Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Another Offline Blog Entry

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Raw sliced potatoes, raw sliced zucchini, raw sliced summer squash, raw carrot sticks, and apple sauce.

What do all these things have in common? It’s called dinner. It is too hot to cook, so I put all this together and called is dinner. No, it is not all mixed in with the apple sauce. Well, it’s not for me. The children are scooping up the apple sauce with carrots and potatoes.

By the way, raw potatoes have an amino acid in them to help battle arthritis. This amino acid is lost in the cooking process. If I had lemon pepper or garlic pepper, I would sprinkle the potatoes with this. R got me hooked on raw potatoes. It’s all her fault. Bethany was down at her home while she was cooking dinner and she kept reaching onto R’s plate that she was cutting on and grabbing bits of raw potato. So R took another plate, sliced up several potatoes, sprinkled them with lemon pepper and brought them down. I looked at it kind of strange, but decided to give it a try. OH, MY GOODNESS! Talk about tasty!

We were joking around and I gave her my favorite go to comment when someone comments on a strange food combination. “Someone somewhere in time saw an egg come out of a chicken’s butt and said ‘Yummy!’” She replied with “I wonder who the person was that said ‘I think I will go up to this cow, play with these dangly things and drink what comes out.’” We have a similar sense of humor. Should I be concerned for the rest of mankind?

We burned another area of brush today and got more firewood stacked for the winter. Charlie now gets it that this firewood is our winter heat. If we want to stay warm this winter, we need this firewood. There is no lack of deadwood, but it needs to be cut and stacked. Husband cuts and we stack. Or I should say Husband cuts, the children stack, and I pile brush to be burned.

I need to get more pictures taken and find time to post them. Bethany was up in a tree proud as a peacock for her accomplishment. She had a habit of getting up a tree then getting stuck and me having to rescue her. Finally, I told her that she can not climb anymore trees until she could get herself down. She was pleased with herself because she got up and knew she could get down. Her just sitting up in the tree in her dress with dirt smeared on her and her hair curled from sweat, it was a picture I wish I had taken. The biggest reason is because of the dress. Some how, my girls got it into their head that boys are better and they wish they were boys because they could do more and wear pants. I had been telling them that “Ginger Rogers had to do everything Fred Astaire did but backwards and in a dress.” They don’t understand the reference, but they know that Ginger Rogers had the tougher of the two jobs and did it in a dress. It concerns me that the girls think that being a girl or wearing a dress limits them. Seeing Bethany in that tree accomplishing what she did while wearing a dress made me feel proud of her.

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The children are playing doctor. If these were any other children, I would worry. If they were older, I would worry. I went to see how they were playing doctor and see Charlie and Bethany on the ground laying down while Hannah is examining Charlie’s foot and Bethany’s arm. Don’t worry. They will start fighting again in 5, 4, 3, 2, ….. And here comes Hannah to tell me that Bethany hurt her on the thumb.

Monday, July 19, 2010

We went down to the lake again to do laundry and found a washcloth, t-shirt, sock, and flannel diaper. (Old diapers are great for wiping sweat off.) I wonder what we left this time.

I asked Husband if he was happy with how the laundry came out since this is the second time doing this and he said yes. He also said he can see this being a regular summer thing. The water is bath warm, the children have fun, and we bring a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo and take the opportunity to bathe ourselves. Everyone has a chance to cool off, get clean, and have fun doing it. Next summer, we will probably spend most of our days there. This summer, we are still building.

The base the solar panels are on got put on a turn thingie. (Like my technical jargon?) R had pulled an old chair out of her camper and burned it. (I know, I know.) Anyway, what was left was the base and it was a chair that spun. So, while I was hanging laundry, Husband screwed the base to the chair rotator thing and now we can turn the solar panels to the sun much easier. It spins!

Patient Advocate got contacted by me today about Husband and the VA Clinic. I told her “Look, the doctor was very nice and very friendly. Outside of a medical facility, he would probably make a good friend. As a doctor, he is lacking.” Then I went on to explain and told her that the doctor said “You have too many issues for me to deal with at this time. Call back in five months for a six month follow up.” I told her that this was not right. “If there are too many issues to deal with at one time, it should be “Let’s make an appointment in a couple of weeks.” She agreed. I also told her that he is diabetic. At every primary appointment, a diabetic is supposed to have his feet examined. Husband had and still has a lot of sores on his feet. His feet never got looked at. He was also supposed to get referrals to various clinics and I mentioned them all. We are going to be transferred to another team and the supervisor of the clinic is going to be notified. She thanked me for contacting her and said “If you don’t tell us, we don’t know.” I’m impressed.

Tomorrow, we will be going in town to get mail and there is supposed to be a money order from our tenant. It better be there or I am going to be very ticked. I was thinking of giving it until Wednesday, but tomorrow should suffice for when he claimed he mailed it out. I am ready to be done. A few more months and he will finally own the place and we can be done with it. He has never paid on time and by all rights, he should be in debt to us for the rest of his life in late fees alone. But we have never bothered with the late fees because quite frankly I don’t feel like doing that much math. Especially when we are talking months late at a time.

Charlie made a mistake. He has known me all his life. He knows to never say to me “I’m bored.” He knows this because he knows I will put him to work.

“Mommy, I’m bored.”

He is now moving the cinder blocks over to the cabin to be placed under it to help shore it up underneath. No, he is not going to actually be doing that. He is just moving them up to the cabin.

“Mommy. This is too hard. My finger hurts. I’m tired. I don’t feel like it. Waaah.”

Guess what? I know you are capable of this job because you have moved cinder block before. You are the one who unloaded it from the back of the truck a couple of weeks ago. You are the one who placed them over by that tree. Now you get to move them to the cabin. I don’t want to hear any complaining.

Last night, Hannah threw a fit because I told her we were not going to do schoolwork right then. I am so mean and horrible and rotten. I don’t allow my children to do schoolwork 24/7 and tell them to go play.

I need to break up a fight between the three of them.

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Charlie finally finished moving the cinder blocks. He tied a rope to each one and dragged them. Good use of the brain. I am proud of him and his use of problem solving abilities.

The walls between the two cabins are now knocked out. Each wall is actually two 4-foot wide segments and just over 6 foot high. Keeping the sections intact the way Husband was able to means they are usable as interior walls. We now effectively have four 4-foot wide walls to use. There will be solid walls for our bedroom, the bathroom, and the office. The lofts won’t need walls, but there will be a railing of sorts. Hannah’s room will have two exterior walls and share an interior wall with the office. The front will be a curtain. We will need doors for the bathroom, office, and our bedroom. With a lock on our bedroom. I am excited because these walls being out means the rest is going to progress nicely. I still need to mark out the kitchen which won’t be a big deal. We’ve talked extensively about placement of things so marking it is a no-brainer for me. I can not wait to be able to get changed without an audience or commentary from said audience.

“Mommy, you have bug bites on your butt. That’s silly!” Or my all time favorite “I see your nummies” complete with giggles.

Gee. Thanks. I never would have guess that there were bug bites there if I hadn’t been told. The itching never gave it away. “Go away so I can get dressed” only works with Charlie. The other two come back in less than a minute later. At least I make them laugh. Even if it is at my expense with my silly bug bites and a jiggly belly and nummies that haven‘t worked in almost two years. I am so thankful I have a fairly firm hold on my self-worth. These two girls are enough to drive anyone with the slightest body image problem straight to an eating disorder.

They caught Charlie changing his shirt one day and giggled saying “I see Charlie’s nummies. Charlie got royally upset. “BOYS DO NOT HAVE NUMMIES! ONLY GIRLS DO!” I’ll explain later.

I am going to have a lot of explaining to do. Hannah grabbed Sarge by the scrotum while he was laying on his back being pet and tick checked. She grabbed hard and shook it back and forth in her fist saying “What’s this?” *Sigh* Yeah. I felt bad for the dog and I’m female. The joys of having animals running around. At least the inside is animal free. Well, relatively speaking. The children still go in there and they are animalistic at times as all children are.

So yes, I am looking forward to being able to lock myself in my bedroom once again.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

I looked again this morning at what Husband did yesterday with taking out the walls and it was amazing. I am loving it and what it means. He stood in one cabin against the outside wall and I stood in the other cabin at the opposite wall. Joking around, I said “I can see you from the bathroom.” I can see a full 24’ across. (Well, 24.5’ with the small space where the cabins don’t touch along the floor due to the roof.)

Can I just say that I am very thankful to whomever invented 12V fans? Sitting in front of this little fan makes all the difference in the world between heat stroke and not heat stroke. Having my undergarments soaked with sweat when I haven’t been doing aerobic workouts is yucky. Learning to stay cool without air conditioning has become its own adventure. Of course hugging my van when the ac kicks on doesn’t help. But that isn’t a climate controlled comfort thing. It’s logistics due to all the dust that gets kicked up and gets in your eyes and mouth and lungs while trying to drive. Really. Says so here on page three. “Driver shall keep all windows closed while driving down dirt roads.” If I happen to forget to turn off the ac and open the windows when we get to pavement, it is only because I am paying attention to my driving. Really. I mean there is a milk truck that goes through there every few days. You gotta watch out for them.

Anyway, the fan makes a huge difference. When you have sweat pouring off of you, going into the camper and sitting in front of the fan feels like heaven. Especially when the air outside is not just oppressively hot and humid, but also stagnant. This is also why we will be spending most of next summer in the water.

I’ve been thinking more about the modest swimsuit problem and I am hoping this winter I can make my own. The ones I saw that I like look fairly easy to make (except for the whole sleeve thing which I have always had a hard time with) and is what I am wanting for the girls and myself. What it amounts to descriptively speaking is a snorkeling suit that comes to the knees and just above the elbows with a skirt that comes to just below the knees. It’s lycra which is what most swimsuits are made of. I just don’t see spending $100 per swimsuit when the girls are still growing and I am still losing weight. Making my own, I can build in growth/shrink factors. I just need to find lycra for a reasonable price. I also need to learn how to do “adult female upper half support” if you know what I mean. For now, we still swim in our clothes. Well, I swim. The children splash and play. And, no one is around. We avoid the spot on weekends because the tourists are there putting their boats in and out and doing dumb things like drinking and boating. So, we stick to weekdays.

I had a bad tachycardia episode during the night. I got up this morning feeling very weak and worn down. I couldn’t stand for more than a few minutes without swaying. I did manage to bring water to the goats, water the rabbit, turn the solar panels to face the morning sun (I am loving the turnstile) and made coffee. Once the coffee was done perking, I had Husband take care of it from there because the spot of energy I did have was gone. I didn’t feel like having 2nd degree burns or dealing with the emergency room or urgent care. Besides, I doubt we would have enough gas for that.

We are waiting for 10:00 to roll around so we can go to town and check mail. (Please let the check be there. Please, please, please.) I don’t like relying on the tenant since he has been so unreliable. But I called on Sunday and he assured me that he did mail out a postal money order. We will see.

3 comments:

Lisa A. Goff, writer, stained glass, homeschooler said...

What if you find some lycra gymnastics leotards at garage sales, thrift shop, mission stores and use that as your basic part of the girls' swimsuits. You could then make a wrap-around type of skirt that ties at the waist. There are long-sleeved leotards that you could shorten to the above-elbow length. I haven't come up with an idea for your upper support, except for maybe finding swimsuits with the support inside them . . . wear them under a tee shirt . . . and a wrap-around skirt. Or, you know, my grandson wears a lycra-type shirt under his baseball uniforms . . . that could be worn under a swimsuit . . . then use the wrap-around skirt.

Lisa A. Goff, writer, stained glass, homeschooler said...

Some of those ladies' swimsuits have the lycra wrap-around skirts that may be too short for you, but could be long enough for the girls. They would be cheap at yard sales or thrift stores. NO need to spend $100 for them.

Michelle in Illinois said...

have you looked around the amish areas to see what they use for swimsuits and if they sell swimsuits?