Blogging on Wednesday (Instead of Tuesday)

 I forgot to blog on Tuesday.  

Of course, this blog is really being written for my convenience not readers so that shouldn't really matter.  I was supposed to be testing myself to see if I could hold to a schedule and since a couple weeks ago I blogged on Monday, and this week I'm blogging on Wednesday, that isn't working very well at the moment.  

All I remember about yesterday is that we were expecting an enormous storm that was going to blow us off the map, which thankfully didn't turn out to be as bad as it might have been and we just got rain.  2 inches overnight and another 0.40" today.  

I wasn't feeling very well that day either.  I think I knitted too much when I should have been up and doing.  

We've been doing some outside work.  Saturday, Jim and I cleaned up a little spot in back of the shop to finish his tree planting project.  I planted spinach and Jim planted another two rows of sweet corn.  It doesn't take very long the way he does it.  

I had the boys Friday for a bit and it was the most gorgeous day of the whole week.  I don't have very many photos.  Those boys keep me running so I don't have time to take any.  They played the whole time in our sand circle (where the pool used to be) while I pulled the weeds out of it.  We have a little sit-upon excavator toy and we didn't have any fights over it.  Luckily they all took turns with that, the sand, the rocks, the digger, and the 'heavy equipment', aka Tonka toys.  

Our apple trees are easy to climb and I wish I had a photo of Zane way up in the far apple tree.  Christian was so nearly into this one.

Barry was having so much fun just swinging.  Those are Barry's legs. 

And here comes Zane for his turn on this tree. 

I thought our new front step area would be a good place to take a photo of all this boys.  It is a good place and they were surprisingly compliant.  

I had the 'little boys' this morning since their mama had orientation for her Occupational Therapy Assistant program she starts in the fall.  Due to time constraints, and previous plans, I drove up to her place through the rain and after breakfast and a change of clothes, we drove back to Gramma's through the same rain and made a mess of the inside of the house instead of playing outside.  I can't remember one thing we did except get out the Fisher Price house, the Lincoln logs, the playmobil, the lego game, Blokus, and Outburst in-between drinking chocolate milk, roasting marshmallows in the fireplace and making pancakes for lunch.  I think Christian played with the house for a little bit and eventually they brought the doll strollers upstairs to push babies for two minutes, So, then we had to put all the un-played with toys away again when mama came.  

Thankfully, their disinterest in playing with the toys came before any of the boxes were dumped, so that wasn't a very big job.

It's supposed to rain some more this week.  

Time is too slow for those who wait, 

too swift for those who fear, 

too long for those who grieve, 

too short for those who rejoice, 

but for those who love...Time is ETERNITY

It's Wet Out There

I've just come from looking at another friend's blog.  She loves Mondays.  I do too.  It started back in the day when Monday was payday.  I could get my money in order for the week and it felt good.  Now, payday is later in the week, and Monday is usually my busiest day because I get all fired up to get lots of things done and often do them.  It seems like my plan is to work hard, especially with the business side of things earlier in the week, crash and burn, then rest on Thursday and Friday, with a rekindling on Saturday, another rest on Sunday and I'm back in the harness on Monday to start all over again. 

It rained here.  Saturday.  ALL DAY.

It's a good thing really.  We have been very dry.  The wind has been blowing every day.  One day we had 50 mph winds and the dust blowing off the construction sites created 'brown outs'.  I didn't hang out the sheets I washed because even if they would have stayed on the line, they would have been full of dust.  So, we were happy for the rain.  It was one of those nice soaking rains that really did some good.  I went out Saturday to do some errands and on my way stopped to get the mail and the rain blew some drops into my ear.  I didn't realize the wind would blow the rain in my open window so fiercely and my immediate thought was, "Oh, no, I'm not supposed to get water in my ear!"

I worried all day, thought my ear felt wet, imagined all sorts of scenarios: would I get an infection, a fungus, how soon should I go to the doctor?  At the end of the day, we puffed in some of my leftover fungicide powder that if not effective as a medicine should succeed in drying up any water.  

It seems to have worked.  

I think I need to protect that ear when I go out from rain and dust.  Not that we will likely see rain again for awhile.  We got 6+" over two days and that is about half of our annual rainfall.  

(Well, not really, but it seems like it.)

Sunday was Jim's birthday.  My folks came to visit and we had most of the family over for supper that night to eat and talk and distribute gifts.  

Zane and Barry colored pictures for cards for Papa, but Christian had a bad day and didn't make one.

We've been trying for a few weeks to burn this great big pile of trees and stuff.  The first time Jim tried to get a burn permit was the last time we had snow on the ground, but was refused because it was supposed to get windy, it didn't.

That rankled in his soul for the days after so he went right down today and got his desired permit.  Today is a good day because it rained (and rained, and rained some more), so it was too wet to be in danger of spreading and to wet to do any underground construction work.  

It was a bit hard to get it started.  Jim used some dry boards from the shop.

Fire starting on a foggy morning. 

Then the sun came out. 

The fire burns. 

The fire dies down and the clouds come up. 

I'm glad that eyesore is out of our line of vision.

And, I'm still waiting on news for implant surgery.

And in honor of tax day:

Learning New Things

One thing that happens weekly is a visit from Lorene and the two little boys, since Zane is in school.  Lorene left them with me for a hour while she was off and those boys must have had spring fever, since they were inside and outside and wanting to play one game for 5 minutes, and then another game for 5 minutes, then perhaps this toy would be the right thing....and on and on.  

I let them spray my plants with a little hand sprayer and that was the biggest mistake because then they went on to the windows and the kitchen floor, which is all well and good because they were all cleaner than when they started, but since they were willing enough to help wipe at first, that idea was much less appealing that running around spraying things.  I finally shoved them outside and they could spray anything out there except the windows.  

Before Lorene left Barry brought up my small stepladder from the basement,  (how he can manage that since it is taller than he is I don't know), with the intent of get the marshmallows I keep on the top shelf.  He can't get up there so I got the marshmallows and during this time the timer on the microwave rang to remind me I had clothes in the washer, but I forgot them because Christian grabbed the microwave door which didn't open and he was pulling it toward the edge of the counter! (He was on the stepladder.) Lorene jumped as only a mother can when her child is in danger and in the kerfluffle an egg full of glitter left over from Lynette's senior Spanish class crashed to the floor and we had glitter all over.  I was glad to be done with the thing floating around.  Poor Christian thought he was in trouble, but we were just all excited over the microwave incident.  

I'm sweeping up the mess while the boys finished their ice cream cones.  This was the first time they've ever eaten ice cream this way, so Lorene had to help them out by showing them how to take a bite and pretty soon they were all gone!

There is no much cuter than a little boy with a flower for his gramma.  One time while the kids were outside that morning, I was in the basement attending to the forgotten laundry when I saw Christian running full tilt to the house with something in his hand.  I went back upstairs so he could find and he held out his dandelion (with a long stem) for me.  I put it with the other flowers on my counter.  

I transplanted these dutch irises last year and I'm so pleased with the way they are thriving.  There were some of my favorite spring flowers when I was a kid and I took some roots of Mom's when I had a place of my own to plant them.

Yesterday I took a trip to Omaha again.  This time it wasn't because I had an infection.  This time it was because it actually looked like I would be able to have that BAHA evaluation done at last.  I was scheduled to have the evaluation done two months ago, but I had that horrible swelling mastoid infection and surgery instead.

The evaluation consisted of finding a foundation hearing level in my left ear by blocking sound in the right ear by putting noise in it.  In the first test I pushed a button when I could hear sounds; in the second test I was supposed to repeat words.  I couldn't hear half the words so I knew I wasn't doing well on that test.  

The next part of the test the audiologist put a headband type thing where the transmitter rests on the bone behind my ear and the other end just rest on the other side of my head.  Then I go through the same tests again, beeps and words and I did a much better job.  The audiologist said I improved from 50% to 88% using that headband which makes me a good candidate for the bone anchored hearing aid (BAHA).  As long as she kept the headband on my head could hear her speak plainly, but when she took it off, I was back to hearing the way I always do, like my head is covered in a pillow. 

The next step is to schedule surgery to have the titanium rod inserted into the bone.  But, first they have to talk to the insurance company.  

I'm reading this book.  I was interested because I was sure this massacre was mentioned in Janice Holt Giles book, "Six-Horse Hitch" a fictionalized novel the includes the Overland Trail, that ran a stage coach and freight lines.  It is basically a compilation of newspaper articles, personal stories from witnesses, stories that came from ancestors, investigations of the site and other historical articles  and insights that relate to the surrounding area and times.  

The next thing that is going to happen on this computer is that Windows 10 is going to install whether I want it to or not.  It's happening either because the mouse I use has a side button that clicks things sometimes that I don't want clicked or else I had 'automatic updates' clicked on my computer and windows is now automatically updating it and I can't stop it.  My computer guy thinks that latter is what is going on.  I will have 30 days to reverse it if I choose.  It will all depend on if my business accounting software will still work with Windows 10 installed.  

Arrgh.  

However, I don't see any little windows open and ready to pounce, so who knows?

Thoughts for the day:

"When your values are clear to you, making decisions comes easier." -- Roy Disney

"Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." -- Carl Bard

Knit-Knacks

Umm...

This week, I knitted.  

And crocheted.  

And knitted some more.

And hung clothes on the line, and started a new resolution, work in the flower garden at least 15 minutes a day.  I've done it twice.  

My flower gardening at this time of year usually consists of 15 minutes of actual labor and then pushing my garden cart full of garden trash to the far corner of our property, dumping in and pushing it back.  I got really puffed out this afternoon.  

I'm also should not try to blog in the evening since I'm too tired to think about anything entertaining.  

So, I stole my daughters' photos from facebook because they are about people I like.

Zane

Humidity turns into curls.

Barry 

Christian 

Zane looks way older than I think he should. 

Christian 

These boys, while full of beans at home know how to behave at a restaurant.  Their last visit, Lorene and Aaron were complimented by two older couples about the behavior of their kids.  

Jim is working on his dad's John Deere B.  

I celebrated my birthday again with this lovely friend of mine.  Not only did she feed me lunch, she gave me some really neat Pioneer Woman stuff. 

P.S.  Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Obviously I shouldn't blog in the evening since I can't even remember what day it is.  I blogged Monday, not Tuesday.