Send some luck please

Before send out my plea for help, I do want to take a moment to point out that Girl Scouts is a great organization.

For the girls. Adults? Not so much!

GG has been in scouts for a few years now and she looks forward to each and every meeting. I have been a leader for almost 2 years now and I dread each and every meeting. The meetings with the girls as well as the leader meetings.

Tonight I get the pleasure of experiencing my very first sleepover as a leader.

Enter plea for help.....NOW!!!


Assuming we don't get lost, we should arrive a little after 6pm. From the time we arrive to 11pm, the schedule is packed. There will be ice skating, tie-dye shirt making, hot dog roasting and s'more making. I am looking forward to the activities. The other girls who will be there? I'm scared. The place where we are going can hold up to 600 people for these overnight trips. That's a lot of girls all between the ages of 5 and 9.


Enter plea number 2..... NOW!!!


At the end of the night, oh, say, around 11:15 a movie will be shown on the ceiling of the arena. I don't know who thought it was a good idea to show a movie this late a night, but whatever. The best part is, we all get to sleep on astroturf to watch the movie.


Enter plea number 3.... NOW!!!


Assuming we all make it through the night, we can all wake up bright eyes and bushy tailed at 7am for breakfast. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned this, but I am anything but a morning person. People who know me refuse to talk to me until I've had at least one cup of coffee. The people I am spending the night do not know this. It could get ugly!

You might think this sounds like a fantabulous time, and it sort of does. You might also think that GG and I can return home Saturday morning (they kick us out of there at 8) and sleep all day. This one you are wrong. Both of my kids have soccer games so we will be at the field from 10:30 to 12:30.


Enter plea number 4.... NOW!!!!


If I make it through the night, I fear I won't survive the morning. Please wish me luck and keep me in your thoughts during what could be a tough time.



Until next time (hopefully)....

Our own aviary

In my city we have a wonderful aviary. There are all kinds of birds there. I love going in to the tropical room. It's like Where's Waldo, except with birds. You could stand in that room for hours and never see the same bird twice.

But my absolute favorite are the Lories. Those are Lories over there on the left. Everybody gets a cup of nectar before walking into their room. They perch on your shoulders and arms, as well as drink the nectar from your cup. Loud, but beautiful birds.


I have decided that this summer we may not visit the aviary. The price of everything is going up. I'm ready to have another child just so I could sell it to be able to put gas in our car.

Instead of going to the Aviary, the kids and are going to line our camping chairs on the back porch and watch what is already out there.

Last week I shared pictures of the robin nest forming on a shelf on our back porch. This thing is a monstrosity! Originally I decided that robins are the hoarders of birds. Other than twigs, there were wrappers and dryer sheets up in that nest. Upon further investigation, I realized that they are not hoarders. They are very resourceful birds.

The mass of twigs, from what I can figure, is a make-shift tree. Building on the shelf provides stability. Tucked in the way back of the mass of twigs and garbage is an actual nest.




I'm sure before we know it, that little nest will be full of tiny blue eggs. Let's just hope that the birds don't try to fly in the house. Being right next to the back door, this could be a real possibility.

Not only do we have the robins to sit and watch, but I have noticed the beginnings of yet another nest. This one is being built by tiny birds. Wrens perhaps? Their nest is tucked up in the awning of our porch roof. I can't take a picture and I can't knock it out even if I wanted to. And I kind of do!

These wrens are so skittish. I can see them sitting in the trees with nest materials in their beaks, patiently waiting for me or the kids to disappear. So different from the robins who, quite frankly, couldn't care less.

This summer we will be bird watching from the comfort of our back porch. You are more than welcome to join us. I may have to charge you a small fee. I do need to put gas in the car if I want to get food to feed my family.


Wordful Wednesday by

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Until next time....

I should be fired

I want to start out by saying that, yes, we had a wonderful Easter. But not without some bumps in the road.

The morning started off entirely too early. My husband is one awesome man because he typically lets me sleep in on the weekends. Even though he so graciously does that, I still set my alarm. If left to my own devices, or lack of, I could sleep well past noon. Yesterday morning I woken up by little voices more than an hour before my alarm was set to go off. Combine that with staying up to midnight the night before waiting for said little voices to fall into dreamland. It wasn't pretty. I wasn't pretty!

Little Dude had already found his basket. I heard the husband telling him to stop looking for things until I woke up. That was my cue because I know my kids have less patience than I do. I rolled out of bed, curled up on the couch, and watched them through one open eye as they started looking for the hidden eggs.

In the process of looking for the eggs, GG found her basket cleverly hidden inside an old book bag. Right at this moment it occurred to me the hula hoop the bunny was supposed to hide was still hanging in the basement. Thank goodness she got wrapped up in helping Little Dude find the one last egg. I slipped downstairs to grab the hula hoop, tip toed back upstairs, and hid it behind the door she had looked behind no less than 10 times for her basket. Easter has made me realize that my kids are anything but observant when they are told to find things. She never once questioned why the hula hoop didn't' appear until the 11th time she looked behind that door.

By 10am, I should have been fired. I think someone gave me leeway because I had hard boiled eggs successfully. The first time! That's twice in 8 years now. Not bad!

Had I been fired then, the events towards the end of the afternoon would never have happened.

The rest of the morning at home went out without a hitch, as well as the few hours spent at my in-laws. An hour after we arrived at my mom's house, things took a turn. Thank goodness I was the only one who noticed.

You see, after leaving my in-laws house, we had to stop home for a few things. The husband wanted to lay down for a few minutes before we went to my mom's house. During that time, Little Dude thought it was a good idea see how loud he could fart, thus grossing his sister out. Quite frankly it grossed me out, too! I didn't think much of it until a few hours later at my mom's.

While chasing his sister around the house (damn the layout of my mom's house that leads to running in circles!), I caught sight of the back end of my dear, sweet boy. I'm not ruling out what I saw as evidence of his farting competition with himself, but I'd prefer to think of it as him sitting on something.

Never again will my boy wear khaki pants. I should be fired for this!


So, how was your Easter?



Until next time....

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

Spring is one of my favorite seasons. Flowers are blooming, the grass is growing and turner greener by the day. It is also the season where I can start sending the kids outside to play. Without bundling them up like Randy from Christmas Story.

The kids have had plenty of days where they can play outside. They have even had recess outside quite a bit. However, they still can't do the super important things. And by super important, I mean the activities we pay for.

The Spring Soccer season started in the beginning of April. By this point, both kids should have had 5 practices and 4 games. In reality, Little Dude has had no more than 1 practice and 1 game. GG hasn't had any practices yet, but she was able to get a game in.

So far, every Tuesday this month it has rained. It has gotten to the point that GG's coach doesn't say the word "cancelled" anymore when he calls each and every Tuesday. He now says "It's Tuesday so of course it's raining. I'll see you Saturday." I feel bad for the poor girl. She loves the sport and really wants to get out there and play.

As for Little Dude, I've come to realize that his coach is a wuss. It doesn't matter that he is fresh out of the army. He's a wuss! Some of his cancellations are legit - it really is raining. Last night? There was no reason for that. Yes, there was a chance of rain, but we all know how weather (wo)men are - only right 50% of the time! It never did rain. Suck it up man! Let's just hope Little Dude doesn't call him a wuss because I may or may not have said that statement aloud after the phone call.


This weekend is supposed to be nice. I'm thinking I should probably take some pictures of the kids playing. The way this season is going, who knows when I'll get the chance again!



Until next time....

Tweet, tweet

When I first noticed this, I thought that birds were smart. Up until last Fall w had a cat that lived on our back porch. The cat has since moved onto the big litter box in the sky. I thought the birds were smart because they noticed this, therefor thinking it was ok to make a nest on our back porch.




It's not the best picture, but it was the only one I could get of the bird in it's nest. In case you can't tell, that's a robin. I her they're supposed to bring luck. I hope so!

For a few days I watched the nest being built. I could see the birds flying past our dining room window to the shelf on the wall. If I stood far enough back in the yard, they would be daring enough to build while I watched.

Just when I thought these birds were smart, they blew my theory right out of the water.


This is the most recent picture of the monstrosity of a nest. It's actually a little bigger than this, if you can believe that.



Yes, that is a plastic wrapper up in there. Probably not safe! I didn't dare mess with the nest. Thankfully the plastic wrapper fell out. The dryer sheet? Not so much!

To further prove my "birds are actually dumb" theory, I would also like to point out that right before this picture was taken, one of the robins delivering more twigs (like there aren't enough up there already) completely missed it's landing point. Instead of the nest, it flew smack into my dining room window. Smooth, bird. Real smooth!


Wordful Wednesday by

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Until next time....