Uninspired

It's March, and I'm completely uninspired. It doesn't seem like enough of an excuse this year. I mean, winter really just arrived, and it's not even cold. Are these days we call March reason enough?

I look back in my blog archive for March of last year, and the year before.

Yep. Uninspired. I can feel it in my words, see it in my pictures.



There's our snow fence. It's the only thing I want to take pictures of anymore.

Thankfully March doesn't last forever.

Project Bean

Kids cooperate, intense, common goal.









Rattlesnake Snap Beans, given to us by a seed-saving kindred spirit. These will climb tee-pees made from last year's sunflower stalks... at least, that's the plan.

It found us

I finally said it a few weeks ago. Something about how amazed I was that we haven't been sick, really sick, all winter. No days of school had been missed. No special lotion kleenex had to be purchased for sore noses. The just-in-case, because we live way the heck out in the sticks bottle of Tylenol sat there in the cupboard, unopened.

And then I knew it, I knew the dice had been cast, even as I took this picture on our way home that night:



Having sat across from them coughing all over us. Watching one of the daughters lay her exhausted head on the table because she was so miserable. Listening to the mom say how they took the son in to the doctor and found out he had pneumonia just a few days prior.

And they coughed. All. Over. Us.

I could say something about that, but I'm choosing not to.

____________________________________________


I head downstairs to rescue a load of wet clothes from the washer. It feels good to move. It feels good to do normal daily things again. Things like laundry, feeding my kids, doing dishes. Through the floor over my head I hear the mumbling rumbling of the restless natives.

"Moooooom blah blah (sister's name?) has my blah blah blah..." stomp stomp stomp...

"Mom! blah blah blah (sister) can't have blah blah blah..."

I can't quite make out his words, but I don't hear his sister screaming bloody-murder either so we're still good. Quite frankly, at the moment I'm glad to hear them back to their usual, and worried about my laundry. For real. As in, how much volume do you suppose our septic tank can handle in a day?

"Mommmmmmm..."

My old cracked florescent yellow laundry basket bends under the weight of wet clothes. I trudge back up the stairs to the entryway, that cursed location of my dryer, hoping the dang basket will hold out. "I'll be there in a minute. It can wait."

With surprising calm, quiet, right on the other side of the door, "Mom. It can't wait".

I open the door.

"She has our clothes hamper", although he didn't really seem that concerned about it.

"It's okay."

"She got it from our room."

"No, I did. See I'm doing laundry?"

"Oh."

"You have snot running off your face, that can't wait."



63. That this Mom was way more sick than her babies - because the opposite is never acceptable.

64. That the Dad was here this week, not traveling - because I could not have done this on my own.

65. Standing up without worrying I'll pass out. That's priceless.

66. Abs of steel that can only come from coughing that much, that hard, for that many days.

67. Endless clean running water for the five hundred or so loads of waiting laundry.

68. Having the energy and motivation to actually face that pile of laundry.

69. Feeling human enough to take notice of the dull soft gray blue morning sky that promises snow.

70. Gigantic sticky fluffy flakes floating from the sky an hour later.

71. Burning our trash. Sweet mercy it feels great to light up those germ laden tissues rather than just throwing them away. Maybe you'll just have to trust me on that.


PS. Keep your sick kids at home people, it's not nice to share that stuff.

Pink tulips

I bought myself some flowers, which has nothing to do with Valentine's Day. They're pretty, and whether it feels like it or not, it is winter.



Winter allows for self-indulgent things that make me happy. Like hot cocoa with a tiny bit of instant coffee, and fresh cut flowers that did not grow anywhere near here.



It's an acceptable way of self-medicating for these tiring February days.

Pink is so not my color. I like these anyway.



They remind me that it's warm enough to grow things somewhere, and that my turn will come.


Shot with the Lensbaby 2.0, no longer available - similar to the Lensbaby Muse
and super wide angle accessory

February 10 on 10

8:49am
Breakfast thief strikes again. I need a granola superhero to save the day.


9:56am
Okay. Honestly? This electronic device is really stinkin' cool.


11:00am
Brother to sister: "There's no duck in your truck. Where aaaaaaaare they?"
Sister to brother: "Oh. They hiding."
Brother: "Nooooooooooooooo!"
Mom: "Dude. Where did you find a duck?"
Brother: "In the toybox"

{shirt reads "DADDY THINKS HE'S IN CHARGE", which does actually have a story behind it}

12:09pm
Evidence. Someone was making a computer again.


1:28pm
Naptime. Waiting for Ellie to come snuggle and purr.


2:17pm
What happens if you set the dial to automatic when you can't reach the focus button on the backside of the camera:


3:52 pm
I finally sat down to sort through the mountain of containers and lids that have been crawling across the kitchen floor for a day and a half. And... sabotaged again.


5:04 pm
Desperate times call for desperate measures:
Stop.
Drop your truck that doesn't have it's "rubbers" on.
Watch a movie.


6:09 pm
Headed in to town, way later than a sane Mom or Dad in this household would... to be social, which is also an irrational decision. I admitted to my husband that I was being a real raincloud about the whole thing. He tried to tell me that he had only recently become a more social guy, "I was just a late bloomer."
Me: "So you're saying I haven't bloomed yet."
Him: "Uh, no. It just took me awhile to grow up."
Thanks honey.


8:29 pm
The road back home. And yes, I may be anti-social but I did have a good time.


Ten on Ten

Sheet metal

Me: "Can you get me some sheet metal for that frame?"

Him: "How about corrugated sheet metal?"

Me, frowning: "Oh, we do have that"

Him: "How about pounded flat corrugated sheet metal? How about smashed flat with the loader bucket corrugated sheet metal? How about driven flat with a truck corrugated sheet metal?

I might have looked like I was considering which of those clever options would work best, but I was too busy rolling my eyes.


{maybe he didn't appreciate this helpful subliminal message}

Him: "How about smashed flat, held down with a 2500 pound tractor and pulled out from beneath the loader bucket with the truck corrugated sheet metal?"

Me: "Can't you just get a piece at that place... at the mall?"

It's like buying a shiny poster-board, maybe with sharper edges though if I really think about it. Like buying fabric. You hand over the measurements, they cut the stuff out, and deliver the goods right back.

Him, suspicious: "What place at the mall?"

Me: "No. Not the mall. That place, the... hardware store. Where you can get sheets of glass cut."

He taps away at the keyboard, his best excuse for ignoring me because that's the way it always goes down when he's reading and I'm talking. Unless I say the word sex. That always gets his attention. Every time. Except, obviously, I don't mean it in these types of circumstances, dear. I just want to see if some primal part of you is still involved in this conversation. He can't read and listen at the same time. At least that's what I've been lead to believe.

Me, suddenly brilliant: "What about the duct-work that's frozen to the ground all over the yard?"

People, we do white trash pretty well around here, if I do say so myself.

Him, unimpresed: "It's frozen to the ground"

Me: "Oh. There probably isn't a piece big enough anyway"

Him: "There might be, but it will have a crease that needs to be hammered out... or flattened with something."

Me: "Hey! Wait a minute! Isn't there a dishwasher laying upside down right beside our back step! What about the door to that thing?"

His typing stopped. This, people, this could be it. The moment beams of sunshine strike the earth and angels sing in perfect harmony.

I eyeballed the empty space in my kitchen where the dishwasher used to be. Then I grabbed the frame (kicking strategically-placed Scrabble tiles left and right) and held it in front of that gaping hole, trying to size it up.

It was going to be close.

Natural consequences

So cliché, but true. It was one of those days.

The kids caught me enjoying a mug of apple cider. Shortly after, the jug was empty. Boo hoo.



My little Bean fell into the toilet. When you have a really small behind, singing and dancing while you sit on the pot is not the very best idea. But like I've said before, she is a tough cookie and recovered from it surprisingly quick. Sometimes the best lessons are the ones with natural consequences.

The big rooster. *sigh* He decided to pick a fight with me.

I know that look in his eye. The way he cocked his head to the side and stepped toward me. That confrontational moment. If you don't know roosters, dear reader, let me tell you one thing. You never back down. Or you lose. You must always ALWAYS be the bigger rooster. Even when Spring seems to be on track for an early arrival and the big daddy roo-a-roo hormones are raging. The dude has long sharp spurs, and his attitude toward my small children depends on who he perceives as being in charge here.

That would be me. No room for error.

(Or my husband. I'm okay with that too.)

Red picked an interesting moment for the battle. I had just stepped out of the barn, holding my little girl, who was in turn holding two fragile eggs... which meant I didn't have a lot of speed or ability to put my actually-yes-I-am-the-bigger-rooster moves on him. You might think that gave him the advantage, but it only meant he wasn't as soundly punished as he might have otherwise been.

Don't worry. His ego was really the only thing bruised.

My first grader decided his school lunch was inedible. When you try to fuel your entire day on nothing but (okay, thankfully he had his hearty oatmeal breakfast) three cupcakes and a handful of baby-sized carrots... and then decide the pasta mom made for supper is gross... it makes everyone's evening rotten.

And then, when I splashed into rather than stepped through my kitchen, I decided it wasn't such a bad thing. Because the floor probably needed to be cleaned anyway. I tried to fix the problem, but it appeared I only made it worse, so I decided a bucket would be a fine temporary fix. I am many things, but a plumber? Not me. I have experience in my prior life in the exciting world of Biotechnology, where I did honestly try to be a plumber on occasion. It involved three hundred rabbits, a plugged drain, a shop vac and some duct tape. The whole truth, I swear.

I realized that with this amazing mild winter we've had, I could be using my clothesline. Something I love. I was sort of frustrated that it hadn't crossed my mind a few months ago.



So it seemed somehow appropriate that the next morning, my sheets were still tangled up out there, crusted with frost and flapping in the fog.