Hmmm… it’s been almost a week since I posted.  Where have the days gone?

Let’s go back in time…

Monday (today) – drove The Boy to summer theater program.  Back home to work.  Productive day – pushed papers effectively and efficiently.  Picked up The Boy at summer theater program; picked up some things at grocery store.  Made dinner – waited for The Hubby.  Ate dinner – didn’t like it (too much onion in the chicken salad).  Ran to church to clean up from Book Sale.

Sunday (yesterday) – church in the morning.  Stayed a bit later to try to sell some more books from Book sale.  Drove The Boy to see friend’s play about a half hour away.  Stopped at Target to return something and pick up more clothespins.  Grabbed a quick snack (was informed by The Hubby that July is National Ice Cream Month and Sunday was National Ice Cream Day – we celebrated in style!)  Drove back to pick The Boy up; drove him to girlfriend’s house; drove to movie theater to meet up with friends and watch Hellboy II.  Drove back to The Boy’s girlfriend’s house, picked up The Boy, came home, snuggled into bed.

Saturday – up early to get to church Book Sale.  At church until noontime.  The Boy got picked up in the afternoon to watch a movie with girlfriend; when movie was over, they hung out here.  Drove girlfriend to her house; came back home.  Went to watch The Dark Knight (very good!), came home, snuggled into bed.

Friday – drove The Boy to summer theater program.  Back home to work.  Picked up The Boy at summer theater program.  Went to Renaissance Fair with The Hubby, The Boy, and some friends.  Very nice, but quiet there.  Went to Ruby Tuesdays’ for dinner/dessert.  Horrible service, but awesome Tall Chocolate Cake.

Thursday – drove The Boy to summer theater program.  Goofed off with The Hubby.  Picked up The Boy at summer theater program.

Wednesday – drove The Boy to summer theater program.  Went to kickboxing class.  Went home to get some work in.  Picked up The Boy at summer theater program.  The Hubby came home late – waited up for him until 1 am.

And that’s where the days have gone….

Ok, it’s not the most exciting subject. (Not even close)

But, everyone has to deal with laundry. I figure I have been doing my own laundry since I was at least 10, so I have been at this for 25 years(ok, more than that, but who’s counting?). Then, if you add in that I started doing Hubby’s laundry at least 18 years ago, and then The Boy’s for the last 15, it starts to add up. And I’m still not that awesome at it.

I hardly ever pre-treat stains.

I hardly ever iron.

I hardly ever iron to anyone’s satisfaction.

I do, however, fold the clothes to MY satisfaction. It is just one of those routine, habitual things – the particular ways I fold the clothes. And if I don’t fold them just the way I like… I will take them out and re-fold them. Just a bit of OCD there, huh?

So recently I had my best friend Sally help me out with a laundry problem. I give her FULL credit for the solution to my problem. There are 2 laundry baskets upstairs for The Boy (one in his room and one in the bathroom) and 2 in our bedroom (one for me and one for Hubby). So when I would do laundry, I would get all the laundry baskets into the basement and sort the clothes into piles for washing. But, if laundry took more than a day (that work thing is a real pain in the butt!), then we were left with no laundry baskets in our rooms to use.

So Sally said: you should get some of those collapsible clothes hampers. Put them in the regular baskets, like an insert, and just take those out on laundry day. So even if it doesn’t all get done, at least there is a place in the rooms to put the days’ dirty clothes into – and they won’t land on the floor (it’s a theory, anyway).

So I did that and it is AWESOME! (See how easy I am to impress?) I took it a step further and bought some large cloth hampers and wrote “WARM”, “COLD”, and “JEANS/TOWELS” on it for sorting. So now I don’t have piles of dirty clothes on my basement floor (no more kitty cat nesting areas!).

But you are probably thinking… “what about the whites? Doesn’t she have any whites?” Of course I do, silly. I just sort those right into the washer and get them done first.

And now I am “going green” (no, I am not turning into a frog) by line drying.

I used to do this all the time when I was a kid. Our house was so old that there was no vent to the outside for the dryer, so instead of heating up the non-air conditioned house in the summer time, my mother made us line dry the clothes.

Hubby & I purchased some retractable clotheslines and put up the 40′ one. I’m not sure how impressed I am with it… it tends to sag too easily. Instead of putting up the other retractable line (only 20′), we re-appropriated the dog line as a clothes line. It works pretty well – doesn’t droop too much. We haven’t used the line for either of the dogs for at least a year, maybe longer, so it doesn’t interfere with that. (They were starting to dig and that was getting The Hubby kinda upset.) My problem will be when we have a “full” laundry day. I used every inch of the dog line AND the 40′ retractable line for a “light” laundry day (about 3 to 4 days worth). Laundry adds up in this house due to Karate classes. And it’s stinky, sweaty, wet laundry … so it’s not like I would ask anyone to “re-use” the shirt, thinking it was “just worn for a few hours”. So I may need to start doing laundry twice a week instead of once.

Of course, that all depends on the weather. The great thing about summer is the sun; the bad thing is afternoon thunder showers and humidity. Either one of those will throw your schedule off.

One of my goals for doing this is to offset the kilowatts we use on the house air conditioner. I’ve often read that one of the biggest draws of electric power in a home is the dryer. So, for the summer, I will be trying to conserve energy by using the clotheslines instead of the dryer. I do see where there may be an emergency that I will have to use it, but as a regular habit, I will be hanging them up to dry.

The Boy commented that when he touches his clothes they seem stiff, but when he gets them on they feel fine. No other real comments about this little experiment yet. We’ll see how it goes!

It’s is The Boy’s birthday today.  He is officially 15.  As I pointed out to The Hubby last night, we now have 365 days of peace of mind left  – that is, until the day he gets his drivers’ learners permit!

I expect he will be a pretty decent driver – but it’s a bit nerve-wracking to think of.

Just 15 short years ago (the days are long, but the years are short!) I was lying in a hospital bed, so tired that it took actual effort to hold on to the baby!  And now he is just one year away from starting his real independence from us.  You know, when he can get into a car and leave us, all on his own.

Next thing you know, he’ll want to move out, go to college, meet a girl (or two, or more), find the right girl, get married, have babies and wonder where the hell time went as his 16 year old drives off.

So I basically took today (Thursday) off. I hung out with my friend Sally. We don’t get to see each other much since she moved out of town (I’ve almost forgiven her for moving). She came over, we had some lunch, some mom to mom chit chat, and then headed out to IKEA for some fun.

We’re cheap, so fun for us is: a watering can, spray bottles, wooden spoons and squeegees. Exciting, huh? It probably cost me more in gas to get there then what I spent there.

Here are some pictures of the new rose bushes Hubby ordered. One actually has a bud; the rest are growing but aren’t quite in the budding stage yet.

Here is a picture of the new, improved mulched areas:

It looks a lot cleaner than with the edging.

Hmmm… had a VERY good class today.  We were in the little room as our karate school is running a summer program.  We didn’t turn on the lights – just natural light came in the doorway and peeked through the blinds.  There were four of us today: me, Pat, Pat, and Zach.  Pat # 1 and I have been doing this for a while; Pat #2 has come to a few classes and today was Zach’s first.

I haven’t been to class for a few weeks.  There was no class the week of the Houston trip, and the week after that I was either A) sleeping or B) trapped by The Boy’s plans going afoul.  So, it has been a good two weeks since my last class (and maybe longer – I can’t remember for sure).  So I was ready for class today, and Sensei did not disappoint.

At the start of class, he announced we were going to focus on meditation today.  I was happy to hear that – it’s been awhile since we had a class that focused on mediation and they are ususally just awesome.  Since it’s been a few weeks since I’ve done any tai chi, my stress level has been up, so it was a great way to get back into classes.

We only did three exercises for mediation.  We lifted up our internal organs; we held the ball; and (gee, I can’t remember what the third one was!) did this third thing… whatever it was.  As part of the basics, you have to remember to put the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth and breathe through your nose.  (Of course, you have to remember to breathe also – which sometimes you can forget!)  He timed us – we did each thing for 1 to 2 minutes.  It went very quickly – usually it feels like forever, but today it went super quick.

Then he had the new students practice their walking; Pat & I practiced our kicks.  As my knees have been bad lately, he told me not to bend too much and concentrate on my balance.  After several passes of that, he had us start section one.  We were to do it twice, then start section two, and then section three (for me, that meant going as far as I could remember – I’m not quite done learning it yet).  But he gave us a special instruction – which I am not supposed to tell anyone.  And I’m not going to tell you, either!  Let’s just say he told us to visualize something, and that’s what we did.

The first time doing section one was difficult!!  I lost my concentration and place several times using the visualization he told us.  But it had the interesting effect of making it more… something – I’m not sure how to describe it… tai chi-y, if that makes any sense (and it probably doesn’t!).  The second time, using the visualization, I didn’t stumble as much, but it still had that unique feeling to it.

So I started my section two.  I feel like I am rusty on my section two and it gets intertwined with my section three.  Today I didn’t confuse the sections like I am apt to do, but I did stop a couple of times when I got “stuck” in a move.  Sensei gave me the next move or two and then I was on my own again.  I had a harder time with the visualization in section two, basically because I was stopping and starting through it.  I got through it twice; the second time I didn’t stumble at all.  I started my third section, but my mind wasn’t in it and class time was pretty much over, so I didn’t have to get all frustrated trying to get through it.

After class, I felt incredibly energized.  It may be because I haven’t been to class in so long, or it could be the type of class we had, or it could be a combination of both.

Anyway, I am a bit conflicted about the next class.  Thursday my friend Sally and I are supposed to hang out in the late morning/early afternoon, possibly going on a special shopping trip before I have to pick up The Boy at 3.  So, either I won’t get any hours in for work if I go to class OR I can get some hours in if I skip class.  Decisions, decisions….

I was just reading this post – don’t ask how I got there – I just did, ok? http://24hours7daysaweek.blogspot.com/2008/06/bookstore-breakdown.html

It brought up the following memory:

We had foster kids when I grew up. One of them, Jill, was a major pain in the tushy. I mean, Mother Theresa would have gone nuts.

At the time of this story, I think it was me, my two older brothers, Liz, and Jill in the household. Five – not too bad, right? Well, when is the last time you took five kids anywhere? (I can happily say “Never”.) Of course, what happened at the mall has scarred me for life (just kidding Mom!) – so I really am not sure who was there that day. I would guess that Jill was about 13 or 14 – just the right age to be a bitch and have fun doing it.

We were all in the mall. We had to get some stuff at the grocery store (yes – a grocery store IN the mall – amazing, huh?). We got what we went for, waited in line, paid the cashier (you remember the time when you actually had someone ring up your groceries for you, don’t you? And bagged them too?) Afterwards we went to another store – I can’t recall if it was the drug store or a Hallmark store. I am almost thinking it was the Hallmark store since I remember thinking we didn’t go into that store too much. Anyway, Jill saw something she wanted. She asked mom and mom said no. She might have asked again, and if she did, I am sure mom said no again. Then, out of nowhere, Jill launches herself onto the floor. She starts yelling and screaming “I want this! I want this! Gimmie this!” (whatever “this” was!). OH MY GOD!! How horrifying. A TEENAGER… ACTING LIKE A TWO YEAR OLD… IN PUBLIC.

Now, with a two year old, you can scoop them up, hold them down as they hit and flail at you, force them into the car seat and get the heck out of there. Not so easy with a teenager. My mom calmly told the rest of us kids to walk to the car and to ignore Jill. We turned around, headed out the store, out the mall and went to the car. And behind us was my mother, dragging Jill by the arm. Jill was still on the ground, flailing around, screaming and kicking and being a baby. My mom just walked straight ahead, head held up high and dragged that whiny baby to the car. She got Jill into the car, turned around and faced the rest of us. I wasn’t particularly scared of my mother, but I sure wasn’t going to give her a hard time that day. She proceeded to get out some money from her purse, handed it to one of us and said in a loud voice, in front of Jill: “You kids deserve a treat. Go into Friendly’s and everyone can get an ice cream cone.” My older brother led the way, and we came back to the parking lot, all of us with ice cream cones. We ate those ice cream cones on the way home, all the while Jill was still throwing her hissy fit over whatever it was she wanted and wasn’t allowed to get, plus now she was pissed off that WE got ice cream and she didn’t.

I guess the only thing worse than an out of control toddler is an out of control teenager!

Well, we had a “small” get together for the 4th. I guess for us, it was small – only about 24 people. It did rain on us, though. Not a total rain out, but close. Just as Hubby was starting up the grill, it started to rain. So we had everyone eating in the house – which is not a big deal. We did pretty good on the food too – usually we go way overboard and have too much left over. We only ended up with six burgers and a package of dogs left. We had generous guests that brought various salads and desserts. Jo brought an especially awesome cake with buttercream frosting. Hmmm.

Today we all went to see the movie Hancock. It was a pretty decent movie. I have given up expecting much from movies, so if anything I am pleasantly surprised when I like a movie. There are a few exceptions, like the upcoming The Dark Knight. I am totally expecting to love that movie. And if I don’t, I’m gonna complain! I always look forward to the Harry Potter movies and the thought of The Hobbit by Peter Jackson has me excited too.

Just a few more days until it’s back to work. Vacation time is so weird somehow – I totally lose track of what day it is. Starting Monday, it’s back to a scheduled life. The Boy starts his summer theatre program, so it’s back AND forth to the city for me! Plus I will get back to class -both tai chi and kickboxing. I took off this week since I slept through my Tuesday tai chi class and was too sore on Thursday to go. I figure I have been working just as hard at yard work as I would at kickboxing – or at least I am as tired as if I did. The Hubby goes back to work and will get back into his routine as well. Hopefully not too much travel on his plate for the next few weeks.

Hope you all had a nice, safe 4th of July weekend!

Man, where does the summer go?

It goes into the abyss known as “Summer Projects” – that’s where it goes!

We got a load of topsoil and a load of mulch delivered before we left for Houston. So over the last couple of days and for the next few days we will be brightening up our old mulched areas, as well as enlarging some of them. The topsoil is for some bare spots we have, mostly from the time when we first built the house and we had huge runoffs since we didn’t have any grass grown yet.

Last year we did the mulch thing and were pretty happy with the results. We put up wooden edging, and after a year of it, we think that maybe just mulch looks better (and is much easier to deal with – just mow around it, no need to weed wack around the edging)! So we are taking all the edging down (see below picture) and just leaving the mulch. I was too tired to take a picture of it today – maybe over the next couple of days I will.

This is a picture from last year… and what we are aiming for again this year for the apple tree area.

Plus there are these holes we seem to grow. It seems everytime we turn around, we have grown a new hole. The hole in the front of the apple tree is most annoying. We have this lovely spot, mulched out and looking great, except for this hole under the bench. And sometimes there is something IN the hole. It has four legs, a tail and a wet nose. It growls if you try to make it do things like give back socks or try to take the toy away from it. Yes, it is our very own Chewie that makes these holes everywhere. He digs in, settles in, and curls right in there to cool down (or warm up if it’s fall/winter). Pansy at least only digs to bury a bone or special treat (a.k.a deer bones).

So we will be spending the next few days updating our lawn. And the dogs will spend just as much time digging it up.

Well, we just got back from our trip to Houston. We went to participate in our karate school’s Nationals Tournament. This is the second year we went (and also the second time they have had this tournament). And by participate, I mean The Boy did. He competed in Sparring, Grappling and Traditional Kata. As a non-black belt, that was everything he could take part in. Once he becomes a black belt he can also compete in creative weapons or creative empty hands forms. That is where he can make up his own kata – with music if he wants.

The Hubby did end up participating, in a way. Sensei called me into one of the school’s offices and handed me a camera. He asked me to take pictures of the event as I was a “responsible” person. I was happy to help out, but pictures are not my strong suit. The Hubby shares this opinion – he has basically given up on training me on using his camera (hence, I have my own camera now). He saw me come out of the office with the camera in hand and immediately asked what I was doing. When I explained, he took the camera and became the official unofficial photographer. He went out onto the floor with all the participants – took shots of everyone he could.

As a karate student, he had a better understanding of when kicks, turns and moves would be performed. He showed me some of the shots he caught (it was a digital SLR, so he could do that) and they looked great. There was part of the day when the lights were off (it gets hot in Houston when you have 100+ people in a room in 90+degree weather!) so some shots may look like they were taken in the dark.

All in all we had a good time. There were about 20 or so students from our school that participated, and about another 10 or so that were there to help out and cheer their family on. The Boy had a good time hanging out with his karate friends. It was nice to be able to let him wander the hotel and hang out at the pool without worrying about him.

And now for the results:

The Boy has never grappled before. He was going to grappling class, where they worked on drills. But school got in the way, and he really hadn’t been to class since early May. He was just looking to get some experience in grappling, and that’s what he got. There were four boys in his division. He came in fourth. But he got to grapple twice – and the second time he did better than the first. I did not watch. I videotaped it. There is a difference – one way you are actively watching what is going on; the other you are making sure you get the action in the screen. I don’t think I can actively watch that.

Sparring: The Boy apparently got moved into the 15-16 year old division (he is still technically 14). There were three in that division once he was placed into it. He placed third. In his defense, one of the kids had a very long reach and the other used a style that was hard to defend against. Plus, he had just come back from his second grappling match and only had about two minutes to catch his breath and get into his sparring gear.

Kata: I think he was robbed. He got second place. He was very strong (this tends to be his strong suit, in my humble opinion). The kid who got first apparently “forgot” a move. He only won by .10 (one tenth) of a point, so maybe I shouldn’t be too upset. But still!

Here are some pictures (I know you are dying for pictures!):

above – Our School’s Participants

above – Sensei talks to the grapplers before things get started

above – here is the Kata scores being given out. The kid on the very left is the one who won.

The following is a true story.  I am not making it up, although, since it happened in the morning, I may not remember everything correctly.

First, some background.  I have not talked much about her, but we do have a cat.  Her name is Bianca.  We’ve had her for about 6 or so years now, right from the time she was born.  We had her fixed and found a new home for her mommy (a.k.a – Grandma’s house).  Her mommy (Kitty Kitty – that’s a story for a different post!) went to live at Grandma’s across the street from us.  Kitty Kitty was very proficient at reproducing, and always seemed to have the same basic kitten: long hair, black or grey, with the possibility of some white thrown in.  Her descendents have continued her great reproductive legacy.  I think my mom is mostly ok with that – it’s a bit of a farm atmosphere there and cats are great at keeping the littler critters away.

Our Bianca is a terrific hunter herself.  Often we will see her, stalking her prey.  There have been several baby bunnies, birds and mice left for us to admire at our doorstep.  She is a pretty small cat.   She wasn’t the runt of the litter, but it’s like she never grew up either.  She is pretty thin – with shorter hair – not a big puffball by any means.

Ok – here is the story:

I had to drive Hubby into work today.  As we are driving, he says to me:

“You know, I had this strange dream last night.  I was sleeping and I thought I felt Bianca jump on me.  I went to pet her, but it wasn’t her.  It was a kitten.  And then another kitten.  Suddenly it seemed there were kittens everywhere.  We looked under the bed and there was Bianca with about 40 kittens!  Hubby looked at me in confusion because we know she is fixed and besides, he never saw her get fat (and that is something one would definitely notice on Bianca!).”

I thought that was kind of a funny dream because of something my mother told me yesterday.  So I told him:

“Mom told me that her porch cat, who usually ducks and hides when Chewie comes to “visit” her, has actually been hissing at Chewie lately instead.  She was pretty sure the cat hadn’t grown this backbone for no reason, and she discovered the reason later on: there were kittens to protect.  The porch kitty had given birth a few weeks before and now “dropped off” the kittens for my mom to put in a crate to keep them away from natural enemies (such as that lunatic dog that comes over whenever he feels like it and thinks it’s ok to come on my porch and eat my food!  And don’t get me started on that other one that tries to sniff my butt!).  So my mom put the 3 black kittens into the crate and has been letting mommy in and out a few times a day, safe in the knowledge her babies are fine.  But a few hours after putting the kittens in, there was a loud meowing from the porch.  Mommy had neglected to bring the last kitten to the crate.  This one was unusual though – it was not grey, not black, not even white, but tabby colored.”

So Hubby says to me:

“That is so weird.  I was going to say this, but then decided not to because I didn’t think it was important.  One of the kittens that Bianca had in my dream was a tabby!!”

Cue Twilight Zone music
So either Hubby is channeling my mother OR he is channeling his dog dreaming about my mother’s cats!