Wardrobe Wednesday

My project for the day.
Oh and family, this is the last time I'm going to say this. If your clothes make their way to the hamper looking like this they will stay there unwashed until the underwear has been removed from the pants leg and the pants are turned right side out. Same goes for tights and socks. If they are all balled up and inside out they will not be washed!

More wardrobe Wednesday at Heathen Family Revival.

Half Off Hookas. Random Enough?

Well it's Tuesday again and the best way to get everything out there is to pull out the Un Mom's Random Tuesday Thoughts badge and get to it.

Shall we?

Last week I mentioned that there was a school referendum on the ballot here. It failed miserably. The vote was something like 1200 against and 600 for. The number of people who voted against the new swimming pool was even higher. Hopefully the school board will do some more educating before sending voters back to the polls. If they had their act together they should have done this last year during the presidential election to entice more voters. The turnout for this school referendum was wimpy at best. But yet again, no one asked me.

The Gardener broke his thumb. Smashed it with a hammer at work. He only decided to go to the doctor because it happened at work and wanted it all to be on the up and up. The doc. took an x-ray then burned a hole through his thumbnail to drain off... you know what, I think I'll spare the rest of the details. He's much better though.

I saw this sign last Sunday when we were walking from the restaurant to our car. I was just happy that I had my camera in my purse.

I changed my blog! I have been wanting to make the photos on my blog larger but until now I haven't been able to figure it out. I have learned a ton of computer stuff since I started blogging over a year ago but I still have a lot to learn. I'm still a 2 column blogger but thanks to Shady Lady, this blog post and minima stretch, I now at least have the bigger photos.

This was an indoor photo I took of my brother. I didn't care for the color version but I love it in black and white.

Have a great Tuesday and don't forget to drop by the UnMom for more Random Tuesday thoughts!

Warm Weekend

After the full weekend we had I am enjoying the peace and quiet that a Monday morning brings. My mom and 2 of her friends were here over the weekend for a Unitarian function down in Milwaukee. They arrived Saturday evening and since I didn't trust my mom when she said that they would eat anything, I made a vegetarian black bean and corn stew served on white rice with cilantro and lime. My mom usually leans toward the vegetarian side but uses a new term, flexatarian which is basically a vegetarian that eats meat sometimes. Or as normal people call them, omnivores. To avoid a scene of this has meat, this doesn't, I skipped it all together. It was delicious and for once the Gardener didn't remind me that I forgot to add the meat.

Since it was just a quick overnight visit, Binny and I decided to go down to the city and have lunch with my mom and her friends along with my brother before all of the UU festivities began. They did invite us along for the service but since it wasn't until later in the afternoon (and even the UUs tend to be more church-y than I care for these days), we decided to pass.

Lunch was great though. We ate at a middle eastern restaurant and stuffed ourselves for almost 2 hours, chatting the whole time! The weather couldn't have been better too. Saturday we spent the entire day outside without jackets, hats and mittens! Even made time for a family bicycle ride. Yesterday was beautiful too, with temps in the 60s! A perfect day to be out and about in the city.

Sexism- Country Style

I know I've written about my husband's version of craigslist before, you know the park your junk on the lawn with a spray painted sign next to it kind of advertising. And without surprise we are once again hawking some rusty metal in our front yard. This time it's a skid steer, which is one of those little caged machines on wheels with a bucket in front (description for my less farm-y readers).

Last Saturday the Gardener was playing around on Google maps and realized that street view had come to our country road. As we waited for the photo to load we were both wondering what the photo would look like. Was it summer; can you see the garden? Before or after we painted? Dogs barking at the Google guy??? As the photo came in to focus I was torn between laughing and throwing something at my husband. On the lawn in front of our house (for all of the Internet to see) was a crappy old minivan. Seriously, we have turned into those people. Really though I shouldn't be surprised. I will say though that the Gardener is quite orderly otherwise. He doesn't keep any junk outside and always put away his toys, so there's that.

Anyhow I'm getting off topic here and the kids (half day of school) are hounding me to start a craft. Flash forward to today. A car pulls into our driveway and a man steps out with a big framed photo in his hand. I quickly run out the back door to catch him before he rings the doorbell and alerts my dogs that holy shit there's a stranger here, we must bark as loudly as possible and freak the hell out.! Nevermind that Oliver was laying outside and never heard the guy pull in the driveway or close the car door, only started making a scene once I was already talking to the guy. The man is an aerial photographer (basically he has one of the parachute fan planes and a camera) who takes photos of farms and then tries to sell them door to door. An older guy, white beard, didn't set off any creepy alarms in me, plus when I'm standing next to a 140 pound St. Bernard I feel quite safe. He shows me the photo and I say "Oh, that's nice." He just looks at me. I say "Very nice." He looks at me and says "I can come back when your husband is home." Sort of annoyed because he won't talk to me, I say "So what's the deal?" as I point to the the big framed photo of our house, barns and outbuildings taking note of the lack of any crap cars or tractors out for sale. He replies, "59 with the oak frame." And just the print? "39" Before I can even say anything he says, "Well I'll come back another time when your husband is around." Thanks a lot A-hole, you just blew a sale. It wasn't even his intentional (or unintentional, I don't know) sexist remarks... at first, but his idea that my husband would be the better person to talk to about buying his art. My husband has an appreciation (although limited) for art but only if it doesn't cost him anything. He has even less patience for people coming to the house trying to get some of his hard earned money. While this falls into a different category than the religious types that come around spreading the word and the fidgety woman trying to sell homeschooling materials to us over the summer, but still he wouldn't be interested.

In a world where women are now as powerful and influential as men, why do some people still think that a man should be the one calling the shots especially when it comes to money? My husband doesn't manage our finances. He doesn't even have a debit card linked to our bank account. If he needs money, he asks me. We both prefer it this way. I have the time to manage the checking account (Remember I'm just a house wife and don't work. What the 2 nights a week milking cows count as a job? Huh.) and more so the patience to deal with sorting through bills and sitting on hold when I realize that our health care provider screwed up yet another bill. But the authority to buy a photo? Absolutely not.

Wardrobe Wednesday

Winter Cold Weather Hats

It seems like it changes from flip flop weather to hat and mittens weather in the blink of an eye.

For more Wardrobe Wednesday head on over to Heathen Family Revival.

RTT- Vote Today!

Well it must be Tuesday again. I see Random Tuesday Thoughts posts starting to fill my Google reader. Stop by the UnMom to catch up on all of the randomness.

As for me... we made it through Halloween but now we have 2 giant bags of candy sitting on the kitchen counter. I'm hoping to do something about that very soon. Freckle posted on Facebook that the Candy Fairy stopped by their house the night of Halloween, took her kids' candy and left them each a small toy. And her kids loved the idea! So, I'm thinking that after 3 days of my kids stuffing their faces with various forms of high fructose corn syrup, the Candy Fairy may stop by today while the kids are at school and drop off a small, inedible treat and sneak off with what's left of their candy.And let's face it, after wax lips, the rest is just plain old candy.

Mae had an appointment with her pediatrician yesterday. It was just her annual physical that was due in September but I wanted to wait until all of the tests came back and we had a chance to talk with the Immunologist again. Mae's pediatrician checked her out from head to toe and said that she looked very healthy. The minor ear infection she was treated for 2 weeks ago had cleared up, blood pressure was normal, and she passed the informal doctor office eye test. Doc sounded very pleased with the findings of Mae's immune work-up and went over all of the specifics with me again. Her big concern right now is the nasty H1N1 virus. There were no H1N1 vaccines at the clinic but she did say that the schools would be vaccinating kids as soon as more vaccine becomes available and of course encouraged me to have both girls vaccinated if they don't catch it first. She said that she'd be very surprised if one or both of the girls didn't come down with it in the next week or two.

The waiting room was full of masked children coughing and wheezing waiting to see a doctor. We had to use a separate "well visit" entrance to the office itself and around every turn was a hand sanitizing station. Pretty much, I'm almost certain that we were exposed to many cases of the nasty flu yesterday but so far no signs of illness yet. *crossing my fingers* Mae's doc did say though that if Mae does come down with H1N1, she should come back to the office in request of tamilflu because of her immune defect. She also asked if I wanted Mae to have the seasonal flu shot while we were there. Of course I agreed and Mae was vaccinated for the seasonal flu (just like every other year). I called last week about the shots and was told that they didn't have any and while waiting to check in at the reception desk I heard one of the receptionists tell another parent that there were no H1N1 or seasonal flu vaccines available. I guess they must be trying to keep some around for the more at-risk kids. After all Binny isn't eligible for either tamiflu or the short supply seasonal flu shot.

In more illness related news, the school is handing out small bottles of hand sanitizer to each student and encouraging them to use it. As much as I think hand washing is important to staying healthy, I think that the hype over hand sanitizer is a little extreme. Even at the doctor's office (we've been in several lately), I see health care workers use a squirt of that stuff instead of actually washing their hands. Yeah it may kill some of the germs but it doesn't actually clean your hands the way good old soap and water does. So around here with each mention from the girls that they need a squirt, I have been gently steering them to the sink instead.


I plan to vote today. There aren't any big races around here on the ballot today but there is a school referendum that has caused some commotion in our school district. The district wants to build a new middle school and a new swimming pool to replace the old pool that is in need of some major TLC. There are always people who refuse to vote for anything that could raise their property taxes (by $164 annually for a house worth $100,000) but I did see many yard signs supporting the referendum while we were out trick or treating. I also read some wimpy opposing arguments in the Squeak saying that during a recession is not a good time to be spending money on our schools. I couldn't disagree more. With all of the federal incentives and the ability to negotiate low prices with contractors that are just hoping for new projects to come up in order to keep themselves in business, this sounds like a great time. I also happen to have 2 children that will be going to middle school in the next few years and use the swimming pool for swimming lessons... and a husband who is trying to stay employed as a construction electrician. Call me selfish but I think that this project is worth the 164 bucks.

That's it for me today. Have a good one!

Halloween Recap

The weather was cold (42 degrees!) for trick or treating but we made it through 3 whole blocks before going back to our house for a pizza party.

Pre-trick or treating excitement in the car

Mae's serious look was her way of interpreting her costume. She thinks that mummies need to be emotionless.

Our little lion friend was happy to be wearing a costume with a warm hood!

We finished the night by lighting all of the glow sticks we had in the house. (Thanks to blog reader Becky for the glow sticks!)

Hope you all had a great Halloween!

*Mae's mummy costume was made with off white burlap cut into strips, then sewn together into a big piece of fabric then sewn into pants and a top. (She wore cream colored long underwear underneath the burlap mummy costume.) Her head covering was a polar fleece neck warmer that we sacrificed by cutting a hole in it for her face.

*Binny's red crayon costume was made with red and black felt... and lots of glue. The hat was just a cheap cardboard Happy Birthday hat covered in red felt.