I'm pretty bad with plants, but for the past couple years I've been obligated to order several flats of flowers for the preschool fundraiser. The first year, I had surgery right around the time of the flower delivery. No one planted my flowers, or even watered them, and they had all turned to a crisp in the front yard before I had healed enough to plant them.

Last year, I finally did get the flowers into the ground, but none of them did very well. They looked pretty for about two weeks, until they realized whose house they were at, and the majority of them withered away.

This year's flats arrive tomorrow.

I was at Home Depot a few weeks ago and picked out a couple of nice "deck" plants for the house. They were a bit pricey, but looked nice, and the sticker said a "one year guarantee." My kind of plants.

Well, yesterday my son got a hold of a tri-pack of lavendar bath salts/soap and decided they'd look very nice in the yard, poured out. Before I had a chance to stop him, he'd poured them into my deck plants. I honestly think he felt he was doing me a favor, that they belonged out there, but I doubt my plants feel that way.


- posted by Christine @ 2:47 PM

 
New eye jewelry fad:

Yuck.
- posted by Christine @ 4:04 PM

 
Interesting article about new Iraqi blogs. I wish I had time to actually hunt one down (an Iraqi blog that is, not an Iraqi) and read it.

Speaking of time, I will soon have more of it at my disposal. With my husband leaving for 18 months, a big chunk of my companionship will leave too. He wants me to "stay home", "take care of the kids," "do home projects" which means don't go out and socialize too much.

So I figure we'll keep our movie channels on cable and I'll try to watch a few of the older movies I guess I somehow missed, like "Gone with the Wind." The other day I sat through most of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Mostly I was in awe how much younger Newman and Redford use to look, but the movie was entertaining, minus that corny "Raindrops keep falling on my head" bike number.
- posted by Christine @ 3:48 PM

 
I had almost completely blanked out on my upcoming birthday when my mom called today, inviting me over for a BBQ for my birthday.

Remember being a kid and actually counting down the days until your special day? You told people how old you "almost" were, despite still having a few more months to go. You felt that something special on your birthday, knowing you were that one year older.

I actually have lapses where I forget how old I am and I have to do the math. It's just a year we're talking about, but it's pathetic when you can't even remember your age. The years go so fast, and my birth year isn't a nice even number that can be easily subtracted from the current year (and that whole year 2000 thing has really thrown me off).

So...another year. My mom asked me what I wanted, and I thought of telling her I wanted one of those cool "swiffer" dusters I see on the commercials. It might make my life just that much easier, and at my rapidly advancing age and youth far behind, making life easier is always good. But...asking for something to help me dust sounds rather odd and boring, so I guess I'll leave it up to my wise mother to pick something out. A surprise wouldn't hurt me.
- posted by Christine @ 11:58 PM

 
Had another dentist appointment today, which I always dread since my particular dental plan only hires dentists that are in-training, or otherwise weren't allowed to practice anywhere else. The one I saw today said he had no record of the tooth I knew needed the filling. I could tell he was drilling on the wrong one! We argued for a few moments before he finally found it in his notes, and then he said he'd go ahead and "fix that one too." Well, gee thanks!

They numbed up the entire left lower quadrant of my face and still hit a nerve. The dentist tried to reassure me that indeed, I was numb. Well hell-o, I felt that. I don't pretend a nerve has been hit by the drill just for the fun of it. I guess he got tired of my grimace and white knuckles, because he took out his trusty needle and poked me a few more times.

When it was all done, and I was checking out, they told me there was a $5 charge on all fillings. So...this insurance that I brag is such a great cost now is starting to charge for the little things. I guess they're afraid people might try to fake needing a filling, so they figure the added charge will deter that.
- posted by Christine @ 6:06 PM

 
I had no idea how stressful it was going to be to steam clean the carpets today. I managed to get the steam cleaner out of the garage, buried under heavy items, put together, cleaner mixed up. Seemed to be going OK. Then tried to hook the water hose to the sink. AAARG!!! I vaguely remember having that problem last time I used the cleaner, but I managed to work it out.

Not this time. I messed with the faucet and the cleaner hose for about half an hour before giving up and driving out to Home Depot (which isn't so close when you live far away from town). Bought three different types of faucet attachments, sure one of them would work.

Did they? Of course not. NOT EVEN ONE OF THEM (and before anyone says, why didn't you bring the hose with you, it's huge).

So...I was so angry, I called the 1-800 Bissel number on the instructions and actually got a live person. I told him I was going crazy trying to hook up the hose to the sink, and he said he'd send me an attachment. Now how long is that going to take? Then he said there's a store in Tacoma with the part.

I didn't want to drive to Tacoma, so I decided that maybe if I taped the hose to the faucet, it would work. Let's just say about 50 yards of mystery black tape from my husband's tool box, and a big mess later, it still didn't work.

So I thought maybe I could balance the hose in the sink and just let the water run in (I propped it up with containers of rubbing alcohol). Nope. Didn't work.

So....desperate to clean the carpets, I drove to Tacoma. Found the store in a rickety part of town and bought the $4.95 "adapter pack." I wasn't happy having to drive that far for something so small, but at least I could still do my carpets today.

But of course...I get home and NONE OF THOSE WORK EITHER. I'm so angry. I finally threw the whole thing back in the box and will let my husband see if can make sense of six different types of adapters and a handful of washers.
- posted by Christine @ 6:23 PM

 
In the past couple of weeks I've learned more about Army uniforms than I ever wanted to. I found one hat interesting, the Garrison cap, as the "accepted" name for it is something that I can't imagine saying out loud, let alone to a person behind a counter ordering your uniform. I honestly can't believe someone, particularly a woman, hasn't at least had a rally against these caps.

My husband couldn't figure out why they didn't have gray shorts to match the gray "ARMY" t-shirts for PT. He ranted and raved about their lack of available clothing on post before he wandered off to find something else to complain about. I meandered down an aisle that had stuffed bears dressed as soldiers. After holding up the one that looked like a drill sergeant and, in an angry voice, having it tell my son, "you're too little to join the ranks, dirt bag, get back in your car!", I realized there was a stuffed bear in a PT uniform! It had on a gray shirt and black shorts.

I figured if the bear can wear it, maybe it's the new PT uniform?

So I probably embarrassed the heck out of my husband, but I asked a couple of young guys in line, waiting for their uniforms, if the bear was correct, if that indeed was the new PT uniform. I know their first thought was that I was insane, but then they said yes.

It's not like there were any workers in there willing to answer important questions.

We finally barracaded a tiny woman running around the store, who appeared to work inside, to see if they carried a certain type of sweater. She tossed a catalog at my husband and told him he could order it himself!


- posted by Christine @ 10:43 PM

 
I was alerted to this subservient chicken that's kept me busy for way more time that it should have. Go to this link and tell this chicken what to do, and amazingly--he does!
- posted by Christine @ 10:46 PM

 
There are three days on my calendar for April that are completely filled up. I mean, I'm going to have to do some fancy scheduling and planning just to make sure it all gets done, and I wish I could just push a few things over to an empty day. Seems like as my kids get older, this is becoming more common. Sad part is, I have to fit work in there somewhere too. It's being pushed more and more to the wee hours of the night, and I hate it.

I have those stinkin' roosters for a year now, and as soon as I mention how good they get along, they start fighting. Apparently rooster pecking order was being challenged with the second guy trying to work out his crow. Tonight there was blood. Big, mean, bully rooster scaring an equally large but more wimpy rooster, pulling on his comb and making him bleed. I'm not very skilled at this chicken thing and am not sure what I'm suppose to do about this. I poked at mean guy with a stick a couple times, but he didn't seem to notice. Maybe it'll get to where I have to let one go.
- posted by Christine @ 10:40 PM

 
Oddly, the less dominant rooster in my coop has decided he wants to start crowing too. It reminds me of the dominant rooster's ("Big Red") first attempts at making noise, all crackly and hoarse. This guy apparently decided he was tired of playing second fiddle to the other rooster, so he's trying out the ol vocal cords for a change. I've read it's odd for two roosters to get along, but considering the fact they're brothers and have grown up together, I guess they're managing. With five ladies, you'd think they wouldn't have any problem.

Yesterday I crawled way up to the tippy top of our roof to fix the weather vane that's been leaning for years. That was quite an adventure for a person that's scared of heights. I was in the process of cleaning sky lights when I got the wild idea to crawl up to the weather vane and see what was going on.

Interesting place to be, the roof. A whole different perspective to your house. You see the shingles that the builder didn't line up quite right. You see the gutters filled with shingle debris. You see nails the builder never bothered to pick up. You see the glider that stepson flew up and never retrieved. You see the weather vane with three of it's four screws missing.

I realized if we shot down the tops of about 10 trees, we could see Mt. Rainier from the roof.

As I finished re-screwing the weather vane I realized my shoe was untied. I carefully crawled down and came to the conclusion that the roof isn't a very safe place for me to be. The chance of falling off is way too high for a person like me.
- posted by Christine @ 10:12 PM

 
I thought this was fascinating and really creepy--a woman's photos/journal of a motorcycle ride through Chernobyl. I remember it happening when I was in junior highschool, but I didn't care. Too many other things to ponder at that age. I do distinctly remember my mom not letting my brother and I go outside when "the cloud" was supposedly coming overhead, dropping toxic raindrops. I think she even made us take iodine.
- posted by Christine @ 11:51 PM

 
We have the most pathetic back deck of anyone. It's just a big square of 2 x 4's, hooked to the house, with no stairs. The builder didn't even treat the wood, so about two or three years after we moved here we realized something needed to be done. The deck, surrounded by trees, had become a slimy mess when it rained outside with moss growing from it.

For some reason one night my aunt was trying to see something out the back and slipped on slime getting back onto the deck with no stairs. Her large hematoma was a wake-up call.

The next season I took a huge bucket of Oxy-Clean and a wire brush. I scrubbed off the green mildewy mess and let it dry for a few days. Then stained the entire deck. It looked great.

Well, now it's been several years, and guess what. It looks really bad again. Someone (and I won't mention any names because I'm trying really hard to be nice to him) cut sheetrock on the deck a few months ago and didn't clean it up. Some kids I know also painted on the deck last summer.

Once again it was me and a wire brush. Now that the trees around the deck are gone, the slime is gone as well thankfully.

And this afternoon I re-stained the deck. I also managed to keep myself from getting blocked in like I did last time (staining everything around me and no way to get out--yes, I did that).

Now, as long as it doesn't rain and a family of squirrels doesn't decide to nest on the deck tonight, it should be looking better by morning.

Sigh.
- posted by Christine @ 7:27 PM