Storms and Idiots

Good morning! Today we have snow falling from the sky, albeit very small flakes, and everything has a layer of white, although it is not very thick. It’s a good start as long as we get more.

Seth is out with a shovel. I’m not sure what exactly he’s doing with it but I hear him scraping in front of the house. Hopefully he’ll think to do the stairs. Scooter is out as well. She asked to go out in spite of the fact that she didn’t eat yet. From the lack of evidence, I would say she hasn’t done her piddles outside yet so I think she can stay there for a bit.

Yesterday was an okay sort of day. Today actually would be a good day to not write anything because nothing extraordinary happened. However, I don’t have anything pressing that I have to do so here I sit typing away.

We had a late start to the day yesterday because everyone took their time getting up. I don’t mind that too much upon occasion and January 1^st is one of those occasions. Some of us had breakfast, some of us didn’t. Some of us had lunch, some of us didn’t. There was no lack of food, so I’m not worried about anyone going hungry yesterday.

Paul and I left at about 11:35 to take the missionaries out to lunch which has been Paul’s tradition for years. He did break the routine by going to an Indian buffet rather than Chinese this time but that turned out rather well as it introduced three young men to Indian food who had never tried it before. I think they all enjoyed it and I told them that they should return sometime for dinner and try a lassi.

When we were done eating, we went to New Hampshire to pick up a set of tires for the green car. The tires are brand new, came with rims, and the guy actually put them on the car before we left. Paul was going to try to talk him down from the price he was asking but said he didn’t feel right about that given everything he did. We would have stopped at Joann’s but I didn’t remember the address, neither of us remember how to get there, and the GPS wouldn’t find it for us with more information. So, we just came home instead which was fine.

Jessica had returned while we were gone and said that things were rather chaotic, which is pretty normal around here. We had chips and dip and pie for supper which was awesome and groovy. Well, not really, but it was easy. Today we’ll get back into a more regular meal routine. We have so many leftovers that I think that’s what’s on the menu for lunch and supper. Tomorrow we’ll go with something else.

I think Paul is staying home today for work due to the weather. When he talked to Blair yesterday, he was only in Delaware on his way home. Silly man. He was going to go home Tuesday; that would have been much better than driving into a potentially bad storm. I think storms here are worse than anywhere else I’ve ever lived simply because there are so many more idiot drivers out on the roads. The actual storms aren’t really worse, but the amount of idiots certainly is.

Other than the basics, Amena has a birthday party for her church friends planned for tonight. I really do hope that they can come because I really don’t want to deal with having to reschedule.  We had to deal with that last year and it was a month or two before anything would work and then only the triplets were able to come. Tomorrow night is the one she’s planned for her school friends. If we do have to reschedule either of them, I think I’m going to suggest doing them during February break rather than attempting to make a Friday night between now and then work.

I think I’ll be off for now. Have a terrific day!

Happy New Year!

Good morning! And Happy New Year!

Well. I know, I know—a deep subject for a shallow mind.

Yesterday was an alright kind of day. Everything went fairly well and in spite of the fact that I was a bit late getting some things done, I did accomplish everything I wanted to.

I didn’t get much done in the morning other than cleaning the living room which turned out to be a good but not necessary activity since no one really spent much time in there. It needed to be done because there was all sorts of general detritus left over from Christmas and that had accumulated since. Seth and Joseph worked on the dining room and a bit in the area between the dining room and stairs. Both still need some work but this afternoon there should be some time to get to that.

I got peppers cut up and ready and wanted to get the pork cut up and marinating before I did child transfers. Then, before we could actually leave for that, the front tire on the driver’s side of the Jetta needed to be aired up. It seems to have a slow leak that is made worse by the cold and I’m thinking how it is parked because it’s right in front of the house so it’s on a hill and that tire gets the brunt of the force because it’s the lowest one.

Seth, Joseph and I got Amena delivered to the Trivett’s and then went to pick Cedric up. It sounds like he didn’t have any fun at all—just watched a bunch of movies. I think he spent about half an hour telling me about two of the movies—one was the first batman and another was something scary that really didn’t scare him but did surprise him enough to yell once. Then we stopped at Price Chopper where I got a thing of soda and some chips. I’m glad I got the tortilla chips because Paul wasn’t able to find any at the Price Chopper he went to on the way home.

Then I was busy in the kitchen doing the fun stuff that need and/or I wanted to do. I got the peppers stuffed and in the oven. I got caramel made (and it turned out better than last time). I made two kinds of dip (and two more once we were done eating). I got the candy with the coconut pecan frosting covered with melted chocolate made.

What else? I dumped about 30 gallons of fuel in the tank for the water heater and furnace. I straightened out the tarp on the wood pile. Joseph watered plants. Seth and Cedric cleared off the table.

The missionaries arrived and I set Elder Jones to proofreading the Spanish emails that Paul had. I think Elizabeth translated at least some of them first and then Mike did more. Then the guy that was working with Paul, who is Puerto Rican, said that they were all wrong. I said it was more likely that his Spanish was just different. Elder Jones did find some mistakes but mostly they were omitted words and a few verb/noun disagreements. Nothing major.

Julia arrived. Her daughter and granddaughter went somewhere for New Year’s Eve and Julia didn’t want to go so she came here. Since she was going to come for our chip/candy fest, I figured she might as well come for supper too. I’m glad she came—we had fun.

After we ate, the missionaries shared a spiritual thought and then had to take off because it was almost 8:00 already and they were supposed to be in as close to 7:00 as possible so they were already late and were going to be fifteen to thirty minutes later.

Anyway, the stuffed peppers turned out pretty good. I like them about once every six months or so and it had been a while since we last had them. And they weren’t typical with hamburger and Italian seasonings (which I don’t mind but I put oregano and basil in everything already—almost). They had pork marinated in a chipotle lime sauce, black beans, diced tomatoes, onions, peppers, and cheese. Not bad. And there are only five left so we won’t be eating them for days on end.

The boys got set up in Paul’s office to watch The Walking Dead. Seth pooped out on that before long and ended up playing Sorry with Paul, Julia, and I. We played two games. During the second one, Amena and Sarah arrived. They were going to play games in the back room but after the second game of Sorry, Julia had to poop out and go home because she was tired and had been up since 5:00 in the morning. Paul went upstairs because Devon called. Then he called Walter because he’d called earlier. I played Clue with Amena and Sarah twice and then they went in the back room and I went upstairs to watch The Walking Dead with Paul and the boys.

Julia taught herself to knit not long ago. She is somewhat like me in that she really learned when she was younger but never did anything with it. Her daughter gave her some yarn for Christmas and she’s making a hat (I think) with a checkerboard pattern. I told her about The Sweater Workshop so she ordered one and is excited to get started on a sweater sampler. We were looking into spinning lessons for Janelle Lawrence but they’re a bit out of our price range. My mother, however, has agreed to give her a lesson when she comes out later this month. And, while my mother is here, we need to go to Webs and I asked Julia if she’d like to go with us. I think my mom will like Janelle and Julia.

Well, yes, I know, another well here. I think I’m going to sign off for now.

Have a splendid day and a wonderful year!

Guns, Motor Vehicles, and Cigarettes

Good morning! Yesterday was a fairly uneventful day. Joanna went with Zak to work and they dropped Cedric off to spend the day and night with Nick and whoever else was going to be there. The only thing I managed to really do was make turkey chowder for supper and get the dishes done. Well, plus the usual feeding of the animals which isn’t much of an accomplishment but does help keep them alive.

Speaking of such things, the goats have a heated water bucket. They had a five gallon bucket but it died so now they are using the two gallon bucket. It works but is smaller and they need it filled every day rather than every other day. It’s kind of funny how it works. One day, I took a gallon out (I use a gallon pitcher because I never know how much I’m going to need—sometimes one gallon is enough and I wouldn’t want to lug more out there if it wasn’t needed) and dumped it in. By the time I got out with a second, they’d emptied the bucket so I took a third out. Yesterday, I took a gallon out and they still had half a bucket. Today, the bucket was empty but they were more interested in food than water so they only needed one more. Silly goats.

The turkey chowder turned out pretty good. I like it when it turns out, I don’t like it when it doesn’t. It’s a good way to use the turkey broth that gets generated when I boil a carcass after we have turkey and it’s a good way to use quite a bit of turkey if we have any left over. The only problem is that it doesn’t use all of the broth so I suppose I should get out the pressure cooker and start canning what is left so that we don’t waste anything. Yesterday, I just gave most of what was left to Scooter.

Seth and Joseph were pretty good. It’s amazing what a difference it makes not having one child here. Cedric and Amena just won’t quit once they get going at each other and it is something that either one of them could stop if they just made the decision to do so. I think it’s just a really bad habit they’ve developed that needs to be broken. Especially when it carries over to others. Yesterday there was a fairly brief time of Seth picking on Joseph. Not happening, boys. Anyway, it’s just different when one of them isn’t here; it isn’t just Cedric.

Today is a very pretty day outside with the sun shining and ice everywhere. It never got warm enough to melt everything so we’ve still got a layer of slippery ice all over the ground. The steps at least were deiced but not the driveway. We are supposed to be getting a big storm Thursday and Friday which might play havoc with Amena’s planned birthday parties. She is planning one Thursday night for her church friends and one Friday night for her school friends. I personally don’t like to cancel or reschedule so far in advance because the weather isn’t cut and dry. Even though a big storm is predicted, it might not be as bad as they say, it might not even happen. Only time will tell and I’m not willing to bet anything on a forecast of the weather. I probably should tell parents that if the weather is as bad as the reports indicate, we will reschedule but that we will make the call closer to time.

Tonight we are planning a candy and chip and dip extravaganza for New Year’s Eve. I think the plan is for four kinds of dip and at least two kinds of candy (I have to make more caramel—can you believe it?). To some that might not be overly extravagant but it’ll do for us.

Have you seen the blurb about gun control that goes like this: “Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.”? For fun, I looked up the numbers. There are almost 29,000 gun related deaths in the US. This number includes suicide, homicide (including those killed by law enforcement but we won’t get into that right now), accident, and unknown reasons. Motor vehicles result in more than 40,000 deaths each year. Really? That’s food for thought. Here’s the real kicker: an estimated 443,000 people die each year from cigarettes. You know what’s really sad about that number? About 42,000 of them die because of second hand smoke. Do you see anything wrong with this? More people die from second hand smoke than do from guns. More people die from second hand smoke than motor vehicles. Why are we making a war against guns? One of the websites I looked at briefly (it wasn’t an academically sound source) said, “Gun empower people.” Gosh, really? Does smoking empower people? Does driving a car empower people? Another said, “One is too many.” Really? And one death in a motor vehicle isn’t too many? I can tell you from personal experience that it is. One death from cigarettes isn’t too many? Really? Another: “Some people think that gun control is the worst problem in the USA.” Are you bloody kidding me? I don’t think so. Let me reiterate that: I DON’T THINK SO. Did you catch that? No freaking way.

What is the matter with people? Personally, I think it’s in the first blurb: Guns empower people. You’re darn right they do. The problem isn’t in owning guns, the problem is that we, as a society, have lost our respect. We no longer respect each other, we no longer respect life. And everything is all about ME. Gun control is going to solve the problem of almost 29,000 deaths each year? Nope, don’t think so.

Have a fantastic last day of 2013!

Weekend in Review

Good morning! Only one day left of 2013. What will 2014 hold? Only time will tell.

Our weekend was tolerably decent.

Friday night, as you recall, the boys and I went to see a Worcester Sharks game. First time any of us had seen a hockey game in real life; the only other time I’d seen hockey is during the Olympics and in movies. It is very loud and for the first two periods, it didn’t really seem like anyone was paying much attention to the game. I could be wrong about that; just my general impression. During the last period, everyone was because it’s when everything happened. The final score was 5 to 2 with the Sharks winning. Very fast paced game with that puck and the players zipping around like nobody’s business. I think I like it but I think I like soccer better. If one of my boys played, I might like it more. We didn’t get home until sometime around 11:00.

Saturday was Saturday. I volunteered for the 3 to 11 shift at the hospital and I did go in. There wasn’t much for me to do so I went home. My goal for this coming year is to go in and stay in for all of my shifts. And wrack up more because I haven’t had a birth yet.

She got them all out in the same breath.

Jessica Adams arrived just about the time I was leaving. She is between semesters and needed a place to stay after spending Christmas with her family in Rhode Island. We’ve got the room and life is normally somewhat crazy around here so I told her she could stay here if she wanted. The brave soul accepted and is now upstairs.

He's looking excited, eh? Reminds me of that older brother of his . . .

Yesterday being Sunday was very Sunday-like. I needed to get to church early for a meeting so I took Jessica and the Jetta. When we got to the stop light by the church, it wasn’t working. When we got to the church, there was no electricity. National Grid’s website said that it would be back by 10:30 which would have been too late for church to start at 10:00 so we waited for the next update which said 9:15. Then as a phone call was being made to confirm that, the power came on.

My goal wasn't to catch good pictures. Did I succeed?

After church we had Amena’s birthday party. She wanted pizza and hot chicken so that’s what we had. I can’t believe that for so many years I only made pizza once in a while because I thought it was hard. How on earth did that come to be? I think part of it is that I would roll the crust out before putting it on the baking stone and that is something of a pain but otherwise, it’s not difficult and is so much better than those you buy at the store. The pizza yesterday slid right off the stone (partially) when I took it out of the oven and put it on the counter in spite of the fact that I didn’t want it to.

Amena's hand almost looks like it belongs to Joseph. Almost.

The Young Men and Young Women taught Primary during third hour as planned. Before that, though, in Sacrament Meeting, the bishop announced that the Relief Society Visiting Teaching Conference would be during second and third hours. No way, I thought. The email I’d gotten about it said only 3^rd hour. I got my phone from Amena and checked my old emails to be sure and sure enough, it said only 3^rd hour. Still, what if the email was wrong? The Young Women were prepared to teach 3^rd hour, not 2^nd and 3^rd. When he later corrected that announcement, I was very relieved.

This one isn't bad. Aren't they cute? (That's Zak, by the way.)

So, the Young Men and Young Women taught Primary during third hour and I think it worked very well. All the girls I spoke to had fun and one Amena talked to wants to do it every Sunday. I haven’t spoken to Kim yet to see what her take is on it, but from where I sit, it seems to have been very successful. I think we should do it again. March, June, August, and November all have five Sundays in 2014.

Does she look 14 now?

Yesterday afternoon and evening it rained. Sometime before midnight it also snowed, but just a little bit; just enough to soak up some of the rain and then freeze into a solid layer of ice everywhere. Right now it has warmed up enough that there is a steady drip from the eaves. It’s supposed to be sunny and relatively warm today before it turns cold again and we get more snow. Personally, it being winter, I’m all for the snow. All the weirdoes out there who don’t like snow can move to more southern climes and stop annoying those of us who like it. Or not. If you stay where there is snow, I don’t feel bad in the least complaining about the heat and humidity once summer comes and you can bet whatever the heck you want to that I’d move to a less humid climate in a heartbeat if circumstances would allow.

Right now I am going to be off. Have a great day!

The Day After the Day After

Good morning! Our Thursday was quite Thursday-like. Seth got to go to the eye doctor and have his eyes dilated. We changed eye doctors because the one we’d been going to won’t take our insurance for the actual glasses, I think I mentioned that earlier. Anyway, the glasses that Seth picked out are decent and fit his face and he likes them so going to Walmart isn’t absolutely critical but is something that we’ll be doing sometime because it would be very good for him to have a back-up pair.

Other than that, we had a quiet (ha ha) day at home. Paul stayed home to work. He actually went to the RMV to register the green car so it’s legal until next Thursday when it will need to have had an inspection. He said that the truck has an oil leak which is not a good thing. He’s been looking all over the place for a replacement Jetta because three body shops told him that the damages to the Jetta constitute it being totaled. I think he likes having vehicle problems because it gives him an excuse to look at/talk to people about cars. He loves cars.

Seth and Cedric took their new bikes outside twice to ride them. Currently they are down in front of the basement door which is going to have to change because the door gets used to taking hay to the goats and I am not going to climb over three bicycles every day to do it and I think it’s unlikely that any boys would want to and I am pretty sure that Amena won’t. Cedric went out numerous times to shoot things with his air soft gun. Joseph was pretty content to play with new Legos pretty much all day.

Tonight the boys and I are going to watch a Sharks hockey game in Worcester. I guess they have a Boy Scout night every season and tonight is the night. We’ve been told that they have fireworks (inside) after the game as well so it should be rather interesting. When I asked Amena if she wanted to go, she said no. Last night she said that then she said she would go but I didn’t catch that so I don’t think she’ll be going. Joanna has work from eleven something to 8:00 so hopefully Paul will be home around then to give her a ride home.

Yesterday I made bread so today we can have sandwiches. Other than that, about all I accomplished is a bit of laundry. Pretty exciting. Seth just brought down a Lego carriage and horse. Legos are amazing.

I don’t think I ever mentioned my phlebotomy test. It was pretty exciting. I wanted to be sure to be thirty minutes early for my appointment, which was at 4:45, because that’s what all my communications said to be so I left at 3:00. That allowed an hour to make a 40 minute or so drive because I didn’t know what the traffic would be like due to school getting out and the roads being less than ideal. I got to the place where the test was before 4:00 in spite of traffic and less than ideal road conditions and sat in the truck for a few minutes waiting until 4:00. I got registered and was in taking my test by 4:15. You are allowed 120 minutes for the exam and once you’ve gone through all the questions of which there are 80, you can review for about ever. I was not feeling very hopeful that I’d done well because there were a lot of questions about things that we never covered in class and that I didn’t remember seeing on any of the practice tests or in the book. So, I went through in less than an hour and then I reviewed. And then I reviewed. And then I reviewed. And then I reviewed a couple more times. And then I went through each question again and then just the ones I wasn’t sure about. Then I called it good because there was no chance of changing any answers. My preliminary results were: PASS. Whew! What a relief. I checked out and left and was home by 6:30.

My results were supposed to be emailed to me in four days. They were but I have yet to figure out anything other than the preliminary PASS and my score which I’m not particularly thrilled with even though there were so many questions I just didn’t know (I got 667 out of 999; the passing grade is 400). I was hoping to see the questions and answers but am thinking that is unlikely. At any rate, I can change my resume now to include a certification number. Hopefully that will make a difference.

Right now I need to get the goats fed so have a splendiferous day!

Aftermath

Good morning! All is fairly normal here in the aftermath of the great opening of stuff that typically occurs on Christmas. I probably shouldn’t jinx anything by saying that all is fairly quiet or that there are no violent outbreaks currently in progress so I won’t.

I need to do some fairly typical things today like laundry. It seems like every time it gets sort of caught up, the boys bring down about ten loads out of their room and someone brings down five out of the upstairs bathroom. It’s just ridiculous. There is always the eating thing that needs to happen. So far, only Joseph has had breakfast. We have plenty of leftovers for lunch and supper so that’s not a problem. We actually have too many leftovers. I think we’re set for at least the rest of the week.

Seth has an appointment with a new eye doctor today. My planner is almost always on the counter but now it isn’t so I have to go find it soon so I can see when the appointment is. I decided to go to a different one because the one we were going to only uses our insurance for the exam; no frames or lenses. In my opinion, that’s just ridiculous. It should be an all or nothing thing. My plan is to get Seth new glasses from this eye doctor because they won’t cost anything and then take him to Walmart for another pair. They won’t be free but they won’t cost too much and he’ll be able to choose frames that he likes (our options at the eye doctor will be limited). That way, we’ll have a pair for him to wear all the time and a back-up pair for in-case. Being a boy, we have lots of in-case times. I really like Walmart’s guarantee—if they are broken within a year, you get a new pair. We used that once for Daniel and probably would have again. We could have used that for Seth but when his glasses broke it was just past the year mark. He needed to go in for an appointment, anyway.

I found it. It was in the living room on the floor. Not a place I usually keep it but I remember setting it there. Seth’s appointment is at 9:45. We have plenty of time to eat and shower and whatever else needs to be done.

Now Cedric is doing his usual thing. He doesn’t quite do anything but teases like there’s no tomorrow and Seth and Joseph, in this case Joseph, respond by yelling and doing the, “Mo-om—Cedric’s doing such and such.”

Our Christmas was pretty good. I’m not going to even attempt recalling what everyone got. The Legos were a hit, as I expected. Joanna liked her corgi stuff. I really made out in the Star Wars department. Groovy. I’ll have pictures sometime. Maybe I’ll work on that while I eat in a bit.

It’s hard to believe that another year is almost gone. Five more days. Another year without Daniel. Another year of learning to cope with emotions and feelings that I never dreamed I would have to do. Another year of a forever changed family dynamic. A first year of not having Laura with us. We didn’t have a bad year; it was actually mostly good. I expect the next one to be about the same. You know the adage “There is nothing so constant as change”? Well, it is mostly true but there are some things that do not change; that never have and never will. Many, maybe most, things do change, but not all. That’s my food for thought for the day.

Adam and Kim came over yesterday. Kim (and her family) and I have a lot of similar ideas and feelings about how things are in the Gardner Ward. We agree that while the music was nice at the ‘Christmas’ party at church, it wasn’t very Christmasy. Quite honestly, for trying to remember what the Christmas season is all about, other than the music and the bowls of ornaments used as centerpieces, there wasn’t anything that really lent that kind of atmosphere to the whole thing. I wouldn’t mind seeing a real Christmas Party at church. In Gardner, Massachusetts.

The Young Men and Young Women are teaching Primary during 3^rd hour Sunday because the Relief Society is having a Visiting Teaching Conference. I have a few opinions about that as well but won’t get into them at the moment. The Young Women are awesome—we’ve got music and sharing time taken care of and at least one girl for the nursery and 6-7-year-old class. The rest of the girls can just help out with those. We only really need one Young Man and that is to help Jonathan with his class because Elizabeth will be in RS.

I am going to go for now. If I take much more time doing this, I’ll run out of eating and showering time.

Have a spectacular day!

Short and Sweet

Good afternoon! Well, Saturday was quite interesting and yesterday wasn’t bad.

Saturday morning we had to wait FORever for any boys to arrive. They all did between 10:00 and about 10:30. They didn’t all bring snow clothes so they were doomed to staying inside because at that point there was still snow everywhere. Seth built a snow fort out behind the trampoline and it was pretty cool although I didn’t get any pictures of it because I was busy making pizza for the boys. We ate pizza and did cupcakes and ice-cream that wasn’t frozen all the way and opened presents and then went to the theater.

Just in case you are wondering, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug isn’t bad. In spite of the fact that it adds a lot to the book (it would have in order to get three movies out of one book that was shorter than any of The Lord of the Rings) and changes some of what is in the book, it’s still fairly decent and worth watching. Worth reading the book to the boys too, though, so they know the original story.

After the movie, we waited for parents to arrive and take boys away. That was exciting. When we got home, we discovered that Seth and Joseph had taken one of the Lego people that came with the Lego’s that Cedric just got that morning outside and lost it. Absolutely wonderful. Joseph said that Seth told him to take it, Seth said that Joseph had it and therefore Joseph lost it. I told them they both should have known better and therefore they can get a new set and give Cedric out of it what was lost. Of course, that won’t happen until Seth gets some birthday money in January. In the meantime, I really wish they’d learn to leave things alone that don’t belong to them unless they have permission. I know it’s fairly normal to get into things—goodness knows my sisters got into my things—but it drives me crazy.

Yesterday church was pretty good. Louise Nally is no longer my 2^nd councilor; she’s now in Nursery and we get Jerusha Peterman. Sad to lose Louise but nice to have Jerusha. There is nothing so constant as change.

Today I was hoping to get a whole slew of things done, and I have accomplished a couple. I need to get some cream before I can do the candy parts so a trip out and about is in store shortly. Other than that, I really don’t have anything to report without going into a diatribe so I won’t because it’s two days before Christmas.

Have a wonderful day!