Monday Menagerie

The journaling class is over! I only had to teach it once because the person in charge decided that everyone should go from one class to another in one group (it was a very small group--but that's ok. I'd rather teach to a small group anyway) so instead of doing four classes, I did one AND I got to attend the other classes which was nice! The conference was for single men and women in our church, and when I walked into the first class, I saw an old friend of mine. She looked shocked to see me there, and no sooner had I sat down then she asked me what I was doing there. I told her I was teaching and she looked so relieved and said, "Oh good! I thought you had divorced your husband!" I laughed out loud and assured her that I would never divorce Jim. She said, "I didn't think you would, but seeing you at a singles activity, I wondered!"

In other news, Jim and Jimmy are at their Scout camp activity. Cell phone reception is nonexistent in all parts of the camp but one so I have only heard from him once when he was in that part of the camp for a leaders meeting. I miss my husband, especially this morning when Paul informed me that the garage door won't open. I had to wrangle with the manual opener and in the process, popped the light covers off the machinery. I think the chain is broken. Sigh.

When I am beset with dilemmas and problems and unforeseen events such as the broken garage door, I need a pick-me-up. Fortunately the day is beautiful and I wandered around my yard in search of happiness.

Happiness came in the form of:

a blooming pea plant

rows of beans
looking up at my deck and seeing the morning glories climbing the balusters (HA DAD!) and the lobelia poking through
the first rose bloom of the year
and seeing Magic gazing out the window, judging all he sees and finding it wanting.Unlike Magic here, I love me some nature. Especially the pretty kind that stays put and doesn't encroach in parts of the yard where I don't want it to be.

And if you would like to see a picture of my Floridian daughter holding a shark, go to Froggybaby's Pond. Thanks be to Jenni, Travis, Morgan, Roz, and Maddie for hosting my Cheeky-Pie and providing her with such grand adventures!

Journalism

I'm supposed to give a seminar on journaling tomorrow at a regional singles conference.

I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know how to give a seminar. Why did I say I would do it?

Can I talk about blogging instead?

I also have to give the seminar four times. Can I just hand out paper and tell the class to start writing?

I sent my handouts to the woman who is having them printed out and she emailed me back asking if she could tweak them visually. I felt like such a loser. I've obviously come up with boring handouts. This is the same woman who does our church bulletins that are handed out every Sunday--6 pages worth of bulletin with clip art.

I do have plenty of visual aids. I have kept a journal on and off throughout my 29* years, and I save letters and for a long while I saved emails. I have memoirs written by ancestors from Jim's family and histories written by my aunt about my ancestors. I have a journal in a jar. I have photo albums with stuff written in them about each picture.

But I still feel like I can't get this presentation to gel!

*40

No theme to this post

Aaaaaaaaaaaah, sweet air conditioning, how I love you. It was a bit on the toasty and humid side yesterday, and I prefer to be on the slightly chilly side of life. Don't know why I started this post off with that. Guess it's just the Minnesotan thing to do to mention the weather all the time.

Now onto another topic: Things I should have done yesterday vs. Things I did.

Things I should have done:
Dusted in my bedroom
Cleaned and organized the sewing room
Dusted ceilings
Cleaned kitchen cupboards
Organized around the computer desk

Things I did:
Wandered around the yard, resetting the sprinkler several times
Ate a Fudgesicle (or two)

Random old pictures time:

It was the 80s; of course I got perms then. Mom was my hair stylist. Dig the wallpaper. No wonder Mike was hyperactive back then. With that on the walls, how could anyone be calm?
Julie was the sixth kid in the family. She was loud, obnoxious, bold, outdoorsy, funny, crude, imaginative--pretty much everything I wasn't at the time. She was my best friend. If it weren't for her, I would have spent all day in my room, not ever wanting to go out. We put together this hamburger puzzle many many times. This was the last time we did it, though because we glued the pieces together. Whatever became of the hamburger puzzle?

A long time ago (well, last night) in a galaxy far far away (well, in a science museum over in St. Paul anyway)

Feast your eyes on pictures from our trip to the Science Museum of Minnesota to see the Star Wars exhibit! Believe it or not, I forgot my camera in the car and I didn't want to go back to get it. Fortunately Jimmy and Katie brought theirs so we have plenty of pictures anyway. I realize I've posted quite a few of those pictures, but the bunch I've posted represent only a very small fraction of the number of pictures we took.

The kids and some very famous costumes/robots:

Sara3PO and Matt2D2The very very cool Millenium Falcon:
Mattakin Skywalker
Matt mimics a pit droid:
Matt converses with a trashcan droid:
The landspeeder (I'd want one, but it would need to seat 7)

Katie and Matt fight with a Droideka:
Jimmy dreams of being Han Solo:
Katie dreams of Hayden Christiansen as Anakin
Two Wookiees and a Pauliee

Jimmy and two new friends:"This must be one of the droids we're looking for"

Yoot Stywater meets up with Darth Vader (family joke: Paul used to pronounce "Luke Skywalker" as "Yoot Stywater")

Ten Things To do today

1. Wake up. (slap!) Wake up!

2. Enjoy shoulder not hurting from tetanus shot. It only just stopped hurting yesterday.

3. Try not to scratch mosquito bites acquired at last night's baseball game--despite having sprayed on repellent (!!!). Jimmy and Paul's team won. Paul stole some bases, and scored, Jimmy hit a solid line drive which scored some base runners, and he also came in to throw one pitch to save the game. All hail to the centerfielder who caught the ball that the batter hit off that one pitch!

4. Wake kids up and harangue them until they get their chores done. Explain to Katie that when she leaves packaged crackers on the floor in the family room overnight that the cats WILL claw them open and make a large mess. Have her clean up the mess.

5. Tell Jimmy to stop texting.

6. Wave goodbye to older children as they go over to Grandma's house to do yard work.
6a. Enjoy the quiet of just having Matt around (HAHAHAHAHA!) Amendment: Matt wants to go to Grandma's to do yard work...Dare I think of having the house to myself for a few hours today??? I'm almost giddy with anticipation!

7. Exercise

8. Miss Hayley (although I'm sure she is having a grand time, even though I have no pictorial evidence that she is even in Florida).

9. Make bed, clean kitchen, scrub bathroom tub, do laundry, make dinner

10. GO TO STAR WARS EXHIBIT AT THE SCIENCE MUSEUM TONIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love droids!

Eye-Q test

Pop quiz time! Did you study? I'll bet not. Next time you'll be prepared, won't you?

Match the eyeball with the Shoebox Castle person. Your choices are Jim, Me, Katie, Jimmy, Paul, Hayley, and Matt. Each person will be used once.
If you incorrectly identify the sixth eye, I shall come after you with a genuine Red Ryder 200-shot Carbine Action Air Rifle. (bonus point: Identify the movie reference. Second bonus point for correctly identifying what I would do to you with the Red Ryder 200-shot Carbine Action Air Rifle, based on the movie reference)

Prize for most correctly identified is a pair of prescription sunglasses. They are heavy and the frame style is very out-of-date.

Big Stone sculpture garden and 13-hole mini golf course

I took the boys mini-golfing yesterday. It was a fine day to do it and we had a free afternoon. Since there were no girls around, I wanted to do something vaguely sporting. I read about this golf course in the newspaper a week ago or so and thought it would be worth the 40-minute drive to go out to see it. It was well worth the drive and the $6 per person fee. The boys had a great time, except Paul had a very itchy eye that prevented him from enjoying it thoroughly. He is now one of the Allergic Folk. The eye got better when we got in the van and turned on the AC and shut the windows.

Anyway, this is the first hole. You have to play through a forest of tree trunks. Jimmy says he got a 4, but I don't see how you can play this hole with any score less than about 10 strokes.


This is a cool, moving sculpture. Jimmy brought his new early birthday present (I had a coupon for it that expired soon and he really wanted it before he goes on the High Adventure trip in a week and a half).
Here is the gazebo hole. Very calm and serene.

I liked this hole best. You have to shoot the ball through the hole in the slab of stone. There is a lip on the end of the ramp that makes the ball hop into the air to go through the hole. Paul got it on his first try. Matt and Jimmy were less than successful. By the way, I paid for a club and ball, but ended up taking pictures instead of playing. I had fun watching the boys have fun.

This was the boys' favorite hole. From the outside, this structure looks like a capsized boat. The holes in the hull are covered with glass, and when the light shines through, the light makes patterns on the turf. It's nice and cool inside too.
This is the black hole hole. You shoot your ball into a tube that feeds the ball into this big bowl where it spirals down and eventually (and it does take a little while) drops into one of three holes. Matt just wanted to drop balls into the bowl and watch them spiral down.
This is the pumpkin garden hole. I've been calling it the lily pad hole, but only because there is a lily pad pond right next to it. But the stone sculptures are pumpkins, and the metal leaves are the pumpkin vines.

The spiral hedge hole.
If you live in the Twin Cities area, check this place out! The couple behind us were there celebrating their 44th anniversary. And since the newspaper article came out, the clubhouse attendant said that business had quadrupled. The place is on an organic farm and they plan to keep adding holes and sculptures.

The other boy being thrown out at first

So I said I was going to post two videos , and with the hullabaloo surrounding my mouse bite, I forgot. (pause a minute for you to roll your eyes at me either for mentioning the mouse bite or for the fact that it's only been a day since I said I'd post a clip of Jimmy or both)

Here is Jimmy hitting the ball. And once again, whatever voice you hear, it is not mine. I did not yell, "Nice cut." Really. I would never yell "Nice cut," unless someone had a scratch on his arm in the shape of the state of Minnesota.


My arm hurts from the tetanus shot. Just thought I'd mention that.

Reason #1 not to pick up a mouse

They bite.

But that really isn't the bad part of it. Pick up the mouse, bam!--it bites you, you feel a bit of a pricking sensation, you drop it and it runs back into your garage to leave little mouse droppings under your garage shelving. Takes maybe 2 seconds. 2 and a half, tops.

No, the worst part is then you have to dig through the cupboard to find your phone book while you worry about turning into a were-mouse, only to pull out the yellow pages for Savage, which doesn't have your dr. office which is in Burnsville. You pull out the second one, but it's for St. Paul. Luckily it has your clinic listed. Then you dial the wrong number within the vast network of your health care organization, get transferred three times, wind up on hold for another 15 minutes, then sheepishly explain to the tired-sounding call answerer why you need to talk to a nurse. Then you get put on hold for the nurse only to have her call you while you wait for her to answer your call (can't explain that one. But it happened. My call waiting detected a call from the nurse hotline while I was on hold with them). Then the nurse makes some crack about you bothering the mouse and you have to remind yourself that the mouse is the vermin, not you (and you hope it remains that way). The nurse says you have to come in to urgent care for a tetanus shot, like NOW.

So you put off making dinner to go to urgent care and are seen by no less than FOUR health care professionals not including the admitting receptionist (who probably alerted the staff to the total dimwit who got bit by a mouse and they all had to come have a look), and all of them want to know what happened. They all try not to laugh at you.

Then the pretend doctor (the Physician's assistant, who is NOT a nurse but someone in between) offers not only the tetanus shot but a pertussis immunization as well (it must have been buy-one-get-one-free day at urgent care). And you can't pass up the chance to not get whooping cough (the PA said that the pertussis vaccine given to young children has been proven to wear off in adulthood).

Then you tell each one of the people who have a look at you that at least you didn't pick up a bear.

Then you go home and eat dinner really really late because the whole ordeal took slightly longer than two and a half hours.

Wanna see one of my boys being thrown out at first?

It's baseball season and I have nothing else of interest to post about, so I'm putting up some baseball videos of Paul and Jimmy at bat. Jimmy's video will come in the next post. I don't have any of Matt, because he hardly ever hits the ball. He's getting better at fielding, though. I don't care so much if the boys get thrown out at first, because at least they hit the ball. Paul had another really good hit later in this same game, but I didn't catch it on video. He hit a solid line drive, but sadly it went right to the first baseman who caught it, so he was out. But it was a good hit. And unlike when I shoot footage at marching band events, I rarely yell when taking baseball videos. So if you think you hear me, you are wrong. DEAD wrong. If you have really sharp ears, though, you might be able to hear Jim. He was basecoaching. And all the clapping and "yaying" was from the Farmington fans.

What happens when you lend Jimmy a camera

Yesterday Jimmy and Paul volunteered at Matt's Cub Scout Day camp. Jimmy asked if he could borrow my camera (he's been hinting with all the finesse and subtlety of a sledgehammer that we should get him a camera for his birthday) to take to the day camp. I said ok as long as he took pictures of Matt.

He took three pictures of Matt and about forty of this kind of thing:

These are all girls he knows. Can you tell he is anxious to turn 16 and ask some of these girls out?

Like I said, he did take a few pictures of Matt, but none of Paul. Paul was working a different station. Here is a picture of Matt. He has made a marshmallow gun.
And here is one of an anonymous kid, running the obstacle course. It's a cool action shot.

At least the TV didn't start talking to me.

Doesn't look creepy, does it? Looks can be deceiving, though, can't they?

As I was sitting here at the computer, my back to the fireplace, minding my own business and not touching the fireplace remote at all, the fireplace turned on. By itself. The fire didn't go on, just the fan that would blow the hot air out into the room (if there were any hot air other than that which comes out of my mouth).

This is where the remote sits for many months out of the year. The cats don't play with it, I don't play with it, nobody touches it during the months of May, June, July, August, and September.

No cats were near the fireplace, no humans were near the fireplace. And yet the fireplace turned on the fan.

This is not the first time this has happened either. We came home from a weeklong vacation in the summer several years ago to find that the fireplace had turned itself on--and not just the fan but the fire too--and the house was miserably hot. The AC had tried to cope with it, but couldn't.

We've had techs out to look at it and they've replaced bits and bobs of it here and there. The last one in said to just turn the whole thing off during the summer months. I guess we forgot to do that this year.

Anyway, the fireplace turned itself on and I think we should start calling it Casper.

Left behind

The house is quiet. It's summer break and I'm supposed to be mired in questions and arguments between children, yet the only sound in the house is the sound of me typing.

Katie is still asleep.

Jimmy and Paul are volunteering at Cub Scout Day camp.

Matt is one of the Cub Scouts at the Day camp.

Hayley is in Florida.

I hope it's not wrong of me to enjoy this!

Party-Pooped

I'm still trying to recover from hosting that party. I had nightmares the night AFTER the party!! What was up with that???

And yesterday, I had an adventure with my mother and her sister (Dorothy) and her sister's husband (Tom). We drove an hour and a half or so to attend my cousin's son's graduation party. Tom is a scream, mostly because he is SO exasperating--he's bossy, opinionated, demanding, and self-centered. Dorothy doesn't put up with much from him; she was rolling her eyes at everything he said and she even hit him once with her water bottle, when he was berating my mom for driving the way she was. Mom is used to his behavior and doesn't get bent out of shape when he gets critical. Anyway, I sat in the back and chuckled the whole way up to Duelm and back. When we got to Dorothy's house, Mom leaned over to me and said, "I'm glad we brought Tom so I could see him NOT get his way." I replied, "You brought him along so you could be mean to him?" and she smiled with guilty pleasure on her face.

The grad party was very nice--I had a nice chat with my cousin, who I haven't seen in years (since her father's funeral), and her children are so grown up! I remember seeing the older three when they were quite young. And William, who graduated, looks just like his grandfather, my uncle Bill, of whom I have many fond memories.

Yes, I deserted my husband on Father's Day. But I asked him first and went only with his OK. We did make him breakfast: eggs, sausage, and left over fruit from the party. And I'm sure he helped himself to the leftover chicken wings too. He loves those buffalo wings, Jake.

What I should have posted yesterday:
Jim is a great dad. Today he is volunteering at Matt's Cub Scout Day Camp, along with Jimmy and Paul. He's a good example to his boys--they'll all be great dads if they follow Jim's example. He listens to his children, he disciplines them gently (unless they are REALLY annoying--then he might raise his voice a decibel or two--he hasn't ever yelled at them, though), he attends as many performances and games as he can, and volunteers at their events when he has the know-how and time (He's coached baseball for many years!). He is a supportive and kind husband. He never gets mad at me either, a difficult feat as I even frustrate myself.

Happy Father's Day Jim; you are wonderful!

The shoebox castle is full of tired feet

Oh.

My.

Goodness.

I'd be faceplanting into my bed right now, but my bed is still full of all the detritus we cleared out of the kitchen, dining room, and living room to make space for the party. So no faceplant until I do some more cleaning.

Once the party got under way, I had a ton of fun and Katie had two tons. When Katie's band teacher showed up, my mother asked him if he and Katie would perform. So there was an impromptu recital in my living room. I laughingly apologized to Mr. K that he had to come to a party and perform. He said he didn't mind, and said "we must obey grandma!"

The party lasted about 5 hours (one hour longer than we had planned, but that's ok). My brother Jake did an AMAZING job with the food. We got many many compliments on the spread. And my mother got a compliment on her potato salad from the president of a local culinary school. He loved it and wanted the recipe.

The weather was perfect, by the way! Perfect perfect perfect!

What about pictures, you ask? Of course I took pictures!

The school colors themed decorations.

Katie displayed her prom dress with her other high school memoribilia.
The picture portion of the shrine to the graduate.
The big poster we made for guests to say something to Katie. The poster is surrounded by all of Katie's school pictures by year.
The tree o' cupcakes
The food. MMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. The meatballs were eeeexcellent. The wings were yummy! The strawberries were huge, but unlike most huge strawberries, these ones were delish!
I asked Katie what she wanted on her cake and she said "music." So I asked her what kind and she found a measure from "Carnival of Venice." So I had to replicate it in icing.
The cake before:
The cake after:
Katie and Grandpa and Grandma H.
Now I want my bed. I need my bed. Sleeeeeeeeeeep...