Devastated Without the Camper

So. It's the boys' fall break, and I convinced Al to take us to the beach. It's the first Halloween that we have not spent at home. We got this hotel suite for super cheap, but it is soooo nice. Especially considering our typical outdoorsy type of traveling accomodations. Alan and I have our own room and the boys are sleeping on a Murphybed in the living room. Have so never seen one of these in person. Matthew and Michael were happy as clams and were so totally wiped out when we finally got the lights out that they went right to sleep. We checked on them about 15 minutes later, and this is what we found:

That's Matthew with his arm around Michael. And both of them wrapped up in their Beloved Blankies. I had visions of the bed flying up into the wall with them snuggled under the covers in the middle of the night, but that did not happen. However, I'm struck with what a perfect place that might be for "time out"...
All of us adore the beach (except maybe Alan...he's no Beach Boy despite the grinning picture below). It's like going to the World's Biggest Sandbox for M&M, and they spent the whole time running back and forth between the hole they dug (where Michael was flinging sand) and the ocean.

This is the first year where we don't feel like we have to quite watch our kids like a hawk. I looked for sharks' teeth (hi Mary!) and found six. Alan just kind of tooled around helping the boys and checking out his hot wife. HA! Just checking to see if you're still reading. The temperature was in the 60s, so swimming was not really an option. Because we're not FOOLS. But it was so, so comfortable to be out on the sand.

The boys did end up getting a bit wet. Where there's water, they're boys. And doggone it, when you have to fill your bucket with sea water to fill up your sand pit, it's a sacrifice you have to make. Michael was like a little sandpiper darting all around. This was maybe his one still moment.

Our hotel also has this great water park, so even though it's too cold to swim outside, we can take advantage of the heated pools, water slides, and lazy river. Matthew was all over the place. The two of us had waterslide races. Michael was timid about the lazy river, but was a bit more amenable to giving it a whirl after being promised a brownie when we got back to the room. Yes. I believe in child bribery. Here, Alan and Michael are squirting each other with spouting elephants. Not quite as, you know, threatening as the lazy river.

Tonight: a little pirate and dinosaur will pay a visit to Broadway at the Beach for an evening of trick-or-treating.

Inspiration

Today is Alan's grandparents' 68th wedding anniversary. So amazing. They are a precious couple. Alan's parents and Alan, Michael, and I (Matthew, of course, was busy dining it up in the school caf) took them to lunch at the K&W. Michael's unprompted response after glancing around the restaurant: "there sure are a lot of old people here!All of my own grandparents have passed away, so Papa Harvey and Mama Ruth are my substitute grandparents. They are salt of the earth kind of people and lived across the street from Alan while he was growing up. He has a special relationship with them as a result, and I am so thankful that our children have gotten to know their great-grandparents. They have set such a strong Christian precedence for the family.

Can you imagine being married 68 years? That means Al and I only have 58 more to go!

Going Green

Our yard is such a mess. Who can really keep on top of it? We're too busy with the critters invading our home (the woodpecker was back today tapping on the house...which makes the lead-in hole for the squirrel...). BUT, some gracious, long-sighted former tenant knew we would be Yard Challenged and planted a wonderful camelia. It usually blooms in early November, but this year it is already covered with blooms. It's kind of bushy, but really pretty. So, I brought some of the flowers inside since this is about as floral as our yard gets.

And this plant below is some kind of begonia that my friend Dana (hi Dana!) gave me before she moved to Seattle a few years ago. I know! I said a few years ago! And it's survived - and thrived. Since I tend to have a brown thumb, this is a minor miracle. And I mean, umm, it was such a pressured gift, although she didn't mean it that way. Her mother had the doggone thing since before she was born. Oh, the stress of plant care! Fortunately, this is one that is hard to kill.
Please don't let those be famous last words, please don't let those be famous last words, please don't let those be famous last words...

Disclaimer: My Son is Not a Clone

A friend of mine has asked me to take a few pictures of her and her baby this weekend (hi Kristin!). She has been told not to expect professional quality photographs. However, I thought it might be high time to read the manual for my camera and get an idea of what all the various settings can do before I take the pictures.

So, then I found this "landscape" setting. You take three separate pictures and then the camera "stitches" the pictures together. Of course, the idea is to use this feature for landscape shots, but I thought it might be neat to try it using the same person in all three shots. Click on the pictures to enlarge.
I won't be using this feature to take pictures for my friend but will definitely try it again in the future.

Tenth Snake of the Season - FOR REALS

My snake count is starting to annoy even me now, so hopefully this is the last one of the season. And this one I didn't even see at home.

So, there I am at work. Minding my own business. Trying to earn my pennies. Walking a student back to his class on the playground. There is a short wooded walkway to get there, and in the middle of the sidewalk was a cousin of the snake above coiled, hanging out waiting for us. My kindergarten student freaked a bit, but I am so over this by now. And this is one of those pencil-thin, little snakes...officially named...Brown Snake (hi Melissa! See - just like yours!). So, I shooed it a bit with my foot and it slithered slow as molasses off the sidewalk into the leaves. Gracious. These things are following me around or something. I'd rather have a puppy.

My Name is Julie, and I Have An Addiction...

...to candy corn.

This is my absolute favorite candy, and I am not to be trusted around an open bag.

What is it with me and orange snack foods?

In addition to being my fantastic gal pal Amy's birthday,

October 30th is also

National Candy Corn Day.

The slogan? I swear I am not making this up:

"It's not just for Halloween anymore!"

Go live it up for me...and then I'll meet you at the next

CCEA (Candy Corn Eaters Anonymous, of course) meeting.

Fall-ing In Love with the Season

Every year when I was growing up, my family would always take a trip in October along the Blue Ridge Parkway to see the fall leaves and take in the fall mountain sites. We still do this annually, but now our group has really increased from our original five. This year we were up to 16. We actually went a week later this year than we usually do. And while the leaves were much more colorful, the temperatures were also much cooler - 42 degrees at lunchtime.

Roasting marshmallows was extra pleasant this year.

Our first stop is always at Groundhog Mountain. Michael likes to climb on the fences, and Matthew likes to just run around. Anywhere we go, Matthew always finds a stick. Lately, he's been pretending that his stick is a gun.

Such a boy. Then we head down the road (Parkway) to Mabry Mill.

Lots of mountain arts to watch today.
In addition to basket weaving there was black smithing, weaving on a loom, apple cider pressing and apple butter cooking, and corn husk doll making.
We always end up picnicking at Rocky Knob. One of the favorite parts of the trip for the boys at this stop is climbing all over the rocks while we picnic. Of course, I'm always sure that they are going to plunge to their deaths (it's a bit steeper than this picture implies), but so far, so good.
Cutie hubbers taking a chill. We will not pay attention to the fact that he is wearing socks with his birks. Oh my.
The infamous Granny Puckett cabin where our family always had to stop (despite the fact that the cabin is padlocked and nothing in this area ever changes) on the annual family trek. This little mountain midwife that lived here supposedly delivered around 1000 babies all over these mountains, but none of her own (something like 20) children survived beyond infancy. Amazing how the times have changed...makes me even more thankful for my two healthy boys.
For years we've driven past this church, but never stopped. Poor Alan. I had him stopping all over the place so that I could take pictures. I don't think this church is very old, but I love that it's made out of mountain stone.

I wish the light was better in this picture. Matthew and Michael had been begging for pumpkins (but not in a completely obnoxious way), so we stopped at this wonderful produce stand in Cana, VA. They both decided that they did not want the bigger variety. They chose two smaller pumpkins with interesting stems instead. Matthew was very proud.The apples - and there were so many different kinds - were so colorful.

And cheap - $0.79 per pound.
The produce at this stop was really amazing. It seems the yellow jackets and honeybees thought so, too (click on picture to enlarge...but watch that you don't get stung!).
And the most beautiful site we saw today (where we filled up Bullet):

If You Get the Answering Machine, You'll Know Why

Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me.

So, now that that's out of the way (thanks for singing along),

here's my list of 35 things I'm going to accomplish during this next year.

Inspired in part, by a book my college best friend Lori (hi Lori!)

gave me - "The Wish List" - a long, long time ago.

1. Start teaching Michael to read
2. Celebrate my 10th Wedding Anniversary
3. Run in at least one 5K
4. Create a customized crossword puzzle for my hubbers, providing clues that only we two would know
5. Learn three jokes that get laughs every time
6. Develop close friendships with people of different generations
7. Have back-up singers echo me every time I say something important (well, I'm crossing my fingers on this one)
8. Start a watermelon garden
9. Spend five days focusing on each of my five senses – one day per sense
10. Keep in touch with far-flung relatives
11. Write a children’s book in which the protagonist is a character very like my own son
12. Get the amaryllis (thanks Janice!) on my windowsill to bloom in winter
13. Prepare a salad using 20 different ingredients
14. Do nothing all day and feel no guilt
15. Grind my own coffee beans for my morning cup
16. Not eat all I can eat at an All-You-Can-Eat buffet
17. Find a four-leaf clover
18. Praise rather than criticize
19. Reread my favorite book (Jane Eyre)
20. Design jewelry (remake my wedding rings)
21. Eat fresh corn on the cob in January
22. Do karaoke
23. Lay a tile floor
24. See all the Oscar-nominated movies dating back to 1927
25. Write a thank-you letter to someone who influenced me
26. Give blood four times
27. Create a budget and stick to it
28. Scratch my name in the wet concrete of a fresh sidewalk
29. Substitute nonsense for common sense from time to time
30. Put all my photographs in albums, clearly marked
31. Put a message in a bottle and float it out to sea
32. Devise a treasure hunt for my kids
33. Vacation with my best friend
34. Help Matthew write and "publish" his first novel
35. Ride a tandem bike with my husband

Oh, Snap!

Do you remember the line in "Never Been Kissed" (one of my favorite movies ever - please go watch it just for me!) when Drew Barrymore ("Jozy Grossie") tells an adult at the high school she goes to "I'm seventeen? I'm seventeen!"? Well, as much as I feel internally like I should be seventeen, I am quite double that as evidenced by certain birthdays this week. However, when I happened onto this book in the children's non-fiction section of the library the other day while I was looking for a drawing book for Matthew, I figured, heck, why not? I'm interested in photography, I can't afford a class for financial or time reasons, and my skills aren't that high level anyway. Why not start with a book for kids and learn what all those settings on my camera mean.

OK. So, it's not that technical. BUT it's been fun to read about how to group people for shots and different angles to use and settings, etc. Now I just want to take all kinds of pictures. Umm. And get a nicer camera.

My Husband (A.K.A. Paul Bunyon)

For the past few weeks, I've been noticing that we have two trees right beside our driveway that have been leaning precariously. As in, I don't let the kids play outside unsupervised right now because I'm afraid that those trees are going to come toppling down on their heads. So, using up some surplus testosterone, by hubbers borrowed my dad's chainsaw and brought them down (the trees that is, not his children). It was quite a multi-step process, and for a while, my hubs was stumped (ha! get it?) trying to figure out how to get them to fall without killing him. Fortunately, no hubbers were harmed in the posting of this blog.

Both of the trees were pines that had just died and rotted through. We seem to have a plethora of dead pines around here.
Hubs was taking a breather from all that manly work. Before his lovely wife could assign him the next Saturday task on the list. He's so thankful for me.

Ninth Snake of the Season (I KNOW!)

I promise I'm not obsessed with snakes.

We're just very reptilian in this neck of the woods these days.

Maybe it's the weather?

After running around town with my friend Becky all afternoon, I came home to find my hubbers holding our winter snow coaster (think Chevy Chase in "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation) with this little snake in it. It's a red-bellied snake (about 12 inches), so it's very little and very wiggly.

There's a thin red stripe down it's back.

Nothing says "Welcome Home" like a fresh snake, you know?

The Next Yeats or Pasternak is MY SON

My son's first attempt at poetry. Of course, it's stunning. He dictated it to me on Sunday as we were driving to Olive Garden (always an inspirational drive, to be sure). We're signing him up for the next local poetry reading. Right after he receives the Nobel Prize.

AUTUMN (or, ALL THAT STUFF)
By: Matthew

September 28, 2008

Autumn is great. Autumn is fall. Autumn is here now.

It’s time for animals to get ready for winter.
It’s time for squirrels to gather their nuts.

It starts getting cold in the morning and warm in the afternoon.
October is here. October is now.
Bye bye September. Hello October!

People start getting and growing pumpkins.
Halloween has come and Halloween things are coming out.
Skeletons, ghosts, bats.
All that stuff is here today.
Rats, mice, and witches.
All that stuff is part of the day.
And goblins and ghosts and witches and skeletons and graveyards.
All that stuff is scary.

Leaves! Acorns! Squirrels!
All that stuff is fun!
Water starts getting cold.
It feels like winter!

Still, in October school has started.
Kindergarten! First grade! Second grade! Fifth grade! And Fourth grade!
All that stuff.
School has started and preschool.

No, I Do NOT Also Have A Meth Lab in the Basement

Well. It's not all snakes and coyotes and dwelling-destroying-squirrels around here. In addition to the World's Most Perfect Cat (and let me pause here and share something that needs to be said: if you feel like cats are not the slap happy, ego-feeding social pets that dogs are, well, duh. Cats are not dogs. And maybe cats would be more social with you if you were more worthy of their cat-i-ness. OK. Enough controversy for one day. And for the record, I am equal opportunity dog lover), we have two very charming, very squeaky guinea pigs. Otis and Chester. Brought to our home by Santa two years ago for two little boys. But hey, we all know they were really for me. Because I was just that good that year.

Here's my sweet little Chester. Sunday night I noticed that my little muffin wasn't eating or drinking and was hiding out in his fake wood tunnel, which is so unlike him. I looked up guinea pig illness on the internet, and wow. As in whoa wow. Much more about guinea pigs than I wanted to know. When he seemed the same Monday morning, I decided to take him to the vet as I am not into animal suffering (except for the snakes). And to the tune of (sit down) $95, I found out that he was slightly dehydrated and had umm...bottom issues and needed some vitamin C. And that she didn't feel any stomach tumors/stones, but if I wanted, she could do some x-rays. Umm. Love him, but no. So, instead, she offered some feeding tips to perk up my little fella with additional vitamin C and requested a daily phone call update. That I can do.
So, since I've shared many a recipe on the ole blog, here's my latest: Veggie Smoothie! Just grab some raw spinach and a couple of carrots and a leaf or two of kale (never bought that before!), a handful of your freshest hay, and some applesauce. Whip it around in your blender, and voila! The appetizing delight you behold below!
So, then I just whip out the old syringe (which the kindly vet provided), suck up a bit of the sludge, wrap up a pig in a towel, and weasel the tip into little piggies mouth, and gently extrude! Three times a day! For the next two days! And abracadabra (plus some earnest prayers), our little piggie is on the mend. I knew all those speech path swallowing seminars would come in handy!