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This post has been written by the voices in my head. If I don’t let them out every now & then they get cranky. Voice #1: She’s been crocheting randomly again. Voice #2: What is that thing? Voice #3: It looks like a crocheted bowling pin Voice #1: Would it kill her to stick with a pattern & not go off on her own? Voice #2: That would make the results too predictable Voice #3: I think she did stick to the pattern on this one. Voice #1: Geez! There she goes again. Anthropomorphizing things Voice #2: Someone needs to take the plastic eyes away from her. Voice #3: The eyes add something. Voice #1: Yeah, something creepy.   Voice #1: Oh look. She did a bunch of them in different sizes Voice #2: Anthropomorphized mutant bowling pins. Voice #3: The little one is cute Voice #1: Does she think people will buy these things? Voice #2: I don’t know, some people will buy anything. Voice #3: With some little accessories she could probably get $5 for the

Just have a few this week, in the hopes the gods of upload continue to bless me. Monday night was just gorgeous Smoke was so happy I bought new table linens Troopers on Hoth had tauntons. On Tatooine they had dewbacks. Troopers here get dinos. Charge! A clone & his brachiosaur For more weekly winners please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom .  Thanks for stopping by!

The photo today is from 1903 This is The Family House. Though actually the family didn’t own it until 1942. My maternal grandmother bought this house while my grandfather was off in the Pacific fighting the Japanese. Apparently it was an incredibly good deal & she wrote to ask him if they should spend their savings on it. But mail took weeks to travel to and from people in the military and my grandmother had to act without hearing from him. It was a 4 square style home, cinderblock with siding. 5 rooms, one bathroom, and a crawl space under it. It was maybe about 800 sq feet. When the war ended and my grandfather came home the first thing he did was elevate the house and dig out a full basement. Due the house layout he had to put in probably the steepest set of stairs I have ever encountered. My cousins and I, to this day, have never ventured down them without a parent shouting after us “Be careful those are steep!” And we say it to our own children every time as well.

DH and I lately have been discussing words and the sorts of words people choose to use when there are several appropriate words available.  We’re both Douglas Adams fan and he never used 1-2 words if 5-6 were possible. I am currently reading books by Edmund Crispin written in the 1940s & 50s and they are Very Wordy Indeed. They seem to be written on the principle of never use a two syllable word if a 4 syllable one is available.  They are common garden variety murder mysteries, not ‘literature’ btw. They are a blog post unto themselves (coming soon) Anyway since the topic of word choice was on his mind, last night he related the following anecdote about his boss: Boss came into DH’s office that morning and said “I’m aggravated I lost my favorite money clip. I’ve had it for years.” DH agreed that losing a favorite item is aggravating. Boss says “Yeah, I really liked that money clip.” then as an afterthought he adds “It had $600 in it” So my question to you all today is…. W

I made turkey croquettes, mashed potatoes and asparagus for dinner. Turkey croquettes are turkey burgers with a fancy name. They and other burgers are also known as ‘wittle meatwoafs’ because Mayhem “HATES burgers!” but likes meatloaf – big or little. Everything on the menu tonight has been on the menu before & has been eaten with the bare minimum of fuss. Mayhem doesn’t care for potatoes but will gulp down 3 bites while grumbling. The rest of the meal has always been perfectly acceptable to all involved. But not tonight. Tonight’s meal began at 6:15 with wails of protest from Havoc at the very idea I might expect him to eat something other than mashed potatoes. Mayhem joined it with cries of “This is YUCK!” and was banished to his room briefly. He returned insisting that he was “not gonna eat it! no! No! NO!” Havoc fell silent and occupied himself making mashed potato sculptures and nibbling his way through half of one 4 inch long asparagus spear while all attention was fo

It’s the first full week back to school and time to get menu planning, I’ve slacked off badly this summer, especially this month. Meals have been very haphazard & slipshod. I’ve been at the end of my rope by late afternoon and it has been too damn hot to turn the oven on & too rainy to use the grill. I attempted a crock pot dish last week. We have taekwondo 2 evenings a week. We have to leave about 25 minutes after the bus arrives and we get home about 10 minutes before we are used to having dinner. The crockpot seemed ideal. (btw, it is an actual Crock Pot, not a generic slow cooker. It was a wedding gift from 1993. I’ve maybe used it a couple dozen times since then) Except I suck at crock pot cooking and I have never been wild about hardly anything I have cooked in it that came out decently. It always tastes like food that has been on a steam table for too long. Plus with the can of cream of soup nearly every recipe calls for it tastes like salt that has been on a stea

  I’m really really hoping the upload fairies continue to be kind to me, as they blessedly have been all week, and all the photos in this post come through. There was more play in the drained & refilled with rain water swimming pool I think the dinos felt right at home Everyone was soaked The rebel forces have been active again And school started   For more Weekly Winners please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom   If you are interested in very old photos check out my post yesterday .

I have a ton, or at least a very huge pile, of old photos that need scanning. And by old I mean old. Really. Like before 1900 old. I have photos starting from somewhere in the early 1890s & running up through the early 1990s, with large concentrations of photos in 1930-45 and 1967-75. Some of these photos have stories behind them, some of them I only know a little about and some of them are of people whose names I don’t even know but can guess. I’m going to start posting some of them here on Saturdays & sharing what I do know about them. Maybe through the magic of the internet someone out there can tell me more. These are the first: This young girl is my great grandmother. Her name was Anna Klotz. That is her family in the first photo. Her parents are Balzer & Minnie. She had 6 brothers! I don’t know any of their names or what happened to them. I'm not sure if just her father was from Germany, or both her parents or if maybe it was her father’s pare

Yesterday the boys went back to school, starting kindergarten & the first grade. They were excited but a bit dubious We made the long hike up & down the driveway We were early because we were told ‘sometime between 7:15-7:20’. We were at the end of the driveway at 7:10 and the bus didn’t come until 7:22.  Not sure yet if that is the firm arrival time or not, but every extra minute helps when you can’t find socks in the morning.    And there they go. I feel like I ought to write something sentimental here about my baby starting kindergarten, but I went through all those feeling last year when I put him on the bus for pre-K. And the last 2 weeks have been no joy for the three of us. We are all sick & tired of being together. We need a break. They are excited to be someplace different doing new things and I am excited to finally be able to get some things done around the house that i have been wanting to do for months. Give me a few days. I’ll probably all maud

Monday was the meet & greet at the boys’ school. Kids were able to meet their new teachers and parents were handed a mountain of paperwork to complete. Thank goodness I only have the two kids. My wrists are not up to completing paperwork for more. The paperwork began with being sent to the principal’s office for a ‘911 verification’. 911 verification is for proof you actually reside in the county. Apparently there was some question about it, despite the fact that my kids are returning students and would have needed this last year. I say “Sure here is my driver’s license”. She says “No. I need something else, like a utility bill.” Well, I don’t walk around with those in my purse. Most of my bills are e-notifications now anyway. So she suggests a check. I haven’t written a check in ages. I don’t even know where my current checkbook is. (though I do know where the book is for the account I had in 1998).    What is wrong with a DL? They would have had to mail me the form for it.

I mentioned last week that I was crocheting some apples. Here they are I think they turned out rather nice if I do say so myself. But being the sort who can’t leave well enough alone and who loves to anthropomorphize things (I think that is the word) plus being in possession of more googly eyes than any one person should be allowed to own, I did this   They look kinda creepy sitting there on your desk, staring out at you. Stalker apples. So I added a mouth   Happy  apples. (someone explain to me how the white balance changes when you take a photo of the exact same thing, in the exact same spot, the exact same distance away a mere 5 minutes later) A long time ago I had a store on etsy that sold my little crochet things. Then I got bored with crocheting little things & stopped selling. I’m in the mood again to sell and now is the perfect time of year. You can do fall fruits & veggies, like the apples, Halloween things and Christmas things. Plus my favorite

This little kitten went for a walk   She wandered off into the grass   And found some interesting things   Including a drained algae ridden swimming pool   This guy also found a pool to enjoy   For more Weekly Winners please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom . Thanks for stopping by!

This little kitten went for a walk She wandered off into the grass And found some interesting things Including a drained algae ridden swimming pool This guy also found a pool to enjoy For more Weekly Winners please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom . Thanks for stopping by!

I am not a social person by nature, so when I am forced to interact with others I spend a lot of time thinking about the impression I am trying to make on the people I am meeting. I know that my shy silence can be taken as cool reserve, leading people to think I am aloof, so I give a lot of thought to what I will say & how I will say it.  I am easily flustered by simple questions like “Where are you from?” and “What do you do?”. I worry a lot about boxes. I don’t mind them much. When you first meet a group of people it is handy to have adjectives to hang on them to help you remember each one. When each child has at least 15 classmates, you are not going to get close & friendly with 30 other moms (at least, I’m not) so it’s helpful to say “Billy’s mom Joyce. She’s the one that sells Mary Kay.” or “Caitlin’s mom Ann. She made the mural on the classroom wall.”  I worry though because there isn’t much to say about me. “Havoc’s mom. You know, the quiet one.” or worse “The snobby o

7 lllooooooonnnnnnnggggggggg days to go. Well, the days themselves are short enough, it’s the individual minutes that seem to go on endlessly. Probably because of the repetition. “Put that down please” “Take your hand off that please” “Stop doing that please. “Put it down.” “Take your hand off it.” “Stop it. Now.” “Put it down!!” “Hand! Off! That!” “STOP!” “I SAID PUT IT DOWN ALREDY !!! CAN NO ONE IN THIS HOUSE BUT ME UNDERSTAND ENGLIGH!!! WHAT DO I HAVE DO?  WHAT DO I HAVE TO SAY?  PUT THE DAMN THING DOWN AND KNOCK IT OFF!!” (Yes, I said the damn thing. I say damn rather a lot when I reach end point. I do try to control it ever since Havoc told Mayhem to sit down & eat his damn dinner. But it slips in. The good news is I don’t generally reach end point, usually the issue resolves itself somewhere between the second & third repetition because I have sent them on time out.) All day long, starting as early as 6am with the initial howl of fury that  one s

This came a bit sooner than I expected. I had thought the first day of school would be phase 1. But I have been dealing with this for weeks and I am done It rains, the pool turns green, I dump chemicals, the pool clears for 24 hours, it rains, the pool turns green, I dump chemicals, the pool clears for 24 hours – repeat for the last 5 weeks. I’ve shocked it, chlorinated it, stabilized it, Ph balanced it and hit it with algaecide. I swap out filters every 3 days. The boys have not been swimming since we came back from WV. Either the pool is green, it is about to rain, or it is actually raining. This morning started off sunny but oh look I’m done fighting it. Normally I can keep ahead of the green but it has just rained too much this summer & there is no sign that is about to change. Normally August is hot, humid and dry. So far dry is not an adjective I can use for August and it is the 11th. The boys return to school the 19th. I was going to leave the pool up until Labor

Some photos from my 365 collections. We visited Dinosaurland Sunday. The clones were weary after a long day The boys played The weather was often misty For more great Weekly Winners please visit Lotus at Sarcastic Mom

Aunt Becky , my BFF, who I would totally love to hang with in person, was unable to come visit in person but she sent her cards instead. Which if you love Aunt Becky like I do, is almost good enough. After all - Aunty Becky herself actually *touched* these cards! Look Aunty Becky’s card has arrived! These guys are thrilled to get their picture taken with her They immediately rush off to entertain her. Many muffins were eaten And much wine was drunk They thought about going swimming but Aunt Becky’s card thought the water was a little too Jurassic green The kittens gave Aunt Becky’s card a much more mixed reception Some were interested. “Will it give me lovins?” Some were aloof. “I’m not even going to look at it.” Some were downright hostile. “Cards! bah! I eats cards!” Smoke though, was very welcoming. “Come lay down with me Aunt Becky’s card We can read a book together Everyone else was so happy to see Aunt Be