Behaving like an ostrich doesn't really change anything

We had a co-op meeting Friday, and while I did have a headache, it doesn't explain why I did what I did.

We had a form to fill out, thankfully just the one. You know, the really hard stuff like address, kids names and age.

About an hour after the meeting was over I was listening to Daisy chatter to someone about how her birthday was coming up and she was born July 5, 1999.

I had a little flashback to the form I had filled out with her birthday as July 5, 2000.

Since I am not normally this scatterbrained, I am blaming it on my subconscious. I don't want my little girl to turn 10. Not yet anyway, maybe in a few years.

Do schools kill creativity?

I just thought this was interesting and thought provoking. Ok, and this guy is also pretty funny.

Boy oh boy!

Boys are just different.

I think I may have mentioned that before like here.

Anyway, I dearly love my little boy but sometimes some of the stuff he and his friends come up with make me giggle. or start to pull my hair out. or nearly fall out of my chair laughing.

Like last night, Junior came home from church with some interesting news. Junior's friend T told him that he had a robot nose!

Yes, you read that right, robot nose. Apparently he got it when the saber-tooth bit his first nose off! And if you stuck a finger in T's nose, it would fall off!

Junior was puzzled when we pointed out that saber-tooths had been extinct since . . . a long time ago . . . like when the dinosaurs died out.

Then I told him this morning that I had "talked" to his mom on facebook, and she had no idea what I was talking about. Poor thing was relieved.

"Oh he was just joking!"

Now with girls . . . well that conversation wouldn't happen on so many levels that it is pretty funny.

ooops

We went out of town for the weekend and got back on Monday so we were rather tired of the car when we got home.

About 20 minutes after arriving at home - about 7:30 - Daisy walks in holding out her hand.

"Guess what I did!"

Oh just peachy.

She had pulled a tooth.

So because I the Toothfairy was tired, I the Toothfairy forgot to visit until morning. On the plus side, I had loaned Junior some money and had gotten paid back, I had the cash to . . . ummm . . . give to the Toothfairy.

What I the Toothfairy didn't notice is that the bills are some of those "Where's George?" bills. Those are money that someone has entered the serial number and then written www.wheresgeorge.com on the bill. When you get one of those bills you can enter the code and find out where it has been. We have had bills from Hawaii and Oklahoma so far.

Well, anyway, Daisy noticed the Where's George thing and commented it looked like we had written it.

And that it was written in pink.

Like the one we did.

oops.

Is it alive?

I really don't understand why people ask me this question when I say I have something for them. I have never, ever in my life given someone an animal for a pet.

Ever.

Now my dad gave my mom a cow for an anniversary present. And a black lab when she had my sisters.

My great grandmother gave me a kitten.

My mom gave my great-grandmother 2 parakeets - while she said she didn't want any birds. Revenge for the kitten?

My sister gave my grandmother 2 kittens.

But I have never even given someone a goldfish. I did mail my little 5 yr old brother a rabbit and my dad nearly hyperventilated until I told him it was stuffed.

Today I called the friend that had been feeding our rabbits and watering the garden and told her I had a gift for her. She asked me if it was alive.

No, it is a bottle of wine that just happens to have your last name on it (apparently it is named after the field those grapes came from so it is ______ Ridge Farm). A yummy sweet white wine.

But it isn't alive.

I'm baaaaaack!

Not that you necessarily knew I was gone. Since I have fussed at Hubby for telling people we don't know that we are going to be gone for X days as we give them a check with our address on it - I thought maybe I shouldn't announce it to the world wide web.

Call me paranoid but . . . .

So anyway, Friday the 5th we drove out to the Outer Banks of North Carolina to have a family reunion with my Dad's side of the family. Most of them live in Kentucky so we only meet up for weddings, funerals etc. Not long after my Ganny died, my dad and his sisters decided we needed to meet up more often so we had a family reunion with all the little cousins included in Colorado. Two years later we did it again, in a different part of Colorado and then this year in the Outer Banks.

On our way out after driving about 14 hours, we spent the night in South Carolina. The next morning we got to see one of my best friends from high school that I hadn't seen in . . . a long time. Since the year after we graduated. We ate breakfast with B and her husband and had a great time.

Then we got in the car again and drove about 6 more hours to finally arrive at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina at the house that the family had rented for the week. It was 17 adults and 30 13 kids. We spent time on the beach, at the Orville & Wilbur Wright museum, at some light houses, Jockey's Ridge (one of the largest natural sand dunes), went to the Lost Colony of Roanoke museum, and still had a ton of stuff we wanted to do.

My aunt, uncle and their grandkids had decorated a coffee mug for every one of the adults with their name. It was so handy in the morning not to have to say over and over "is this my coffee?" They also brought a stemmed glass for each adult and a refillable water bottle for each kid, also with names on them. At previous reunions there were many partially drank sodas (sometimes with just a few swallows gone) but this year . . . not nearly as much waste. We also took turns cooking the meals, each family unit was in charge of 2 meals - for instance, we did tacos for lunch one day and french toast for breakfast another.

So on Saturday we left the Outer Banks with the plan of sightseeing on the way home. The 20 hour drive became . . . ok I have no idea. Much longer.

We drove mostly straight to Marion, North Carolina. Marion is a beautiful little town in the mountains and about 45 minutes from Asheville. Rather than get up in the morning and drive as fast as we could to Asheville, we took the Blue Ridge Parkway. I am pretty sure that the part from Marion to Asheville has to be the prettiest part because I don't think it could get much better. Even Junior said watching the view was almost as good as watching the DVD player.

So we finally got to the Biltmore - the Vanderbilt's little mountain home. It only has 35 family and guest bedrooms - not counting the servants rooms. In all seriousness, the estate is gorgeous, the house amazing. It is just a little overwhelming. It is something I would like to go through again when we had more time. After leaving the Biltmore we drove to Knoxville, Tennessee and spent the night.

The next days plan was to drive to Jackson, Mississippi and we stopped at the places that interested us, like a couple of wineries, a dairy and a Russell Stover outlet store. Then we realized we had to get moving if we wanted to make it to Jackson to eat at one of the best restaurants.

I graduated from high school in one of the Jackson suburbs. I love Jackson. One of our favorite places to eat was Cock of the Walk. This is a small chain of restaurants that has a simple menu based on what the keel-boatmen might eat while travelling back up river on the Natchez trace. You have a choice of fried catfish or chicken (I have never had their chicken) plus french fries and cornbread. Then for sides you can have fried pickles (yummmmmm), a pot o' greens, and onion rings. It is served family style and each person gets a tin plate, a tin cup and the silverware is already on the table in a tin bucket. Oh my gosh! I had forgotten how good their food was!

The next day we ate at Shoneys - they have the best breakfast buffets then went to Bass Pro Shop, toured the old capitol, the Manship house and then got to go visit my other best friend from high school.

She has got the sweetest family! She was 3 children and while we only got to meet the youngest (1) and oldest child (4), they were adorable. Her son had made a picture for us and then played with my two. When we left, he shook Daisy and Junior's hands and said "glad to meet you, please come again, how 'bout tomorrow."

We then drove to Vickburg and went through the civil war battle grounds memorial. I haven't been to any of the others, but each time I visit Vickburg I am amazed and saddened. So much death.

Then we drove home. We finally made it home about 12:30 am Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

I have got some pictures to put up but wanted to post a quick-ish summary. I really didn't do much beyond checking email while we were gone and have over 750 in my reader right now. I promise I am going to read your posts - although I will mark most of the others as read.

Now I am off to go catch up on some sleep.

7 quick takes

It's that time of the week again . . . 7 Quick Takes.

1. We know how to have a fun summer, you start it off with some fun.
   
   Something like . . . umm . . . antibiotics.
   
   Junior's sore throat turned out to be strep. Luckily at his age, they bounce back really quickly. The next morning he was amazed that he felt so much better. His eye took a bit longer to get back to normal but is finally is normal.



2. Daisy saw the Biggest Loser cookbook and mentioned that it looked like me on the back cover. "You know, with the blond hair . . . and the body . . . ."
   
   Unfortunately she was talking about a before picture.
   
   I have lost about 25 lbs but have a ways to go, which is the reason I am doing the 30 day challenge over at Kim's blog. Hopefully that will get me into the habit and I can get rid of these other extra pounds.



3. Which reminds me, I mentioned how I had ordered a swimsuit from Lands End. Well, they called today to see how I liked it and to be sure I was happy with my order.
   
   It was just $13 so I am impressed that they called over such a small amount. I was beginning to think that no one cared about good customer service anymore.



4. Daisy has been a struggling reader for awhile. To be honest, I am not sure that she is on grade level yet but she is getting pretty close. She has made huge strides in her reading ability over the past year, and part of it is her confidence is going up.
   
   In late January, I convinced her to challenge herself with a goal of reading a chapter book every two months. While she wasn't convinced she could do it, she agreed. To make her feel better about it, we just called it 5 books in the year.
   
   She made her goal 2 days ago.
   
   I knew she would hit it early, but she is so proud and excited. And she wanted to go to the library and pick out a new book.



5. I am working my way through The Shack by Will Young. I am not sure what I think about it. Part of the problem is that I have heard so much about the questionable points of theology that I am not able to relax and enjoy the story.
   
   I also am struggling with the way God is portrayed, it seems flippant to me and I just don't like that either. Because of these problems, I don't know how much of my other criticisms are valid or if they are all just because I am not loving the book.
   
   I also don't like the other part of the book, you know the first time the shack was used in the book (don't want to spoil it for anyone.) I know it happens and it is out there, I just . . . it breaks my heart.



6. I washed one of Hubby's new t-shirts with something reddish that bled a bit on the shoulder and sleeve. I have been using a bar of Fels Naptha as a stain treatment and so I tried it on that.
   
   If you know where to look, you can see a faint pinkish tint but that is all (it is a grey shirt so that helps). I am really pretty impressed. Nearly every other time I have had that happen, the clothes have been ruined.
   
   It also is supposed to be great with poison ivy - it removes the oils so that the breakout isn't as bad. I can't get anyone to test it for me though, and I am not allergic.


7. I got nothin'. My mind is now a complete blank.

Have a good weekend!

Going to the Dr

I was sick quite a bit as a child. While it usually wasn't anything more serious than bronchitis, we were in there often enough for me to know the names of Dr Allen's kids and where they had just gone on vacation.

And every single time I went, I got a shot. Ok, there were a few checkups where I didn't get a shot, but some of them I did. I also got allergy shots, a gamma globulin series (which I remember being as big as my arm) and the other random sticks a child gets.

I also had a well deserved phobia of needles which lasted well into my 20's. I am better now thank you. I no longer have to be held down, or hyperventilate.

So as a child when I was sick my mom would ask if I needed to go to the doctor. Saying yes almost guaranteed a shot, so I had to feel awful before I would say yes.

Really awful.

In some ways, I am glad my kids don't have that fear because honestly its embarassing to be grown up and not be able to look at a needle. On the other hand, it is a very convenient indicator of how sick they really are.

Junior woke up this morning with a sore throat and he did feel warm - but that could be from being under the covers. Now he is currently bouncing around as usual, but at his age that means nothing.

Is he sick enough to go to the doctor? I don't know. He says he is, even with the possiblity of a shot - but since he doesn't remember ever getting a shot when he was sick that means almost nothing. So we play it by ear for a bit longer, see how he feels in a bit.

I really didn't want to start our summer like this.

Edited to add: Now his eye is swelling. great. I guess we will go to the doctor.