Tuck in Your Shirt

Last night I had an experience. I am costuming a local theatre’s production. I told the actor playing Blank to tuck his shirt in for one scene- 1. You would not have an untucked shirt anyway and 2. I wanted that mens 40’s sillouette blah blah blah. He gave me a ‘look’. I said-mostly in a playful manner that this was ‘Blank’ not HISNAME. Meaning, that I wasn’t giving him fashion tips, just that I was dressing the character. He then yelled at me to ‘SHUT UP’ and started to walk away. I of course, gave his back a nasty look-and the director says to him ‘Oh, you're in trouble now!’(in a playful way). (At this point all the witnesses-which included the entire cast and crew -thought that he was trying to be funny and not succeeding.) He then goes off on a shouting tirade about how I have no right to give notes and why was I even talking. To which I said something about being the costumer-he then pointed out that I was not the director. People, I was not giving acting or movement notes. I gave notes like-“What happened to your belt?” and “You need to wear your hat.” Seriously. I have NEVER been talked to that way in a theatre situation. I gotta say, my pay rate does not include verbal abuse and belittlement. All this because I asked him to tuck in his shirt.

How Can it Be?

What is the deal?  Is this year just going by super fast?  It does not FEEL like Thanksgiving.  Maybe because of the weather which is sporadically chilly at best, or maybe we are just in a home school bubble, and the kids aren't coming home with turkey color sheets and pilgrim hats.  I just don't know.  And you know, that means that Christmas is sneaking up on me too.  Le sigh.  Maybe I'll reach my goal of a hand made Christmas, maybe not.

November 8

Today is my sweet O's birthday.  I am so happy that he is in my life.  My mom likes to say that he goes to the beat of a different drummer-I say he is the drummer.

His latest thing is to tell people that when he was a baby he looked just like George Washington.  You know, because he and GW had curls on the back of their head.

He is 7 now, so that means that we are a long way from baby hood.  This past weekend I brutally cleaned out a closet that had a lot of baby things in it.  It's all in piles waiting for me to find it new homes-via freecycle, craigs list, friends, or goodwill.

We have a few things left-just the things that I'll give to the boys when they start a family-and their hospital shirts/hats that I will probably never give up.

Mostly, I am in awe over just how fast time goes by when you are watching children grow.  And I really enjoy my children most of the time.  They do have their own flaws, but I recognize them and love them warts and all.  I feel like they are one of the things that I was put on this earth to do.  They are one of the purposes of my life.  With out me, my 3 children would not be here discovering the world.

The Ride

Well, I agreed to costume another show, friends, and for those of you that were with me on the last ride, no, I don't know what I was thinking.  Not really.  That's a lie.  I was thinking-"This show is set in 1946, not 14th century Italy.  I shouldn't have to make anything, just find everything."  I was mostly right.  Some elf creation might have to happen, but everything else just needs to be found.

I have had a lot of luck so far at the costume storage, in that the main little girl is completely costumed, all the ladies have coats, and I do have several suits.  The problem with the suits is that will the bodies I have fit in the suits I have?  And I need specialty things-like a majorette outfit. And a doctor's white coat.  The person wearing the doc smock(as I call it) is gloriously tall, so finding one that has long enough sleeves is an issue. I also need at least 4, maybe 5 elf costumes.  I have found the hats and shoes that they used last time but can't locate the rest of the costumes.

Fortunately for me, the actor playing SC might just be the real guy.  He has his own period appropriate suit. I love this.

Every time I go looking I find more things that will work.  This is a beautiful thing.  It means that I should be able to have a list of what I need to find somewhere else by the beginning of next week.

I am glad that our fall break is coinciding with this part of my creation process.  We have one more week of break and then back to school.  School is going well, with both boys learning and growing.

October 20.

Once upon a time, there was a girl.  She was very cute and funny.  She moved into an apartment with a room mate and had a job.  One day, she stepped out of her apartment and met her next door neighbor.  She was wearing Doc Martens, a camo shirt, and had her hair styled in Princess Leia buns.  He was wearing a ratty t-shirt, no shoes, and had the ugliest dog she'd ever seen.

It was love at first sight.  For him.

They were friends.  Then they dated.  Then they got engaged.  Then they got pregnant.  Then, they had to move the wedding back 6 months so that the bride could see her feet on her wedding day.

Now, they live in a little house, in a little town, with 2 beautiful children, 2 bad dogs, 2 horrible cats, and a backyard flock of chickens.

It isn't easy, but nothing really is.  They have each other when life sucks and when life is grand.  And isn't that how it's supposed to be?

4!

We got 4!! eggs today!  3 brown and one green.  So, that means that the reluctant big girl is laying and one of the Amish is laying.  Now, maybe the other two Amish won't be far behind.  'Wait.  Amish?  What?'  The easter egger chickens do not have a waddle/comb like the big girls have.  They do have a fringe of feathers under their beak from ear to ear that looks a bit like an Amish beard.  Hence the nickname.

In unrelated news, L had his first big recital today and did very well.  He played beautifully and was very focused.  He played 'Lightly Row' and from Phantom of the Opera 'Angel of Music' and 'The Phantom of The Opera'.  He also sat down yesterday and composed his first piece of music.

O was taking lessons, but is now having a break form them.  Because 'I only want to play Chopsticks and only when I feel like it!'.  Sooo.  But today he asked for a violin for Christmas.  I don't know what prompted this at all.

Songs

I was ruminating while hanging out my laundry this morning.  I had a song stuck in my head-I think by Elvis?

'Little sister, don't you kiss me once or twice, then say it's really nice and then move on!  Little sister don't you do what your big sister done!'

I was thinking that earlier generations think that there is too much sex in the current generations songs.  Let's look at what this song is saying-'Hey, your sister is a tease and only kissed.  So, you better follow through and not stop at kissing!'.  Um, yeah.  I know it's different than 'I wanna f*ck you like an animal' or 'The Thong Song', but really by how much?  Yes, the words I think have gotten a lot more graphic in popular songs, to the point that we rarely listen to popular radio at all in my house, but the subject matter hasn't changed.  So, if you really want to keep our children's minds and hearts as innocent as you can for as long as you can, filter their listening selections.  I say this as a person that remembers singing along to George Michaels 'I want your sex' as an 11 year old.

I haven't written in a while

Ray says-"You sure haven't written in a while!"

So this is randomness from my head.

I HATE changing passwords.  I can never remember them.  And then-Is it one I've been using a while, a new one, or a clever one that I make up on the spot and then never remember?

People will treat you the way that YOU let them.  If someone is rude or nasty to you let them know that that is not okay and that they are not allowed to speak to you that way.  I am constantly beating my head against a close family member that thinks that they can say anything to me.  NOT TRUE.  And I tell them-Oh, you are so not allowed to treat me this way.  I hate confrontation.  But, I have gotten alot better about telling people that they can have a relationship with me on my terms or no terms at all.  My hard-headed family member doesn't always hear me, so this means that at least once a month I have to remind this person how it's gonna go.  But, it gets gradually better.

Gotta go deal with a chicken emergency.

Chickens!  Definitely gotta clip those wings again.  The joys of urban chicken-ing.  We are getting 2 eggs almost every day!

School

This is the end of the first week of school.  My boys have done really well and have already pretty much settled into the routine.  O was really excited the first few days, and now is a little weary of it.  But, this is the first time he's actually had 'lessons' at home.  His school lasts about an hour.  In that time we have a reading lesson, math lesson, handwriting lesson, and history/science/social studies depending on the day.  Then he practices his piano for about 5 minutes and we are done.

L covers all that to but his school lasts 3 to 4 hours.  That's the difference between Year 4 and Year 1.

I am trying to do something new to expedite their day.  At breakfast time I read them their bible passage, poem, and review their weekly memorization.  I always finish breakfast before them, so I figure I'd use that time with a captive audience and get a good start on our day.  Then they have 15-30 minutes to do their morning grooming/chores and we go right into lessons for O and desk work for L.  Then, piano, a break, O gets free time and L has a math lesson.  That puts us right at lunch time so I prepare lunch and we eat then after lunch chores.  Them L get's his reading for the day.  He usually has 2 readings a day and then has to dictate what they are about.  O also has to dictate-which I thought would be a trying experience, but he seems to be doing well.  The difference is that I will read a couple of paragraphs and then stop and ask about them.  With L he reads the whole selection.  This way I know that they are absorbing what they've read/heard.

I still need to work in handwork and our composer/artist but I think that will come this week.

For the most part, I really love home schooling the boys.  I feel like they get to have a nice juicy education and stay kids for a little bit longer.

The French

I was on CrackBook the other day and an old college chum of mine had posted something about water restrictions and how the dirt around their house was separated 2 inches from the foundation.  Then, one of their friends posted that their water bill was 300 (THREE HUNDRED!!) dollars higher than normal, but they have 1/2 an acre of grass to keep green and that it was cheaper to keep it green than to resod the whole yard.

This frustrates me to no end.  We are in 'Extreme Drought Conditions' you daffy cow!  What right do you have to keep 1/2 acre of GRASS green so that you can have a pretty yard?  This whole idea of having a yard solely dedicated to grass is silly to me anyway.  I've kept my trees alive and watered the foundation with a soaker hose, but my 'grass' is a lovely shade of yellow.

The french aristocracy are the ones that originated this whole idea of having acres of nothing but grass to prove that they were too rich to soil their hands with any kind of farming.  You see how well that worked out for them.

All or Nothing

It was pointed out to me yesterday that I am an all or nothing person.  I agree with that remark.  But I am trying to teach myself moderation.  For example, we have been a no TV family in the past, now we have 1 TV which I police pretty strictly.  TV time was very rare except for the times that it wasn't.  My kids would  go weeks with out watching TV and then for a few days they might get 6+ hours a day.  So, I'm trying to let them watch 1 hour of TV a day-if their room is clean.  I've done this for 3 weeks now and it seems to be going well.  Now, if I get pestered about it they don't get it.

I am this way about many things, but food especially I think.  It is best to not keep potato chips in the house because I can eat a whole bag of the suckers.  I try to stay away from soda because it's a trigger food for me-I have a soda and then it opens all sorts of craving pathways in my brain.  I think I've found a pretty good solution to the potato chip conundrum...pop corn!  It's salty, it's crunchy, and you can have a ton of pop corn vs. a handful of chips.  Who wants to stop at a handful?  Which brings us back to moderation.

1 Down

It's happened.  When I got 4 chickens back in April, I thought that this way I'd still have 2 or 3 if I lost any of them to babychickitis.  Today we lost a chicken.  She was in the middle of the coup, stiff, with eyes clouded over.  It was one of the white ones.  Either Peeps Lafeet or Lucy.  I sent the boys out after dinner to give them water and food and even though they still had food and water she was dead.  I think it's this blasted heat. A friend lost 2 chickens the other day as well.  Liam discovered her, had a good cry about it, and was consoled.  I am sad as well but I know that we take good care of them and we just can't control the heat.  We have no trees in our yard so they spend the heat of the day panting in the coop anyway.

Water Conservation

All the traffic flashy type signs say 'Conserve Water-Extreme Drought Conditions'-At least around here.

In general, I think that our family does small things that do conserve water.  For example, when we brush our teeth, we turn the water on to wet the tooth brush, turn the water off, and then back on to rinse mouths and tooth brushes.  Ray and I have a shower head that uses less water and has a cool function to reduce the flow to almost nothing-so that when you are washing your hair or body you don't waste all that water.  The boys have a similar shower head that uses less water, but doesn't have that cool low flow option.  

When I shave my legs, I do not run the water in the shower.  I keep a big cup in the shower, fill it with water during my shower, and when I'm done getting clean I turn off the water.  Then, I take a dab of hair conditioner, put it on the bits that need a shave, and use the water in the big cup to keep the razor clean.  Risking TMI territory-I am a hairy girl, and this is the way that I have shaved for 2 years-and it works just fine.  The conditioner has the added bonus of acting as a moisturizer-just rub in whatever the razor leaves behind and you have nice smooth legs.  The past 2 winters I have not gotten dry legs like I had in before I started this method.

Also, risking more TMI-ahem.  'If it's yellow, let it mellow.  If it's brown,  flush it down.' (ew, I can't believe I just said that.)

I just read a way to wash hair less often.  Take a cotton ball, soak it in witch hazel, and rub it on your scalp.  This helps to soak up the oils on your head.  Then the article says to blow dry on cool, but I bet you could get away with air drying.  I will try this when it cools off.  Right now, I get sweaty enough that I have to wash twice a week.

I am working on a project right now out in the yard.  I REFUSE to water my grass, but it has gotten so very dry here that I have finally put a soaker hose out around the house.  I'm working on sheet mulching the entire perimeter of the house.  I have gotten the back yard done and about 10 feet in the front yard.  The cool thing is that I had enough soaker hose to snake it in the blackberries and strawberries-so that's 2 beds that I don't have to hand water any more.  The sheet mulching will keep the water where I want it to be-in the ground not in the air.

Yesterday I found 2 fire ant beds along the front side of the house.  I tell you what!  Nothing makes me scream like a girl and stop yard work like putting my hand in a fire ant bed.  I need to get orange oil to take care of the suckers, but Lowe's was out of it.  Dilute a little orange oil, pour it on the fire ant bed, and they come streaming out, exoskeletons melting off.  It'll kill the bed in about ten minutes.

Texas fire ants are not to be confused with Vermont fire ants that are just toucans in disguise.

Good One!

I was over at my dad's house last week. He was looking for pictures of L and O's baptism on his computer so that I could see them. He couldn't find them but he did find pictures and a couple of videos of our family from the spring that we moved into our house.

We moved to Burleson in March of 2005. The boys were almost 3 years and 5 mos old when we moved here. Those of you that have older children might understand me when I say that L has always been 9 and O has always been 6. When they pass a certain age, you sort of forget what it is like to have wee little ones under foot. And pictures remind you of that time but not quite like a video does. On my dad's computer are 3 videos from this time. I vaguely remember having his camera for about a week but not why.

One video is of L either right before or after turning 3. 3 is SO little. I had forgotten the way that L moved and sounded when he was 3. He still had that 'Mom and Dad are mostly the only ones that understand me' speech. Guhpa=Grandpa, Camuh=Camera. Ray was asking him if he loved Grandpa(it was his camera after all, we had to get film of the kid saying that he loved him), and he said that he did. He also said that he loved the camera, this one was unprompted.

One video is of R holding 5 1/2 mo old, hulking, chubby wubby Tiny O. He is holding him so that you see really just R's hand and O is 'standing' on the table. You hear happy chattering sounds coming from somewhere off camera and O staring in that vague baby way with a slight smile in the direction of the chattering. All of a sudden, the baby(R, really), produces this GIANT BURP. O startles a little, I call out to see if he will look at the camera-this whole time he is staring in the direction of the chatter. R prompts L to say 'Good One!' in reaction to the burp. Does L ever say it? We never find out because that's when I turn the camera off.

What do I get from these videos, other than a faint nostalgia? My children are much the same. You can see and hear aspects of their personalties even at such young ages.

L-so happy, and chatty, and just sweet.

O-In awe of his brother.

I don't want to 'go back' in time to that age. I love my children now just the way that they are. I don't deal with the tantrums of a 3 year old, or have to pump extra milk for a week so that I can leave the house with out my baby and not worry about his milk supply for a few hours. But, oh, those videos brought back the happy chatter that almost always accompanied L, and the vast chubby cheeks that was my O.

The video also reminded me of the time that I had to retrain my children to say 'Excuse Me' after burping rather than 'Good One!'.

Maybe I should take videos of the boyos a couple of times a year so that when they are 30 I can remember that O loves his stuffed dragon and that L likes to build elaborate things with legos.

Reset!!!

I have had a tough week diet-wise.  There has been no activity or tracking of food this week.  I could use the excuse that I am sick to cover the activity but there is no excuse for the food ignorance that I have been practicing.  It's time to get back in the truck, drive away from the cliff, and set the cruise control.

We, each of us in my family of 4, have been escaping into internet and/or movie land too much lately.  I tend to putz around on FaceBook and watch Netflix for many hours of the day.  R will come home and almost immediately get on the computer to check sports statistics and play his latest game-'Storm the Castle'.  It's 'Angry Birds'-like-so it's very mindless.  Very little of actual e-mail checking/writing or other productive internet time is actually accomplished by either of us.  The boys have been watching at least a movie most days and sometimes they get KERA as well.  They also tend to pester me until I hand them my IPOD touch to play one of the few silly games that I have on there at least a few days a week.

I have to ask myself if this is what I really want my children to see as examples of adulthood.  Mom and Dad, staring at a computer screen for various non-productive reasons, while the living room is a wild mess, the kitchen desperately needs mopping, and the yard needs a mow.  I know that it is not what I want them to grow up to be like, but there are times when I feel powerless to stop the momentum of lazy/poor choices in my own life.

This week, I propose a challenge to my family.  I say we go off the grid starting tonight.  No internet for a week.  No movies.  No TV.  I think that I'll actually get lesson plans done for the coming school year and maybe end up with a pretty clean house by the end of it.  R may actually work on some writing that he hasn't seemed to work on for a couple of months.  Maybe we both need to stop disengaging our brains and engage them in things that need more than just the half-assed attention that we seem to be giving things.  I'll maybe have time to mop! And read actual books to my children!  And finish a languishing knitting project!

I find my children's childhood slipping away.  I need to show them how an adult is to act.  How an adult is to interact with the world around them.  How an adult is to act in relationships with husbands, wives, friends, the world in general.  And it is NOT with a screen to buffer the rest of the world.

Breaking Down

For the last 3 pay checks that Ray has received, we have justenough to pay the necessary bills, the 'we have been dumb in the past but are paying it off' bills, and to fix what ever it is that's broken.  We have had our home AC break, both of our vehicles, and now the home AC has broken in a different way, with the toilet handle breaking in my hand yesterday.  Ray can fix the toilet, and the AC guy is on his way.  He said on the phone, that a lot of people are having trouble with their AC's in this heat.

It is HOT every summer in Texas.  It gets so hot that it is hard to move and breathe out in the stuff.  We have been hit high and hard this year with less rain than I remember having in a long time.  Burleson has had almost no rain at all and every day has been 100 or more since the first week of June.  I find it hard to even want to do anything that requires stepping outside.

My plants are surviving despite the heat.  I have a second round of tomatoes that will come in the next few weeks, the trees that I planted last year and this year are so far surviving, and we still have 4 chickens.  I go out 3 times a week to tend the garden and water trees, and the chickens are tended at least  twice a day.

The boyos are getting more TV this summer than they usually get.  With a movie or 2 hours of TV being watched a day.
***

The AC guy just came and went.  The capacitor had gone out.  Luckily this was a quick, non-expensive fix.  BUT, there goes any extra money in our account.  It seems like what ever breaks, takes just the right amount of money to fix it.

204.6

Most of you that have know me for more than 5 years might know that I am a weight fluctuator.  Even from an early age I would go up and down with my weight.  As a child, when ever I would go and visit my dad for a few weeks I would always come home 10 pounds heavier.  The difference between my moms house and dads?   At my dads house there was unlimited access to nutty bars, oatmeal cream pies, and cable.  My dad, being a man, and probably having some guilt that he only saw me once or twice a year, almost never said 'no'.

My first diet was when I was 11.  My sister, her husband, and I all went on the T-Factor diet when I was 11-the summer before I went into 6th grade.  I look back on that with love for my sister, because she was able to stand back and objectively say that her chunky little sister should not be so chunky-but also with a little bit of horror.  The T-Factor diet, for those that may not know, was a diet based on drastically reducing your fat grams.  Yikes!  As an adult, I have studied all sorts of diets, and would never put a child with a developing brain on a low fat diet-I believe in fat!  Our bodies need fat.  This is probably why we no longer hear of the T-Factor Diet-reducing fat to those levels can make you crazy!  I lost probably 15-20 pounds on that diet-I really don't recall anymore exactly how much-this was 20+ years ago.  I do remember stepping off of the Greyhound bus and my mom telling me how good I looked.

My weight slowly crept up over the next 4 years until I was in 9th grade.  That was the year that I went on Jenny Craig with my mom- I was successful on that as well.  Then my weight slowly crept up and in 11th and 12th grades I experimented with bulimia and anorexia.  There were days that I would have almost nothing for breakfast, a Mountain Dew for lunch, and almost nothing for dinner.  When we would go to our favorite mexican restaurant, I would come home and vomit.  Yuck!  Looking back on that, I am glad that this phase didn't last too long at a time.

Towards the end of my freshman year in college, I ended up pregnant and placed the baby for adoption. Over the year after I had her, My weight went slowly down, and then stalled at about 180.  I was 209 when she was born.  That summer, I limited myself to 800 calories a day, walked at the park every chance I got, and was able to drop about 30 pounds between my sophmore and junior year in college.  The cute theatre boys I went to school with told me I looked good!  Success!  And then-do you see where this is going?  I kept it off, even lost a little more in a healthy way, and then my weight crept back up.  I met my husband, got married, and got pregnant hovering around 200 pounds.

Between L and O, I lost 50+ pounds on Weight Watchers.  I weighed 147 and was in the best shape of my life when I got pregnant with O.   I felt pretty gross most of the beginning of this pregnancy, and also used it as an excuse to eat eat eat all the cake I could.  I gained 70 pounds with that pregnancy!  Before he was a year old, I went on WW again and lost about 40 pounds.  Then, I hit a rough patch and over the course of the next year and a half, gained 50.  Then, I would gain and lose the same 15 pounds for the next couple of years.  In January of 2010, I made some changes to my lifestyle, and have managed to lose and keep off 20 pounds.  But then.  I got stuck.  I have lost and gained the same 5 pounds over the last year.  Sooo.  Here I am.  Back on Weight Watchers.  I am feeling rather optimistic that this time it'll stick.

Why?

Because, they have tweaked the WW plan in such a way that it doesn't seem as strict anymore.  On the old system, you would get as low as 18 points a day and then an extra 35 a week to spread out however you wanted.  Now-the lowest points anyone is on is 29-and you get an extra 49 points to spread out however you like.  I am also treating this round of WW as more of a lifestyle remodel than a 'DIET'.

I started at 208.2.  I am now 204.6.

Do chickens love tomatoes? Really?

Really!  I have 4 chickens-2 white and 2 red-they love those tomatoes.  They go after them like kids after candy anytime they are offered one.

This is my first blog post.  Who knows.  It may be my only.

Today, I had Chick-fil-A twice.  It is 'Cow Appreciation Day'-so, if you dress like a cow, you get free food at Chick-fil-A.  With some creative pinning of black felt to white t-shirts and a little halloween make up, I only had to cook breakfast this morning.  You know what that means!  No kitchen clean up-Yay!