Thursday, May 29, 2008

gettin stuff done...

Major stuff got taken care of today. My mom and her hubby Jon came over and helped me fix some stuff around here. He replaced an electrical outlet that wasn't working properly and patched a pipe so that I can use my outdoor faucet again. She hauled a bunch of boxes of toys out of the basement and out to the shed to get ready for a garage sale and held the baby so I could clean the cat box. I'm very appreciative and slowly warming up to her new husband. As it turns out he seems to be a decent sort of fellow with only good intentions. I'm glad for that.

Our dogs are recovering from being spayed and neutered on Sunday. No corgi puppies for us. It seemed like a good idea at one point but we came to the conclusion awhile ago that it would just be way more effort than we are willing to invest to take care of a litter and make sure they all made it to good homes.

I also got my shop up and running finally. You can see a link over to the left there for it. I haven't been doing anything for the shop lately but I hope to get back to it soon. Right now I just have some small pieces that I finished weeks ago.

I'm trying to get the yard all cleaned up and ready for planting. I got my compost pile all sorted out today. The old compost that is ready for using in beds is now piled up and the bin is empty and ready to take all the food scraps that have built up over the winter. I just stick my kitchen scraps in plastic shopping bags and put them in a trash can next to my back door and then empty them into the pile when spring comes. It's kinda messy but not too heinous as long as I wear gloves. It doesn't smell nearly as bad as one might imagine and occasionally, oddly enough, a very sweet earthy smell emerges from a bag that had just the right combination of veggie scraps. It's quite satisfying to see just how large the quantity of food scraps that we've avoided adding to the landfill over the course of a winter. And it was extremely satisfying to see the rich black humus that came out of my old heap. I'm eager to get it into some beds for planting.
Yay for summer!

oh and one last thing. My brother T called to let me know that he finally got all of my dad's old 8mm home movies converted to dvd. It turned out to be three hours of tape! Ohmygosh I am soo excited to see these.. he said not only is there stuff from when we were really young children but there is also stuff from when our parents went to Rome for their honeymoon and even stuff from my dad's childhood.. oh I can't wait to get the dvds in the mail!

Monday, May 19, 2008

spring has sprung!


Yep, the far north has thawed and the leaves are popping out and sunny has become the norm. Okay so the clouds have been consistently rolling in for the afternoons and we've been getting frequent drizzles but I'm not complaining. I'll take rain over forest fire smoke any day of the week.

I'm definitely feeling the added energy of 20 hours of daylight everyday. Yesterday I was brave enough to try walking all 6 children. Meaning the three human ones and the three canine ones. At the same time no less. All.by.my.self. Talk about a walking circus. There I was with a baby on my back, a great dane on one hand, two spastic little welsh corgis on the other and a two year old using my skirt to hang on to since I didn't have a free hand for her. And then top it off with a six year old riding circles around us on his bicycle. We must have been quite the sight. That was somewhat manageable until Zay decided that she couldn't walk any more. So then I had her held on my hip with one hand and all three dogs in the other. Which meant that they got all tangled up every three steps and I'd have to stop and free them before the dane had all his legs pulled out from under him and he squashed one of the corgis. That lasted for all of 5 minutes before Zay decided that walking was more precarious than being held. So needless to say, our walk didn't last long.

So that night was topped off by the wonderful experience of Meara having her first late night spell of inconsolable crying. It struck at around 12:30 am and I was up with her until about 2. Fun stuff. Now I'm up way earlier than I want to be with the two big kids. At least Meme is still sleeping. Thank goodness for the little things.

Monday, May 5, 2008

a wonderful discovery

oooh boy....I finally found it. The mysterious Queen video that I'd only ever seen small clips of here and there. I can kind of see why it wasn't featured on the two main Queen music video compilations since some of the camera work is less than stellar. However, I care not. For a die-hard Queen fan such as I this video is a wonderful thing to behold.