Justice Suffers From My Idiocy

Glad to have a reason to tempt Justice out of bed this morning, as I shook his shoulder, I said cheerily, "Wake up Justice, it's wacky hair day! Do you want to go to school with green hair?!"

Well of course he did! So we had fun spiking his hair and spraying it with some green glittery hair-spray that I had left over from a Halloween costume last year. Justice was stoked about his cool, green, glittery, spiked hair!

I dismissed the little nagging worry as I dropped him off at school, and didn't see any other kids with crazy hair. "I looked at the date. It's today. Their parents just aren't as fun as I am. Besides, I only saw about 10 kids, surely that place is a buzz with crazy haired kids." I told myself, as I drove off. "It's just like when you were in grade school, and you called your fellow band member friend every time to make sure it really was the day that you were supposed to wear you band uniform to school, for a band competition. It's fine!"
Doesn't he look great! Well just to satisfy that little nagging doubt that was barely noticeable at the back of my brain, I re-checked the page. Red Ribbon week is NEXT WEEK!!!! Monday was just wear a red shirt, so we're okay there. I guess the up shot is that I noticed my mistake before I sent him to school in his pajamas tomorrow! Oh I'm a loser! I hope Justice has a good sense of "look at me, I'm cool"ness. I hope I haven't scarred him for life.


And since I'm here, who falls asleep like that?????


T

The Smelly Tail of the Mighty Huntress

Yes, Bruce is SOO PROUD of his little girl! He took Ross and Lydia away for youth deer season, and Lydia made her first kill. It was actually a doe, but Bruce posed Lydia with the antlers off a different deer, so he could taunt his hunting buddies with this photo. They all hunt in the same area, and the guys are feeling a little miffed because no one has gotten a buck in several years there. So Bruce figured that it would really steam their eyebrows if a 13 year old girl bagged a buck on her first try there.

They also went to Metropolis nearby, and visited some Superman stuff.

About a day after the trio came home, I started noticing a bad smell in my kitchen. I went through all my cabinets looking for rotten potatoes or onions gone bad, all to no avail. But that smell just kept getting worse. I looked all over for the source, but I just couldn't figure it out. That is until I saw part of a plastic bag just peeking out over the top of my cabinets. Curious, I climbed up on a chair to see what it was. As I picked it up, I saw something small and furry, and wet looking through the white, plastic bag. Grossed out already, I started to open the bag up, and that's when the smell hit me. It was HORRIBLE!!!! I gagged. Someone forgot to take the tail of Lydia's deer outside in the sun to dry so that they could make a plaque with it. EWWW!!!! I got in big trouble with Lydia because I threw it in the outside trash. She cried. It has since been dug out of the trash and set to dry on the roof of my garage. I still have my doubts about that nasty thing.

At any rate, GO LYDIA the MIGHTY!!!

The Journey of a Golf Ball (also in which Renae taunts environmentalists and goes to Hell)

What is up with our stuff breaking down lately? I had to get a repair man out to fix the ice maker on our 3 month old fridge. My second clothes dryer is currently out of commission. (Yes I have two washers and two dryers. It helps a lot when you have a family of seven. And before you go off on me for ruining the environment with my energy wasting by running two dryers at the same time, it's not like I do any more laundry than I would do with only one. I just get it done faster. Clothesline??? I don't know. Sure sometimes, but who has the time for all of that all the time? Drop it. Just leave me in peace with my energy sucking, Earth ruining, devil worshiping two dryers already!! I'm sure that my eternal soul will pay a heavy price for my crimes! Shall I tell you how many disposable diapers I have contributed to my ginormous environmental footprint? I can hear a mob of dirty hippies knocking down my door as we speak! Al Gore is planning is next movie based on me and how I have single-handedly managed to raise the earth's average temperature by 5 micro-degrees, obliterate a 20 foot section of the ozone layer, and melt an entire polar ice cap ALL BY MYSELF!! Me and my bad kind of light bulbs!!! Come on I've TRIED to be good. I've got several of those "good" light bulbs in my house. (Please don't ask me how many of those my kids have broken! We're probably all dieing of cancer as we speak.) ACK! Is that the ghost of Rachel Carson holding a green knife at my throat?!! Okay, enough. Bruce just spent the entire day yesterday getting our van fixed. (Yes, I own a large vehicle that runs on gasoline, AND I drive it!) The blue-ray player that we bought only 4 months ago at most, has decided not to work, and when I turned on the heater the other day, (Yes, I have the audacity to heat my home, but only when it's cold outside.) it made a HORRIBLE noise.

Here is where we get to the story that I wanted to tell. A week ago or so, I got cold and struck up the heater for its first voyage of the year. As was expected on this first session of the year, this was accompanied by that familiar smell of a summer's worth of dirt being burned up, and by the usual beep or two of the smoke alarm. What I did NOT expect was the horrible rocks-in-a-blender noise that followed. Alarmed and dismayed, I shut the thing right off, and reluctantly added another urgent item to my hubby's to-do list. Happily the cold snap went away for a week or two, giving Bruce some time to get around to it. When he finally did, he was a witness to the awful sound of potential malfunction, and high maintenance fees. But, being the wise and brave soul that he is, he did not fear to investigate the source of this dreaded noise. Upon doing so, he was able to trace the sound to the exhaust fan.

"Do you know what that sounds like?" he asked me "That sounds like a golf ball in there."

"How could a golf ball get in there?!" It's a small box thing closed except for the ... oh, the two exhaust pipes that run up the length of the machine to the basement ceiling, turn ninety degrees, and then run about 12 feet out to vent in the backyard. We have found the little kids sticking rocks in the end of it. In fact a couple of years ago, Justice put one in there large enough to block enough airflow so as to make the heater shut off entirely, and refuse to run properly. But the kids were never able to get the rocks more than an inch or two into the end of the pipe, where you could just reach in and grab them right back out.

"If it's a ball, it could just roll all the way in." answered my genius Bruce.

So Bruce, with his trusty screw driver, undid the fastenings that held the pipes to the exhaust fan, reached his hand in and found .... a golf ball.

And there was much rejoicing.

Sweetness (or Not)

My kids are always stapling pages together to make homemade books. As I was cleaning up yesterday, I found two. The first one was titled "I love Mom" and had pictures of a kid hugging his mom. The second was titled "I Kill You."

My van is currently in need of some work, so for a day or two I'm hoofing it. I needed to make a trip to the Post Office today, which just happens to be about a half of a mile from my house. It's a gorgeous, autumn day, so I rather enjoyed a leisurely walk with my three year old, Clayton. We stopped and looked at a dragon fly, picked up colorful leaves and a nasty bit of rope that had been run over by about 100 cars. Clayton said it looked like a dead snake and cheerfully gave it to me to carry home.

As we were leaving, Pam, my friend who works at the Post Office handed Clayton one of those small packets with about 10 little fruit snacks inside it. Clayton looked up and said "Nakes!" in his sweet way ("nakes" is Clayton's version of "thanks" As we started home, Clayton was babbling about how he was going to share with his brothers. Back in the beautiful day, Clayton snacked and we continued collecting pretty gold and red leaves. About halfway home Clayton stopped, felt the tiny fruit snack package, and realizing that it was empty, a sad little frown crossed his face as he moaned "Oh, now I can't share with Mark! I ate dem all."