On being the 'Polite Police'

All it takes is one witchy female to totally shit on your day and instantly force you to reassess your life and whether or not you are achieving optimum happiness.

 

I am not achieving optimum happiness. For me, optimum happiness is starting out my day by greeting my children, having a nice breakfast and starting up our school day. Instead, I get to start my day by wasting the first two hours fielding several emails on three different accounts. I have to send out an email or two to remind someone to 'be nice' on our homeschooling Yahoo group because of my VOLUNTEER position as Membership Coordinator. And then I get the pleasure of being responded to with rudeness, vitriol or complete ignorance as to what constitutes as proper email etiquette.

 

Well, you know what? I'm done. I don't even really relate to this group anymore. Most of my homeschooling mom friends have sort of faded to black - I don't see them anymore except a very rare here and there. I've lost my tribe, I've lost my way, I've lost my willingness to be electronically shat on by people I wouldn't care to know otherwise...

 

Not sure a little blue happy pill can fix this one...

 

 

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Simple Woman's Daybook Entry

 

 

 

Outside my window... It is 8 am and the sun is shining and the birds are singing - it is going to be a gorgeous day! It did frost last night, and it is fun to watch the frost line recede across the back yard as the sun rises in the sky and over the roof line. Even though it is chilly I have the back door cracked open so I can hear the birds better.

I am thinking... about how much I love the yellow paint that is in the two rooms in the front of the house (east facing): the dining room and the piano room. Yellow is a bold color choice, but on mornings like this, the rooms positively glow. I was thinking about changing the paint color in the dining room since we are redoing the floor, but I can't bring myself to do it. I love that sunny glow too much!

I am thankful... that Jordan is flying home later this morning. I've missed my right-hand man.

From the Learning Rooms... This past week was our traditional off-week (last week of the month) so that is why Jordan left to do his visitation with his mom last week. On Tuesday I asked Rylan if she would like to do a math lesson (she was bored), and she said "NO! If Jordan is on vacation from school, then I am on vacation." Well. Even though she was "on vacation", she did manage to keep herself busy. She made a map of the downstairs (a treasure map), and paced around counting her steps from room to room. This was the day that I was tearing out the carpet in the dining room, so I had to keep shooing her out of there because of the carpet tack strips around the edges. Her map turned out pretty well. She hid the "treasure" (a drawing) inside an empty diaper box, and made her dad follow her map when he got home from work, since the treasure was for him. It was very sweet. She also made a bow with a stick and a long rubber band (cut) that I tied to each end. She had used a plastic stick with a point on the end (it came from a small American flag) as the arrow. Dean cut a notch in the end of the stick so that she could use it to hold the rubber band in place when she drew her 'arrow', and it actually works! So we have had a mini-Katniss running around all week. We have cautioned her about pointing it at the various living creatures in these parts. So far, it's only been near-misses.

In the kitchen... Is a floor that is 1/3 completed! Yeah!

I am wearing... pjs

I am creating... just this post I'm afraid...

I am going... to Denver Int'l Airport in about an hour. Then we head to the Denver Zoo for some family time, and then on to my brother and SIL's for dinner with family. It is Easter, but they are putting on a very relaxed meal. My SIL said that we had better show up in jeans or we'll be sent home to change. (love that!) In our family, Easter has been traditionally spent at my aunt and uncle's house - a family-style potluck of the traditional Easter favorites, followed by an egg hunt for the little kids. This year marks an abrupt change for all of us, since my uncle passed away in December. My aunt has flown to Florida to spend some time with her granddaughter, and the rest of us have sort of splintered off to do our own thing. The time felt right for me, personally, to make a change in how we celebrate the holiday all-together. As in, we don't. We did our baskets on Spring Equinox, dyed our eggs then and had a super-stinky fridge for a couple of days. The last of the four chocolate bunnies are on the back of kitchen counter..almost gone.

I am wondering...about the weather forecast that calls for snow tomorrow. Crazy Colorado weather.

I am reading... the same - The Year of Homeschooling Dangerously, and The Drums of Autumn. Neither of which I cracked last week, even though it was our off week and I could have easily disappeared into a book. Too much else to do.

In the garden... Peas, beets and spinach! I have ne-ver planted this early! I put them in on March 21, and staked out some soaker hose for use later, when it warms up. Nothing is up yet.

I am hoping... That our lawn some-what survives this summer with the watering restrictions that are going to be in place. We get to water two days a week.

I am looking forward to... the Zoo! Wish me luck - our license plates expire this month, and today is the last day of the month. As you may remember, I don't have much luck when it comes to the stupid parking police, so I am openly inviting potential trouble here...

I am learning... This past week I Googled for information about charitable tax-deductions and the Badoink! iPad 'virus' - and nasty thing that may have infiltrated our router. Strangely enough, it only pops up on my iPad whenever I click on a certain friend's link to her blog whenever she posts it in Facebook. It has happened twice now and it very disturbing and unsettling. It has nothing to do with my friend's blog per se - but it is super weird how it only happens with her links. And we all thought that Apple products were safe from stuff like this... :( I just may have to go visit the Apple store for this.

I am hearing... Depeche Mode's newest album 'Delta Machine'. I love, love, love the track 'Heaven'. The first few times I heard it (in the past couple of weeks) I kept thinking it was Muse - they sound exactly alike in that song...

Around the house... The contents of the dining room are now temporarily in the piano room while Dean finishes the floor. Dean reconnected the dishwasher earlier this week, so after two weeks of washing dishes by hand, I have a machine again! Which is awesome, because the dirty dishes definitely had the upper hand there.

I now have a clean desk! After months and months of mess, I finally pushed through and got it done - it was my goal for this past week.

I am pondering... What will happen with the North Korea situation. That's a little scary, isn't it?

One of my favorite things... A clean desk.

A few plans for the rest of the week... Back to schoolwork! And the normal activity routine.

Here is a picture for thought I am sharing...

Our spring baskets...

Happy Easter to all who are celebrating today! :)

 

 

 

To read more entries and visit a variety of other blogs, go here...

 

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Season's Greetings

 

 

I am totally rockin' the procrastination thang..

 

 

At long last I have gained back that square foot of desk space that has been occupied by the stack of unfinished Christmas cards since mid-November.  Our Shutterfly family photo card framed in festive greens and reds, along with the ubiquitous 'Annual Christmas Letter' (revised multiple times as time kept ticking by) is officially on its way to 40 or so unsuspecting family members and friends.

 

 

I.  am.  awesome.





Spill all the Kool-aid you want...

How to 'remove' carpet stains.

 

1. Remove the photo-bombing kitty.

 

2. Remove the carpet.

3. Put your feet up and call it a day*.

 

 

Time spent removing stains: seven minutes. Beat that, Resolve carpet 'cleaner'!

 

 

(*after you spend the next hour pulling carpet staples and nailing strips)

 

(Good times)

 

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To Deanna, with love...

My friend Deanna is infatuated with the city of Loveland, CO. She makes a point to regularly extol its many virtues and laments the fact that she is, sadly, only a weekly visitor and not a resident - I mean she really, really loves Loveland. ;)

And I mean, what's not to love? There are fabulous sculptures on every street corner and in every park... (and I really do love that about Loveland)

There are dozens of cultural events throughout the year...

Larimer County Fair, 2012

 

'Pastels on 5th' 2012 (benefit fundraiser for Alternatives to Violence)

 

 

Loveland Downtown Trick-or-Treating, 2012

 

 

Friends to meet at the park...

 

Homeschool Park Day, 2012

Homeschool Park Day, 2012
(the one where the girls brought their princess dresses)

Beautiful natural areas...

Gathering water samples along the Big Thompson River, 2012

The weather can get a little too hot though...

I hate summer...

 

 

And then the freak show begins...

 

 

First you have the haters...

 

If any of your liberal friends have gone missing, you might want to check with this guy.

 

Then you have the decorators who touch up your car 'for free'...

 

 

 

Then... you have this.

 

 

?

 

Thank goodness Deanna alerted the blogosphere to its existence, because when I caught sight of it the next day while spending time at a park while the older two were in karate class, I was prepared. I had on sunglasses. With UV filters. I can just imagine the sort of damage this might do to your retinas, otherwise.

 

 

 

So let the freak show continue! Loveland, you entertain me (us) in so many ways...

 

(I'm just glad I live outside your city limits.)

 

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Workin' on the weekend...

Ta-dah!

 

My wonderful husband put in some serious 'honey do' time this past weekend. He did a tremendous amount of work on the flooring - it was tricky getting all of the measurements right for each of the four extended areas under the desk, refrigerator, garage door and closet. They needed to be spot on, because as the flooring moves across the kitchen, the 'line' needs to extend in one long, straight shot into the dining room.

 

That piece right there, on the edge, will go all the way through the hallway and to the front wall of the dining room. It is hard to show through pictures, but several pieces had to work around cabinetry and walls and under the present moulding, so some boards had to ripped or carefully notched. Dean figures the board waste was close to 25%. Thankfully the hardest part is over and the rest will be fairly easy. (so says the person who is doing 0% of the work. Well, okay...sometimes I help sweep). My husband also gets a gold star because he cleaned up and put most of the tool paraphernalia away for the week. ;)

So, as you can see, our beautiful new fridge arrived safe and sound on Saturday. We had a huge snowstorm blow through, so we weren't sure it would get delivered after all. It was snowing like crazy and there was at least 6 inches on the ground. But Home Depot confirmed our delivery window of 12-4pm, and the delivery guys called at 11:35 am and said they would arrive in a half-hour.

Pure panic ensued because we were dilly-dallying thinking that it either wouldn't happen, or that they would be seriously late. I still needed to unload our old refrigerator. Dean needed to shovel out the driveway and front walk. I needed to move furniture out of the way. Crap! Now I need to vacuum up dust bunnies! Rylan helped me cart down small loads of food to the basement fridge, and when we maxed out on space, we put the rest in the snow. Wintertime's natural refrigeration is awesome!! This is, by far, the best way to achieve that *perfect* glass of cold milk.

 

 

The appliance delivery guys were just awesome. They braved some serious winter weather and tough driving conditions coming up from Denver that morning. They were very nice. They saved the box for the kids (can you say the most fantastic fort e-ver?!) and powered through Colin's and Owen's verbal assault of comments and questions about anything and everything. They helped set it up, move it in place and gave a quick run through on basic operations. They were also kind enough to move the old fridge out to the garage - Habitat for Humanity will pick it up on Wednesday.

 

So here she is! I call her 'Bessy'.

 

"Girl? You're huge!"

I think the fruits and vegetables need their own zip code...

 

This thing has two ice makers. Now, whenever we get ready for camping, I won't feel like such an idiot for forgetting to get a bag of ice. I always forget to get the ice...why is that? And when I DO remember, I pay for it and then forget to retrieve it from the ice machine.

 

There is still so much to do - baseboards, trim, paint...and actually finishing the floor. We are doing the entire ground level, which is just about 1,000 sq.ft. We should be done..oh...about the end of never?

 

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The flooring project continues...

So now that a bazillion old flooring staples have been pulled, there are about a bazillion tiny holes all over the kitchen subfloor. A few nights ago it was late by the time we had called it quits. Dean and Jordan were finishing up in the kitchen and had turned out the lights. When they did so, thousands of little tiny points of light came shining up through the floor because the basement lights were still on. They called me in to see. It felt like we were walking on top of a planetarium screen! It is almost a shame to cover it up - but cover it up we will because it is now time to add some new holes when we lay down the plywood sheeting.

We decided to take some sage advice and lay down a 1/4 inch layer of plywood sheeting before we put in the Pergo. It is slow, tedious work to measure all of the various cut-outs along the cupboards in order to get each section to fit perfectly - which means it's the perfect job for my engineering husband. I get to use the nail gun, which is the perfect job for me! It goes way too fast though. Two minutes and 100 staples later and my fun is done until the next piece is measured and cut. :(

I like building stuff. I haven't flexed my building muscle in a long, long time. During the past few years, all of the building has been Dean's domain. The sandbox, composter, garden beds, basement wall and setting a couple of replacement fence posts have all been completed by Dean. And I was all too happy to step aside and just set myself to the task of keeping the kids away from the power tools and paint stuff here and there.

Back in my building hayday though, I was busy! In anticipation of the purchase of my first home, I felt that it was important for my dogs to have a dog house. The home was going to be new construction, with no yard or shelter, so they had to have a dog house. (Never mind that they were two of the biggest pansy-assed huskies you ever met. They were *inside* dogs...). So I bought a how-to book about basic framing, got a Skilsaw, fresh 2x4s, plywood sheeting, roofing paper, shingles, hurricane clips (yeah, I know..overkill) and set to work. I learned all about subfloors, sole plates, top plates, stud framing and how to make a 45 degree cut with the saw. It was the best experience ever. I learned so much.. And this was in the day and age before Google or YouTube! That dog house was absolutely huge, as it was meant for two dogs. When it came time to move it to the new house, it took six people to push and shove it out of the garage and onto the ramp of a flat bed trailer where a winch could do the work and pull it on the rest of the way. That dog house was hurricane proof, man! You know what the kicker was though? THE DOGS NEVER USED IT.... NOT EVEN ONCE. I managed to make a terrific home for spiders and other creepy crawlies.

But that experience is what started the building bug for me. Since my house was new construction, I had to fence in my yard, and I had no neighbors yet. I had to dig 42 post holes. I mixed 42 bags of concrete. I hung 84 stringers. I screwed in 2,500 pickets. (No exaggeration). I built two gates. I was tired. It took three months to get it done...and I think it took a few years off my life as well. I also built a very large fenced-in garden with raised beds and a huge pergola over my back patio. I loved trips to the lumber yard and the smell of damp cedar. I loved, loved using power tools. I worked outside every evening until the mosquitoes were bad enough to drive me inside. I went to bed sore and tired every night, but blissfully happy about the work that I got done that day. It is my fervent hope that all of our kids will learn basic building skills as well - because the satisfaction of doing yourself has no parallel.

So enough about me - back to our kitchen! The side panel of the cabinet adjacent to the fridge space had significant water damage, so a new panel was cut, stained and put into place, and the ugly pink (seriously! WHO puts PINK countertops into a kitchen!!) countertop is back in place so I can reload the cabinet with my baking pans. New countertops will happen eventually... We moved the cabinet above the fridge space up a couple of inches to accommodate the increased height of the new fridge. I store all of my grandma's china up there, so it was a chore to unload (thanks mom, for the help). It was a couple of nerve-wracking hours that I had to constantly shoo small children out of the kitchen until Dean got home from work and moved the cabinet up to the correct level. I could just picture the mayhem of broken china plates... (shudder). When Dean removed the cabinet at first, we discovered that it was attached to the wall and adjacent cabinet by a total of four screws.  FOUR. Do you know how heavy china is? It is a miracle it did not come crashing down. It has about eight screws now...that baby isn't going anywhere.

So here it is, Saturday morning and our new fridge is supposed to arrive between noon and 4 pm. This is what our kitchen currently looks like...

We have just a little more Pergo to get in place before they can move the fridge in. We've got a couple of hours yet...

This is what it currently looks like outside...

This picture does not do it justice. The snow is about 6-7 inches so far, blowing sideways and showing no sign of abating any time soon. I wonder if this will affect the delivery? (duh)

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