Thoughtless Thursday

it's kind of like wordless wednesday.



Don't you hate it when you stand up after sitting on the toilet, and the toilet seat sticks to your butt a bit and lifts up a few inches and then it slams back down to the rim making the loudest possible noise, that proceeds to echo around your bathroom? Don't you hate that?? And do you then wonder why on EARTH your butt cheeks stuck to the toilet seat?? I mean what was on there that made you stick? That is a question that only the brave should ask, especially if you live in a house with 4 boys.

Fires don't go near grammies

Lucy has become obsessed with fires. Apparently she has been having bad dreams where our house catches on fires and turns black. It has her super freaked out. In her dreams we evacuate to Grammie's house. She has taken to packing bags of belongings and leaving them near the exits, just in case. She tells me that the bags are packed in case we have a fire, we can grab then when we leave. (She says "grap"). She has asked us a few times if the firemen are at the station, and when it closes. Yesterday, she asked me if she could pack her bags and I could drive her to Grammie's house and drop her off when all the daycare kids leave.

She won't talk about this at all. When asked what she is afraid of, she just says she doesn't want to talk about it. When I asked her why she wants to go to Grammie's house so urgently, she just says she misses her. I asked if she would miss me and she said "I have an idea! We can both go to Grammie's house!"

I feel so bad for her. She is obviously scared to death of a fire and thinks the only fire-safe place is Grammie's house. :( She is scared to go to sleep at night and has an absolute fit if I don't make it up right away to say a no-bad-dreams-prayer with her.

I scheduled an appt with the fire station for next week. I am hoping they can put her mind at ease. Anyone else have any other ideas on how to ease her mind??

Crazy neighbor #467

If there is one thing you can count on as an Army family, it's crazy, sometimes scary neighbors. I have once again found joy in living on post. sure.

I am going to document this here, not quite sure if that is a good thing or not, but I suppose I can always come back and delete this post if I need to. Yesterday about 1645, M and A were digging in their usual spot between cars 2 and 3. They sit on the sidewalk and dig in the place where the asphalt meets the curb. They get little sticks and pry the stones out from the crevice where the parkinglot doesn't quite meet up with the curb. M says he is a geologist, so he collects rocks. I was standing about 10 or 15 feet away, at the table filling out my meal count sheets.

Our new neighbor's husband (I met her, but not him) came out of the house and went over to the boys and was talking to them in low tones. I could not hear his words but I could hear his voice. He was standing with hostile body language and his tone of voice wasn't friendly either. I started to walk over there and as I walked, I asked him what the problem was. He shouted at me, possibly due to distance, using a hostile tone of voice that he has only lived here since Friday and already his car is scratched. He tells me that the boys scratched his car with a stick. I tell him that if there are any future problems, to just let me know because I am always out wiht the kids and I will take care of them. He starts freaking out about how he has only lived here so long and already his care is being damaged. So I asked him if he saw who did it, and he said pointed at M and said him. Well M has a condition that causes him to have poor muscle tone and he can't even walk with out a walker. He has problems pouring his drinks from the half size pitchers. I highly doubt he has the strength to actually scratch this man's car. During this exchange I am getting the boys up and directing them to another part of the yard to dig in.


This guy doesn't go back in his house, he just continues to harrass me about this. I can't even tell you what he was saying because I was so upset. He just keeps going on about how I am obviously not supervising them enough, how his car has been scratched etc. He has started calling me "Hey, Lady". Finally I just turned around to him and told him not to call me that. I told him it was rude and he was being a jerk.

At this time, S. and C. show up, M, A and A's mom and aunt. When the guy sees me having back up, he goes back into the house. S asks what is going on and I give her the run down and she is all upset. M is all upset thinking I am going to get in a fight. It was nuts. So I get them taken care of and they leave.

Crazy is standing inside his house with the screen door closed staring at me. I go up to his house, and he is on the phone. He does not even acknowledge that I am there so I tell him that as soon as he gets an estimate to let us know and we will pay for the damage. He again starts "yelling" (talking in a very hostile manner, not really loudly) at me, saying he knows my husband, and he would not do that to my husband, as if I was a small child who has misbehaved! I told him that I would just give him money then and he said he would give it back, so I walked away with a loud "whatever." **So many things wrong here. The first being that he doesn't know my husband. Anyone who did would NEVER freak out on me. Adan can take many things in stride but he gets really heated when he thinks someone has done me wrong, especially another man. The way he knows my husband? He came into the ER with his daughter and Adan was their medic. He doesn't KNOW my husband, he just knows who he is. Secondly, I am not a child, and if my children are responsible for damage, the responsible thing is to pay for it.

So I go over to the van in questions and I look at the scratches. They are very small, and curvy, and to me they look as if they could have been made by road debris rather than a muddy stick. But I don't know one way or the other.

I called up adan, in tears, and asked him to come home. Of course he can't. I told him the whole story and went and got my camera so i could take a picture of the damage. As i squatted down at the side of the car, Crazy comes racing out of his house with a hammer in his hand yelling about what the hell am i doing. I told him i was just taking a picture so we could get an estimate, and he starts yelling at me about how he doesn't want an estimate blah blah. Adan is on the phone yelling at me to get out of there and i am like, he has a hammer! CHAOS! People start coming out of their houses. Lisa and Ray, and Mary all come out to see what the commotion is about. I am thoroughly shaken and just so disappointed.

I tried to do the right thing at the beginning by telling this guy that I will take care of any problems that arise. I try and do the right thing by asking him for an estimate. I try and do the right thing by getting my own estimate. I get threatened with a hammer.

He came out one time later, while I was playing basketball with Lucy in the yard. I don't remember what he said to me, but I told him he was an ass. He told me I was a bad daycare provider for saying ass in front of my daughter. he also said that we aren't allowed to park in our parking spots, that he is going to always park in them every day and we are out of luck.

I seriously don't understand this. Why do people act like that? When his wife was moving stuff in, I made sure to keep the kids out of the way. I gave her our parking spot because it was closest to her front door and she has 2 little ones. I talked to her and welcomed her to the neighborhood. He hasn't even ever said hello to me, yet he is going to be mean and rude and threatening.

Adan got home at 1800. He went over and talked to the guy and told him to not speak to me. I hope he doesn't ever speak to me again. I am not that lucky.

Now I am worried that this guy is going to try and run me out of my own yard. We have a courtyard and we put out our basketball hoop for all the kids to use... in just our 3 buildings, not counting her 5 children, that is 17 other kids. We put out our soccer net and keep all of our balls accessible to everyone. We put in a huge garden... I am a social creature.. i don't want it to be miserable here.. not to mention i don't want to be in fear for my life or afraid to go outside.

Knitted Shag Rag Rug Update

Update!! 3/20 This rug pattern came from a book called fast and fabulous low sew bathroom projects by Reader's Digest. This rug is neither fast nor very fun but i feel committed now. DARN IT! I am currently only working on this rug as i wait to pick up kids from school so I do MAYBE 2 rows per day. My goal for April is to finish this dastardly piece of no fun knitting so i can move on to something i might not hate.

New pic for ya! Please ignore my messy dining room table, and my shoes. I stood on a chair to take a pic from above. Yes, my tape measure is missing inches 1 - 3. I burned them with the iron. I don't like beginnings. The rug currently measures about 25 inches wide by about 9 inches long. After 6 weeks. I rock.

Seed Starting and Storage

This morning we started all the tomato plants, bell peppers and various other herbs. We just purchased peat pots so we can plant the whole pot into the garden and not have to fuss with transplants. I feel all gardeney and official now.


Starting the seeds got me to thinking about my seed collection. I had quite a few packets of seeds from last year, and this year I ordered a LOT more. Gurney's had a hiccup and sent me twice my order. Since I am doing Square Foot Garden, I am only using a few seeds from each envelope. I probably have enough seeds to last 5 more years! I decided it was time to educate myself on seed storage.

Seeds need to be stored in a cool dry place, with as little moisture as possible. Canning jars are ideal.. wide mouth is easiest but since i had regular mouth in my cupboard, that's what I used. If you have any of those little "do not eat" packets that come in your jacket pockets and with electonics, throw one in each jar. If you don't, take a small amount of dry milk powder and wrap it in a small square of tissue or kleenex. Toss that in the jar to absorb any moisture. Label the lid of your jar with the types of seeds in the jar, and store in the fridge until next year! Most seeds will last 3-5 years if stored properly.
See my pink kleenex dry milk packet?

Facebook User...

the one from Louisville who visits my blog regularly. You always visit after facebook, and seem to know my husband. You like to look at our pictures... WHO ARE YOU? Post in my comments.. come out and play!

Garden Beds....YAY!

We spent this weekend planning for our garden and building our garden beds for our square foot garden.

We built 8 3'x6' garden beds and placed them in the front yard we share with the neighbors. The garden beds were very simple to build! We also added a picket fence around this part of the yard to keep random deer and children out of the veggies.

So the final planting list is as follows:
(This list is plants, not veggies or fruits)

168 carrots
48 strawberries
27 green pole beans
27 purple pole beans
54 shelling peas
1 summer squash
19 vine tomatos
2 watermelons
2 giant cantalopes
2 zucchini
6 lettuce (salad bowl variety)
4 pepper
2 white pumpkins
2 orange pumpkins
1 cherry tomato
1 yellow cherry tomato
2 roma tomato
8 broccoli

So we built the boxes, and started on the fence.. BUT the fence is unfinished because I thought the planks were 6 inches wide. I told Adan how many to buy... and the fence planks were really 4 inches wide... so yeah, we did not buy enough.

We also still need to buy the materials for the soil, and for the trellises... we need 9 trellises. This is turning out to be a bit more expensive than I had hoped, but I have to remember that these initial purchases won't have to be repeated. That makes them cost effective in the long run, but oh-so-painful now! LOL

Pics of the building process!