oh the humanity!

I'm bereft.  an energy drink committed suicide in my purse.  it took my day planner with it.  I've had a day planner since I was 14 years old and didn't have days to plan.  So with this sad news, I am making the jump to a digital planner.  I will most likely hate it and cry a lot, but I work in digitizing, its shameful to be so dependent on paper.  the results of this attempt will be painful and messy, I have no doubt.  more to come.....

playing outside...

I feel like I may have just found an answer I've been looking for my whole life...

I am pale.  I dont mean fair skinned, I am PALE.  Literally no pigment to speak of.  And since the weather has turned hot, I've been showing this pale skin a lot more.  I should also add, that I am not a swimmer.  I dont really know how and being so pale, I dont like to sit poolside.  But I have found something.  The very thing that might make this more bearable.  This is not a new thing, I imagine these have been around for 50 years.  But I *just* made the connection, that I could wear one of these with a bikini bottom (heh, sponge bob ref.) and bathroom trips and the like would be remarkably easy, while keeping me unburned.  also, my midriff would remain unseen, which is a bonus for all parties.  Im actually looking forward to getting in the pool this year!  Thanks Speedo, and sorry I am (50 years) late to the game!!!

 

sorry for the genuinely tiny picture, but you can get the gist.

what I did over my summer break...

[caption id="attachment_33" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="the Boy Wonder at the circus"][/caption]

What vacation?

Hello!  I'm just returning from a 6 day staycation, a lovely time was had by most.  I took a few days off around the holiday weekend and resolved to clean the garage and the house and be basically productive the entire time.  Well, as all good plans are well intentioned, my time was spent cleaning around 60%.  I managed to lay around aimlessly and go to dinners and do some fun stuff with the boy wonder.  It was a really nice time.  Im still kicking myself for not getting anything done in the garage though.  My garage is an episode of Hoarders waiting to tape.  Its shameful, and I am not sure how it happened.  A lot if it is due to my husband's and my own reluctance to throw things away.  I am overcoming this fear, but my husband's problem is deeper.  He's a collector.  Of Comics. There, I've said it. and our garage has rubbermaid containers full of them.  years worth.  It also has baby toys, lawn stuff, craft stuff, general miscellaneous.  Its really embarrassing to lift our garage door in the daytime.  The garage is currently housing a cedar swing set, waiting to be built.  there is no room to move around.  So, the only option is to take everything out and find a home for it, preferably not at my house.  a garage sale is in order!  Since I squandered all my vacation in the house cleaning, I must try to do the garage this weekend.  With the small interruption of a bridal shower, but that is another story.  I will try to post a before and after picture of my poor garage.  I wish the Container Store Fairy would whisk me away from all this.....

Vacation time

We had a little weather last night....

[gallery]

Last night had promised to be a quiet evening, but nature had other plans.  These were some of the strangest, lowest clouds I ever saw.  They moved so quickly, I thought we were in for a tornado for sure.  I could see them swirling, right above our house, which was terrifying.  It all ended pretty quickly, no longer than 30 minutes. We didn't even have any damages, thank God.  My husband's grandmother didn't fare as well.  We aren't sure if it was a tornado or just the sheer force winds that the forecasters are so fond of forecasting, but her screened in porch lost a huge glass window, and there are trees down and the barns and silos are all banged up and knocked around. Thankfully she wasnt home for it, she was at my nephew's baseball game.  I managed to pull all the newly planted flowers onto the porch, lest they meet their end via hail.   And if all this excitement wasnt enough, this is the forecast for the entire week!  Storms through Thursday at least.

A-gardening we go

Good Monday to you!  Im safely ensconced in a motrin induced haze, so I can say its good.  What a busy weekend!  After a 31 Party/bachelorette party on Friday, a marathon shopping day on Saturday (12 hours!), I managed to get my garden planted on Sunday!  This is my third year in planting my garden.  My grandmother is an incredible gardener.  She can make anything grow anywhere.  I never had any interest in growing plants until a few years ago, when we bought our new house.  I thought I could grow something probably, how hard could it be?  Well, its frequently damn hard!  But, I enjoy it more than I ever realized I could.  And it helps me be close to my grandmother.  Every year that I work in it, I get to enjoy that time with her.  Especially, since I know its fleeting, she's nearing 90 years old!  You wouldn't know it though, she gets out there with the shovel and works hard as anyone.

Yesterday was a marathon.  We worked all day.  We started early, digging up the dirt with shovels to break it up.  That took an age.  Then I used my brand new tiller!!  Its beautiful.  I was so happy to get it (thanks Grandma!) and it did a great job.  It also shook me to death!  I never realized how hard of a job this was! My 89 year old grandfather still does this!  I truly have amazing grandparents.  After some driving around searching for fertilizer for a spell, I managed to get some spare soil, a nice pepper plant, a new gas can for my tiller's required oil/gas mix, and a new hoe (broke mine busting clods, if you can believe it).  I ran out to my folks to pick up some fertilizer, as apparently no one in my small town carries it.   Came home from all my running and planted as quickly as I could.  I was losing daylight at this point and  it was turning colder.  The weather really worked against us too, as we had several thunderstorms move through as we worked.  While we were sidelined for rain, we mixed all the old dirt from the planters from last year with some new, fertilized fancy dirt and planted a flat of flowers, cleaned up the planter, drilled new drainage holes.  I felt so efficient!  But at the end of the day, we planted 3 rows of Silver Queen corn, 1 row of Early Girl tomatoes, half a row red onions, half a row yellow onions, a lettuce bed, a small row of carrots, a row of potatoes and a row of pumpkins!  I have a pepper plant in a pot on the porch (rabbits ate them last year, Im raising them up this year!) and I need to make a bed somewhere for squash.  I really ran late this year, what with all the incessant rain.  We had 10 inches of rain last month!  But everyone is a little behind in getting their gardens in.  And a week isn't too hateful.

I'll post some pictures of my progress soon.  Im wildly proud of getting all this done in a weekend, I am feeling compelled to show it all off.  Hope everyone else is getting their gardening done, if they can find sometime between rain storms!

Happy Growing!

a small insurance rant...

I understand that insurance is a necessary evil.  We pay people hundreds of dollars a year to help us pay bills in case we encounter the unexpected.  We don't use it very often.  Its a comfortable back up plan.  That said, it makes me so frustrated whenever I have to deal with insurance.  Its NEVER easy.  Not once.  I've never gotten off the phone with my insurance agent and thought, "wow, how simple was that?"  No one ever has.  And I had a wonderful agent.  He was thoughtful and consistent, but he can't help it, insurance by its very nature is difficult.  And because we recently bought a new car, our insurance went up 25%.  That didn't work for me.  I understand it would be more expensive to replace the car, etc. but it didn't justify that large of an increase.  So I started shopping.  And found a new insurance agency that saves me a few hundred dollars a year.  Hurray!  I was so happy, I paid in full up front.  But still, my insurance woes continue.  We received a large check as reimbursement for our previous payments.  Nothing itemized, of course.  That would be too easy.  I can't tell if this is for car, house, both?   This wouldn't be a problem, but I have to put money back into our escrow account, which pays our insurance and taxes.  And they aren't getting any more than they are due.  I can't afford it.  My point, that I am slowly meandering towards, is that I must call the old insurance agent again today.  And I know, there is nothing they love more than dealing with former customers.  Its going to be a long day....

my own personal ginger....

pre-sneeze.

What brings you here today?

Hello.  My name is Lori and I am a reporter's wife.  For those in the know, that means I see my husband not often at all.  Which sucks, frankly.  But such is our lot and we roll with it.  I spend a lot of time alone with my son, which is great, but I frequently crave adult conversation.  Even one sided conversation, which is what brings me here.  There are  all sorts of titles that I frequently slap on myself.  Im a big reader.  Im a great dancer.  Im a terrible budgeter.  Im a gardener (a simply awful one, but I keep trying).  Those are just the names I like to give myself.  I frequently have to take on names I'd rather not.  Plumber.  Nurse.  Housemaid.  Banker.  But the one title I miss the most is conversationalist.  I fear that 4 years with a baby have reduced me to a jabbering tool.  So please bear with me.  Read along, correct me where necessary.  I'll share what's happening at my joint with you and you can take it from there.  Thanks and here's to some good chats....