Saturday, August 23, 2008

Since I Work in a Library...

I found this of interest...

Hey Steph and Leila, perhaps a new job for Carol and Jill? Get them to be bounty hunters on the side! Gotta love the mug shot, because you know, she is just so remorseful...

Things That Make Me Happy

A cup that was sent to me, a real surprise from Jenny...It goes with me every morning!

My friend and cohort in making everyone in town mad! lol, brought these to me the morning of our reconsolidation meeting! It made my day and everyday that I look at them I just smile! Its the little things sometimes eh?

A letter to myself

Today is my birthday. I have been having a terrible time with this. I don't really know why. You know, since I am only turning 29 again...for the 7th time.

I understand the desire to perfect our bodies, to erase the effects of time on them. Because sometimes I even shock myself when I look in the mirror, looking a lot more haggard than I remember myself to be! I guess that is what makes me have to face the hands of time…which also makes me face my mortality, neither of which are nice realities.

I notice that I pay a lot more attention to the Lorielle ads, and how old the flawless actresses are…I notice how plastic surgery has become a norm in our society, even for teens, much less those of us who seem to be sagging with the ages. But it makes me wonder, if we keep altering our bodies, then in effect aren't we making ourselves obsolete?

If I have earned every mark on my body, then isn’t every scar both inside and out, the essence of who I am? They have all been with me on my, now 36 year jaunt on this earth, and it is kind of weird to imagine erasing them the way many people do with boob jobs, face lifts, lip puffing and all the other face and body altering surgeries that people volunteer for to erase the hands of time.

I was visiting my grandmother yesterday, there was a book in the main building that was called "Getting Old is Not for Sissy's" and it had pictures of elderly athletes. I mean we are talking a 90 year old taking karate...an 83 year old open water swimmer. It was sort of awe inspiring...and it struck me, that I must be a sissy. But also made me realize that instead of worrying so much about what the hands of time are doing to me, I should revel in the path of destruction it has left on my body…it tells my story.

The older I get the more scars I have, and wear shows on my body a little more obviously. I can look at my knees and tell that I played field hockey, (I can tell by their creaking too when I go upstairs, it sounds like they are having a full fledged Rice Crispies conversation.) I can look at my three baby belly (that is no longer fit for public viewing, not that it ever could have been in the Louvre to begin with...) and know what I have to show for it. I look at the worry lines growing on my forehead, and I am pretty sure that there are three of them, and they are appropriately named after my three kids. I have a deep crevice growing between my eyebrows, an unfortunate inheritance, that is deep enough to go swimming in if I look up at the sky when it rains and I have very affectionately blamed my husband for that one…

But its not just the stress, I have that scar on one of my knees left from “catamaraning” down a big hill on my skate board with David Sundberg when I was growing up. We were too fool hearty or just too dumb to bail when we got to the curve and ended up a tangle of blood and limbs as we skidded off skateboards and onto the road. We were pretty proud of those scars…and bragged about them the rest of the summer.

All scars aren't physical either. Broken hearts, over lost loves, lost babies, even tragedies in our world have all left their mark as well. While those are not scars that any plastic surgeon could ever take care of, they surely show as well as the others by how I live and who I am.

I can remember taking a class in College where we had to write a paragraph on all the things that we would change about our past if we had a chance...A paragraph? I think mine was rivaling Tolstoy's War and Peace.

In amazement at the dissertations that lay before her, our professor said, the important thing to remember is that if you change something about your past, or something about who you have been, you negate who and where you are now. Everything that we have done has led us to where we are today, and everything that we have experienced, has made us who we are today. To change those things, to erase that history, and would change our reality today.

An interesting concept because in many ways, I don't think that the fabric of my being would be changed if I could just remove that extra ass I have attained through the years, or that the face of history would be altered if I could just have NOT been as much of a self absorbed jack ass in college. But then I think, maybe it would.

Maybe being a self absorbed jack ass at 20 makes me all the more empathetic to the world’s plights at 36. Or having to deal with a growing rear-end makes me face the fact that we aren’t 20 forever, and how much do I have pinning to my looks anyway? There ought to be more to worry about in this world than my thighs rubbing together.

So I guess getting a tummy tuck is out of the question. Being that self-absorbed and idiotic when I was in my 20's means that I get it that spending that kind of money on eliminating the fat that my children helped to create, would ultimately mean that I think my fat belly is worth more than the people in India, or Africa, (or even Portland for that matter) who can't eat because they don't have enough expendable cash...and then, what would that say about me?

Scar-less, both in body and heart, maybe means non-existent...and just perhaps, projecting that, would show my kids, that there is too much out there in this world, and in your life, to stay stuck in your own head for the entirety of it.

So happy birthday to me…but I am still saying I am 29 again…because that is how old I feel!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

More Scenes From the Trellises

Hmmmmm.....someone has been painting and staining too much, and needs to get to some processing....
Preferably before the fruit flies carry the house away.



Here are my apple trees that are literally bent over because htey have so many apples on them. I figure they may be early this year since you know...it has been in the 40's at night...IN AUGUST. Now they have ripened too early./a> And lastly, for my friends and family in the Biology division...here is another coolio bug. I believe that it is a Green Darner or Anax junius to be exact...impressed with me yet?

The "Procedure"

Last Thursday I has a "procedure" done at the hospital... they call it that, because "rip your guts out through your mouth and then send you home" is not PC. (And probably would have made me run from them kicking and screaming)

They gave me that stuff that makes you forget what happened. I don't remember, but when the Dr came to me after the procedure and said "do you remember that?" and I said "no." Then she replies "That is good because it wasn't easy for you, you had a hard time"

This is when I think to myself...IF I AM NOT SUPPOSED TO REMEMBER WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME???

My imagination is far worse than what probably really happened. I am imagining Nurse Ratchet holding me down and me flailing about to no avail. Medical equipment flying around the room in a stand off of wills. (See, people should not leave things to my imagination)

But because our insurance in this country has such confidence in our abilities to recover, I was sent home about 30 minutes after. I am pretty sure that the hospitals hands are tied, and when they send people home carrying their own kidneys, telling them to come back tomorrow to finish the job, its all OK, and everyone understands that Anthem is so poor that they can't house people over night... IN A PLACE TO HOUSE SICK PEOPLE!

(No, I really didn't need to stay; I was just getting my rant on. Because where would I be, if I just accepted things as they are???? hmmmm?)

Anyway I kind of didn't realize that my body seems to react to medication pretty majorly...so when they had Jamie drive me home I thought, surely I will become less drowsy when we get home. NOPE. I slept the whole way home from 3:30 until 8 that night. Got up, ate something, watched Phelps, went back to bed, and Jamie had to drag my butt out of bed in the morning when he went to work so that our children would have adequate supervision. (Not that I am adequate supervision as you may have noticed!)

I didn't totally wake up until the next day; which leads me to my next story...

Stay Tuned for: "I am Claiming Temporary Insanity" when I introduce you to the color scheme of my new addition.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Stay Tuned for...

more. I have been rather intermittent about this whole thing lately, (or so I have heard from a few complainers who ought to get their butt over here and help me paint) but with company, the harvest coming in and the final painting, staining, fighting, and throwing things in order to move into the new addition by my birthday, well, it just has been a little bit of an Aleve moment. (which I am popping daily to the limit they allow!)

I do realize that I am certainly not changing any history here with this thing, but believe it or not there are a few who depend on my blog to make them feel better about their lives, by reading about how jacked up mine is! Yeah Jen, I bet you didn't think I knew! :-)

In the mean time things to ponder in pop culture...

1.The necessity in this world for count them...4 biographical books about Tom Cruise? I mean how much crazy can you write about? (as I type...but I am telling you guys, he is his own universe of unstable crazy.)

2.What is going to happen in season three of Six Feet Under? Which I have been renting from the library and apparently everyone else in the area is at the same spot because I am 4th in Queue for the 3rd disk...and I think my head is going to pop off if I don't find out if the creepy stare guy is going to do something bad to Claire, or if the mother is going to resort to a life time of crime and shoplifting...I mean these are pertinent details to my life...and I have to wait????? (wow mom, that was a WAY run on sentence)

3. WHY, when I really want to not like Tori Spelling for all the obvious reasons, do I find her oh so amusing and funny...because really? When I am on my tread mill, I should absolutely be challenging my feeble brain with things like the History channel and National Geographic, learning how the found the Titanic, and how the Mayans did brain surgery thousands of years ago...instead I am feeding it Poptarts and Ho-Ho's by watching Tori Spelling have babies on TV.

4. Why someone hasn't invented a roller that doesn't give you gray hair by splattering paint as you roll ceilings, walls, children...what ever is in front of you in your 24 hour a day painting stupor...Oh wait, they have...Professional painters...but they cost money that we don't have...OH WELL, gray it is.

So there are my pop culture questions of the day, to tide everyone over until my real life can just take a chill pill (hows that for taking you back to our beloved 80's?) for a few days so that my mangled brain can process something other than fumes from stain and paint cans.

Friday, August 15, 2008

I Like Pancakes But....

Some people have way too much time, and technology at their disposal...

Got this thanks to Dooce. Who knew that you could rhyme so much with Syrup? Why I found this a pertinent 3 minutes of my life that I needed to pass on to you all...I am not sure, but I will just blame it on happy drugs that I had yesterday...(oh wait, I think I already blamed something on that today...hmmmm....wait, I am thinking....it may take me about 3 minutes and 45 seconds...)


OK, I am just dumb. But I bet Jenny is laughing...HEY Jen...I will say that as your reference...she finds humor in my idiocy...hows that????

Brad's Garage Addition Update #11

OK, whew, we are in the home stretch. We got more behind because of the rain in that the dry wall mud wouldn't dry, so we are going to do the sanding on Monday. The Bathroom switch hopefully on Wednesday and the Carpet on Thursday which means....My Birthday present is MOVING! yeah! I am totally OK with that. All 5 of us in two rooms is getting to be a little close. My kids would have never made it in George Washington's house...His mom would have killed my three, Cherry Trees or not!*



We have garage doors...however, Jamie and I laugh because right now they are like the brand spankin' new sneakers that you wear on the first day of school that kind of glow! I made the mistake one time in college of wearing my new kicks to a party where they had a black light. Everyone laughed because all they could see was my shoes walking around the room...no hiding that night! ANYWAY, when we repaint the trim back to white, not dirt infested white, it should look better...or we will paint the doors, haven't gotten that far yet.




Hopefully our time line will hold true. We will continue to update as we can.



* For those of you not getting this reference, my husbands family lives near George Washington's birthplace and we took the girls there, it essentially was one room (maybe 2) with a stove..and Marshall was quite concerned about the sleeping conditions...(she was only 6)

My Agriculture Soap Box

This article scares the pants off me...(although most articles about the way that we are destroying our planet do...) Somehow when I was growing up I sort of tended to believe the end of time would be in a time far, far, away that I didn't have to worry about it. Perhaps that is the precise attitude that got us in the situation that we are in. Now I read all these articles, (albeit some are trying to alarm us into action,) and I feel like I am leaving a heap of tangled twine that my kids are going to be in a time crunch to untangle, and I am not so sure that they will be ale to do it.

That is a demon for all of us to deal with though. My big issue here, is the use of farmer. (I know, you are wondering what kind of happy juice they gave me yesterday to knock me out huh!)

I may be wrong here, but the majority of small farmers I know, are not the ones that are contributing to the major pollution of the waters through run off. I think that articles need to start qualifying the word farmer. Are they meaning the farmers that are struggling to compete with the huge Government subsidized animal mills and vast grain farmers? Because I think that is a major disservice to many, many productive family farms out there. Small farmers tend to be better stewards of the land, tending to use much more sustainable practices. (It only makes sense for them to.)

My problem here, is that we make this sweeping generalization that “Farmers” are the problem here…even if they don’t mean it. I just get a little tired of that. We create this stereotype of the farmer in the overalls with the wheat hanging out of their mouth being a polluting dimwit… I won’t even begin to fight that stereotype because it is so absurd. However, our local farmers are paying a price for the decisions that the agribusiness lobbyists have made for them and the average citizen in America with a refrigerator too full to care what is going on.

The majority of our subsidies are going to the industrial-scale production facilities rather than to help the little guys. The little guy who goes to the local Agway and Southern States, who is a member of Farm Bureau because his/her parents were, will continue to be saddled with this reputation of being the reason we will have no more blue crabs to go with our beer. And it makes me sad. I would be willing to bet the people with the perfectly manicured lawns, that use chemicals on them to make sure that they have the most perfect one on the block, use plenty of fertilizer...but appearance is everything, so let’s find another scapegoat.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Or is it Babarino?

OMG, I think I know this guy....It has to be the guy at our local grocery store whom I call MR KOTTAIRE*...Some of you who live near me HAVE to know what I am talking about!

I say this in a loving way, honest I do...I hold nothing but fondness for a curly doo...promise, but come on now...don't expect us folk who were raised on "Welcome Back" not to notice!

* YES I do know that it is Kotter, I was trying to spell out how I say it...yeesh.

Reasons for an Ant Infestation

So I come home from another School Board meeting last night (I know real shocker!) and there is a strange Lego formation on my counter. I really didn't even think twice about it...the kids were playing with Lego’s, they weren't put away...(another real shocker!)

This morning while I am getting my coffee, my middle mischievous child is getting into the wheat thins. I, of course being the kind hearted, helpful parent that I am say:

"Hey, Get your hand out of there, if you want breakfast, fix yourself a bowl of cereal."
(Yeah I know, I AM the world’s greatest mom aren't I?)

Caroline looks at me all indignant and says:
"Moooooom it’s not for me, it’s for my Ants."

I want to remind you all that I haven't had my coffee yet, and I am facing a day of fasting**, neither of which makes Pie a happy girl, or the sharpest tool in the shed for that matter.

After about 2 minutes of looking at the contraption, then at Caroline, and then at my floor where the Jeff’s Way Battalion of Ants are marching in through the doors to attack my kitchen, I start to flip out. Looking inside her ant house, I find ground up crackers, and yes, about 5 ants…she not only built them a house, but is feeding them.

Since we have started construction we have had a steady stream of Ant Armies attacking our house. We have battled them stealthily, but now I realize that we have had a child in our house aiding and abetting the enemy. I am not sure if there is a punishment for that kind of treason… I am still looking for one.

However, from the Ants perspective, they probably feel that they are in a prison camp as they are thrown into a small cell together and have large wheat thins hurled at their heads…They will die hero’s to their kind I guess, having gone to get food and never returned.

**Its just me, but if you are going to schedule a procedure where someone has to fast for 7 hours before hand, don’t you think you would schedule it in the morning? OH NO, my appointment is at 2, let me tell you what a raving lunatic, head spinning, nasty human being I am going to be by 2…(I know I am whining when there are lots of people that don’t eat for days at a time…I just get really, really, frighteningly crabby with out food)…Jamie is going to be armed with a big stick and a cage when he comes to pick me up for my appointment!

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

AHHHH I Am Blinded

By a strange yellow orb in the sky...what could it be?

The sun maybe? Good because I was starting to feel like maybe I missed the Ark.

Things That Make You...

Want to push a stack of books onto someones foot and say "OH, whoops, I didn't see you there!"


1: Leila: "The sit down computers are all being used right now, you can have a stand up one"

Extremely Obnoxious Patron (EOP) "So I can't use one?"

Leila: "I am sorry all the computers are being used right now, it will be 45 minutes or so until one is free"

EOP: "So I have to use these? I have been shopping on my feet all day, I am tired."

Leila: "I am sorry all the computers are currently being used you will have to use a stand up one"

EOP: "So I can't use one?"

I am still not sure when this line of questioning ended...probably when Leila went into the back to drown herself in herbal popcorn to keep from punching the lady in the face.

2: Sneeze Wheeze, wipe your nose with your hand and then hand the book to me with the SAME hand...

Yes, THANK YOU for introducing the black plague to me and my family, when it kills me I will haunt you from the grave.


3. Again with the EOP...So, Um, do you think if you hit that key harder it will work better???

A Scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Picture it: The serenity of the garden, a beautiful blue sky, nice breeze, the sound of the birds in the woods as you attempt to fight blight. (My summer long battle)


and your 7 year old running toward you screaming with blood all over her face and dripping onto her shirt.


ahhhh the serenity of parenthood.


So just when I expect to see a masked man wielding a chainsaw come chasing behind her, she starts laughing...and I realize...oh wait, my child has not been mauled by a psychopath...her front tooth fell out.


I have yet to figure out why this particular child seems to bleed so profusely from the mouth every time a tooth leaves her body...some how it is like her teeth decide to end their lives in tragic and melodramatic way...they must be in the acting business...


Yup my child has graduated from snaggle tooth to toothless...


***I wrote this on 8/2, both when I still had TIME, and when there WERE blue skies in Maine... I forgot to publish it, so I am now, since I have insomnia and I have had time to proof read it...right MOM???????

Monday, August 11, 2008

OH LOOK...

I think its going to RAIN again...I CAN'T BELIEVE IT!!!!

(I say to myself as I put on my flip flops to go trudging through 6 inches of puddle in the walkways of my garden, to pick waterlogged plants that are dying!)

JOY

Coolio

OK, so I got this lamp for 2.50...for Marshall's room, not mine...but she has this funky striped bedspread that she bought with her birthday money to help decorate her new room...
Nothing like PINK acrylic to make her smile...now I just have to talk her out of wanting to paint her room lime green...aacckk

BTW, Henry wants a purple room, and so does Caroline....HUH????? Where did these kids come from? Not me...everything I own is brown, black or wait for it...cream....I know I AM daring with colors...although to give myself some credit, I do own some red, and Jamie has bought me some blue things because he thinks I look good in blue. So maybe someday I will branch out into the color wheel a little...but...if you look at my tile choice...I wouldn't hold my breath!

Brad's Garage Update #9

OK so we had our last bout of company during construction. Our sister Kathleen, and her family came to visit. They were quite the troopers with 10 of us living in two bedrooms. But we made it! The only true side affect was that I didn't blog at all. Hopefully now I am back on track for being regular...(in blogging that is, asking to be normal in any other way is just WAY too hopeful!)

SO, the front of our garage is complete with the exception of door knobs, lights and garage doors.

Today they are coming to mud/tape all the dry wall (this will take 3 days) from what I hear. Then the carpet which will be installed next week, after I paint the ceilings and hopefully the walls. Also we have to build our bookcase, stain and do the trim work...but you know...it will be done...by the time Marshall goes to college. (for the record, she is 9)


Before the company came we got the bathroom tiled,
and BEHOLD.....


We have toilet swap!


So there you go, our most recent update, by next week we are hoping to have it completed enough to move into...minus some trim and bookcases.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008

My Beaker Obsession from 8th Grade...

Do you Blame Me?????



Jenny, you are digging up all those old drawings of Beamer Beaker, and Beach Beaker, and Band Beaker aren't you???? Well I have the last laugh because I know that you are peeing in your pants right now! LOL

Yeah I know, I am a freak...

…a freaking freak for all intensive purposes. As I sit here typing, on my second glass of wine, after hearing hammers plugging a long all day (all month really,) and tile was laid, and all the other really...well you know, absolutely breath taking exciting things going on in my life...I write as a new member of Facebook.

OK so you are all "that is sooooo no big deal, even Obama is on face book...for goodness sake, even McCain is on face book for that matter." Yeah I know, and for the record...

I am all "I DON'T CARE IT IS MAKING ME FEEL OLD"

I signed up after my best friend from High School, and I dare say the only one who knows about my Beaker obsession (which I will touch on later) got on, and convinced me...by you know, twisting my arm, blackmailing and bribing me with the email "wanna try this?" I mean who can resist that??? Not me.

So after 5000 emails about how to increase the size of my manliness, and how to improve my sex life... I have signed on with Facebook... (On a side note: have you all noticed a huge increase in the amount of completely inappropriate emails you get after signing on?)

I will say that while I may feel like a complete "old chick in a short skirt" about the whole thing, since I don't know how to DO anything....I have enjoyed getting back in touch with some of my old friends. Many of my girlfriends from college are on, and have asked me to be their friend...sniff sniff, I know it IS AWESOME...

Not to mention a few others that are important to me, like a friend of mine from High School named Chris, who is probably one of the most inspirational people in my life...and another friend from High school, Tom, who...well, Tom...how do I even begin to explain him. He is about the funniest person I have ever met, and it was only after we fell out of touch that my nose started to heal after years of spewing milk out of it at lunch. He is about the nicest, kindest and not the least of which funniest people I know.

So here I sit, being an old chick, who is embracing the whole, you know...Internet thang...between my blog and Facebook, who knows, I may just have a blackberry before the end of it...(or are those are not cool anymore???) Oh well, I am just going to ride my new millennium wave while I can.

Leila aren’t you proud???

Monday, August 4, 2008

I can't remember, do I blog here?

So I guess I have had a bit of a hiatus from blogging. For the most part I have been struggling just to get the garage and garden updates up. (Which I know, are mind numbingly boring, but it has been a little all consuming…to say the least)

I took a little time off from blogging while my folks were around...which is funny because my mom went to read it while she was here and was all like "why aren't you posting?" and I was all like" because I am with you"

I don't think that she bought that as a reasonable excuse. But none-the-less I used it.

My family is the picture under the saying of “putting the fun back in dysfunctional” so one would think that I would have a lot of fodder for my blogging fire…and I do, but I am a little afraid that the name and number of that hit man that my in-laws are keeping on the payroll “just in case”, may get passed on to my folks if I write too much.

I am going to preface this story with saying that between the memory capacity of my 92 year old grandmother, my mom, and myself…well, there were a lot of “new” experiences and many “old stories.” that were experienced again, and again, and again…

I certainly am not going to laugh at my grandmother, because you know, that would make me a horrid person right?… However…When I took her to her Dr in NH (which my sister and I have taken her to for A LONG TIME, and we go the same way that she drove to come see us when she lived in Bath, lets just say…it ain’t uncharted waters.) We passed the big golf course on the Left and we did the usual:

Gran, “isn’t it so pretty”
Me: “Yeah, that is where I went to prom my freshman year with Rolf”
(Yeah, I know, that is another story for another time)
Gran: “Really? It is so pretty”

NOW ON THE WAY BACK, on the same road, looking at the same golf course...(now on the right)

Gran: “Wow, look at that golf course…when did that get built there? It is so pretty. I bet it is a lot of competition for that one you had your prom at.”
Me: “Uh...Yup, I bet it is”

Why bother letting her know? I have decided, what the heck?!? You get to see new things everyday in the same place you live…that has to keep life pretty exciting. “Hey where did this bathroom come from? Hmmm, it is nice; I think I will take a shower in it.”

Come on, I have a point! Again, I am not poking fun…I once thought I had a swim meet in Alberta Canada because I swore that building looked familiar. After about a week of driving my parents just looked at each other, shook their heads at their directionally challenged child, and said “mmmhmmm, you must have” It is now a family joke…I don't have to tell you, I don’t have a leg to stand on here.

Brad's Garage Update #8

I haven't done one of these in a while, because it was hard to take pictures of the progress. But bright and early oh say 6:30ish, I was inundated with tool belt toting work men. In the time it took me to have a conversation with my mother, which albeit was a long one, I had the electrician, plumber, dry-waller’s, CMP (our electric company) and the builder all show up. So needless to say, it is starting to get to the final crunch. I suppose this is good because otherwise Kathleen and her family, who are coming on Thursday night, would have a hard time staying here…well, unless they wanted to stay in a no electricity open sided addition!

The otherday we had all the insulation put in, so right now the girls are thrilled to have pepto pink walls, much to their chagrin they won't stay that way.

OK so, here are the latest details… Siding is all but done. “Rob the Builder” is finishing up the dormer and front today now that the electric has been moved to the side. But here is what it looks like from the back:

We have now taken out the doorway in the hall so that the drywall can be laid in, so there is no separating the new from old anymore, and they have already drywalled the garage, as you can see below. We have bought the bathroom stuff, and the tile, and Dave is coming tomorrow to lay the tile and get the bathroom switch over done! So I would say that by the end of tomorrow I will have some more updating to do, but until then these pics will have to tide you over!