No Phones, No Lights, No Motorcars

Well, my husband's vacation starts this week. And this year he was given the option of deciding where we would go. Now, he could have chosen just about anything......the beach, Disneyland, a 5 day road trip....anything. So what did he decide, where does he want to go? Back to nature. He wants to go on a week long camping trip. Of course, to him it's not just camping. It's camping and fishing and boating and looking up at the stars at night. Grover, the Eagle Scout, wants to get back to his youth. I've no problem with that, except we got two youths that are coming with us. This should be fun. Blue skies, green trees.....bugs, snakes and assorted other animals. Whoo hoo!

And no phones (except the emergency cell), no tv, no stereo, no computer.......but plenty of BOOKS I can take with me. Hmmmm.....this might be better than I thought.

See you all in a week or so!

Peace alllll...............

I Don't Make This Stuff Up

I don't make this stuff up.....I promise I don't.

My children are dangerous. There are many reasons for this. One, they are big for their ages. They are 4 and 5 and the are the size of your average 6 and 7 year olds. Because they are still little boys, they don't have much experience in knowing their own strength and they don't, as of yet anyway, have very good aim.

A couple of months ago, I was sitting in the backyard playing with the dog while the kids where running around, swinging, etc. I heard Lukas say "hey, mom!", and looked up just in time to get knocked in the head with a golf ball. He was throwing it at me so I could catch it, but either he didn't call me in time or I didn't look up in time. I'm still not really sure which. Anyhow, he threw the ball hard enough to give me a mild concussion. Seriously, a concussion from a golf ball. Didn't know it could happen but it did...and it happened to me.

Flash forward to last night. I am sitting in the living room along with everyone else, watching "Hell's Kitchen" (GO ROCK!) and the phone rings (cordless phone, bear in mind). I know it's over there on the loveseat where Grover and Jakob are sitting so I pay it no mind. I'm looking down reading something when BAM! I got hit square across the bridge of the nose with a flying cordless phone. Turns out that Jakob, while trying to throw the phone TO me, threw the phone AT me. (See, one of Jakob's jobs during the day is if the phone rings, he will run and grab it and bring it to me....so I can kinda see where he may have gotten the idea to "toss" the phone to me......kinda) Anyhow, upshot of that is......my nose is broken. Not badly, just a crack really.....but hey, a crack, a break...all the same really....it hurts...a lot.

You know, if I could improve their aim, when they get older, they would both make really, really good football or baseball players. Cause, they really have some power throws!

But, until then, I think I'll start wearing a helmet.

Peace allll............

HBD Lou and Boo

August 12, 2002 3:59 p.m.
August 12, 2003 3:49 p.m.

Will the best boys in the land raise your hand, raise your hand?
You are!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUKAS AND JAKOB!

Out of all the boys I could have gotten, I got the best ones!

I love you, Stoogie Brothers!!

Peace allllll...........

Counseling And Choking On A Cornflake

You know, you'd think I would know better. You would think I would know that just because a day starts out normally doesn't mean it will necessarily end that way. There's always a little bit of something different going on here at Sprinkleshouse.

For example, the other day I was sitting around talking to my friend Rachel. It had been, aside from the sweltering heat, an ordinary day. Kids were watching SpongeBob, Grover was at work, and Rachel was in her room on the phone with her sister, while I was sitting in there watching TV and eating some delicious Apple Cinnamon Cornflakes. I don't use milk in my cereal, because I don't like milk. So I was eating it dry, right out of the box and it was wonderful.........until I swallowed a cornflake the wrong way. It got stuck in my throat and it felt like one of the little corners of it was just stabbing me right in the tonsil area. I couldn't get it loose. I started to cough, at first delicately,( because Heaven forbid I choke loudly and run the risk of embarrasment) and then that made it even worse, and I started coughing and couldn't stop. It felt like I couldn'tbreathe, (but of course I could because if I couldn't I wouldn't have been able to cough) and I was coughing and heaving and gagging and I ran into the bathroom (I don't know why either) and when I left Rachel's room, then and only then did she realize that there was a problem. She (finally!) came in there and hit me in the back and knocked it loose for me. I thought it would end there but nooooooo.......turns out I had coughed so hard that it made me lose my voice! I walked around croaking for the next 24 hours and my throat was sooooo sore I couldn't swallow anything stronger than soup. I'm doing much better now even though I am still eyeing those cornflakes with deep suspicion, not to mention animosity. Darn, raggedy cornflakes. (Anything I don't like I call raggedy by the way.) Maybe I'll start using milk now. Who'd have thunk it?

Speaking of who'd have thunk its, Grover and I have been going to couples counseling for about a month now (nice segue huh?) He's been working too hard outside the home and I have been working too hard inside the home and we were just under way too much pressure. We weren't headed for divorce court or anything (man, I do love that TV show though) but we just kind of needed to regroup. Neither one of us thought we would like counseling but turns out we LOVE it. We work with a "care couple" through our church(Bonnie and Doug) and they have been just wonderful. Of course, they have been married for 35 years so they've been through a whole lot more than Grover and I have. It's really nice to have an objective ear to listen to you. Not to mention the fact that you get to sit in a nice air conditioned office on a nice, cool leather couch and be away from your kids for an hour a week, for free. Not to mention the fact that it has really helped us to regroup and destress. Like my favorite former prisoner Martha Stewart always says :"It's a good thing!"

Now, if it would just rain, cool off, or rain AND cool off, things would be pretty close to perfect these days. Thank You , Jesus for a good life!

If only I can stay away from the cornflakes. Maybe I should switch to oatmeal.

Peace alllllll.....................

Irritation

Would you like to know what irritates me? You would, wouldn't ya? Lots and lots of things do, but I will only mention a couple, because all of my peeves and irritations would take forever to list.

1. It irritates me when people use K and Z in words when they really don't belong there. You know, like "Krazy Al's Used Cars" and "how you guyz doin'", "Boyz in the Hood" and so on. It also irritates me when people use that backwards "R" like in "Toys R Us". A lot of people disagree with me (I can tell because I've read their writing.) They look at these things and think "Oh, how cute....that's written just like a first grader would write it", never bothering to think that the person that came up with this "cute" idea is making a whole lot of money teaching people that illiteracy is cute.

2. The birds that eat the dog food out of the dog's bowl irritate me. Look, fellas, it isn't winter yet. Get your own box!

3. Kids that don't listen irritate me. Not little kids. We all know that they never listen unless they're not supposed to be. I'm talking teenagers. How many times do you have to be told to do something that is your responsibility before you finally break down and do it (with much attitude I might add). If you had just done it the first time, you could have saved us both a lot of trouble.

4. Drunk/high people that get philosophical irritate me. I don't know why they do, they just do. I would just like to stuff a sock in their mouths until the buzz wears off.

5. When I check my local radar and get a temperature reading of 96, then turn to the Weather Channel and get a temperature of 91, then turn to my local news and get a temperature of 89, that irritates me. Can we all get on the same page once a day?

6. People that stare irritate me. Not people that may be staring at me but people who are staring at nothing. The reason they irritate me is because I will always look to see what they're staring at and when I realize that they're staring at nothing, I feel really stupid.

7. Feeling stupid irritates me.


Okay, I'm reviewing my list, reviewing my list and........yep, I'm a little anal. I suppose that's irritating to a whole lot of people.

Peace allll.............

Peace, Rusty

Yesterday, we had to euthanise our beautiful bloodhound Rusty. He was a heck of a dog and one of the sweetest animals I have ever had the privilege of knowing.

Love ya, Ruster. The boys and I sent up a special prayer for you last night. We miss you, and so do Foxy and the cats.

Peace allllll...........