So, big things have been happening.  We’ve become vegetarian (again).  Last weekend I bought two months worth of groceries and set up a pantry in my kitchen.  Yesterday I bought all the yarn I need for my huge assortment of Christmas gifts.  Umm, yeah, that’s about it.  Oh wait!  Mom invited us to come to their house for dinner this past weekend!  First time in four months, how ’bout that?  Of course, then she made some comment about how we never come over……

Yeah, anyway.  We’re vegetarians.  Zeb’s decided that he just can’t eat meat.  He butchered rabbits with his dad awhile back and came home with two for us to eat.  He cooked one all up the way he remembered it from his childhood……he couldn’t eat it.  It brought back thoughts of the butchering.  Not a pleasant thing to think of while you’re putting food into your mouth.  This got him to thinking that he shouldn’t eat the meat other people kill if he can’t eat the meat he kills himself.  Then he watched a documentary on how animals are treated on big farms like that, and that was that.  No more meat.  Which is okay, since I’m really not supposed to eat animal products with my endo anyway.  Just makes it easier when he doesn’t want to eat meat either.

Stockpiling.  Well, I’d been reading up on that, people setting aside plenty of food for their families for a few months to a year.  We’d also talked about doing that when we finally get our farm.  We would grow all our own food and can or freeze all of it to last us until the next harvest.  We had always talked about doing it “when we have the farm”, and if anyone knows anything about us, they know it’s going to be a loooong time before we get to the point where we can purchase a farm.  I mean, Zeb’s still got five years of school left before he gets his degree.  So I got to thinking: does it really make sense to have all these ideals and not put them into place just because the situation we are in isn’t perfect?  No.  In fact, it makes more sense to do it now.  Since the situation is less than perfect we may actually need the stockpile.  Decision made, I went to the store and got all the groceries for two months of meals.  Took me five hours.  I was tired when I got home, and I still had to chop all the veggies to put in the freezer.  *sigh*  I did that the next day, lol.

And as for the Christmas gifts……well, I’ve got so many I had a small panic attack today wondering if I was actually going to be able to get them done.  I bought all the yarn last night, and I was all excited, thinking of all the fun little crafts I am going to do, and how it’s going to be a great time……and I’m going to have to stock up on audiobooks.  I can’t sit and knit or crochet for long periods of time without having something to occupy a portion of my brain.  I don’t tend to need that for the more intensive projects, just the ones that have the same repeating pattern over and over and over…and over again.  It kind of bores me, sitting there for hours on end with not a thing to occupy my mind.  Boring.  So I got some audiobooks at the library too.

But this morning, I woke up after a long night of knitting and crocheting various cutesy things in my dreams, and suddenly realized, with horror I might add, the amount of projects that I just subjected myself to.  In a finite amount of time.  As in sixteen projects to finish in a mere six weeks.  Can I do it?

I started a lacy rib scarf for my sister in law the day before yesterday and it’s going pretty well.  I’ve been knitting every chance I get and so have been working on it quite a lot.  I’m already bored with it.  Thankfully I have fifteen other projects that need to be done as well.  I started on a crocheted monkey for my monkey.  It’s just the most adorable thing.  I’ll post a picture when I finish it as I got the pattern somewhere that said that I can’t post her pictures.  Even though I’ve stooped to stealing pictures before, I figure you’d rather see my version of the monkey anyway.  Not to mention I’d rather have a picture of my little monkey for posterity.

I’ve already got both of the ears, the mouth, and a good portion of the head done.  And it’s only taken me about an hour to get this far.  I’m thinking I’ll be able to finish it tomorrow night, unless something happens and I don’t work on it.  I should rephrase that: I think I’ll  be able to finish making all the parts tomorrow night.  I’ll need a third night to sew it together and stuff it.  I’ve never made anything that’s stuffable before, so who knows how that’s going to go…

What the heck?  My house seems to be proliferated with these nasty little fruit flies and the damn things keep flying up my nose!  Do I have candy up there or something?  Oh, lol.  Nose candy.  I don’t have the foggiest as to why I’ve got all these damn fruit flies.  I’ve had them ever since we moved here and it just bugs me to death.  Well, I guess maybe it’s better than the ants I had in my old apartment…teeny little black ants that would swarm my kitchen counters.  It was a writhing mass of black, and they would stick in my dishcloths that got left out.  Ugh, nasty.  Are fruit flies that consistently fly up your nose a good trade off?  I don’t know.

Jaymie

Currently reading:  IT by Stephen King

Me? When politics come up, I bow out of the conversation. One, people generally tend to feel strongly for or against certain parties, and will get very bent out of shape very easily when you disagree.  Two, I just don’t much care for politics. I got the gist of how the government is supposed to work (in theory) when I took Government as a senior in high school.  My first couple elections I was just thrilled to finally be endowed with the power to elect the next President.

But then life sunk in.  I began to see that the way the government is supposed to work and the way it does work are two different things.  I understand how the electoral college is supposed to work, and I fully support the concept: allowing for smaller states to have a bigger say rather than having all their votes be worthless next to the voters in the bigger, more populous states like New York and California.  It’s a great concept, in theory, but in actuality it’s a farce.  There’s not even a law that electoral votes have to coincide with the popular vote.  I mean, look at the mockery that was the 2000 election.  Exit polls, popular vote, electoral vote…they all mean nothing.  I think the whole thing was rigged.

This year in this election, I’m not voting.  Nope, I’m not.  And before ya’ll go spouting about how it’s my civic duty to vote, or how the women of this country worked so hard and so long to earn me the right to vote, let me tell you: It’s not going to help.  I will not change my mind.  Well, actually, it’s now 8:00pm and I doubt I could run down to the polling center and vote anyway, but that’s not the point.

I do not get a charge out of either of the candidates.  In fact, I would prefer that neither one of them became the next president.  Not that I want Dubya to stay in office, that would be treacherous.  I just don’t think either one of them will significantly change the way our country is going.  Which is down the tubes, at a very fast rate, in case you didn’t know that already.

I can’t, in good conscience, put my support behind either Obama or McCain.  I don’t like Obama because I don’t like what he stands for, partly because he’s Democratic and I’m generally Republican, but that’s not really the barrier here.  I could and would vote Democratic if I felt it was in our best interest.  It’s just that I’m Pro-Life and Democrats are decidedly Pro-Choice, and that’s just not an issue that I waffle on, you know?  Well, I could be waffling.  I think I might be waffling.  At least as it pertains to others.  For me, I’m completely, expressly, categorically, unequivocally Pro-Life.  I will not ever, under any circumstances, choose to abort my unborn child, it’s murder.  But for others…well, I’m beginning to see that it’s really not my place to say, “Hey, you can’t have an abortion, it’s murder.”

But this is beside the point.  I don’t like Obama, and McCain…well, that guy creeps me out.  I’m not going to vote him into the highest office in our country.

Ron Paul, he’s who I wanted to vote for.  He had plans to change things, and I mean really change things.  He was going to work on cleaning up our environment, he was going to attempt to take the corruption out of our government.  I saw him on a documentary (don’t ask me what it’s called, I can’t remember) about income taxes and how they are not actually, legally required of us.  He said that there was no law that we must pay income taxes, it’s not ANYWHERE.  I firmly believe that Ron Paul is not on the ballot today solely because he is a good guy.  He had every intention of cleaning this country up, bringing it back to it’s roots, and those big corporations who would have to change their procedures under his administration, thereby losing lots and lots of money…well, they didn’t want him in office.  They’ve got loads of money, lobbyists, and power, and they don’t want that to change.  After all, money is power and they’ve got plenty.

I would even have voted for Ralph Nader.  Not as good a choice in my mind, but compared to the other two quacks, he’s like a little piece of sunshine.  Alas, he’s not on the ballot either.

I might not vote, but I still have the right to complain about how this country is falling apart.  Really, if they want me to vote, they should give me a candidate I would vote for.  In this election, I don’t care who wins.  It’s not apathy that causes me not to care, it’s accepting the inevitable.  We’re in a hole no matter who takes office.  Rather than obsessing about how large and deep that hole’s going to be, I’d rather just prepare myself and my family for what’s coming next, whatever that may be.

And thus ends my first, and hopefully last, post on politics. Probably it won’t be my last.  I occasionally get a little bent by what goes on these days, and it’s likely I’ll have another political post.  Never say never.

Oh, and ps – I’m not a feminist, so all those notable women of history who worked their butts off to earn me the right to vote wasted their time.  I’m perfectly happy sitting at home being the little wifey and raising my daughter.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Jaymie

Currently reading: Fox’s Earth by Anne Rivers Siddons

I watched Rob Zombie’s version of the first Halloween movie on Wednesday night.  It was alright.  I find it strange that I love love love horror films, but just can’t stand watching any movie that has lots of swearing in it.  This movie was all ‘f’ this and ‘f’ that……all over the place for the first twenty minutes!  Even the kids had filthy mouths!  I almost turned it off, but then I realized that the “talking” part of the movie was almost over and we were getting to the part where little Mikey Myer went nutso.  I got a kick out of the fact that Rob Zombie thought it would be more interesting to show more of his younger life and not just focus on the part where he comes back seventeen years later.  Kinda put the “17 years later” part into perspective a little bit more.

I also watched The Reaping that night.  Also a good movie.  Not really scary though.  It was a little bit creepy watching them walk around in a river of blood, but whatcha gonna do?  And the girl, wow.  I’ve always liked AnnaSophia Robb.  First time I ever saw her was as Violet Beauregard, and then again in Bridge to Terabithia.  She’s an awesome actress for such a young one. I did like the way it had you going, thinking you knew exactly who the bad guy was, and then quick flipped it around and showed you that you were totally wrong.  And I loved the way it ended, with the “Holy crap, what am I going to do now?” look on her face.  That was pretty cool.  Still, not scary.  I’d probably put it more under, I don’t know, suspense at most.

Thursday night I watched Session 9.  I had seen it on a Top 50 Horror Movies list and thought it sounded good.  I didn’t expect to find it anywhere, since I’d never heard of it before reading that list.  But when I happened to see it on the shelf at the video store, I snatched it right up!  I was surprised to see that Josh Lucas of Sweet Home Alabama and Glory Road fame was in it.  I like him.  He’s really nice to look at.  Another actor I was surprised to see in it was Brendan Sexton III.  The only other movie I have ever seen him in was Empire Records where he played Warren.  That is one of my most favorite movies!  I have to say though, that Mr. Sexton didn’t really grow in his acting skills in between films.  It was like watching a grown up Warren in a not-so-scary scary movie.  Good movie, odd little twist, but not scary.

Friday night it was time for the ‘big’ marathon. I watched Stephen King’s Storm of the Century.  I’ve seen this movie before, it’s one of my favorite movies, though it’s really not scary.  I got this because it’s also a movie that Zeb happens to like, and I thought that if I started the marathon with something that he liked, he would sit and watch with me.  Not the case.  He watched less than half and went to bed.

I also watched The Orphanage. This is a foreign film by Guillermo Del Toro, who also made Pan’s Labrynth.  It was good, but it wasn’t scary.  The storyline was awesome, and it surprised me with the turn it took, and I did jump but once when a door slammed and there was a shadow on the other side of it.  But I would place this more under the category of drama than horror, seeing as the ending is more sad than anything.  But like I said, not scary.

So, after those two movies, it was supposed to be Pulse.  I sat there looking at the DVD and contemplating whether or not to watch.  It was only 2am, I had plenty of time left, but I just wasn’t in the mood anymore.

Maybe it was the fact that Zeb was getting up early the next morning to go to his Dad’s to help butcher rabbits, and that if I didn’t get to bed soon, I wouldn’t get to sleep next to him at all.

Maybe it was the fact that while Zeb was gone, if I was sleeping, Caelin would have been left alone the majority of the day.  How could that be a good idea?

Maybe it was the fact that the two nights leading up to my Scary Movie Marathon I had watched a total of  three other scary movies, and felt as though I’d watched enough.

Maybe it was the fact that while the two movies I watched were really good, they were not at all scary.  So I wasn’t really following along with the guidelines.

Maybe it was the fact that I was just bored with the whole thing.

Whatever it was, I went to bed at 2am.  I don’t feel bad that I did.  I don’t really feel bad that I had three remaining movies that I brought back to the video store unwatched.  After all, I got eight movies for $6.80, it’s not like I went broke getting these movies.  And two of the unwatched ones I got for free.  So, I don’t feel bad.  It was fun, but I don’t know if I’ll do it again.  And if I do, I certainly won’t make as big a deal out of it.

Jaymie

Currently reading:  The Last Town on Earth by Thomas Mullen

Then over the years we talked about building our own underground house.  Underground homes are far more energy efficient than anything currently being built for the average joe.  You’d have three feet of soil between your roof and the weather to insulate you.  An underground home, without extra heating or cooling, stays at a pretty constant 65° year round.  Since we rarely ever have our heater turned up past 65°, we wouldn’t have to do much in the way of heating, and what heating we did would be in a wood burning stove.  Our underground home shrunk from 2,000sqft down to a mere 1,100sqft……and that’s including the porch.

Just this weekend Zeb and I spent a lot of time looking at Jay Shafer’s Tumbleweed Tiny House Company website.  At first we were thinking that the the “tiny houses on wheels” would just be really cool for camping and road trips, but the more we looked at them, the more we thought, “Man, that would be really cool to live in”……as in year round.  We got ourselves really excited and ended up falling in love with the Lusby.  It’s this absolutely adorable tiny house on wheels that’s only 117sqft, not including the sleeping loft. I’m totally stealing these pictures, sorry.

Here’s an exterior shot.

Isn’t that just the cutest thing?  I’m in love, really I am.

Then there’s this shot of the dining room/kitchen area.  It looks pretty big, but really it’s not.  It’s only 6½’ x 6½’. That’s not so big.  If that room were completely empty, and my Zeb stretched out across it, he’d only have two inches left.

Then there’s this picture of the main floor bedroom.  Small adjustments can be made to the design, nothing structural of course.  But Zeb and I were thinking that this bedroom would make a perfect sitting room seeing as there is no actual sitting area in the Lusby.  It’s not very big either, just enough room for a bench, and we were thinking we could put in a fold out table on the opposite wall, and build in a few bookcases along the walls.  I’ve got to have my books, you know.

We were also thinking that we would extend the loft over the porch area, making a second sleeping loft.  That way, we would have our own little loft, and Caelin would have hers.  Really, we would need to have separate sleeping spaces, don’t you think?  And with the downstairs sitting area, we three would each have our own personal space to escape to.

This is a picture looking from the sleeping loft to the “storage loft”, which is the one that we would extend to make a second sleeping loft.  They would end up both being the same size, which is big enough for a king size bed.  So, with a twin or a full, there would be room left over, though not much.  But it would be sufficient seeing that Zeb and I wouldn’t do much more than sleep in our loft, and Caelin would only have a twin bed in hers, leaving plenty of room to move around.  Only drawback: the loft height along the beam is 3’8″.  There will be no standing.

You can have all this for a mere $46,997.  But, it does come with a two burner stove, an on-demand hot water heater, a decent kitchen sink, a heater, an RV toilet, standing shower, and a small sink in the bathroom.  It can be hooked up to sewer and water just like any old camping trailer, and you just plug it in.  I think there might be options to have it set up with solar panels on the roof for the electric, but it could just be that I read of people doing that themselves.  And different toilets are an option, you could also get a composting toilet if you’re of that completely “green” type.  I like green, but not that much.

According to what we’ve read on the site, Jay will make some small changes to your Lusby, allowing it to be minimally personalized.  It takes about three months for them to build it for you, and then you can either have it shipped out from California at a whopping $4.00 per mile…or you could just drive on out there yourself to pick it up, having a wonderful cross-country camping vacation on your way home.  If you live on the other side of the country like we do, that is.

We measured and laid out some pennies on the floor the other day, just to see how small the sitting area really is……we honestly started to doubt this here dream.  I mean, it was already pretty doubtful when we saw the price tag, but then we thought, if we can get a ten year loan, we could totally pay for this.  Thing is, with the economy the way it is, and with lending the way it is, there’s really very little chance we’d get approved for this “luxury” vehicle.  Course, it wouldn’t be luxury to us, we’d live in it.  Maybe if we go to a small town bank, or the credit union we’re members of.  I don’t know.

All this thinking about moving into a teeny house with only 117sqft, plus maybe another 70 in the lofts, has left us thinking about storage, and space, and how much crap we have.  We would totally have to cut back on the amount of things we own.  But that is fodder for another post…

Jaymie

Currently reading: Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo

I have always loved autumn, it’s one of my four favorite seasons, tee hee.  I love watching the leaves turn, I love the smell of the neighbors burning leaves, I love the last little bits of fresh mown grass smell that you get before everyone’s done mowing their lawn for the winter.  I love the clean crisp smell of the air.  It’s this certain smell, not quite summery with it’s smell of warmth, and not quite wintery with it’s cold, snappy smell of snow.  It’s the smell of rotting leaves, fresh apples, and the ubiquitous smell of Halloween……fire.

Most people don’t associate the smell of wood fires with Halloween, but I do.  When I was a girl we would always go Trick or Treating with my mother’s best friend and her kids in this trailer park that they lived in.  There were these three houses that always had fires going for you to stop and warm up at.  But my favorite was the one where there was a real live witch sitting there stirring her brew in a cauldron over the fire.   Halloween just isn’t Halloween without that witch.

We stopped going there when I was about twelve or so, and being so young, I never really paid attention to how we got to my mother’s friend’s house.  So, I don’t have the foggiest idea where to begin looking for that witch.  If I knew, I might possibly allow Caelin to dress up for Halloween and go Trick or Treating.  But alas, I don’t.

I miss Halloween.  We don’t do it anymore because we decided that our children didn’t need a year’s worth of candy in one night, and we didn’t need to encourage dressing up like ghosts and goblins.  Caelin’s never had a “real” Halloween, but I’m really not sure that she misses it.

Every year we get pizza and soda and we hide away in the dark of our apartment watching movies and pretending not to be home when the Trick or Treaters are out.  That’s our Halloween.  Hiding in the dark.

This year we will do the same.   But this year, I’m adding a little something to it: a Scary Movie Marathon.  I’ve always loved scary movies, and I’ve always loved the creepy side of Halloween.  Yeah, I know, I said we didn’t want to encourage it.  But that was when we were good two shoes “christians”, and now we’re just us and I sorta miss Halloween.  I know I won’t talk Zeb into taking Caelin Trick or Treating, but at the very least, I can stay up all night watching scary movies.  Right?

Zeb doesn’t like them, so he’ll be hiding in the bedroom wishing I’d turn off the ‘tv’ and come to bed.  He’s taken it upon himself to make a list of movies I should watch, and it includes The Smurfs, The Little Mermaid, and Elmo Saves Christmas, among others.  I think his idea of scary is a little lacking.   I also think I’m going to throw out his list and go with my own.

So, that’s my plan for celebrating Halloween:  hide in the dark and watch scary movies and hope at least one of them actually scares me.

Jaymie

Currently reading:  The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

I ordered the history timeline that was supposed to go with History 1 that I didn’t know I was supposed to buy.  They don’t say you need it, it’s not in the same place as the text and tests and answer keys.  It’s under “History Timelines” in another section, with no connection whatsoever to the rest of the curriculum.  I didn’t know I needed this timeline until after I had the curriculum and had gotten to Lesson 6 where it was listed in the materials needed for that lesson.   Huh, wha?   Grrrrr.

I ordered this timeline to go with the History 2 timeline, thinking that it might be nice for Caelin to be able to see when these new things happened in relation to the things she’d already learned.  Good thinking, right?

I get all the history stuff together, all the science stuff together, and then I think “I should take a look at those timelines, I can put them up now and she can gaze at them and review what she’s learned.”

So, I pull the timelines out of the box…………HOLY TIMELINES, BATMAN!

There are so many things wrong here.

1) they have two completely different timelines for 1st and 2nd grade, so they’re hardly compatible. It goes from marking the years as 1100, 1200, 1300…etc, to marking them 1675, 1700, 1725, 1750…and on.  But I can make it work.  I hope.

2) I need a dining room with enough consecutive wall space to rival the length of a football field.  No kidding.  These things are super huge, and each section is two feet long.  There are fifteen of them.  That’s thirty feet!  Just for a timeline!

3) After using up all that space, it only goes to 1800……where’s the rest of time?  Did we cease to exist in 1801?

I got a different timeline that’s for grades 2-5 and that thing is nice and small, and it’s made to be vertical rather than horizontal. It goes from 1625 to 2000.  Now that’s good use of space! And this one cost half as much! Why couldn’t they do that for the other two timelines?  Is it too difficult to make things smaller?  Or is it just that they think first and second graders are blind and need 9″x12″ pictures to represent one little moment in history?

If I’d only known, I would have saved my $25 and not gotten the 1st grade timeline and just waited for the wonderful day when I had another sweet little monkey in the 1st grade.  But now I have to use it.  I didn’t pay good money just to put it away in a box and not use it.

Balls.

So, here I go, embarking on a wild ride trying to figure out just where I might have the wall space for a seventy-five foot long timeline.  I’d have it, if I didn’t have photos on the walls, and bookcases.  Here. Let me get rid of all my family memorabilia, and don’t forget, I’ve got to get rid of all my books too, just so that I’ll have the space to put up your humongous timeline, that I paid $50 for, just so that I can teach my child the history of the United States.  For two years.  Gee, thanks. 

Jaymie

Currently reading:   The Shining by Stephen King

Luckily we had a nice little gas heater in the trailer.  It’s Mom and Dad’s.  Very cute little thing.  It’s called a  Mr. Heater.  Really.  Zeb and I momentarily wondered if we’d stepped into Spaceballs or something.  Remember?  Mr. Coffee.  Mr. Radar.  Mr. Heater……

Anyway, we had a great time.  We nearly froze at night, we had a more than sufficiently stinky outhouse, I burnt the soup, we ended up caving and getting a 12-pack of Killian’s, and we went out to dinner two nights in a row.  Normally we don’t go out to dinner when we’re camping, but some silly lady packed a butt load of brats and we were all sick of them by Friday noon. That left five more meals, three of which were brat-worthy.   *shudder*  Still can’t handle brats.

We all came home with a great big case of indigestion, upset tummies, and gas.  Whoa, the gas.  Why do we always do that?  We head out to go camping, we pack healthy fruits and veggies, I make a huge salad to last a couple days, pack all the yummiest dressings, we get a couple of “camping” foods like burgers and brats, but those are supposed to go with salad.  We never eat the salad, we eat very little of the veggies, but we just pig out on all the stuff we’re not supposed to eat and end up feeling horridly icky.  Why?  Every time.  We set out with the best of intentions, and we end up caving and eating crap.  Well, at least this time we managed to make it without buying any buns……though we did get burgers one night, and those come on buns.  Dang!  Didn’t even make it without that either!

Caelin had a blast.  She ran around in the woods.  She piled up sticks.  She used some of the firewood to attempt a fort, which didn’t go so well,  as she couldn’t seem to make it big enough to fit herself inside.  She rode her bike up and down and up and down the road.  She went on “slow hikes”, I have no idea what those are, something she made up while we were there.  She looked for interesting things.  She ran into a lot of spiky caterpillars, which Daddy said were poisonous although I have no idea myself.  She read her books.  And best of all, every night she would be so tired that she would conk out by 8:00pm.  Every. Night.

Now we’re home, we’re warm, we’re all extremely thrilled to be sleeping in our own beds.  And I’m trying to catch up on laundry.  We’ve been home almost a week, and I’m still doing laundry.  You spend a week having the time of your life, and you come home to two weeks of laundry.  It’s really not logical.

Jaymie

Currently reading:   Where Are You Now? by Mary Higgins Clark

I’ve been missing her.  She’s just not ‘right’ lately.  She’s so wrapped up in a family matter (that does not involve us) that she hasn’t been visiting or calling or inviting us over to visit them.  It’s been three months now.  Three months!  Usually we’re over there every other week.  In the summer it’s at least once a month since she works weekends at the park and it’s hard for her to ‘entertain’ when she gets home from work.

Anyway, focus on the good stuff:  I’m going camping!

I’m really looking forward to this weekend.  It’s supposed to be quite chilly out, highs in the low 60s, lows in the upper 30s.  So we’re going to need to bring about a million and one blankets, haul out all the winter clothes of sweatshirts and the like, and Zeb’s going to need to cut a lot of firewood.  And boy, do I mean a LOT!

We’re leaving on Thursday after Zeb gets out of work, at least that’s the plan right now.  I wouldn’t mind going tomorrow, but I don’t know how that will work.  Zeb has to work Thursday and Friday, but he doesn’t have school those nights, so that will work out nice.  Caelin will love getting to run around and play outside all day, and I’m hoping to sit by the fire, toasting my little tootsies, and reading my book.  I’m looking forward to the weekend when Zeb gets to be there with me, just hanging out by the fire.  Probably he’ll be doing homework, but that’s okay too.  Sitting quietly by the fire is very enjoyable.

I’m hoping the weekend stretches out, feels nice and long, so that I can have a feeling of having been gone for awhile.  I always like that.  Once, for our seventh anniversary, we went to Canada and stayed at this really nice campground in one of their rustic cabins.  There was nothing in there but a bunk bed, a full size bed, two benches, and some hooks.  That’s it.  Oh, and one electrical outlet.

It was the most wonderful weekend we have ever had.  It stretched almost to infinity.  We were only there from Friday evening to 10am Sunday, and it felt like we’d been there a week, at least.  It was so great.  And Canada is so beautiful.  I would really like to go back.  Maybe next year for a family vacation.  Maybe we can start saving in January and see if we can afford to rent a cabin.  I found this really awesome place online that has the coolest little housekeeping cabins right on a lake.  I mean, right on the lake.  It’s practically right outside your door.  And there was this other one I found, that we would just love to do, you rent a cabin that’s all alone on an island in the middle of nowhere.  Oh wait, that wasn’t Canada, that was up in the U.P.  Either way, it sounds awesome.  Having a whole island to yourself for a week……

Well, this has probably turned into my most boring post ever.  I remembered it had been awhile since I’d posted and I was feeling I probably should, but the only thing I could think to write about was that I’m going camping.  So, forgive me if I’ve bored you to death.  I really didn’t mean to.

Jaymie

Currently reading:  The Choice by Nicholas Sparks

This is the memory stick all her photographs are stored on.  So, in essence, she’s taken a picture of her pictures.

Quirky or not, she’s really enjoying herself and I’m really enjoying looking at what she’s done.  What’s more fun than to really see the world through the eyes of your child?  Yes, she takes pictures of pretty much anything, but sometimes there are pictures that just make you stop and think “What is she thinking right here?”

I don’t get this one, do you?  Maybe you have to be a child to understand it’s simplicity and beauty.  I mean, what’s more moving than a rock in a peanut butter jar covered with a doll shoe?

But, some are quite good.  Really.  Some are only good because she happened to get lucky and get a clear picture.  But there are a few where she’d set up a little still life and photograph it.

Pretty good, no?

There are also some that make me laugh.  She wouldn’t see the humor in it, because it’s more of an adult humor.  She sees a picture and thinks “Oh, this is cute” while I look at the exact same one and laugh.  I don’t do it to hurt her feelings,  really I don’t.  It’s just that I can’t help it.

Like this.  How would she see the humor in it?  Even some adults wouldn’t see it.  But I do, and so does Zeb.  The caption for this should read: “Kissie for ransom……she was still alive at 2:18……we want 4 dimes, 3 nickles, and 100 pennies for her safe return”  Do you see the humor now?

And then there are the attempts at a self-portrait.  We all know how hard it is to turn the camera around and take a good picture of ourselves.  You can’t see through the view finder, so you don’t know what the camera is actually pointing at.  You can’t see if it’s in focus either.  You could be too close, or too far away.  You don’t know how this is going to turn out until you’ve gotten the photo printed, or if you’re lucky and have a digital camera, you can look at it right away.  Sometimes they turn out pretty darn cute……

And sometimes they turn out to be the food for a great big belly laugh……

But mostly, all this picture-taking is a lot of fun.  It’s fun to try new things, and it’s great when you get to see a finished product.  Which is what makes photography so inviting.  If you really screw up, you can always blame it on the camera.  But if you get a great one, you can take full credit and sit back and say, “Man, am I good”.

Jaymie

Currently reading:   The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards

When we first moved in, I tried to do a load of laundry.  Literally, on the first day that we moved in.  In the midst of boxes and a partially unpacked kitchen, I tried to do laundry.  Notice I said “tried”.

My washer didn’t work.  It would do the wash, but it wouldn’t drain or spin.  So, since the maintenance office was closed for the weekend, my nasty clothes sat in a washer full of water for two days.  Yuck.  Monday morning I called the office and much later in the day someone came to check it.  The safety thingie bob was broken, you know, that thing that stops it from spinning when you open the lid?  It had broken off, so the washer was thinking the lid was up.  Ugh.

That got fixed, and things went on.  Over time I noticed that my dryer was becoming less and less efficient.  It occurred to me that I hadn’t emptied a lint trap since I moved in.  Yikes!  Imagine the amount of lint in that thing!  So I set about finding this lint trap.  This proved to be impossible.  It wasn’t on the door, it wasn’t in front of the door, it wasn’t on the top or on the side.  I looked all over the place.  No lint trap. I even had Zeb look for it.  All he got for his trouble was a burned finger.

I came to the conclusion that this model just didn’t have a lint trap.  A reasonable enough conclusion, I thought.  So I just gave up.  But, after awhile I realized, this thing just isn’t drying.  It had gotten to the point where I had to hang up all jeans and towels in various places throughout my house until they were mostly dry before putting them into the dryer.  This was really annoying.

I called the office yet again and said, “Is there a lint trap on my dryer?  And if there is, where the heck is it?”

Apparently, the people who made this particular model thought it would be just hilarious to fool all the consumers who purchased it by hiding the lint trap.  It’s there.  Really, it is.  It’s just that no one can find it, it’s hiding in plain sight, and you’d never think that was the lint trap.

I had to have the maintenance guy come up and show me where it was.  Hokey Pete, did I feel stupid.  I figured there had to be one somewhere, who’d make a dryer without a lint trap?  Zeb and I had both looked all over the damn thing and couldn’t find it.  Maintenance guy walks in, says, “Your lint trap’s right here” and points to this thing that looks just like the heating element at the back of the dryer.  Most of the time you find the lint trap in the door, or right in front of the door.  Mine, on the other hand, is disguised.  It’s this little plastic thingie bob that you pull out of the back and there’s a lint trap attached to the back of it.  Huh, who’d a thunk it?

And remember that burned finger Zeb got trying to find the lint trap?  He thought he’d gotten too close to the heating element.  But guess what?  Yup, you guessed it.  It was the lint trap.

So, the guy pulls it out and shows me how to open it.  Jeez Louise, that thing was crammed full of lint. The lint was literally four inches thick!  No wonder my dryer wasn’t drying!  Ugh.

But here’s the kicker.  Zeb came home, I showed him the trap and then the huge wad of lint that came out of it.  He said we should make paper out of it.  Yeah, right.  Like I have time for that.

Jaymie

Currently reading:  Hell House by Richard Matheson