The · Pursuit · of · Happiness

Lately I have been having some crazy pregnancy dreams. Logically I know we don't want/need any more kids, but it is still hard for me to give up on the idea of having another baby. I know it would bankrupt us and probably give Jahsh and/or me a heart attack/stroke/mental breakdown to go through the first couple years again, but awwww babies are so cute! I think most women go through this around this time in their lives (2nd half of the 30's). I'm trying to clear out a lot of the kids' old baby stuff and sometimes I have to force myself to let go.

So, tomorrow night Jahsh's mom and grandma are coming to visit. The good part is that they are staying with the kids while the 2 of us take a much needed grown up vacation for 5 days. We are going back to where we had our honeymoon almost 9 years ago - St. Thomas! Yay for sunshine and rum drinks. The bad part is there are so many things half done around the house that I can't decide what to tackle first. Yard work, laundry, vacuuming, finishing touches on the bathroom remodel (which is almost done after 3 months sigh), etc. Obviously I have given up, temporarily, and am wasting my time on the computer instead.

We had a brief warm spell that brought out ladybugs in droves. I noticed several on my truck and thought "How cute; good luck bugs!" - then to my horror and disgust realized they were eating squished bug guts off my windows and front grill. Ewww! I never knew ladybugs were scavengers. Glad it's raining today to clean off the rest of the buggy remains so I don't have to watch that anymore.

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Tonight as I was getting ready to turn out her lights Stella asked me "What's DNA?" With my kids I never get the easy questions.

I like to do all my Christmas shopping early and this year I am buying most of the kids' gifts from medical supply and science stores. Jaxon is completely fascinated by the anatomical models at the vet and doctor's offices, and I want to get them both a microscope and some real stethoscopes so I can properly explain things.

I recently learned that I definitely do not have all the answers. I told the kids that TMBG must have made up triops for the song on Here Come the 123's because I never heard of a creature with 3 eyes, but to my surprise triops do exist and they do have 3 eyes.

Stella has been really good at school this year. Last year she got in trouble at least once a week, if not more. So far she's only had 1 bad day this year after 4 weeks of school. Yay! It's really nice to be able to reward her all the time instead of trying to think of what else we could take away. Though it does make for less interesting conversations about what happened at school today.

Jaxon is doing well at preschool too. He's going 5 days a week since he was so bored on his days off last year. I have hopes that he will be reading some before the end of the year. Honestly, I think he might be able to read a little already but doesn't want us to know for some reason. I've caught him a few times probably reading a word on a sign or tv - but nothing I could prove for sure that he hadn't seen before and just memorized.

Our tomato plants have really outdone themselves this year. We've picked many, many pints of cherry-sized tomatoes and so far 3 tremendous, delicious full-sized ones from our 1 regular tomato plant. The only repeat varieties are Sweet 100 - which is the kids' favorite to eat but a little slow on production for feeding the family - and some random grape tomatoes that I think the squirrels planted in the far corner of the yard the past 2 years. I am definitely buying 2 of the new varieties we tried again next year. Pineapple is the full-sized one. It produces big, sweet, beef-steak type tomatoes - great for sandwiches like the bacon and tomato ones we had for dinner tonight. Sungold produces tons and tons of bright orange cherry-sized tomatoes. Jahsh and I love them, but they are a little acidic for the kids. I don't know if I'll re-purchase the other new kind, Sugary. It makes nice, dark red, grape tomatoes that everyone likes to eat - but it just doesn't make that many ripe at one time.

Actually, I should be glad that any of our plants do well since our planting space isn't ideal and I don't give them much care. I just plant them all along the fence on one side of our yard, water them a few times, and tie up anything that gets too floppy. By the end of the summer the whole fence and some of the flowering bushes on the other side are covered with tomato, pumpkin, and gourd vines.

We've only had one kind of the decorative gourds produce anything so far. Oh - and for the first time this year we have 2 pumpkins growing on one vine. It's the white ones. We've been growing them for 3-4 years now starting from one Jaxon picked out at the garden shop. Pumpkins and gourds are pretty easy to grow. Just pick a ripe one and throw it in a corner of your yard that has space for some pretty big vines. Let it rot over the winter, maybe put some dirt over it if squirrels or other critters try to snack on it too much, and in the spring it should sprout at least a couple of vines. If there are too many you should probably thin out some. I train ours over the back fences.

I'm so tired that when I took a nap, my dream about a trip back to Chapel Hill turned into a dream about looking for a place to nap. Boring dream, but I get the point. Must get to bed earlier on school nights.

...my mouth is going to get me in more trouble than I can handle. This afternoon I was pushing a cart from Sam's Club out to the parking lot when a woman in front of me threw a piece of trash into the back of my truck. Without thinking about it, I yelled "Hey! That's my truck, not a damn trash can!" Luckily for me she decided to be nice about it and come back and get her trash instead of kicking my ass, which I am pretty sure she could have done with or without the help of her 3 equally large friends. I really must learn to filter between my brain and my mouth.

August is kicking my ass. Last minute trip to visit some grandparents before school started was not the best idea. We mostly had fun, but it led to lots of last minute stress about school supplies, haircuts, etc. I did manage to obtain a new sofa while in NC. Luckily for Jahsh the bright pink sofa wasn't comfortable so I brought home a nice dark brown velvet sleeper sofa instead.

Is there a category for people who turned vegetarian because of the icky questions their kids asked about meat during meals? I really don't want to discuss things like "Do they leave the guts in meat?" when I am trying to eat. I already don't eat a lot of meat compared to the average American, but please let me enjoy my bacon in peace.

I guess they get their curious, questioning natures from me though. I almost ran off the road the other day because I was thinking too hard about the size of the universe and that sort of stuff.

Came home today to find Little Rockstar proudly playing with his new Best Toy Ever! A genuine real dead mouse. Eww! I mean, I'm glad the cats are doing what they're supposed to do and keeping our house vermin free but could he please not play with it right in front of me like that. I put a big empty flower pot over the body til Jahsh gets home tonight. He is the officially designated corpse disposal engineer.

Friday was Stella's last day at circus camp. They did a show for the families and she was one of the 2 selected to perform on the trapeze. She told me she was picked because she was a "daredevil" who wasn't afraid to try any of the tricks. Jaxon can't wait til he's old enough to go to circus camp and I am very jealous that they didn't have it when I was a kid.

Since it doesn't look like the Cherry-Ghost cat feud will be resolved until one of them dies, and Cherry was getting lonely living in the basement with no one to play with a lot of the day, I gave in to the cutness of a shelter kitty up for adoption at PetSmart the other day. Meet Little Rockstar (thanks to Jaxon for the name):

Oh, and no the bathroom is not done yet. 2 weeks and counting. There was a bit of a learning curve with tiling the floor and then Stella's circus day camp started and took all my spare time. Typical.

Last night Jahsh watched me stripping wallpaper for a while then asked "wouldn't it be nice if we could have this done - like wave a magic wand and ta da it's all done". My immediate response was "what fun would that be?". Later I informed him that there is a magic wand for that sort of thing. It's called money and we don't have enough to do that kind of magic.

Bathroom remodeling is going slowly. Too many interuptions and not enough upper body strength/endurance means I am working at it in bits and pieces. Still hope to be done by next weekend though. I have already fixed the big hole in the ceiling and stripped about half of the wallpaper. Today I plan to finish removing the wallpaper and paint the ceiling. Then I need to remove the old sink and toilet, paint the walls and trim, remove the old floor tile, install new tile, and finally install new sink/toilet/blinds. We'll see how that goes. The only thing totally new to me is the tile work.

I keep popping out to weed for a few minutes (since it is way too hot to work outside for any longer) and forgetting to put on my gloves first. Yesterday I grabbed a rose branch putting a few holes in my fingers. Today I gave myself a horribly painful cut from a piece of grass. It is like an awful paper cut that gapes open everytime I flex my thumb. Ouch and duh!

This video combines 2 of my favorite things:

It is always so stressful for me to come back home after a vacation. I always manage to freak myself out that something horrible will have happened while we were gone and we will come home to gruesome carnage. Happy to report that, as usual, I was wrong and all the cats/birds are just fine except for some slightly out of control fleas.