waiting for school to start so I can get on a different roller coaster

If life is a roller coaster, as some say, then I'm ready to get off this one and back on the old familiar one of homeschooling.

My work hours will drop, the boys won't have camps to taxi them back and forth from, and VBS will be over and done for another year. I like VBS, don't take that statement wrong. I'm just out of my comfort box (which is a good thing) with being in charge of crafts and watching the number of kids coming, and the number of craft projects available, tipping the scale back and forth. I know we can shoot-from-the-hip and throw in some left over crafts if the numbers don't match, but I'd hate to have to do that. It will be a hard enough week on the staff helping just to keep the kids from rushing through their crafts and then getting antzy and obnoxious.

The week will still include Herogian going north to skeet camp for three days, and T12 going across county line east to another day camp for five days. I only have pick up duty, thank you Commander and Mrs. Hillary.

I haven't worked on the novel since the trip to Oklahoma. That's a thorn in the back of the mind. I can't wait to sit back down and disappear into the book. I need it. One of the characters is Elohim, I need the time spend reflecting on Him with my main character.

Then there's been unwanted comments from a customer at work. Our security guard finally got wind of it. I was just blowing the guys comments off as harmless, until he started coming in closer to closing time and sometimes standing behind Starbucks side counter to stare.  I guess they had other problems with him in the past, so it is up to the higher office if he will be banned from coming into the store. He won't be coming through my line anymore, though. I just hope to not  meet him in the parking lot. Karate, Taekwondo moves keep floating through my thoughts.  I don't want to break another nose, but I know I can.

Commander and I are wanting to train for the Bataan Memorial Death Marathon next March at White Sands, NM. Yesterday we did a 10K. I'm having neuropath pain in both feet, from  the metatarsals through the toes.  I really want to do this marathon with him. Please pray that I can find out what is going on with my feet. Some possible causes can even be the past chemo therapy drugs.

Okay, I've vented enough. 
Is it any cooler in Oklahoma?

Herogian okay

I'm home for a few minutes and wanted to let you know Herogian is okay. He had watermelon for breakfast and I assume had a sugar drop out their in the hot sun. We will make sure that doesn't happen for the rest of the clinic this week and next. T12, thank goodness, was picked up and deposited at his camp during my trip to post, so now it is off to pick him and his buddy up.
To the church - I promise to get there sometime this week and be prepared for crafts during VBS next week. It just might end up at 1:00 am. Life goes on.    Have you seen "In the Middle"? a tv program my sister introduced to the boys. We purchased first season and we are rofl  through these episodes.

40 acres and OK GRANNY, thanks for your post. They actually went through.

We be back

It was an awesome break spending the week with family and friends in Oklahoma. The weather was HOT. Oklahoma is experiencing a drought like we had back in 1980. 50 + days then, and already at 30 now. Please pray for rain. There were two major house fires on the news. The cedars around them went up like torches.

Life@40acres   it is so good to see you blogging again. I couldn't leave a message at your site. It has something to do with my account.  I wanted to shoot the "bull" with you for a bit.

The reunion was fun. What a mental challenge to try and put faces and names together that I haven't seen in thirty years.

Herogian just passed out at skeet camp. gotta go.  He sounds find and wants to continue but Mommie needs to get to post.

Summer is flying by

Note to OKGRANNY:  Garth graduated a year before me. I don't expect to see him.


THe boys and I saw Harry Potter today. It was awesome! They did a great job following the book - well, for what I can remember of it. I kept say, "Oh yeah, now I remember that!"  I was really glad that I took a sweater to the theatre with me. It is COLD in those rooms. T12 pulled his arms into his shirt, pulled the hem over his bare knees and tucked his nose in. He looked like a little gray ball beside me. Now and then, he'd lean over to sip his drink and shiver.
It was a great time with the boys. We all had cotton candy and sugared ourselves out.

It feels like there is so much left to do this summer in the yard, getting ready for school, around the house, VBS, and getting ready for school. T12 will be starting soccer practice as soon as we return next week. T12 and Hawk will have a science camp the week we get back, Herogian has skeet camp, the following week is VBS and  a second round of skeet camp. I have school scheduled to start the 8th of August since we take vacations in the fall. Somebody stop the clock for a day or two.

Herogian surprised me the other night with his choice of reading. He was grounded from screens, had finished the book series he was reading, and needed something to do. He went to the school shelf and chose "Microbiology: the easy way". He said the first chapter was really interesting. O-kay. Floored me.

Hawk (T13) pulled another back out  at the last moment the other day when we went to the post gym for rock climbing. He put the helmet on, tightened it up, took it off, and said he wasn't climbing. The veins popped out of my neck, I gritted my teeth and just want to rattle his.  I can't stand that kind of behavior. Commander says the boys are shifting in their pecking order as to who is more athletic and showing leadership.  I don't know if he thought T12 would show him up, if he didn't want the soldiers playing basketball to see him fall off the wall or what. He is testing my composure that's for sure.

I just know that once I saw the wall from the side, there was no way any of the boys or any adult, I know, could have made it to the top. The wall slants back over your head ( \ ) like that symbol.  The boys would be hanging by their fingernails (which they don't have) for the last 8 feet up the wall. But when you look at the wall from the climbing side, you can't tell that it juts out that far. Deceiving.

Tomorrow after church is packing day. I'm not looking forward to driving to Oklahoma, a Star Trek transporter would be nice. I know I will enjoy seeing family and friends. Please pray for safe travels. For some reason my blood sugar drops (or I notice it the most) when I'm driving.

summer jobs

Here are a few pictures of the summer project(s).

The right side by the lattis will be turned into a Hosta garden, the steps still need to be fitted and lined up, I just dropped them in there as I was carrying the 50 bricks from the truck. Ugh!

 THis is what it looks like from the side. a few stepping stones will start it out at the right of the top step. The walkway will continue through the fence, with the drainpipe on the far left being extended underneath and then  the path will turn and end at the bottom of the stairway. Hopefully done by Christmas. Sooner the better. UREKA! That must be where us Okies got the name SOONER - we want everything done SOONER.

 This was the pickings the other day, yesterday it was just the one mixing bowl from our garden.

Next week is High School reunion week in Yukon, OK. It will be fun to see some of the ladies I played basketball with, or those from the track team. I'll be meeting my friend 'T' and her husband for the Saturday night dinner.  The hotel chef is making a gluten free meal for me, I'm so glad I thought to call ahead.

T12 has to go with me, but T13 gets to decide if he wants to stay here with Herogian to take care of the animals, and play with his friends. I'm expecting a last minute change of plans on his part, no matter which way it goes. He's taking after me with last minute changes to plans. Now, I know how frustrating it can be for others. But I still do it. I like to plan it out - just not impliment the plan when it is time to leave the house. Anyone else do that?

Have a good week.

Are you going to see the last Harry Potter movie?

Time is flying by

I'm wondering where June went. This morning Commander stepped up to the bed and shouted, Happy Anniversary! Yep, it's the twelfth of July, - we will hit the 19 year mark in December. For those who don't know, we try to beat each other each month on the twelfth to be the first to wish the other a Happy Anniversary. Commander is definitely out doing me this year. I should have thought to do it last night at 2:00 am  - I'm turning into a night owl with closing until 11, working out at the gym for 1 hour then coming home to eat ice cream and work on the book. Not exactly the schedule that I'd like to be on, but it works for now. I'm ready for school to start up so I have a ligit reason to drop some hours at work. I hate to say I can't work, when I actually can.

So on to work --- the other day a co worker "C' came through my line when she was done with her shift and tried to get me to stack coupons - use more coupons then the number of items bought. We don't double coupons at our store. We don't stack coupons.  She told me I could punch them in manually and no one would know. I looked at her like she was nuts and handed her back the extra coupons.She turned to the other cashier and made a comment - "Uh, "B" she won't do it for me!"  The other cashier  "B" told me afterwards that she had to tell the girl "C" the other night that she couldn't stack coupons.
I didn't say anything else at the time to her, but I later let my boss know that I wasn't comfortable with her asking me to stack coupons. One of the customer service clerks heard us and popped up with "if you had done it, she would have been right over here telling on you." That threw me. What kind of coworker is this? 
Tonight, I waited until she was on break then went up to her. I thought it was about time to stiffen the backbone. I quietly told her that I thought her asking me to stack cards, (yes, I blundered) stack coupons the other night was unethical and disrespectful. I told her I felt she owed the other cashier "B" an apology for trying to drag her into the scheme of stacking coupons. She never fully apologized to "B" she actually tried to blame the situation on "B".We just shook our heads and moved on.
Our City government has hired this girl to work for them. She'll probably get along just fine there.

This past weekend had a project. You know how much I love projects. Friday night I cut the 4x4's. Saturday morning I got up early and started putting the steps togethers leading down to the side gate. It turned into an all day kind of job. Monday morning I finished with the help of Hawk and a playmate of his from down the street. They helped dig up the paving stones at the rental house a friend owns, I loaded them into the truck. Back at home, they pushed the stones toward the end of the truck bed and I carried them around, one at a time, to the walkway. 15x15 paving stones, that had to weigh 25-30 each and we moved 50. Then we hit the local lawn and garden place for 10 bags of dirt. THe boys were a big help and fun company in getting all this material to the side of the house. I still need to fill in around the steps, and prep the garden for Hostas that a friend from church said I could get out of her yard.

The other project that developed this morning was picking about 20 quarts of blackberries and putting them up in the freezer. Thank you Mrs. D. I only got 2 quarts from our yard and our sweet neighbor to the east supplied the rest. She's the one that taught me how to make blackberry jelly last year. I'll have to try it again.
So if I'm not here  at the EFandB often. You know I'm just keeping my hands busy .
Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Independence Day

I have to laugh at the list of things I wanted to get done today with Commander off from work. We did get some of it done, it's just that somehow he was able to throw this large project right into the middle of it. The side gate under the tree needs a better pathway then just gravel. Commander decided it needed some landscaping timbers, gravel and stepping stones. Sounds great, except for the fact that it's clay earth with lots of gravel rock already in the area. No Fear, the Commander is here. He took the rototiller to it. Did a great job of loosing up the rocks so I could haul wheelbarrows of it to the chicken yard, back fence , garden, and anywhere else we could come of with a spot. We did keep three 35 gallon tubs of dirt near the job site for back fill.
The other awesome part that happened with this job - a friend bought a house for her rental company and wants to remove 40 paving stones from the property. We move them and they are free. I like that word - FREE. Well, they won't be free after I pay the boys to dig them out with me, but worth it.

Okay, the family was sitting at the table the other night after T12 made it home from camp. The talk ended up around the subject that I could still swat the boys beeehind if they really needed it. T12 asked why I didn't swat Commander's back side when he called T12 a "Dickiebird". I said I wasn't his mother, therefore I didn't have the authority, too. Commander popped in with "And Mema's arm isn't long enough to swat him from where she lives in Pennsylvania." To that T12 replied, "But her check book can reach that far." He was ready to call Mema and tattletale on the Commander.

Boys.

Have a great week. Thanks for stopping by.

Panda Bear and VBS

Panda Bear Banty 2007-2011.

We tried to keep him safe. He was determined to leave the safety of the berry garden to fight for his position as dominant rooster with three others. When he couldn't maintain the fight, he somehow left the chicken yard to take on the two dogs. How often do we try to protect our kids, but they keep wanting back into the world to do it on their own. Sometimes the odds against them are overwhelming and they don't figure that out until it is too late. Then they try to escape to only find themselves with a bigger problem.

As you know, I've hunted turkey, butchered chickens and ducks, but having to put Panda Bear down was the saddest one of them all. I miss this fiesty guy already. Two of the banty females miss him, too. They hide out in the coop all day long now to stay away from October. (see second picture for October).

On a better note. Waddles has started laying eggs again. I love duck eggs for cooking our gluten free breads and cakes.

So the changes occur in the barnyard and we keep on quacking.

VBS is in a month. I have offered to take on a new position - crafts. After brainstorming a bit, hitting the craft sites on the internet, I came up with a few ideas that we can do for all the kids. The most intense activity will be two different windchimes. They are both kits, just more work of putting it together for the older kids. I'm hoping to get some old flatware for the kids to hang below the tubes to make theirs more unique. The younger kids will have the kit from Oriental Trading. The other projects include a slap bracelet/ or faith bracelet, foam visor, and puzzle game. (I'm fogetting something). We also have picture frames if something else is needed to keep the kids busy along with pictures to color when they are done.

This will be a fun challenge to do the crafts. I'm hoping some of the ladies with experience at this area will assist me. Hint, Hint.

The boys and I had a busy week. We moved 2 truck loads of mulch - shovel load in to the truck and shovel load out of the truck. I was definitely sore the following day, along with developing a cold.  That evening after the issue with Panda - I continued to work moving bucket loads of Kansas River rock from the driveway pile to the flower garden. I'm still not done there - no energy left to do it. The boys, however, demolished the second pile of driveway gravel for me, by spreading most of it out on the driveway. That was cool to come home from work and find that job done.

T12 made it home from Boy Scout Camp. He loved it. Except for the part where we had to tell him to stop selling his Gluten Free food to the other boys. He was selling expensive stuff for a dollar, but what was worse was the fact that he was selling it and not sharing it. He found a drink at the cantene that he liked - ArizonaTea Mucho Mango. There's no telling how many of those he had to drink.
 I don't know how many merit badges he finished this week, but it was a good start to his B.S. career.

He was also accepted onto the Leavenworth United Soccer U-13 team. It will be interesting to see what this does to our schedule. He is suppose to practice two nights a week then play games and tournaments on the weekends down south of K.C.  Along with this schedule will be Hawk's schedule (he didn't want to play league ball, just rec) and Herogian's schedule of skeet, hunting, and archery starting again. Oh yeah, school will be in there somewhere. Can't forget that, now can we? I'd also like to attend Bible study on Wednesday nights, but will have to see where these other things take us... and writing the book and a vbs program.... life goes on.