Ladybug Picnic

I saw something today that reminded me of Sesame Street.  Do you remember this song?
" 1,2,3   4,5,6    7,8,9    10,11,12
Twelve lady bugs, at the ladybug picnic.

It's been a long time, but some songs just stick in your head forever!  Anyway, here's why I thought of the song:

My bug loving son was catching crawdads in the pasture across the road and he ran in the house and said, "Mom, grab your camera!"

"Why?" I asked.

"Just do it" he said. "I've got something cool to show you."

So I did what every good mom does. I grabbed the camera and a pair of flip flops and followed my son out to the pond.

There I witnessed a ladybug infestation.  At first glance there were ten or twenty, but upon closer examination, there were thousands of them!

They were latched on to the fence post, and piled up in the surrounding grass.  If only I knew how to take better pictures, I could have shown you the massive quantities of them. I generally LOVE ladybugs, and they are a welcome gardening friend, but seeing them in droves like this was a little bit creepy.  In honor of today's pictures, I'm going to leave you with a cheesy ladybug poem:

"How brave a ladybug must be!

Each drop of rain is big as she.

Can you imagine what you'd do,

If raindrops fell as big as you?"

~Aileen Fisher

 

A Tragic Fish Story

It was my first semester in the 7th grade.  In our school district, 7th grade was the first year of Jr. High School. I said good bye to elementary school with all it's lame construction paper and crayola crafts, and hello to my first "serious" Jr. High Art Class.  The first medium we got to work with was clay...not play dough, but real clay that you make into ceramic stuff.  I was so totally stoked about this.  While everyone else in my class was making stupid little bowls for their parents to put spare change in, I was thinking outside the box.  I wanted to make something that both of my parents would love, but something a bit unusual.... something you wouldn't find at Walmart.  So I began to work the clay with my hands to see what secret masterpiece was waiting to take shape.  Then I had an "Ah Ha" moment, and here's what I came up with.

It was perfect.  My dad is an avid outdoorsman and loves to fish, and our guest bathroom was a lovely shade of blue at the time, so I thought my mom would love it if I made something to display in there for the guests to see.  A fish was something unexpected but lovely....at least that's what I thought.

Here's a close up.  Just look at the detail of the scales.  I did that with my finger nail.  Impressive isn't it?  Notice how the Dorsal fin is a shade darker than the body of the fish.  Just like real life.

And the detail in the face....it's exquisite! I captured the essence of fishiness in every detail. 

Needless to say, I got an A+ on it.  I've always marched to the beat of my own drummer, and it really paid off big this time.  I was sooooooo excited to take it home to show my folks.  I must say that they were a bit surprised, but I was sure they loved it.  I told my mom that we should put it on top of the toilet, but she put it inside the bathtub...with the shower curtain closed.  I wasn't sure why, but her decorating skills were far superior to mine at the time.

Fast forward 10 years.

When I got married, my parents started to turn my old bedroom into a guest room, and they began to bring me boxes with all of my treasured items in them.  Imagine my surprise when I found my fish in one of the boxes.

"Hey.... this isn't mine, I made this for you guys!"

"No, no, we were sure you'd want to keep it since you worked so hard on it." they said.

"I wouldn't dream of keeping it! I poured my blood, sweat, and tears into this fish with both of you in mind.  It's yours.  Keep it.  Really.  I made it for you." I urged.

I had the sneaking suspicion that they didn't like the fish.  They wanted it out of their house.  All those years had been a lie.  They never really liked the fish.  They didn't appreciate fine art.  In fact, I was starting to think that they wouldn't know A+ art if it looked them in the eyes.  I was insulted.

"What, you don't like my gift?" I smirked.

"We love the fish...it's just that we changed the color of the bathroom."

I saw right through their wicked deception.  Besides...I didn't want that ugly fish in my new place.  It didn't match anything we received for our wedding.  The next time I went to my parent's house, I brought the fish back and put it in it's rightful place....on top of the toilet.

This began 10 years of the fish traveling back and forth between homes.  My parent's caught on quick to my ploy to return it to it's rightful owner so it had to be sneaky.  I hid it in places where they wouldn't find it until after we were on our way home.  They returned the gesture.  Now my kids get in on it, and we sometimes give it back when my folks least expect it.  That fish has a lot of traveling miles under it's scales. Whenever we go for a visit, the covert operation goes the same way.

We get in the truck, and my husband looks at me. 

I turn to him and say, "The eagle has landed", then we laugh and wave as we peel out of their driveway.

I was cleaning out the cabinets in our guest bathroom today, and you guessed it.  The fish is back. It's probably been back for a year but I didn't see it behind the Charmin toilet paper. I will be returning  it to it's rightful owner very soon. Heee Heeee Heeee.

Who wouldn't love to have this?

Highlights of An Overflowing Week

If we tried to pack one more activity into this week, I'm convinced that we may have busted at the seams. It's been quite a ride, and I've got the laundry pile to prove it.  Here's the very small rundown of a few of the highlights:

1. First, the girls went to Grandma and Pop Pop's house for a few days to craft, swim, hike, and go shopping.  The sheer quantity of words, and questions, and stories that come from within the depths of my little girls' minds is enough to render a grandparent completely exhausted from trying to pay attention, but I think they did a good job.  The girls were full of stories to share for days after they came home. 

2.  Meanwhile, I scraped, primed, and repainted our chicken coop mansion.

3.  Then in an act of sheer madness, we loaded up the kids, luggage, and dogs and traveled from our 67 degree weather with daily showers, to go to a 110 degree inferno of heat and humidity to attend a state home school convention.  The kids and dogs stayed at my folk's house while my husband and I attended enrichment classes, poured over hundreds of amazing books, and renewed our vision for the coming school year.  We spent time with great friends and had a wonderful, albeit H-O-T time at the conference.  We even had surprise guest appearances from our governor, and two congressmen.  Hmmm...must be an election year.

4. It was soooo hot that the handle of a thirst buster cup melted in our truck.  I think my face melted off from the reflection of the heat bouncing off of the concrete and high rise buildings of the down town area. That place is not fit for man or beast in the summer time.

5. My husband got together with my brother and the rest of the groomsmen for a "bachelor party" before the wedding....if you can even call it that.  It was a bunch of pastors and deacons having good clean fun with indoor skydiving, pool basketball, and dinner in the evening. Meanwhile, I shopped for shoes with my mother and my girls.  I found a MAJOR bargain on wedding shoes....and you know how much I heart a bargain.

6.  I went grocery shopping while I was in the big city and spent $12.00 while saving nearly $60.00 with my coupons. I got 7 free tubes of Crest toothpaste, 3 free body washes, and 3 free packs of Q-Tips. Yippeeee!

6. After church today, my folks took the entire family out to a Chinese food buffet where my son tried a smorgasbord of unique food items including: fried frog legs, crab legs, craw-dads, oysters, sea creatures and  some other cuisine that "ain't from around here", if you know what I mean.  (There may have been some cat meat on his plate....you never know about those Chinese food places.) It was like "Fear Factor" Chinese style.  He loved it!

7. We're back home to the cool country now,and all of the rain we've had is transforming my yard and the pastures into a lush oasis of green.  My garden is finally taking off!! Looks like Zucchini bread is on the menu this week!

My brain is too tired to think anymore tonight, so I'll save my adventures for another blog post!

Cabinet Door Chalkboard

For many years I've been teaching my children bible verses on a weekly  basis, and I've been thinking of a way that I could display them so that they could see them often throughout the day.  I didn't want to write it on a piece of paper, and I needed for it to be inexpensive to make.  Here's what I came up with: A Cabinet Door Chalkboard.

Here's how I made it.

First I taped the  middle of a cabinet door that I had laying around. I got it at a salvage yard for 25cents.  I painted the edges with several coats of a barn red spray paint.

Next, I taped up the edges and sprayed several coats of chalkboard paint on the middle.

Then I took sandpaper and roughed up the edges to bring out the wood underneath and age it a little bit.

Meet my new best friend, Ralph. Where has he been all my life?  I put a coat of Ralph Lauren Smoke Glaze over the red and wiped most of it off.  This gave it an aged feel.

Next I spray painted an old green cabinet handle I had in my junk drawer.  Then, I sanded it to give it a distressed look.

The lighting is bad on this picture, but I took a small wooden chicken I had sitting out on display, and I drilled two holes in the top to hold my chalk. Next, I glued it to the corner of my chalkboard with Gorilla Glue, and clamped it until it dried.

Here's the final product!  I'm pretty happy with it and I think it goes lovely in my farm style kitchen!

I can't wait to put our new verses on the board each week.  It's in plain view from the dining room table, so my kids can see it at every meal.  The best part is that I made it for the cost of the chalkboard paint, $3.00.  I love cheap crafts!

On my Mind

It's 6am on a Monday, and I have some things I feel compelled to tell you:

1. After all these years, I finally learned the rules about the differences between semi colons and colons.

2.Today, it's my girls' turn to go to Grandma and Pop Pop's house.  They woke up at 5:30 and asked me about belt selections, outfit choices, hair accessories, and matching shoes.  They're sitting on their suitcases at the front door and we don't leave for hours.  When my son went, I had to force him to bring more than one shirt.  His entire suitcase was filled with pocket knives, archery supplies, and work gloves.

3. Today was the day I intended to tackle painting the chicken coop, but I woke up to thunder, lightening, rain, and 700% humidity. My chickens are pecking the paint off of the outside of the coop in an obsessive compulsive manner.  At 4:45 a.m. this sounds like 5 woodpeckers drilling holes outside my window, or maybe a jack hammer. I can't decide.

4. I'm finishing up an art project that I can't wait to post about.  I'm 90% done, but the last 10% is all about the details.  It will make or break my project, and I'm in a puddle of anguish and indecision about how to finish it.  My husband just grunts when I tell him about the options.  He's no good to me in times of crafting crisis.  What I need is my mother.....which brings me to my next point....

5. My brother has stolen my parents.  He has ripped them from me and forced them into hard labor preparing his house for his soon- to- be- wife, and preparing for his wedding.  O.K....not really....they volunteered for it, but still!  I need my mother for crafting project advice; she's a visionary.  I need my dad to replace the lighting fixtures in my bathroom; my husband doesn't do electricity. (Odd isn't it?  He's not afraid of a natural gas explosion, but the guy won't touch anything with electricity involved.) Anyway, I can't have my parents back for over three more weeks and I don't know if I can make it that long.
Mom, Dad...If you're reading this, I heart you.

6. One of my chickens started to lay  really long, skinny, pointy eggs that don't fit into the carton.  I'm too embarrassed to give these away.  I will make them into egg salad.  I hope this phase doesn't last long.

7. After I said all those horrible things about my husband's corn in the spring, it was uprooted in a micro burst during a huge storm we had over the weekend.  I felt so bad that I went out there and replanted the knocked over ones, and I think they're gonna make it.  What's worse; My sunflowers came away unscathed from the incident and that made him even more upset.

8. Last night at my church small group, they were short on song books, and were trying to locate one for my husband and I. I didn't want them to fuss over it, so I made the super smart-mouthed comment that I didn't need one because the really righteous people who grew up in the church already know all of the hymns.  And right on cue, the leader said, "Tonight's hymn is  "Humble Thyself in the Sight of the Lord".  It was so funny, I couldn't stop laughing.

Cookbook Catastrophe

Have you ever asked me for one of my recipes, and I've neglected to write it down for you?

Here's the reason.

I probably just can't find it.  I know, I know... I'm ashamed of it too.  It took a lot  for me to be vulnerable, and to write about the embarrassing state of my recipe books, but I'm all about "keeping it real" for my followers, so here it goes:

Hello.  My name is Nell, and I'm addicted to collecting recipes.

Wow! I feel better already!

 

I didn't start out this way. My love for recipes grew over time.  In fact, I had a perfectly good idea when I first got married.  My goal was to keep my recipes neat and tidy by tucking them inside plastic sheets so that I could wipe off anything I might spill on them.  My plan was brilliant!  Except that I ran out of plastic sheets, and had no more space in my 3 ring binder, and I kept coming across good recipes.  Compound this problem by ten years and you have one giant stack of disorganized ingredient lists. 

Oh sure, I own 10 or 20 cookbooks, but the real gems all lie somewhere in this stack.  You know.... the ones you write down on a napkin at a pot luck, or on the back of the tithing envelope at church.  Some are even written down on place mats. Those are the really good ones because they come from disgruntled restaurant workers willing to give up top-secret  recipes. 

I watched this chick flick the other day, and the guy asked the girl this soul searching question that was meant to get to the heart of what was important to her.  He said,

"If there was a fire, and everyone was safe outside of your home, and you had 30 seconds to go back in and get some things, what would you take?"

I thought long and hard about this, and I would come back for my Bible, our trunk of pictures, and my cookbooks.  The rest is just stuff.  But my pictures and my recipes are infused with wonderful memories.  I have recipes from when my grandmothers were alive, and marinades that my Dad has scientifically concocted, and things that I learned how to make in Jr. High cooking class.  I have family favorites from my Mother- In- Law, and delicious pork chop dishes from my Grandfather.  I even have one from my dear friend that was printed in the Church cookbook with a major typo.  Instead of saying....add pudding..... it said, ass pudding.  Every time I make her recipe I tell her the ass pudding was amazing....then we giggle like school girls.  I love every one of those recipes, but I just don't have the time to tackle the task of organizing them. 

When I look at the recipes, it feels like I'd have to climb Mt. Everest to conquer the stack.  I have this grand plan to purchase a computer program with a really cute font, type out all of my recipes, organize them into a book according to category, and store it neatly in my cupboard.  I would hire out the job but...1. I don't have the money and....2. Many of my recipes are missing key things like titles, oven temps and times.  Some just have a list of 5 or 6 ingredients and that's it.  Only I know the rest of the story.  It would never work to have someone else do it.  So the stack grows ever more impressive by the week, and I lose hope of getting it organized until retirement age.  In fact, it's on our list of things to do when we retire so we don't want to shoot each other.  It's right behind learning to team rope, and right in front of riding a Harley to embarrass our grown children.  Until then, I shove it up into the cupboard, and only take it out in the privacy of my own kitchen, where it's safe to view it without fear of ridicule or shame. 

Too Much Information

Note: For your benefit, today's blog will have no pictures.  If you are a male, or are squeamish about leg hair, you might not want to read this.  Thank you for understanding.


My Love has been working out of town this week, and I'm soooo glad he's coming home today.  I've really let myself go the last few days.  In fact, I've taken a good hard look at myself this week, and I'm convinced that if something happened to my husband, I have the potential to become one of those scary "cat ladies" that own 15 felines. That's a frightening realization, folks. I don't even really like cats!  Let's face it, the only real reason I put on lipstick every day is for my husband, and if he's not here, why waste the stuff?

For days I've roamed the house with no makeup, a bun in my hair, and cut off sweats.  I even mowed the front yard on the riding lawn mower that way. I've NEVER done this before... I'd be mortified if someone I knew drove by and saw me like that.  But this week, I threw caution to the wind.  I enjoyed the grunge look so much that I decided to go to the feed store wearing a Bass Pro Shop ball cap and  big movie star sunglasses like the paparazzi was chasing me.  It was great. I didn't have to brush my hair or put on mascara!

I stayed up every night reading in bed, surrounded by a nest full of pillows, and no one was there to tell me to turn the darned light off.  I even pulled out a few pairs of Granny panties that I haven't worn since the third trimester of my pregnancies, and I wore them to bed with my husband's old softball tee shirts.  Who cares? There's no one there to see them anyway! Why waste the good stuff?  Instead of good smelling Victoria's Secret lotions and lingerie, I used Vaseline intensive care lotion and wore Hanes Her Way Grannies.  I even applied one of those green facial masks that made me look like the Incredible Hulk.  Who needs a gun for self defense when the menfolk are away?  Intruders would run away screaming at the sight of me this week!

I even decided to take a break from shaving my legs.  By day three, I was out weeding the garden and I thought I could feel the wind blowing on my leg hairs.  It may have just been a bug, but the thought of having leg hairs long enough to catch a breeze was enough to make me shave my legs immediately.  I guess I have some limits when it comes to the"natural" look.

Today, all my hippie living comes to an end.  Today, I shower. Today, I put on good smelling lotion.  Today, I will brush and curl my hair and put makeup on.  I might even wear my bling belt.  I will wash and fold my Granny Panties and put them back in the depths of my drawer for another time when my husband goes out of town, or goes hunting.  Today, I will transform myself from "Cat Lady" back into "Hott Wife" (With 2 T's).  A few more days of this nonsense and I might have started to think deodorant was optional.  Scary!  I'm so glad my husband's on his way home....for your sake, and mine.