Puzzle

See if you can figure out what I was doing this week:

Wordless Wednesday, sorta

Lotsa pics today, as I've been taking them but not putting them up.  Here's the (scanty) progress on Friend Husband's sweater.  NaNo just sucks up all available time.



Yesterday I talked about the 73-year-old woman at my Curves who works the polls every year.  Outrageous hours but she's back working out bright and early at 7 the next morning.  She was in rare form today.  Anyway, tomorrow will be her 1000th workout with Curves.  I've been working out with her since 2004 and I *ahem* do not have close to that number.  Hazel rocks.  Here she is with the owner of our Curves and her 1000 workouts t-shirt.



I took this yesterday.  I love the way Zi's hair poofs up around the earphones.



This comes under the title of, "I knew it was too quiet in the bathroom."



This is daughter # 3 playing outside in the gorgeous fall foliage in ours and our neighbors' yards.



And this picture is for Yasmin (sorry, I can never figure out which blog is actually yours or I'd link it), who wanted to know what Keziah's hair looked like after the brushing out on Sunday.  Soon I will need to braid it because we get tired of combing it out every day when she has her "Mickeys" in.



Have a great day everyone!

I forgot my title

I do believe that I have no ability to think anymore.

I do, however, have good news.  And pictures.  So no one should miss my lack of brain power today.  I let Doug take the brain cell we share to work today. 

Ok, the Grandparents are gone and we all survived but it took all of us a couple of days to rest up.  Big news here:  Rachel got the female lead in the play.  Which would be just swell if she'd actually keep current in her work.  Working on that.

The twins and I had an adventure today.  First, we went to Friend Gina's to pick up a yarn swift so that I can wind into balls all the yarn for Friend Husband's sweater.  Had big fun there.  Then we went to Shaw Farms to play on their fall "toys" and take pumpkin pictures.




Being eaten by the croc...I told them to act scared and this was what they could muster.


This one's for Aunt Amber.


Twins in jail...yeah, we won't even go there.


I finished my Hedera socks this morning!  Hurrah!  Sadly, one of them came unwound at the toe when I wore them this morning.  Grrrr....Those are the socks that just do not want to be finished.  They'll be finished if I have to sew them shut with my sewing machine...and don't think I won't either.  Of course, they came apart before I could get a photo of them, so no joy there.

Ok, sorry, gotta run.  My tyranical 9-year-old needs the computer wicked bad.

Wordless Wednesday: What I've been doing today and a question

Today was the first day this year that I hung laundry out on the line. I so love hanging laundry out. I love the savings of it and I love the way the laundry smells when it's finished. It makes me happy. It's indicative of how very nauseated I was when pregnant that I couldn't abide the smell of line-dried laundry. It would literally make me puke.

So anyway, it's warm and I'm finally inspired enough to hang clothes out (no, nothing in my house gets done without my being inspired to do it...got a problem with that?). Because we are klassy with a capital "K", I have my own homemade laundry lines. I tried to find a picture of Friend Gina's beautiful lines for comparative purposes but couldn't locate it. Since we don't have a gorgeous laundry line in our backyard, I improvised.



Oh yeah, I know my mama's proud.

I also decided to wash the quilts that Friend Husband and I had used on our bed all winter. You might not think that this would be that big of a production, but it is. The main one that we use is ginormous. It almost hits the ground on both sides of our double bed. I call it the "quilt that ate Cleveland". That one has to go into the washer all by its lonesome.

The washing of the quilts necessitates that I clean my porch. No, that was not a non sequitur. Stick with me. When I wash the quilts, I hang them out on the porch railings to dry (unless it's the middle of the winter and someone has just urped all over them). So I had to clean the porch railings and sweep the parts of the porch and front sidewalk that would touch the damp quilts. I also had to threaten the twins and the neighbor urchins that if they touched those quilts I was going to have to hurt them. Severely. The girls learned long ago that you don't mess with Mama's quilts. So here they are, in all their clean glory:


And here are all the urchins in their unclean glory:


Only the brown ones are mine. The other two ostensibly live next door, although they spend a fair amount of time over here.

BTW, the quilt on the porch swing is the huge one. I made it my ownself and it took something like 8 years. It's a memory quilt with blocks from folks we knew (and liked) in Columbia, MO before we moved. (Yes, people we didn't like were not invited to participate.) The pink quilt is one that my Mamaw made years and years ago. It's a modified Ohio Star with a Glorified Nine Patch in the center. You probably can't see it but the setting triangles around the Nine Patch block are floral fabric. From curtains. I remember those curtains. Those of you who are quilters are shuddering now. I'm surprised, given how delicate that fabric is, but it's held up well. She had two of them on her beds in her house in Brady. I'm tickled that I have them now.

I also took time to smell, if not the roses which are not yet in bloom, the flowers.

These are from Abby's garden. And the ones below are from mine.


And now for the question. For the last few (five, maybe, hee hee), I've wanted to repaint the shutters on our house. I've cleaned them and cleaned them but I think it's time for a new look. The problem is that the brick on our house is sort of a funky color for brick and I'm not good with warm colors. Here's the house, or at least some shutters:


I was thinking at first about a soft, mossy green (because I love green so and I thought it might look ok) and then an electric blue (because I'm weird that way). But now I'm thinking that something like a barn red would look better. What do y'all think? Here's a Klassy superimposition of the colors for your perusal.

At any rate, all the shutters, the side of the garage, the porch, etc. need to be pressure washed. I think my daddy should pack up his new dog, his pressure washer, and himself and get on up here to help me, don't y'all?

Seriously, though, I'm decorating impaired so tell me what you think about the shutter colors. And have a wonderful Wednesday!

Wordless Wednesday

Thursday Thirteen #79

Thirteen of my favorite pictures from last year I further decided to make them photos that I had not already put on my blog (because, of course, those were probably more my faves but you've already seen them, right?). Of course, most of them will be of the chillens because , well, that's my job, my passion, and my life. Most days anyway. I had a fab idea for a TT yesterday and, of course, it evaporated before I could write it down. ARGH. Oh well...off to the pics. 1. This is our lovely friend Elizabeth in her turn as Hope Leslie Trite in Alibis last December. Elizabeth is indeed a beautiful girl with much talent and I loved this picture even before I was able to (finally) effectively use red-eye removal on it. Now it's simply ravishing...heh. 2. I, of course, am bowled over by pictures of cute sleeping children. Especially when they are my cute sleeping twins. It's funny how they like to be together always, even when sleeping. 3. Another sort-of sleeping twin shot. Only one twin and I are sleeping here and Dave decided to be part of the bunch. 4. I think Friend Husband is just as cute as he can be and when he dresses up in his regalia... well. I just swoon. He good-naturedly let me take photos of him in December when he marched yet again in his university's commencement procession. I want to throw in another pic of the back of the regalia because of its tremendously shocking color scheme. Remember, we both graduated from The University of Texas at Interregional at Austin, where the school colors are...wait for it...burnt orange and white. Yick. So, forever, he gets to wear the lovely Longhorn colors on his back when he marches. Better him than me. 5. I took this picture of David one morning when we were watching a video and talking. That is, I was talking to one of his sisters or someone and when I glanced over at Dave, he had made this tremendous and solid tower with videos. I was so astounded by it that I took his photo next to it. It may not seem like much but when I see this shot, I remember the astonishment that I felt when I saw that he'd done that without blinking an eye. What a little engineer he'll be! 6. This photo just cracks me up. Most of my friends (ahem, GINA) and family think that Zi is just a perfect angel child always. She isn't, believe me. This is Zi. The following picture was taken about a minute later and was, of course, the one that made it into my blog last year. 7. The following two pictures are of me at Laurel Court, last year. Friend Gina and I just got back from the trip to Laurel Court that happened this year as a result of the friendship of one of my quilting buddies with the owners of the estate. I took many many pictures of the house itself with it palatial appointments, but these are a couple of me pretending to be a pretentious woman of the manor-born. Doesn't sit too well on me, does it? Maybe I should have slapped some makeup on that evening. Another note is that the lighting in that place was dim at best so I had to do a lot of photo lightening on these. They look a little washed out but that's the best I could do. The first is of me sitting in a throne-like chair in the billiards room. The second is of me on the beautiful staircase. I don't like how the Corinthian orders look in this room, but it's not my house so I don't get a vote. It's neat to visit it but I always feel like I'm leaving a small museum rather than a home. 8. This is another Zi pic that just cracks me up. 9. I don't know if I already put this picture up but I don't remember having done it. This was from our trip to Florida last year. All of the children are standing in a replica of an eagle's nest. 10. I love me my summer vine-ripened tomatoes. And as an added bonus, the counter was clean for a change. 11. Can you tell that I take a lot of sleeping child photos? Of the five children, Sarah, David, and Keziah were the ones who would be moved when they were sleeping and would sleep anywhere. It was a great and grand blessing. 12. This is the very first picture I took with my new digital camera, of my very own dad, who gave it to me for my birthday. 13. Just because...

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Ouch

Ok, this will probably be of excruciating length, not because so much as happened but because I've been blogging in my brain for a full 24 hours and it needs to be on the blog or it'll be racketing around in my brain for even longer. Of course, my brain being what it is, it is quite possible that I'll forget half of it so the warning may be for naught.

First of all, Cousin Monica asked me if Elof is off living the sweet in Lebanon, OH. He is not. He is still living the sweet life in our back yard. So mourning has been called off for now. The guy who seemed so interested and cool has not called me back with the name of his vet reference and I'm not turning sweet Elof over to some miscreant who won't at least tell me the name of his vet. Perhaps he's an ok guy but I'm suspicious that he is a bad 'un who wanted to hurt sweet Elof.

Meanwhile, sweet Elof has escaped our protective custody at least twice recently. He always comes back but it's a little disconcerting.

Saturday I spent at Circle Tail walking various puppies on both mud and ice. It was quite an experience. I came home utterly exhausted. I got to walk Coastal again, for his last walk at Circle Tail before his "people" came to get him. He was the pup that I got to walk my first time, after he had been rejected by some people who were interested in him. I got to see the people who were adopting him on Saturday. They were walking up as I was driving out. Nice little family with a toddler son. I think they'll enjoy the sweet boy. I also got to talk to Friend Gina, which is always a pleasure and now that her parents have moved to town, is a pleasure I get less and less. Haha, Gina! Did you ever think I'd be jealous of your mom? :-)

Sunday was not a happy day as I felt horrid most of the day but what can you do?

And then we come to yesterday. If I had had the time/inclination to write this yesterday, I would have entitled it, "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood". It was just a stellar day, warm and sunny. Even better as it was between some nasty cold days. I determined, since it was supposed to be our half-day off, that we'd spend as much time as possible outside soaking up the elusive sunlight. And that we did, at least the twins and I. The girls did have to do their afternoon schoolwork but the twins and I were outside all day except for the time that we had to go to the grocery for meds and eggs.

Ahhhh....there's something about an unexpected beautiful day in the middle of winter. OH! And we saw the first crocuses yesterday, so that's always as red letter day. So, seeing as it was nice out and we were going to be out anyway, I called it a semi-work day. The twins picked up dead wood in the yard while I pooper-scooped. I also moved Elof over to another part of the yard so that he could enjoy being somewhere else for a change. He enjoyed it so much that he wrapped his tether all around the roots of a fallen tree and got to stand in one position until I could come to rescue him. As I tell him almost every day, he is an inordinately stupid animal. Of course, I say it with a smile on my face. But he is rather dumb.

I also picked up all the aluminum cans that Elof had strewn all over the yard and garage from my recycling (and I noted that Friend Husband had cleaned up the garbage he strewed all over the garage, thanks honey!) plus put away those huge plastic sand boxes that were still in the back yard from the summer. After picking up and distributing the fruit & veggie co-op goodies and going to the store, I returned home to think about today and the torrential rainfall that we'd been promised. And, sadly enough for me, I thought about our gutters.

If we have a big rain, our gutters regularly overflow. Part of that is because they are but-old and need to be replaced and part of that is because we have huge old oak trees that deposit an unimaginable amount of leaves and gunk in there. I try to keep up with them but I'm not getting on a roof if it's wet and sometimes I have to just leave it. Seeing as the roof was dry yesterday, I decided to clean out gutters.

No, I don't know what possesses me sometimes. I guess that I, like Elof, am just sometimes an inordinately stupid animal. (Sarah says that the line between nobility and stupidity seems pretty thin to her too.)

So up the ladder, up on the roof, and I was glad I did because, inexplicably, the gutters were full again. I plopped down rotting leaves, twigs, and acorns and got to the ONLY downspout that is on the back of the house. Did I mention that the house doesn't have nearly enough downspouts? No? Well, it doesn't. And this one was full of acorns and other muck that I couldn't get out. I sent Rachel in for a spoon so that I could do that. Digging as deeply as I could, perched on the edge of the roof, with a tablespoon (don't worry, I won't use it if you're coming over for dinner), I still couldn't get all of it out. After I got off the roof (for the first time by myself, yay me!), I moved the ladder over so I could remove the downspout. This, of course, took more time than it really needed to because the screw hadn't been removed in, oh, about 30 years. As I was working on the screw, it started to rain. Lovely. When I finally worked the downspout loose and emptied it, muck poured out of the entire length of it. No wonder we have trouble with the gutters. I still haven't worked up my courage enough to go into the laundry room and see if we still had some overflow but I hope that it was lessened by my mucking out the gutters yesterday.

Well, it seems that time is up and silly twins feel that they need to be fed. But the ouch. I knew that I would be sore today but my word! Trying to get out of the car to work out this morning was a special sort of pain. I hope to feel much better tomorrow. And at least it is now too cold to expect me to clean out gutters for a while.

Oh, I just remembered one more thing when I was looking at David standing here. I put the twins into the tub last night and Keziah kept asking for "hot water, Mama, hotter!" After a shorter amount of time than usual, Keziah asked for me to come get her out. After I got her dried and slathered, I turned to get David. I looked at him just in time to see him stagger back away from the wall of the shower. He had fallen asleep, standing up, with his forehead resting on the wall. Poor little man! He snuggled into my shoulder and slept while I dried him off, slathered him, and dressed him. (I just love it when he's a snuggle-puss.) Of course, he sprang to life after he ate a little but it was still nice to have a sleepy Dave snuggle.

Now I'm really gone. And aren't you glad?

Oy.

If I am no longer here after today, you'll know why.

I thought yesterday was quite a surprise. Yesterday was when I called for a brief appointment at the dentist's for them to look at the hole I discovered in Keziah's tooth. Her tooth that has stubbornly refused to come in was finally coming in and I was showing it to our friends when I discovered that the tooth behind it had a cavity in the outer wall of it. I was quite surprised! When I first called, they didn't have room to see her and were rather suspicious that she even had a cavity. ("So you can actually see a cavity in her tooth?" "Yes, there is actually a visible hole in her tooth." "How old did you say she was again?" "Three." "Well that is certainly unusual." "Yes.") I was relieved to find that they could fit her in after all, at 3 o'clock.

David, Abby, Kez & I left a bit late to get there. In the process, David released from the house the dog that we've been taking care of. I did not have time to chase Elof down, so I mentally said, "Adios" to him as I took my 3 youngest down the road to the dentist.

When I got there and the dental hygienist looked at her tooth, it was indeed deemed a cavity. (Yeah, I'm the mother of five but I'm totally stupid, right?) She also asked if I wanted her to clean Keziah's teeth today and since she had the time, I gave her the ok. Apparently Keziah has very soft enamel and that, plus a possible problem with her in utero was what caused the cavity on her tooth. Keziah was an amazing patient. She sat there, did as Miss Linney told her, and wasn't at all afraid. The dentist came in, told her what would happen when she came back for her filling, then left. At that, Miss Linney said that she'd had a cancellation, if I wanted to get David's teeth cleaned, I could. Seeing as I like to keep us on as close a schedule as possible, I said yes and Dave climbed up into the chair to get his teeth cleaned as well.

As Kez and I were settling in, the dental assistant came in and said that they had time to fill Keziah's tooth, if we had time to do it now. What else were we going to do? Fortunately, Abby was there, so she stayed with David while I took Keziah over to have her tooth filled.

Keziah, being the tiny girl that she is, found that the chair the dentist put her in made a great slide. She couldn't figure out why it was that I couldn't get in on the fun with her. Yeah, Mommy's too big for that, Zi. She did the exact same thing in the filling chair as in the cleaning chair and everyone in the office was quite impressed with how well she did, especially for the first time.

When Friend Husband calls me on his way home, I generally don't have anything to tell him about my day. Yesterday I told him all about our adventures at the dentist. Sometimes the days are just packed, as that intrepid philosopher Calvin once said.

Today has been yet another ball of wax. Perhaps those of you who have hyperactive little boys can tell me what to do here. David has been into everything. Today he has 1) opened some poster paint and festooned his bed, room, and person with it; 2) thrown cardboard down the downstairs toilet; 3) smacked his twin upside the head with a piece of trim; 4) led her on a merry chase around the house after stealing some possession of hers; 5) urinated in an unauthorized place; and 6) stolen candy from our Valentine's stash.


It's a good thing that we have times like this to make up for those other times, huh?

The day's young yet.

Spanking him does not slow him down. Taking away privileges doesn't seem to make a dent. Putting him in time-out only stops him for as long as he is in time-out (and, tempting though it may be, I cannot leave him in time-out all day). So what do you do to keep him (and his twin sister) occupied and still be able to teach their older sisters? Looking for advice here, bring it on.

I've been thinking a lot about what my duties as a parent are and how to reconcile those with what my heart tells me I should be doing. This is generally in relation to my child(ren) with Asperger's but it also plays out with the others. This job is never one that you can cruise on, or at least I've never been able to. There's always something coming up to make you think, challenge you, or give you the opportunity to crash or to fly. Some days it makes me too tired to even entertain thoughts about it. This is turning out to be one of those days.

Wordless Wednesday

Happy 3rd birthday, Keziah and David!