The Camping Trip
So WOW! I notice I haven’t posted since April! Its been a busy time — Monthly markets, the end of the school year, hubby working through exercises and weekend duties, computer problems and whatnot.
But now its Summertime! Schools out – No More Tests, No More Looks, No More Dirty Teacher’s Looks!! But with Summer, comes the loss of the usual schedule. Bedtime for the kids has worked itself to past midnight most nights, and dinner on average hasn’t been getting served til 10pm! But thats just trivial stuff- Summer break is about having fun!!
Eating bright chemical colored icey pops and getting all sticky then hopping in the pool to wash off and cool off. Staying out at the park til what is usually dinnertime (likely the cause of my serving late dinners),eating over grilled burgers and fresh from the husk corn and CAMPING!!
We never went camping in AZ – too rocky, or in AK – too many bears (camping there involves an RV or Travel Trailer or hotel room) And we’ve been here nearly 3 years and had yet to go. Dave has a thing about toilets and showering- as in he requires an actual toilet and must shower at least once a day. Never mind that camping is usually a rustic thing done away from running water, and that is occasionally OK to poop in the woods and to go a couple days without a shower. BUT I decided it was time the Aaron, who is now 12, and Kaylor, now 6, had the experience.
Lucky me though, camping this summer doesn’t require us finding a forest with a stream and truly roughing it the first few times out (I think if it did, sis would have tapped out of anymore excursions). Mom and Dad RV full time, and this summer are work-kamping (nope its not misspelled, KOA spells all the stuff it can with a ‘k’ – a branding thing) out at the KOA in West, TX (yes West is a town…its just a few miles north of Waco), and its just far enough away from home to be an adventure, but civilized enough to satisfy little princesses (what could be better than waking up in a tent then spending the day in an A/C cooled bus with TV and a fridge and everything?).
Boy was this an adventure, but thanks to the Boy Scouts of America, I am a decently (should be well but get the rest of the story) prepared mom! We already possess a queen sized air mattress, and a twin sized one (if daddy ever decides he’s coming along we’ll need to increase the twin count), a battery operated lantern, a cooler and the kids have sleeping bags/rolls (we often camp out in the living room or they host each other for sleepovers in their rooms), a cooler and other random paraphernalia you need for camping or surviving blackouts during storms.
Thanks to the new Matrix, I have plenty of hatch space and started filling it up! air beds in first, then back packs with some clothes (including swim suits), then our bedrolls and in a giant ziplock type bag, a set of sheets and extra towel, the lantern, some stuff that mom asked us to bring along, pillows, an extra blankie for just in case, and Ein’s bean bag.
The cooler fit nicely in the space Kaylor’s feet don’t take up in the footwell on the backseat behind me ready for ice, juice packs and fruit snacks. A blankie covers the other 2/3 of the back seat for Ein to have (no lots of doggy hair TYVM).
We load up into the car with my fully charged cell ready to have the GPS at hand to find our way, and off we head to our North WalMart. Once we finally get through the traffic and construction mess to get on the access road for I20 and actually get to Wally, we run in quickly, grab a bag of Ice a box of juice packs and a box of fruit snacks. We also head over to the shoe section and pick ourselves up new zoris/sandals, check out and fill the cooler with ice and goodies.
As we’re getting into the car, I realize there’s something missing, a big something… THE TENT!! OMG!!! I was borrowing it from Outdoor Rec, on base, on the other side of town!! OMG!! ok, no issue, its only been an half hour since we started, no biggie. We head back to base and pick up our tent. After trying to calmly tell the boy to hold on to the dog, I grab his hand and physically make him grab poor Ein’s collar and hold onto him. (I really had no urge to chase that dog around if he had gotten out) I shove the tent into place in the foot space below Ein and make it fit till the door will close, and this does 2 things – gives us our nightly shelter AND now Ein wouldn’t fall down into the foot-space if I had to hit the brakes hard (can you guess that this second thing has happened once already today?)
So NOW we’re ready to go. Easy Peasy now that I know about the exit for I20 East on 83 being closed and that its actually easier to navigate back to the WalMart on the city streets THEN get on the Interstate. Once we got back up to the WalMart, we found the Jack in the Box, grabbed lunch and headed East.
Did you know that TX is beautiful to drive through? Good lord the hills and trees and farms and all of that are just gorgeous!I really am looking forward to going again in a couple weeks. We planned our trip to pass through Dublin, home of the oldest Dr. Pepper bottling plants and the only one that still uses cane sugar where we did stop and get some goodies, and headed straight on after that.
I LOVE the GPS on my phone, though was unaware of the battery power it requires and up to that point had not required a car charger for it. We only got turned around once, but that was becuase I wasn’t following the directions EXACTLY as the little lady told me to. Thank the gods that I have been traveling since long before GPS only travel and was able to write down the end of the directions to get to West becuase the battery on the phone died about 20 miles from our destination.
And that folks is snough excitement for tonight, I hear rain a brewing outside and my kitty bedtime alarm telling me to go to bed so he can play his kitty games. I’ll be back tomorrow to finish the story and will be sure to include ALL the drama.
The Yummy Fingers
Yesterday I made a quick comment about all the goodies I’ve been working on while lamenting that I can’t get more done faster. Probably every crafter’s lament.
I did mention that I had been working on a couple custom orders. I LOVE custom orders, they tell me exactly what people want AND what to actually do. This is probably my biggest problem; so much that can be done that so little actually does get done. But I’m probably just whining again.
I know there are some people that hate custom orders becuase they feel constrained by them. I find it not really so with most orders.
One of my most recent was done for fellow ETSY seller NaturallyHip, her little one is getting ready for a birthday and I feel both excited and pleased that she thought enough of my work to think it good enough for a gift for her! She was great to work with and really easy to communicate with. I made her a set of whole fruit that included an apple, a pear and a banana, one of my Sliced Fruit Salads, a Complete Salmon Dinner and a box of my own Chocolate Sandwich Cookies. They’ll be in the mail to her on Monday and hopefully she and her lil one will get as much enjoyment out of them as I got actually making them.
I’ve also been working on some non-custom items to refill the shop with. I recently got a bunch of patterns for dessert items; Soft serve ice cream, cremescicle bars, oreo ice cream sandwiches and even brownie a la mode.
Of course being a chocolate freak, the brownie was the first thing I HAD to make. I used a super deep brown felt for the brownie and after it was finished I figured that it looked more like a dark chocolate confection vs the usual milk chocolate one. I think its super cute with the little ‘scoop’ of ice cream that comes with it, I added a little piece of Velcro to the bottom of the scoop to help hold it onto the puddle of melted ice cream on the brownie, though it could be played with minus the ice cream and the puddle could be pretended to be some icing quickly spread on top. I also totally love the little curl of chocolate that comes on top.
I did finish a box full of fortune cookies that are now sitting out in the back room waiting for my camera that I’ll probably get to tomorrow and list up right after. On my needle I have a complete set of tropical fruit that I’m working on. A pineapple, a lemon and lime, a mangosteen, a carambola (star fruit) and a whole kiwi. All of them are adorable and should be finished here in the next day or two. I need to pick up some appropriate floss for the star fruit and mangosteen aince they’re in colors that for some reason I had the felt but not the thread to stitch em.
The Birthday Cake
“Why is it ALWAYS chocolate cake?” from Aaron’s mouth this afternoon when I was mixing up the cake for Dave’s birthday today. But its not always chocolate cake.
I always make whatever cake it is that the birthday person likes, Kay is a fan of my gram’s white cake as long as I throw in a generous handful of pretty sprinkles, flower shaped or whatever I have on hand, and ice it in some sort of pastel frosting, the type of which she could care less.
Dave just happens to like chocolate cake, so in goes 2 tbsp of cocoa and a 1/4 cup of melted milk chocolate.. just the way he likes it. He’s also a fan of butter creme frosting, so I whip out my big ole kitchen aide and make him up a batch.
Aaron the last couple of years has enjoyed Boston cream cupcakes. Super simple n super yummy… just bake up your favorite cupcakes (personally I’m a from scratch person, but if a mix floats your boat, have at it!) and once they’re cool whip up a yummy vanilla pudding (again scratch or mix) and put it in a piping bag with a long tip on it. Stick your tip into the middle of the cupcake and squirt in some of the pudding, some but not too much or it will either explode or gush up out of the hole when you remove the bag. Then coat the top of the cuppy cakes with your favorite chocolate frosting or heavy glaze. Totally YUMMO!!
Now when it comes time for my cake, since Kay’s birthday is just before mine and I’m usually frosting-ed out, i love a dump cake or a pineapple upside down cake. Dump cake is another easy one. grab a tin of pineapple and a tin of pie cherries and for this you definitely need a cake mix for this, yellow cake. dump the pineapple and cherries (juice and all) into the bottom of a rectangle pan, pour the cake mix evenly over top of the fruit, then cut a stick of butter into small pats and lay out evenly over top of the cake mix. put the whole thing in a 350 oven until brown and bubbly. YUMMO again!!This is really good warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
We may not always have a big birthday party or even get and give gifts for each other.. but there’s always a big hunk of love from the oven waiting for after dinner, which is also always the celebrator’s favorite.
The Way I See It #286
Hypocrisy is annoying but not evil. Someone who says one thing and does another has doubled their chances of being half right. — Penn Jillette, The larger louder half of the comedy-magic team Penn&Teller
I love Penn, truly I do, he has no shame or doubt in calling someone on their bullshit, and this is another example of his adeptness in capturing and calling the human condition.
Hypocrisy is everywhere, and if it truly were evil, no one would have a snowball’s chance. Parents and doctors are some of the most respected people and at the same time the most hypocritical, of course so are politicians, but we all know those guys are pretty much all evil so they don’t count! Mom will tell you to wear a jacket then leave the house without one, or to eat all your veggies then she leaves half of her serving on her dinner plate. Being a mom is about raising children in an autocracy not a democracy, so as the tsars of russia and the wonderful Marie Antoinette we do as we see fit while making sire our others do as we tell them.
Doctors can be just as bad. Like on the episode of SCRUBS, Elliot who is slightly (though not entirely of her own accord) Anorexic and thusly underweight for her height/age has a patient who is underweight, anemic and has passed out at work due to her poor diet habits who she feels the need to be honest and blunt about the situation while choosing to ignore her own. Doctors say do, you need to do it.. whether the doc takes their own advice or not. Though in the end her hypocrisy catches up to her and forces her to learn a thing or two… making her half right!
I know I’m guilty of parental hypocrisy occasionally. Telling the kids to pick up their mess in their rooms while mine sits in a complete state of disarray, demanding clothes to be brought to the laundry while mine sit and pile up next to the bathroom cupboard. I strive to make my hypcrisies minor ones, laundry needs to be washed for them to have clean clothes to wear to school, I can afford to (like a freshman in college) recycle a shirt while I do a load of my own laundry. But when it comes to the truly important things, like eating the veggies and wearing a jacket or buckling up in the car, I stand firm in You do as I say, and so do I.. being half wrong is ok by me sometimes for litle things if I can at least be completely right for the important ones!
The Hunt for the Pup
YAY!! I’m finally getting a companion for my fat cat Spooky. Though I’ve wanted a poochie for quite a while, its kind of a trade off, he gets the new car instead of me, and I get a pooch. Not a bad trade, since I’ll likely have the pooch longer than he has the car 
So now the hunt is on, personally I really really want a Corgi. I love everything about them. Those big bat ears and those stubby little legs and the big booty with a little nubbin of a tail. Plus they’re energy leve is about roght for the way our family lives, active, but not overly so..
Now here’s the trick, I can find corgis around, but most are way out of the area, like over in Arlington outside of Dallas or are an ugly combining of a corgi with someting else, who mutts a cute corgi with a blue heeler, honestly?! I wouldn’t mind another small type dog, but I just LURVE Corgis. Theres a Corgi mix breed at the local shelter here, but since its the weekend, I haven’t had a chance to go over and take a peek at him, though I have a feeling from seeing his pic, he has longer legs than the usual corgi, whoever is other gene donor is.
I have a feeling some of the difficulty I’m going to come across is I don’t want a puppy like most people. I don’t want to deal with the teething, potty training and all the chewing n stuff that goes with puppies. Not my thing at all. Though puppies are incerdibly adorable and sweet, I just want someone whos gone through the terrible twos of puppy adolescense. That and I don’t think poor old Spook wants to deal with a hyper, crying, whining, wetting baby puppy. I’m looking for an associate not a torture device.
Though I know he’s going to enjoy whatever friend we find for him, he’s going to dread life a little, we’ll have to figure a new food arrangement, since doggies LOVE cat food just ever so much, and I don’t need an uber fat muttly running around. And I have to be thankful that we already have an automatic cat box to keep the kitty poop patroled, though I do guess that it means I’ll have to clean the tray out a little more often than I do, we won’t need the new fido treating himself to an all you can eat buffet if he ever figures out how to open the flap covering the bin.
It’ll be more work, but its sure to be fun… now off to find the addresses of the other shelters here in town so I can start looking around for a new friend.
The Thing About Timelines
I love kids, and I love their lack of a timeline most of the time.
Many of us can tell you we got that kickin bike we always wanted 20 years ago, and learned to drive 15years ago, and went to the doctor last week, but to little kids everything happened yesterday.
I’d almost forgotten about the nonexistant timeline until last night when Kaylor was talking to my mom on the phone. She was prattling on about Seeing Santa in school today and how we went shopping yesterday for presents, and then how we were visiting them in the bus (read RV) yesterday and how she loved the trip to Disney and she saw Tinkerbell slide down the castle last night, and tomorrow was Christmas and her birthday tomrrow would make her 6 and on and on.
All I could do is sit there and giggle at something she didn’t get. We try to explain things might have hapened 2 days or a wekk ago or even longer, but to her little mind its all yesterday. And anything happening in the future, even something as far away as May is tomorrow.
I miss having a lack of timeline, I wish everything happened yesterday and everything was going to happen tomorrow… Well, maybe tomorrow it will!
The Joys of the Holidays
I’d been cruising along up until the other day… I’d forgotten just why we work so hard through the year and look forawrd to December and Christmas, it dawned on me the other afternoon.
I had my tree up and decorated the 1st, WE had so much fun doing it, despite having to kick Spook out from under the tree a few times… Its hard to decorate a tree when you have this little clawed hand coming out from under it to grab at you, or you end up stepping on a tail n getting mrowed at!
I’ve made a couple batches of cookies, my grea grandmother’s sugar and Spice gookies to be exact. Soo yummy n full of family memories, though I still can’tget then to turn out just like hers or gram’s for some reason. But thats part of the JOY of doing things with memories attached to them, isn’t it?!
I’ve learned a new craft and made something for the kids, WARM and fuzzy is always a great thing to give to the family.
But it all felt like something was missing, the tree, the cookies, the cooking, the presents, they’re all there but its plain, nothing stands out at special… Then it hit me, Christmas music. There was none, no Carol of the bells to direct with the spoon as your mixing cookies, no 12 Days of Christmas to sing along to nd mix up the ladies dancing with the maid a milking, no babies in mangers or even toes on rooftops. Its been quiet. Like a SILENT NIGHT.
I know a lot of people are struggling this year, and feel like their missing Christmas becuase there arent many gifts under the tree, but I think we all might just need a little music, a few CAROLS to lift our hearts. Like the Who’s on Christmas morning, gatherig together to sing their sing despite the fact that the Grinch had taken everything. All the trees, trimmings and logs for the fire, the roast beast and who pudding and left behind only crumbs too small for the who mouses… They still gathered together in the square and sang their little who hearts out. Its not boxes and wrapping and things that make Christmas.. its the songs in our hearts and memories we make toghther that makes our holidays special.
So turn on that CD of Country Christmas, or Thats What I Call Christmas #a million and one, or load up Limewire and download a million tracks of carols and tunes, or even dial in that funny station on the radio you never listen to but you know plays holiday music all December, and cry your eyes out at memories of Christmases past, make happy memories of this year to cry about next year, and go into the kitchen and make something together, or just dance like crazy to Rocking around the Christmas Tree… Just do it. Move to the SPIRIT in your heart.. this is what the kids remember about the holidays. not that 300$ iPod or the barbie they bugged you about all year.
GO GO AND DO IT NOW!!
The Black Cat Treasury
Since it seems treasurys are ever elusive, I’d make my own right here, simple enough… Gather together a collection n put it up..So here’s my first, Inspired by my Siamese half breed and resident Halloween Kitty, Spooky.
Adult Black Cat Slippers, piddies 36.00 Curious Cat Peeking at YOU Pendant, DebsRandomArt 10.75
Purr-fectly Pretty- Black Kitty Cat Snap Clips, jackandjane 4.50
King Cat Fish Stick Co. black cat artwork on canvas, geministudio 75.00
Retro Black Cat Flannel Rag Edge Quilt Crib/Lap/Throw Blanket, 2CraftyChix 27.00
Black Cat Inside and Eager to Cross Your Path - door sign protects your cat, KnobNots 3.50
Black Kitty Scarf with White Eyes, rosaleendhu 25.00
Scrabble Tile Pendant - CAT EYES - Buy 2 Pendants Get 1 Free, ShowWhoYouAre 6.50
Sleeping Kitty Pincushion- black, LucysLocket 16.00
The First Pair of Socks
I’ve done it, I’ve finally done it!! I’ve gotten socks… After reading what feels like a hundred patterns, looking at at least 20 youtube videos, and trying and trying, I’ve got it!
And amazingly once my brain put it together it was easy!!
I decided to start with a small project, but had to hunt and peck for a while to find one that would work with the size DPNs that I currently own. ( somewhat limited as its a new thing for me to be doing) And after finally finding one that would fit my needles and my adorable daughter, I set to work.
I found this great Glow in the Dark yarn from Bernat in the discount bin at my local Michael’s and picked it up cause it was only $.99 a ball. Got 2 blue and 2 pink, a great deal. And thought this would be perfect for warm winter sockies to wear around the house for the kids.
Kaylor having the littler feet got hers first tonight as soon as I finished them, a couple evenings forthe socks isn’t too much tume for a little project like these socks, which although each came out slightly different than the other due to my lack of experience. But then how do you get good and consistant with anything unless you practice? Despite the litle flaws, shes already loves em to bits, becuse mommy made em just for her and they’re fuzzy n pink to boot!
Lost Ponderings.. Thoughts in my Head 