Where to start.

...I suppose with the last thing I saw, (which is what caused me to head to my computer) Ben hauling ass down the driveway on his 4-wheeler, heading to town. I repeat - he was driving an ATV to town. We have often laughed when we venture in to the tiny town of Shellsburg, because it seems we always see at least one person tooling around in either a golf cart, a UTV or a 4-wheeler. It's not uncommon to be fueling up your vehicle next to one of the above, or better yet - a tractor. Shellsburg does in fact have a police vehicle, and last time I checked I was pretty sure it was unlawful to drive these things on the street without a slow moving vehicle sign on em, but apparently he must just look the other way.

Where to go next...

When the bus arrived yesterday afternoon, I noticed it was taking an exceptionally long time for the kids to come up the driveway.  I could hear the engine of the bus humming below for several minutes - but no kids.  Strange.  About five minutes later, I finally spotted the tops of the boys' heads crest the hill and then saw the bus heading away in the opposite direction from which it came.  It had turned around in our driveway.  Very strange indeed.  My immediate conclusion was that the kids down the street (the last drop off) weren't riding today. Nope.  The kids informed me that the road was flooded and the bus was unable to pass to get them to their house.  What?! As a result of my peaked interest in their story, more words of closed streets, police, flashing lights, flooding, accidents and the like started pouring from their mouths.  Huh? Are you serious?

By the time we had finished dinner, the rain had FINALLY let up, so we decided to hop in the family truckster to verify what the boys were reporting.  This is what we saw:

Yup. That's our town.  The cute little stream I have many times admired turned into a roaring beast and flooded the park and surrounding areas. Luckily, most of the downtown businesses are on higher ground, but there were some (LIKE OUR STORAGE FACILITY) which are not. Oh yes, that is correct.  Our phone rang at 10:00 pm last night to inform Ben our units had been flooded. At that time he was reporting three inches on the ground, but who knows what the level is now. I guess Ben will be home shortly with a report, providing he could even GET there.

*sigh*

A River Runs Through It

When it rains it pours.  

Man!  We just cannot catch a break.  I did wish for rain, yes I did.  And Ben did stare out the window waiting for rain, yes he did. But seriously folks.  IT CAN STOP NOW ANYTIME!  I'm quite certain all of the grass seed has been washed away. I'm not kidding one little bit when I say it hasn't stopped raining since I wrote about the rain last time!  NOT KIDDING! nope. not one little bit.

If you don't believe me, take a look for yourself. 

This was empty yesterday... now it's not.

This is one of the silt fences (to stop erosion) Ben installed yesterday.  

See how nicely Mr. rain has carved an alternate route around it?

This is a small wading pool out front, 

which I'm pretty sure will be full of bull frogs by tonight.

and ahhh helpful rain gutters...

leading all the water to cut yet another trench across the yard

And would you believe the nerve of this asshole?!

You Capture

I'm trying something new today.

For those of you who know me, you know I love to take pictures.  I have a sweet camera, but I've never really taken the time to learn how to go 'manual'.  It is a goal of mine - and I even have a good book to teach me (unread of course) - I just need to make time to DO IT!

'You Capture' is a weekly photography challenge, hosted by I should be folding laundry.  Each week it assigns a new subject to photograph.  This week, it's FOOD.  I figured this might be a good little way to get my rear in gear.  

One of the many monster cookies I baked yesterday

Farm-fresh green beans for tonight

Our mangled butter after the kids finished with it this  morning

Adventures in Grass Planting

For some silly reason I was thinking I'd have tons of time to blog now that the kids are in school. Right! I'm hoping it gets better, but the last few days have been nuts!  What have we been doing?

Saturday we got a lot of lingering projects finished, such as organizing our storage units so we can condense from TWO to one by the end of the month.  It took several hours, but we're almost there. After that, we headed to our neighbor's hog roast, which was really fun.  The kids had a blast and I finally got to meet the neighbors for more than two minutes.  Turns out, they're really nice!  They've got two boys, ages 2 and 1 - so Jacob will have some playmates around here as he gets older.  SCORE! Oh and the big thing about that evening is the motivation Ben came away with to PLANT OUR OWN GRASS. 

Normally, planting grass wouldn't be too bad of a job, but we're going to put in roughly three acres of grass, and it's pretty slopey - so we had just automatically called a couple landscapers for bids. Oh my holy lord! We really had no idea what to expect for a price, but certainly we thought the bids would be less than NINE and TWELVE THOUSAND bucks!   Hence, the decision to do it ourselves...

Both our neighbor (who planted his own yard) and a farmer down the road (who's done it a bunch of times) reassured us we COULD DO IT! Ben has the tractors, and the farmer said he'd loan us a seed spreader and some other thing... a cultimulcher. The farmer dropped the seeder over on Sunday - it was pretty small, but better than nothing - and Ben set to work on discing and leveling out some areas that had been washed away by the many rains. 

Monday, after the boys headed to school, we headed to the seed store.  After talking to the lady at the counter who knew everything under the sun about grass, we loaded up the entire back of the truck with seed, fertilizer and straw blanketing.  FULL.  HEAPING. 1,000 lbs!  We hauled it home, and Ben set to readying the ground for the fertilizer. Later that afternoon, Ben met the farmer over at their place to pick up the cultimulcher... but it wasn't there! Turns out a cousin had borrowed it without telling anyone and was using it that very day. Great. The farmer sent us home with something else to work with (a drag), and said his cousin would bring the cultimulcher over that night when he was done.

Charlie hauling the wagon for rock-picking-upping

Will tilling around the edges

Grandma spreading fertilizer - see the tiny spreader?

With the tiny spreader, we finally got the fertilizer down, but started to have doubts about the seed. We had TWO kinds, meaning we'd have to go over the whole thing twice... with this tiny seeder... and we still had to use the cultimulcher... and we were soon going to be running out of daylight.  It could definitely be done, but it meant Ben was probably going to have to take more time off work. Reluctantly, we called one of the landscapers to see if he could drill the seed in the morning for us. He said he'd work it in for $350. Sounds good.  OK.

At about 7:30 that evening, up the driveway comes the 'cousin' with the borrowed equipment behind his tractor. Turns out, he's a  neighbor as well - two houses down (which is also a little over a mile away, but who's counting?).  Ben noticed a giant spreader on the back of the tractor and the conversation went something like this:

Ben:  'Man, that's what I need'. 

Cousin: 'Why, what are you using?'

Ben points over to the tiny spreader. Cousin laughs...

Cousin: 'You can't use that! You want me to just do it?'

Ben: 'Are you serious?'

Cousin: 'Sure. We do this all the time."

Ben:'....... well, OK'

After Ben gave the 'OK', Cousin started dumping seed in his spreader and zipping around our yard like an animal! I could tell this wasn't his first rodeo. In about an hour and a half, with Cousin seeding, and Ben pulling the cultimulcher with his tractor - they planted all the grass! Cousin didn't want anything for his time - he felt bad to have had the equipment which was promised to us - and just seemed happy to help us out.  WOW.

Tuesday we laid the straw blankets where necessary and Ben spent the rest of the day staring out the window waiting for rain. It didn't rain all day... but it POURED last night.  Of course, we got four freakin' inches overnight. *sigh* We now have several new gulleys all over the place - and it's raining again.  

A few of the many new gullies

However, with that much ground to cover, I suppose it's unrealistic to expect it all to turn out perfectly. I'm sure we are going to have to do patching and re-seeding in areas, but that's okay. We are both feeling pretty good about the savings and the satisfaction of doing it ourselves. Now we just have to sit back and watch the grass grow.  Come on already! :-)

Concrete and Power Washing Bliss

Mother Trucker.

Today was my all-time favorite day.  The day we take the blessed pool down.  I HATE THAT JOB! Seriously, it was already hard enough to put the sucker away when it had been sitting in grass all summer - but MUD?  As I listen to Ben outside powerwashing the driveway so we can lay the disassembled mud-pile of a pool on it to scrub, I'm thinking I'd rather burn it (not sure that would be so eco-friendly) or gleefully drive over it multiple times with the lawnmower.  It is more pain than it's worth!

In the past, I have secretly snickered at people who leave their 3 foot pool up all winter in their backyard, like it's a 'real' pool - closed for the season... but I'm suddenly kinda getting the logic! How is it possible to get this huge thing completely dried and cleaned before rolling it up in a wad and packing it away for a year?  It's not!  

Ben curses the full pool every time he looks at it, already thinking about the upcoming date (even though it might be 3 months away) of when we have to take the MOFO down.  And as much as I hate to admit it, the public pool is sounding like a good option, now that the boys are a little older. I'm gonna think REALLY hard next year before dragging this thing out.

BUT WAIT. Through all the cursing and spraying and de-mudding today, one positive discovery was made.  I LOVE POWER-WASHING!  It's true.  As I was methodically spraying the dirty water and mud off the pool and concrete, I found it oddly satisfying and yes - fun! I have to say that we haven't used our power-washer much before now, mostly because we had no concrete surface to wash things on, and because power-washing on gravel... well it's kind of pointless.  I was amazed at what this thing could do!  Dirt that I had scrubbed and SCRUBBED with a brush, came off effortlessly with this thing!

And in the end... we got the pool clean!  And dry!  Now, if I only had somewhere to put the darn thing...

AND THEN THERE WAS AIR...

Since we moved in, I have been unable to enjoy a single showering or bathing experience.  Not only was the water incredibly HARD, it also smelled like someone was simultaneously whipping up a giant batch of egg salad in the stall with me.  Horrid!

After much research and shopping around, I am proud to say, WE HAVE SOFT AND NON-STINKY WATER!!!!

The dude tells me our water will be 'bubblier' than it used to be, but hey - I'll take effervescent over eggy any day.

This is worth celebrating.

So, here's to my new best friends: mr. water softener and his wife mrs. filter 

I LOVE YOU!

My New Title

It's Friday already?  Jeesh - this week has flown.

I just hung up from my discussion with the bus director - things didn't really go in my favor. While he was incredibly nice and understanding, he wasn't willing to alter his route.  Dang! And since my husband has no sympathy for long bus rides (ya ya ya when he was a kid he rode the bus uphill 3 hours both ways, whatever).  I'm going to see how the next few bus rides go, and take it from there.  Short of committing to driving them to either school or a bus stop - we're stuck.

On other news - I got a new job!  Ha, not really -  but I gave myself a new title.  Whenever someone asks 'what do you do?' - I usually say 'I stay home with my boys'.  I never say 'I'm a homemaker' or 'I'm a stay-at-home mom'.  I don't know why - I just don't. When I think 'Homemaker', I think Beaver Cleaver.  I can't help it! Anyway, in my new quest to organize myself and our household, I ran across this nifty website: www.organizedhome.com - it's filled with all kinds of tips and tricks to keep a neat and organized home. It has tons of print-outs, schedules and articles for the 'HOME MANAGER' :-)  The first practice I put into place is shown below:  

What's so special about a cleaning bucket, right?  Well I'll tell you what! One article gave cleaning tips from pro cleaners, one of which being this: 'professionals' tote their tools around from room to room - doing everything in one room before heading to the next.  This hit home for me.  I'm more of a 'dust everything in the house' and then 'go from bathroom to bathroom and clean counters' - depending on what cleaning spray I have in my hand, I go to all the places in the house that need it.  HO HO HO is that ever backwards.  Yesterday, I put all my cleaning stuff in the above bucket and headed into the master bath - completing the whole thing, before I moved on to the next.  Having all the supplies in one bucket was really a time saver for me, as I usually spend time hunting around the house looking for the last place I used what I needed. No longer!  The article even suggested trying to use TWO SPONGES AT ONCE to clean surfaces. I did try it.  I can't say my left hand did much besides go back and forth in one spot, or keep my balance (while gripping the sponge), but it did make me feel 2x more productive.

The other thing I spent time doing yesterday was making a household notebook:

I'm fairly good about making meal plans and grocery lists etc, but after reading stuff on the web - I decided to make my organizational efforts official.  I took all my school stuff, library stuff, (new and improved) meal planning stuff and yes - HOUSEWORK stuff - and put it neatly into a three-ring binder.  I included a notebook and a new planner as well. I even made a rough schedule for the daily/weekly things that need to be done around the house. I'm hoping with somewhat of a schedule and structure here, I can get things accomplished more efficiently - not to mention it's very satisfying when completed! Soooo we'll see how this goes. OK let me see... I have to go now and start on laundry and... vacuuming.  Later!

THE BUS IS HERE!

Holy Moly it's 7:00 am and I'm already two kids down.  All went well and good for this first morning of bus riding, but I'm not optimistic that the bright-and-cheeriness will persist into the year as I continue to wake the boys up at SIX FIFTEEN AM every day.  oh boy. Last year they caught the bus at 7:45, so it was a pice of cake.  6:55 am is a different story.  UGH! I had to set my alarm to get my own butt out of bed to wake them up!  

I'm also having doubts about the length of the rides.  That's right - rideS, plural.  They take a bus for a half hour to one school, (which we are two miles from that stupid school, yet we're the second ones on the bus - what moron made up that bus route??  when you are the 2nd closest to the school, shouldn't logic conclude you'd have the 2nd SHORTEST ride?  grrr don't even get me started on that one...) some kids get off - then they hop on another bus for fifteen minutes to their school.  After arrival, they play on the playground until 8:20 as school doesn't start till 8:30 am! See why the heartburn?  

I drove them yesterday so we could figure out where everything was, and we didn't have to leave our house until 8:00 which was nice.  So, I'm very anxious to hear about their bus travels once they get home.... that is presuming they make it home on the right bus!!!

 

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Even the rain didn't stop these two...

Good Shopping Gone Bad

I think it's official that I'm now a true "Iowegian".  Before I moved here, I often heard stories from my friend about her cousin (who lived in Iowa) and young children who stayed up all hours of the night - no bedtime.  As I got to know several other people after moving, it seemed that was a common theme.  Children in Iowa never go to bed!  Or at least, they don't go to bed at a decent time. Unlike our kids, many of their friends stay up well into the night watching TV, playing video games or whatever they want.  Not at our house!  

We went school shopping last night after dinner.  It all started out grand, but turned ugly pretty quick - picking out something as simple as a FOLDER became a critical decision worth agonizing over.   It was the shopping trip that wouldn't end!  And as I left WAL-MART at 10:25 pm last night toting both older kids, I shook my head sadly to myself... what have I become?! 

If nothing else, I've learned to never take the kids with me to buy anything but the supplies. No shoes.  No clothes.  OMG.  Buying a simple pair of shoes for school was impossible.  Charlie will wear whatever I come home with, but WILL has his own 'style' which includes a lot of black and a lot of skulls.  YUCK.  I usually try to buy cute stuff that may have a little skull snuck on, but with him in tow - he wanted skulls full force.

I can't even believe some of the crap I came home with.  I think I was just so tired of shopping that I started viewing the most hideous stuff in the store as 'not THAT bad'.  I had every intention of stopping by Old Navy for some T's after the shoe shopping, but the shoe shopping took so dang long there wasn't time.  They didn't have the size of Converse Will wanted, so after all the effort, we left the shoe store empty handed.  We then went to Target, again intending to grab some T's after the supplies.  Target was out of erasers, folders and something else - and didn't have any acceptable shoes either, so we headed to the dreaded Wal-Mart.  By this point I gave up on the shoes and T's and planned on just grabbing erasers and the other odds and ends. However, on the trek across the store between folders and Kleenex, we passed the boys clothing section. Will spied a 'cool' shirt (which was a black shirt with multicolored skulls, headphones and electric guitars) right away, and both boys immediately buried themselves in that section.  At first I was firm.  I told them the shirts were ugly - even repulsive, but they didn't care.  They claimed 'girls' didn't know what was cool.  

When I got home and displayed our purchases for Ben, I had to laugh at myself.  I am still in awe that I came out of the store with this gem:

As if this shirt didn't have enough going on with cards, skulls, flames, a car brand (Chevrolet? The only Chevy we have around here is Ben's commuter Geo), but if you look very close at the bottom of the shirt.... it even says 'NASCAR'.  Now that's a perfect shirt!

Good Lord.

One of those Days

I'm having one again.  One of those days where I just want to hide out in my room with the door shut - away from any yelling, fighting and whining humans.  A day where I wish I was the one who got dressed and ready in the morning, drove in the car alone to my job, where I'd sit at a desk ALONE all day - free to go to lunch or a walk or use the restroom as I pleased...  Ugh.  

I had planned on taking the crew SHOPPING of all things this morning.  Am I insane? The older two have been bickering since they opened their eyes, and for some reason, Jacob cannot be separated from me for more than 2.4 minutes.  I had this fun little excursion planned in my head where the boys were interested and actually HELPFUL in selecting window treatments for their bedrooms.   ha.  We never made it out of the house.  

The highlight of the afternoon was when Jacob waltzed out to the kitchen announcing 'NEED WASSED', holding his filthy hands out in front of him.  Did he sneak chocolate out of the pantry?  I wish.  When he made a face of disgust and said, 'ucky'  - I knew.  The little stinker reached down the back of his diaper, and apparently groped around a bit before deciding something wasn't right.  If I hadn't just changed a dirty diaper 30 minutes prior, I'd be feeling a little bad for not checking his back end before that happened... but come on!  Two in an hour? Double ugh.

It's now 4:00 p.m. and I've made it though most of the day.  Between going for a school tour with the principal earlier today and shopping for school supplies (tonight), Jacob managed to get a few winks in - hopefully improving his mood.  Sure, he was mid-bite of his third bowl of cereal... sitting on a counter stool... but hey, I'll take what I can get!

Smooth Criminal

I was awoken this morning at 6:30 a.m. by the sound of little feet pitter pattering all around the house.  As I sleepily drug myself out of bed and started drudging across the room to investigate, I mentally scolded myself for staying up so late to watch the director's cut of Twilight (who does that!).   When I reached the threshold of our bedroom and stepped into the hallway, the pitter patter noises came to an abrupt halt. A quick glance to my left confirmed my suspicions... frozen in a guilty pose half-way up the stairway was little Jakey - with a BIG smile on his face.  'Done Seepin?' he asked me.  YUP.

I had mixed feelings about moving Jacob to his toddler bed for several reasons, the escape-artist factor being at the top of the list.  Not only will it be the final time we pack away the crib, but we now have to deal with this little free agent wandering around at God only knows what times of the morning (and night!).  I was secretly kind of happy when he refused to stay put Friday night after we first introduced the bed to him. The gravitational pull to experiment with his new found freedom was far greater than that of his little bed and pillow. He kept sneaking out at random intervals to see if we were still keeping tabs on him, which of course we were.  After hauling him back for the 50th time, Ben decided to put him back in his crib.  'waaaaaaahhhhhhhh' - not happy.

So, yesterday at nap time when I offered the bed option to him again, he was very receptive.  He only wandered out three or four times before he abided by my firm instructions to 'STAY'.  It was so cute to see him sleeping in the bed!  And he was very proud of himself when he woke up, coming out on his own to announce to us, "ME WATE UP'!  

Last night it only took two tries to get him to stay put.  However, I'm thinking a little gate across his door might be a nice feature to add for after he falls asleep.  As long as he drifts to dreamland with the illusion that he can escape at any moment, he may still cooperate.  

Ben (who had fallen asleep during the director's cut, and apparently didn't wake up when I went up to bed) reported to me this morning that he also returned the whiney wanderer to his little bed at about 4:00 am.   

Hmmm.  Gate.  Definitely.  

  

Recipe for Disaster

First, take one incredibly cranky and demanding toddler.  

For best results, use this one:

Next, leave the room while he/she acquires one box of cake flour* 

from the top shelf of the pantry

* any kind of flour you have on hand will work, 

however if there is a picture of an actual yummy cake on it 

-like this one has - 

you will probably have better results

Wait FIVE minutes...

TA-DAH!

I Geek the Library!

Now that we are semi-settled into our new place, I'm trying to meet some folks around here and get involved in the community.  Last night I attended my first 'friends of the library' meeting as my official first attempt to do so.  The library is housed in a little teensy-weensy building (I mean, the town is teensy weensy, so what would ya expect), so I wasn't expecting much when I first went there.  

I guess it just goes to show that it's true: You can't judge a book (or a library) by it's cover! This little library is the cutest dang thing!  I enrolled the kids in their summer reading program, which was totally awesome (beekeepers, magicians, crafts, prizes), and we've been regularly checking out materials ever since our first visit.  Their inventory is obviously limited, but they have a nice assortment of materials, including lots of dvd's for the kids.  Heck, I could even check out a cake pan if I wanted!

The librarian had made it known on a couple visits that the library was in big need of fundraising and improvements, which is why I decided to pay the $10 annual fee for my membership and attend the monthly meeting.  I looked over the budget last night, and frankly - it was depressing. The entire library operates on only  $39,000 a year!  That includes the librarian's wages!  Wow. Their wish list has basic things like a desk, shelving, a security camera (to stop people from putting apples and garbage in the drop box), children's carpet, indoor signage, a color printer, a projector screen... etc etc.  

We have a couple of fundraising ideas, like a library cookbook, a bake sale and a soup supper, but I can't imagine that will raise near enough money for all the things they need.  Hmph.  I am a newbie at fundraising and not really sure where to start.  Community awareness?  I'm sure a lot of people around here are totally unaware of this little gem under their noses.  So, I'm going to start researching on what I or the group can do to get this little library some STUFF!  Any ideas?

Hayward Trip Recap - the short version

We are safe and sound, back from Hayward now for three days.  I finally got the rest of the bags and laundry put away yesterday.  Sometimes it's harder to get settled after a trip than it is getting ready to go!  Of course now that we are back, it is hotter than the dickens here - near 90 degree temps everyday.  Sure wish we had some of that in Hayward!

The trip overall was very good.  The weather, as eluded to, stunk for a few of the days (60 degrees!), but we did get some really great days in as well.  It was a little on the cool side the entire time for any prolonged amounts of swimming, but the boys got their fair share in by the end.  Fishing off the end of the dock was a lot of fun, and even Jake was getting into it with his Spongebob pole.  The boys LOVED Uncle Ryan's new fishing boat, and while I liked it as well - I preferred the pontoon! :-)  I snapped a ton of great pictures, especially when the boys went tubing for the first time - what a hit!    

At the end of the week, Ben's cousin and his family joined us for a couple days which was super! The kids don't get to see their cousins near enough, and to spend time with them in Hayward was a big bonus to the trip.  However, I'm not sure who had more fun - the kids or the adults! Overall, it was another great family experience with lots of new memories!  THANK YOU Grandma and Grandpa for another super Hayward trip!