JeLF-Writes Blog

I learned today that Pimento, the cat, hates bananas. Or he loves them depending, on how you look at it. It seems there is something he finds irresitable about those little sticks of potassium (ohh maybe he has a vitamin deficiancy), he just had to stick his fangs into them.

I discovered his attraction to bananas this morning when I walked into the kitchen and discovered the beautiful bunch of perfectly yellow bananas (that we Just bought last night) covered with black spots!

At first, I thought, ‘Geez it is hot, but not THAT hot!’ Certainly not hot enough to rot the bananas overnight.  Then I looked closer at the bananas and discovered that there were tiny puncture holes all over EVERY single banana in the bunch. Not only that, but the damn cat had munched off the tip of every single banana!! What is weird is he has never bothered the bananas before, we always keep the bananas in the same spot on the counter. Wonder what made him go after them last night?

I am not certain I can do anything with the bananas, maybe a banana bread?…Maybe? I mean they are cat fang punctures, do I really want to use them in cooking? It just burns me to have throw an entire bunch away! He got every single banana. Although, I have to admire his dedication to poking every single banana.  Maybe, he was sharpening his fangs, or maybe this is some way for him to brush his teeth? Perhaps, I need to get him the crunchy kind of cats snacks instead of the soft?

All I know is next time I get bananas I will hide them on top of the fridge.

Still I want to know why?!!! Did the yellow color offend him? Did they smell really good? Or was it the smell? Does the smell of bananas drive cats insane?

So I will have to make sure to place the next batch of bananas where the cat can’t reach them.

Darn if the dog doesn’t sometimes surprise me! He was poking his nose into the bushes yesterday, I assumed he was chasing some little critter. We had earlier found a mouse-deceased (so much for the dogs superior sense of smell) by the air conditioning unit. How he died is a mystery, not like I can call out mouse CSI (nor do I really want to)

What surprised me is that I found the mouse, not the dog. Dog appeared to not even know it was there, I mean don’t dog usually love the smell of dead things?

Since his inability to find the dead mouse dealt a blow to his credibility with me, I wasn’t sure he actually found something when he was pointing at the bushes in the back yard. I pretty much just ignored him. But later, it was hard to ignore him standing there with his snout in the tomato plants. 

Imagine my surprise when it turns out he actually found something!! There in the tomato plants was a tiny, little baby robin. Poor little guy must have gotten tossed from the nest. He didn’t have his full tail feathers yet. Which explains why the bird continued to sit there, even with the dog breathing on him.  Concerned about the birds safety, what with the big, black lab nose poking at him in the plants. I moved the bird to another bush. The dog, naturally, spent the rest of the afternoon guarding the bush.

Of course, the dog was all proud of himself, you know how dogs get, kinda strutting around, with a happy “I did a good job” look.  He earned his keep for another day. Of course, later when I found him sprawled out on the couch (taking up the whole thing) snoring, I wasn’t too sure that he had done enough to earn his keep.

Today the little robin was still in the yard, he had some how managed to make it all the way around the house to rest in the can of yard debris (mostly branches) that we have by garage. I mean, I think it is the same bird, what are the chances we have to fledgling robins in the yard?

The kids were less impressed by the bird then I thought they would be. Of course, yesterday, they were so busy with the water balloons when I found the bird, they couldn’t spare a minute to look at the bird. This morning they were glued to the TV when I spotted the bird again. I have to resist the urge to worry about the little bird. I know there is nothing that I can do to help him. I just dont it to end badly, especially if the kids were to find him. Not that they dont understand death, it is just that they are at the age where they want to talk/talk/talk it to death. (yeah okay kinda a bad choice of words). I don’t want to spend the next week talking about the little birdie.

How do you keep three little kids cool on a 90 degree day? You play with water balloons that’s how! A found a package of water balloons in the $.25 bin at Goodwill, so yesterday and today we have been playing with water balloons. They really are fun!

Their Dad filled up the balloons for them yesterday, which is harder then it looks. You have to have nerves of steel, those things pop super easy. You have to watch how much water is flowing into the balloon, of course, with the kids manning the hose they have it on full throttle, the balloons fill up in a mere second. One minute it is empty and the next SPLOOSH. You usually get soaked right in the face, as their dad will attest. He got very soaked during the filling of the balloons. Personally, I think he enjoyed it, not like a grown man can run under the sprinkler, but he can get soaked filling balloons for his kids.

 I definately didn’t want to get soaked today so I turn the little devils loose with the hose and the balloons this afternoon. As you can imagine, there was much overfilling and popping going on, but they were loving it! They took a break from balloon filling to squirt each other with the hose. That cool little balloon filling nozzle turns the hose into a water cannon.

Then they were throwing the balloons at each other, honestly those things NEVER hit the target, I tried and tried and I know my throwing arm isn’t that bad Our backyard is littered with burst balloons, everyone is soaked and cool (even me).

I figured what the heck might as well cool off too, so I chased the kids around with the hose and the balloons. They thought this was the coolest thing ever. Besides, prior to that I was on balloon tying duty and my fingers were getting sore.

There is a secret to tying the balloons, you make sure to wrap the balloon end around two fingers so you can pop one finger out as you slip the end of the balloon under. Then the tying is easy (okay, easier). It still is a little hard for me, occasionally I can’t make my fingers do what I want-early signs of arthritis maybe?

The other little kids gave up on the water balloons, but A finished them all off and has a stockpile of 11 water balloons. She has them all hid away for later, under a chair, you know “in case it rains mom”.

We went to the beach yesterday. It was Minooka Beach in Waukesha. What a cute, little beach and what a great deal, you get into the park for $2.50 a carload-a seriously good deal. Considering the pools at the local parks can run about $20 for a family.

The beach was not crowded at all! I suppose it was a Monday. Not many people hitting the beach on Monday, I here today is going to be hot and steamy I bet it will be crowded today.  The kids had an awesome time.  We were fascinated by the 1p safety break. Yep, at 1pm everyone had to come out of the water and wait while the lifeguards practiced saving someone. The “victim” was a volunteer from the beach, pretty cool for the kids.

Everyone is getting very comfortable around the water, which is so good because I really am a terrible swimmer. I actually, am more of a floater, and then only with a floatation device.

 As a pisces I love the water, I just am no good in it. It could be that I hate (HATE) having water in my face, or the fact that I wear glasses so I can’t see jack when I am in the water, which makes me uncomfortable.  So I am extremely proud of S he dunks his head under the water, holds his breath under the water, that is pretty darn good for a 5yr old. He obviously gets these skills from his dad.

Again, thanks to their dad, the girls do great going under the water. So we are now trying to teach them how to float. You have experienced nothing until you try to teach a giggly 6yhr old how to float. Relax isnt in their vocabulary. Still, N almost has it down. A I fear is a lost cause.

We started out with the back float, which I think was mistake should have started with the deadman float. N was a very good student, she listens and actually attempts to relax. When we did switch to the dead man she was really good at it. There is something about the back float, letting your head get in the water, the water getting into your ears it is very difficult to convince a kid to do this. Heck, I don’t like it that much.

A was a little harder to work with (which is pretty much her personality) she was as stiff as a board, wouldn’t put her head in the water at all and then was giggling so much you couldn’t hold onto her. She would relax no matter what (honestly, is this going to be her personality?). The dead man float didn’t go over well with her, she totally didn’t want to put her face in the water. Even seeing her sister do it, wouldn’t get her to do it.

Before going to the beach we had stopped at a card store to pick up a birthday card, whoever designed the singing cards should be shot! Honestly, kids cannot resist a singing card, they will open EVERY single singing card there is. Then to make matters worse they will have singing card races-seeing who can open the most singing cards…you get the picture. So after telling them about 200 times to leave the cards alone, we go up to pay and wouldn’t you know more singing cards on the counter. The clerk had to tell the kids to stop touching the cards…well, what did you expect? It is right there at eye level on the counter,what 6yr old with itchy little fingers can resist?

We also hit Goodwill so the kids could pick up toys (with their own money). These were toys I was going to buy them earlier in the week, but they were so naughty at the store that we had to leave (without their toys). So we went back to get them.

 A was crushed that her little stuffed wiener dog wasn’t there anymore, who woulda thought someone would buy it? She had to settle for supplies to make and art project (a package of Hawaiian leis) and some water balloons. Of courses, once N realized that A was getting 2 things, she also wanted 2 things. I told her that A was getting two things because hers were only a quarter and she couldn’t find the toy from earlier in the week, well N announced that she could find 2 quarter toys no problem. I told that she would not go trade her toy for 2 smaller pieces of crap just because she wanted to have 2 items…sheesh.

Who doesn’t love fashion? I love everything about fashion, shoes, clothes, accessories. I especially love looking at what the celebrities are wearing. This gig at www.modofacile.com is truly a dream come true. Writing about fashion, finally a reason to go shopping! What I am not wasting time looking at fashion police! It is research.

Today I have a post about the sneaker wedge http://modofacile1.blogspot.com/ I also have one about the clutch purse on the bag lady portion.

What an absolutely beautiful Sunday! Sunny, warm with a nice breeze to keep it from getting too hot. We spent a lot of time outside. Which is good considering the kids were total animals yesterday.

They have been so good today I am taking them for ice cream (and it is not just because I want ice cream for myself…although I do). lee’s on Greenfield has soft serve, which isn’t as good as custard, but darn close. Love those choc/vanilla twist cones.

Geez, it has been a rainy, cool summer so far. Yesterday, the weather was fore-casted to be 88 degrees and humid; I had planned to take the kids to a movie no matter what, and good thing. It ended up being cool and cloudy all am, glad I hadn’t decide to go to the pool based on the 88 degree forecast.  All this means is the kids get a little extra TV time in the am (maybe).

Saturday and Sunday mornings are the only time I let the kids watch playhouse Disney, so they are glued to the TV right now. It is a big deal, we didn’t have cable til we moved to this house, that’s right we use RABBIT EARS!! I had to get cable to get a good Internet connection in this house. This house has 1 (yes, 1) phone jack…and no cable was ever run to this house EVER.

So the treat for the kids is Disney or Noggin on the weekends. Sometimes I even relent and let them watch Noggin at lunch, they really are getting to old for Sesame Street (but I miss Grover). In terms of kids stuff, Playhouse Disney is okay as there is no (or very few) commercials. I hate how many commercials are on Nick et.al geez there must be about 10 commercials each 1/2 hr. This really does affect what the kids beg for at the store.

When we were at the movie yesterday, there was a trailer for Beverely Hills Chihuhas…god, that looks like the worst movie ever!! Naturally, the kids loved it and have begun begging to see it! NOOOOO!

I made casserole for supper last night and A almost got sent away from the table for arguing about what the “crunchy” part of the casserole was..It was a pizza pasta casserole, the cheese got browned, I told her this, she insisted it was and under cooked noodle. Man that kid can argue that the sky is not blue. S is a terrible supper eater. He hardly ever eats his supper and when he does it is always accompanied by faces and questions of “how many bites” he frequently gets sent away from the table. In fact, last night he ended up in his room, as punishment for bad supper behaviour. For awhile, he was grouching and grousing and then next time I saw him he was fast asleep. This morning he was all impressed that he got to sleep in his clothes.

Usually, the kids and I eat supper alone, so you would think when their dad is at the table they would behave better? Nope they pull the same stuff on him, I take comfort in this! I mean seriously, supper is a litany of ”how many bites”, odd faces, and general mayhem-which includes burping, asking to leave the table and talking about stuff that you shouldn’t be talking about at the table all in hopes of making your bro/sis laugh until milk squirts out their nose.

We went to see Wall E, what a sweet movie. I of course, being the big sap that I am cried through almost all of it. I always cry at sappy stuff, sad song/movies, hallmark commercials, if it is a tear jerker I fall for it. The kids were riveted, which is saying a lot.

They got to play grown up, I made them pay for their own movie. They had received money from their grandma, so they got to go up and ask for the movie and get the ticket. They were very impressed with their bigness. I did buy popcorn and a lemonade for everyone. Those little weasels at an entire regular size tub of popcorn (with butter) and still managed to inhale a sandwich at lunch time.

Today N is the designated contrary mary, I always have one in my group of three. That means that whatever I suggest A & S are on board with it but N is not. That includes, spaghetti for supper, the type of cereal we bought and what kind of drink to have at the movie.

My article was in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today! Thrilled as always to see my work in print. Soon my little gig with the Journal will be ending what a bummer, it was fun. I think we have about 2 more months possibly 3.

Yesterday was a regular stay at home day, interspersed with a few moments of excitement. First, excitement I have 4 fashion posts up on www.modofacile.com super excited about that, okay, that maybe was the most excitement of the day! To share my excitement, I emailed an old high school friend about the fashion posts. She responded that they were cool, but that she is so amazed I am writing about fashion. See how you get typecast, I was a tomboy (okay, maybe am still a little bit) in high school, so she cant imagine that I would be interested in girly stuff, and be able to write about it.

Little nervous today, I will meet the new boss.  I orginally thought I would meet him Tuesday, but he actually wasnt starting until Wednesday. Sooo, todays the day. Kinda nervewracking…we sorta have to really get along. I mean he is my direct report, not to mention the office is about 10 feet across and 20feet deep and we sit shoulder to shoulder practically! Tried to make sure I looked competent and cute today, which is a very hard combination to get right!

I did manage to have a productive day yesterday at home, doing everything but writing work. I did house cleaning, playing with the kids (oh yeah, snuck in a nap)…no actually writing work. I did finish my article for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel so that feels good. I have about 5 more articles to write, I have the ideas, I just have to get them out and into a nice neat little package.  The day they invent some gadget that translates your thoughts to the word processing program I am so there, it is the sitting down and typing it out that gets me.

Tomorrow, I plan on taking the kids to see Wall-E. I hear it is really, really good and I know the kids are very interested in seeing it. I may even spring for popcorn (I don’t know that is usually a budget breaker), which of course, they will eat all up before the movie even starts. I am sure they will come loaded down with all their stuffed animals, we end up taking up a whole row with us and the stuffed animals. I hope I can convince my son to sit in a seat by himself, he is getting a little to big to sit on my lap.

Must say the dog is recovering nicely from his vacation; yes all he needed to do was stretch out on the couch (taking up all 3 cushions) for about 12 hours straight and he is fine. He really was a very good dog on the trip (okay, except for the throwing up part). He was having a little trouble adjusting to being back on his outside leash at home tho’ on the trip we let him run around without a leash.

The kids seemed happy to be back, they played very nice with each other for most of the day. When I said that we were going to rest for awhile no one argued, in fact, N grabbed a couple books and zoomed into the bedroom, where she got all snuggled up in our bed. I have to separate them at rest time or all hell breaks loose.

I did find that the little sneaks had crept every so quietly downstairs to the basement. What they were doing down there remains a mystery. I gave them a good talking to, they cannot go down there alone. They nodded like they understood, but I know they are plotting the next time they will sneak down there. I assume they were sending something down the laundry chute. The laundry chute has proved to be endlessly fascinating for them. I hope they didnt send down one of the hapless moths they caught on vacation.

Yep, they pretty much wiped out the moth population of Crivitz. Those poor little moths, believe it or not several survived the trip home. We also brought home an assortment of caterpillar, which with my luck, will be some sort of destructive caterpillar…probably munch a hole in our house or something!

We had pretty hard rain last night and now the sunporch is leaking…in a completely different spot then it was leaking before. I think we need to caulk around the windows. My husband remains dubious about this, well it cant HURT. The water was just poring in last night, we had to put down a bucket!

Today I am at the office (all day, omg) I get to meet my new boss. Yep, that would be my 4th new boss in 4 years.  Apparently, this job is very hard on bosses.  This constant boss change over makes me feel like a piece of the furniture (yes, this is Jennifer, she comes with the office). Wonder how long this guy will last? Geez, I hope I don’t outlast this guy.

I like my old boss, who isn’t leaving the company just moving up the ladder, we work well together. Hope the new guy has a sense of humor (he will need it). Any working mom with a good P/T job feels the same way I do about change…it is scary. This job is a good set up, what if this guy isn’t cool with it? etc…I guess only time will tell.

Back from Crivitz, sunburned and relaxed. We had a most awesome time. The ride up went very smooth, I had the kids and the dog, my husband the lucky duck got to ride all by himself. The kids managed to keep themselves occupied with activities OTHER then poking, touching and hitting their sibling (which seems to be the kids favorite in car activity). Of course, they engaged in their second most favorite activity “are we there yet”.

We had a slight mix up with meeting mom in town for the parade. I know, how can you mess that up? Well we did. Problem is we lose cell coverage about 16 miles from town, so you make one last hurried call to say you are on your way…things get mixed up; she was waiting for us to call again (which we couldn’t) so she almost missed the parade. We must have done 10 laps around the town square looking for them. I found the ONE working payphone in town and did try to call, but luckily at that point she was already on her way. Then they took the dog back to their place, and came back for the parade, they just made it in time.

For a small town Crivitz manages to crank out a parade that lasts 1.5 hours. They don’t have a lot of floats, or groups to march in the parade so they make up for it with every rescue vehicle from all the adjoining towns. This makes for a very LOUD parade sirens blasting, then they have lots of ATVs, cars and tractors doing the parade route all revving their engines etc.. There is only 1 marching band (they could use another), but the town is so small that the band is broken down into elem, middle, and high school and the band director takes them each around the parade route. Yes, that man walks the parade route 3x! He sure earns his pay at that point.

The best part for the kids it that the parade partcipants throw a ton of candy. Huge handfuls of candy get flung into the crowd. You come armed with plastic bags and leave with bulging bags, this year all three kids go into snagging the candy, we left with three huge bags.

 Once the parade was over it was time to go to my parents and assembly the tent. My stepdad decided that my husband and I could do it without supervision…yeah, that was a mistake, I put the tent up once a year (always with my stepdads help) and my poor husband hasn’t assembled the tent in 3+ years. We sorta, kinda got it mostly up and then had to beg for help. It is a nice 8 person tent (okay 8 people laid out like mummies), the instructions claim assembly with two people( my ass, it takes three people), it actually takes three people. I got the coveted job of holding the center up while the men wrestled the poles into place. We even put on the little fly cover, so the tent looked like it was wearing a hat.

After that we squished the air mattress and the kids 3 sleeping bags in there, it was snug! Which was good as it turns out I think the nights were in the low 50’s. First night we FROZE to death. My parents place is very sheltered by trees, even after we got up the next morning it seemed to be super cold, until you went out onto the road where the sun was beating down, then it was about 70 already. The next night we added extra sleeping bags and I went to bed fully dressed (and I was just the right temperature).

We hit the beach, both days. Very nice beach, very crowded beach. Beach is a long way from parking area. Luckily, they have a loading zone, because we had floaties(one shaped like an alligator), beach toys, chairs and a cooler. My stepdad spotted one of those rolling coolers, he was talking up the owners of the rolling cooler. He even got them to let him look inside for capacity-honestly he is hilarious.

The water was C-O-L-D, on both days. Even my husband who loves to swim couldn’t bring himself to swim in it(I was on alligator pushing duty), even the kids only swam a little bit. It was the kind of cold that the first time you went in an okay kinda cold, then you moved around and it felt pretty good, but once you got out and warmed up, the water was just to icy the next time you tried to go in. Even the girls refused to go in a second time on Saturday, and they really wanted to use the alligator a second time.

The big surprise of the weekend was S who was out in the water a lot each day. Usually, he is kinda a weenie and plays on the shore, not this time. I was very proud of him. The kids got new goggles and snorkles with little shark fins on them-just what they needed.

There was only a couple of bad parts of the trip, first on was friday night. The dog apparently was not used to vacation he ate too much, drank too much and ran around too much…he spent the night throwing up all over my parents place; so they were up all night cleaning up after him. At one point they were cleaning up his mess and he slithered onto their bed to sleep (bad dog). All we can say is at least he wasn’t in the tent with us…can you imagine? EWWWW!

Saturday night, after my poor husband had to return to Bfield -he worked early sunday, we went to the waterski show (they have two shows up there on costs $ and one is free we chose the free one big mistake), figuring it would be cool for the kids to see the stunts. Plus, at dusk they were going to have fireworks. Yeah, well the water ski show was terrible (twin bridge team) they spent more time doing a stupid ESPN sport show type skit that was totally inappropriate for little kids (sexual innuendo, some bad language) and almost no time doing any stunts. I mean they had maybe 8 stunts spread out over 2 hours and they only went over the jump 2x. To make matters worse they didn’t start the fireworks til after 10pm they should have started them at 9:30. They were so busy selling raffle tickets (greedy guts) that they put off the fireworks, THEN they read off every single winning raffle ticket (they had over 30 prizes)…by then we were so tired, mad etc. that we left.

That’s okay the night before we set off our own fireworks, my stepdad had a few cool ones. Plus, the kids had sparklers, so they were happy.

The kids also spent a huge amount of time bug hunting, they came home with a load of moths and caterpillars. Not as many as they could have had because my parents installed a bug zapper, all night you heard the sound of bugs sizzling away.. it was quite LOUD, we even saw one smoking away on the zapper. Which made my husband laugh very hard.

The ride home consisted of moments of them playing nice together and moments of them poking each other (pinching, hitting general mayhem). I am always thrilled to get home and get out of the car.