It’s gettin' humid in here, so take off all your safety clothes

It’s that time of year again when I start whining about the weather like an incontinent old ninny-head.

It’s HOT. It’s not only hot, but it’s HUMID.

I took this snapshot on Tuesday night at 10PM. Pee. EMMM. PM. As in nighttime. 100hundredandfucking7. (I went ahead and put a little star in case you don’t know where Iowa is, since probably 1/2 of Americans think we’re near Texas.)

We drove our sweaty asses in town this morning for Emma’s eye appointment. I’d found a tiny brown dot over her iris a couple weeks ago while camping, and since it didn’t hurt and it didn’t LOOK bad, I started Googling. Oh my god CANCER. And MORE Cancer. And scooping out of eyeballs to get rid of Cancer.

I know the popular saying “Google is not your friend,” but does anyone really ever listen to it?

We spoke to the opthalmologist, and as soon as he got the magnifier up to her eye, he laughed and said, Well THAT’S interesting…

Why does the weird shit happen only to US?

He explained that she has rust inside her cornea.

From what, he’s not sure. Probably a piece of metal. But the metal is no longer there. And her eye has healed over “quite nicely.” Nicely enough, in fact, that he doesn’t want to chance damaging her eye with surgery if the rust seems content to stay put.

Now I get to watch her eyeball like a hawk for the next couple years to make sure it doesn’t move or change shape or get irritated.

We met up with my sister at the mall, but not before spending a small fortune at The Children’s Place. (Place your bids, ladies… this stuff will probably be up for garage sale when they grow out of it in half a week.)

Kristin got the Fedora, Emma got the rose petal skirt, and Alison got the sweater dress.

Kristin is now insisting she’s a detective. Because otherwise why would she have such a bitchin’ hat? So watch out.

Stephie lugged me down to Von Maur to try on shoes because she’s tired of looking at my 2-year-old yellow Soffts. I paid a lot of money for these. I plan to wear them down to little black and yellow cracked flaps of cardboard.

Which of course meant that we headed to the kids’ section. Another fortune spent. At least it was clearance this time.

In a moment of wisdom, we decided to drag the girls out of the mall and into the inferno in order to fetch lunch.

Stephie likes to crank the AC, so my car was whining through the parking lot.

It read:

but I’m pretty sure it meant:

We passed a group of brown-glazed men working on the main street through Northeast Cedar Rapids.

Stephie: Look at those poor bastards. (As she fanned her armpits in the air-conditioned breeze.) I could never work in this heat. I would die. LOOK at them – wearing no shirt under a safety vest. That’s what I’d do. I’d wear…

Me: …safety green pasties.

Stephie: With blinkers. And a bright green g-string.

Me: Definitely.

In yet another moment of heat-induced mania, we took the girls to Stuff, Etc. It’s a consignment shop where they make you pay more for regurgitated goods than you pay for it new.

We found a small white wall shelf for my bathroom, but by the time we circled back through the store, it was in someone else’s cart up at the counter. I hesitated and wondered if I could make it to the car before she realized I’d stolen it out of her cart, but I sulked instead behind her with a glass measuring cup I’d found for $3.99.

After standing behind her and being harassed by Stephie for missing out on the shelf for three minutes, I lost all desire to buy anything there. Stephie asked, Do you even really WANT that measuring cup? Can’t you just buy a NEW one??? It looks gross.

I peeked inside at the white residue caking the bottom. They probably made meth with it. Can I put it back?

Here. Let ME do it.

She plopped it – CLUNK – behind the cash register and waved goodbye to our happy little shelf.

Then we got in the car and laughed. Because heat makes us giddy. And everything is funny by this point in the story.

We picked up her spawn at the daycare where she sends her child. It’s more like a sports club-slash-school-slash-field trip facility. I would like to point out that my sister now not only doesn’t have to work a 9-to-5 job, but sends her son to this child’s paradise.

I never want to hear you complain about my years as a stay-at-home mom.

I noticed that they also have infants at this place. I say that because you can see the babies sleeping in the cribs right up against the windows.

It’s just like window shopping for puppies.

We dragged the four kids and our fat, sweaty carcasses to Coldstone Creamery, where they happily announce that under NO circumstances do they accept LivingSocial or Groupon coupons, but please do enjoy your treat. Kinda like a big Fuck You before you even place your order.

By the way, I had no such coupon. But I kinda wish I had, just so I could piss and moan a little more about it.

As we’d come into the parking lot, I’d seen this green taxi. But Stephie’s demonic voices wouldn’t allow us to get any closer than this shot through the car window.

GetmyeouttathisgoddamnedheatNOOOOWWWWW.

You don’t argue with that.

We’ve got El Derecho stuff!

Har. Har. Har. I crack myself up.

That’s about as clean as the humor gets around here.

Me: In your BUTT.

Mike: In your MOM’S butt.

Mike cracks himself up. He’s constantly making YOUR MOM references.

Which is why he had double the fun when my sister was here yesterday. It was a two-fer. Because we have the SAME MOM. (He had to spell it out for us, apparently.)

Stephie came up to tolerate Mike’s crude sense of humor and obvious butt-crack, coin slot jokes in order to help clean up the neighborhood after our Derecho on Monday morning before the butt-crack of dawn.

There’s no more relaxing way to wake up than at 5AM to Mike throwing his body up out of bed with a LOREN! Get the kids in the basement… NOW, then jolting upright only to hear what seemed like our house being sucked into the World’s Largest WetVac.

Mike – the lookyloo of the lookiest – was right there with us, huddled under the stairs. He didn’t dare go near a window. In fact, I was the one furthest from safety, perched on the edge of our “safe spot,” while Mike asked me from his prime spot: What IS that SOUND??? Can you see anything out the windows? No honor amongst spouses.

Instead of being tucked away, I sat and held on to a board that we’d – only a year earlier – bolted into the concrete floor for just such an occasion. It only ran to the upstairs banister, yet I could feel it shaking and snapping like our house was dancing around it.

Mike and I gave each other a look that said we knew we’d be lucky to have a house to go upstairs to.

Then came the sirens. Although we weren’t sure at first with all the noise of the rain and wind.

And a continuing bangbangbangbangbangbang like a crazed gaggle of woodpeckers which we later figured out was our Radon pipe that ran from below our house out to the top of the roof. Our house was twisting and popping against it.

There was so much rain and debris that we could only see alternating white and black smears out the window, depending how often the lightning flashed.

We sat down there for 45 minutes, thinking the entire time: Is this what it sounds like to be in a tornado? Or will it get louder? Why isn’t our house flying away yet? When should I dive into the corner on top of the kids?

I tried to call my parents but we had no signal.

I tried to get radar but we had no internet.

I tried to get our weather radio signal, but it was splotchy at best.

The winds died down to a dull roar at around 6, and we went up to assess the storm and damage.

I first noticed the neighbors had a flap of shingles missing. Then the girls pointed out that our mailbox was gone. Along with the horrified: How will we ever get our mail?!?

Mike peeked out the girls’ window and laughed.

Um… my bumper is off.

What do you mean?

It’s OFF MY CAR. IN THE STREET. OFF.

Sure enough. Mike’s car got hit by a roof. The new neighbors across the street had lost a chunk of their garage, and Mike’s car and our driveway FOUND it.

(Remember that the next time you complain about hail damage.)

We took a flashlight and found out we were missing part of our fence and had debris from dozens of houses on our lawn. On the way back in the house, I noticed that my hanging basket was also missing the mommy and baby birds that have been our “pets” for the last month or two.

I was devastated.

I’d heard the basket swinging and smacking the porch as we’d headed to the basement, but I was hoping they’d flown off in anticipation of the storm.

The weren’t the only fowl casualties.

The adorable ceramic chicken planter that Stephie had given me for working at her open house was in several pieces on my lawn. I took this then considered sending her a ransom note.

I heard the neighbor yelling for a dog, unusual since he doesn’t OWN a dog. Then I saw why. Only a house away, our other neighbors had lost their entire roof.

I jogged up the street and asked if they needed help, but it turned out a couple firemen had helped them out of the basement already and they were in a neighbor’s house.

We found fun trinkets all morning. This OSB came with a side of 2”x6”x12’ that scooted right up to the house. I am incredibly grateful it didn’t IMPALE anything.

Thanks to starting at 6AM and the help of a random (unknown) neighbor who happened by with his daughters and a wheel barrow, we had all of the shingles, siding, plywood and plastic out of our yard within two hours. We also found his decorative pillow.

I couldn’t figure out how my newly planted tree could snap off at the base then fly over our house but end up pushed underneath our deck. Or how our bricks had thrown themselves OVER our fence and broken in half with just straight line winds and not a tornado, but that’s what the news kept reporting.

I finally understood this morning when they reported that the Derecho had had sustained winds of 110-130 mph. The storm lasted for NINE HOURS in totality. Holy hell.

No wonder.

Mike spent most of the day at the neighbor’s house, and Stephie and I helped a little in between fetching him ice to salvage his groceries and making phone calls to our insurance.

The only positive side to this whole story (other than no people being injured) is that I noticed the mommy dove had come back to her nest. I was so sad for her. There was no way those babies survived.

Then I wondered… and I started searching.

I finally found them, huddled underneath our downspout, 20 feet away.

I scooped the fluffy babies up, one at a time, and plopped them carefully into the nest.

I’ve never seen such a happy bird in my life.

She immediately cleaned them up then sat on their heads.

Another neighbor and I found three of her baby Robins on the ground, but there wasn’t a mother bird in sight. We put them back in the nest and hoped she’d show up.

She finally did this morning.

(I’m an intervener, if you haven’t noticed.)

Watch the price of corn this year. Acres and acres and acres of corn were snapped off at the base, all across Iowa. This crop is TOAST. Even if it stands upright again, once the corn grows and puts weight on it, it’ll blow over in the first wind.

Luckily we like our neighbors, so while yesterday was extremely tiring, we’d spent the day with people we enjoy.

We finished it off with some time at the neighbor’s house, grilling out and discussing insurance deductibles and the Beastie Boys.

At least this happened on a Monday. Tuesday is garbage day, and I'm betting they'll have a few truck fulls.

Titillating Tuesday: It's a trap!

As Mike logged his third consecutive hour carousing the internet last night, looking for guns and chef's coats (which, I might add, he is now claiming he should have followed through on purchasing), I realized a horrible truth: I would soon be fighting him for computer time in order to do my homework.

Oh, the terror!

I devised a system in my head in my typical OCD fashion, mostly involving a stoplight system according to how urgently I needed to kick him off.

He must've been feeling a telepathic twinge in his brain because he immediately asked how much money we had.

Go buy a laptop tomorrow. You need it for school.

Do I need it for school? or did you realize that your computer time would be drastically reduced and you're now panicking?

No matter the reasoning behind his sudden turnaround on buying non-gun things, I'm feeling like this is a trap.

And scheming up my next move.

---

On top of all the computer speculation, I talked Mike into buying some blocks for edging out my gardens. Actually, I didn't do much asking. I hijacked my dad's truck and ran off to Menard's for block, and Mike decided to come along for the ride and criticize my life choices (aka: having too many projects) the entire way.

You see, everywhere I went the past two months, it seems as though I was always coming home with free or nearly free flowers.

Work for Stephie? Free flowers.

Sit at the greenhouse and drink with Stephie? Cheap flowers with a side of free flowers.

And two nights ago, we visited my parents after their return from a long camping trip at the Lake of the Ozarks. A couple hours in, Mom turned to me suddenly, Do you need some flowers? I've got some flowers, but we've got to sneak them out the back of the garage!

She explained that the neighbor had given her some extra irises and Mom didn't realize until later that she already had them in her gardens. And Mom apparently has some kind of bizarro Flower World kind of Affirmative Action going on when it comes to plant percentages.

I hummed the Mission Impossible theme song as Mike, Mom and I tip-toed around the back of her garage, through another neighbor's lawn and bushes, and into the back of our Suburban with a couple boxes of what looks like tall grass.

People probably think we're nutjobs already, so I can only imagine what they thought of us "stealing off" with a box of grass.

Mike pointed out: I think we already grow this stuff in our lawn. I chopped it down with the lawn mower two days ago.

Touche'.

So the moral of this story is that I have a shitload of flowers. I didn't want them to die, which is why I've moved onto this Summer's project #482: Build gardens.

---

When Mike and I got to Menard's, I noticed something amazing! The block was 15c off! (Amazing, right? Well, amazing when you have to buy 400 of them...)

I started thinking...

and thinking...

and thinking...

I'd always wanted to run brick along the edge of our driveway, ever since I saw every single fancy house had it. And no one in our neighborhood did. (I like being different. Can you tell? I bet I'm the only 30-year-old you know with chin acne...)

Anyway, we filled up my dad's truck with mulch and block and headed home.

I immediately regretted not getting more block.

On comes Summer project #483: Edge the driveway.

---

I called Menard's the next day, and - even with my sister rooting against me - they agreed to give me the sale price even though it had expired.

Haha, SUCK IT.

We drove back and filled up with $100 more in block with great aspirations of having a beautiful driveway.

Two days later, we have THIS:

A half-finished garden and a quarter-finished driveway edge.

My favorite moment of the week was when the elderly gentleman drove past me, huffing and puffing and stomping on the shovel. He said, Hittin' rock there? This was the empty lot they used to dump the rock and dirt on during construction.

Seriously??? OHMYGODKILL.

We have every manner of sharp-edged tool on our driveway so we can have various methods of hackage to mix things up. Hammers. Ice-picks. Trowels. Shovels. Post hole diggers.

Summer project #484: Get a foot massage.

---

As I was sweating and no doubt sporting some lovely pimplage on my dirty brow, a lovely young girl from Estonia (Google it) ran up in a pair of short shorts and Russian-esque accent.

She was selling Southwestern books. I told her four times I was NOT interested, but was nice and chatted with her for a minute so I could get a break from kneeling on gravel.

As she ran away, I told Mike, That's your dream job, isn't it? Running from door to door in your short shorts, talking to housewives? I'm thinking you could make a career of it.

He's planning on growing his hair out until Christmas now, so I'm thinking he could pass for a really, really ugly German woman. And before any of you Germans protest, I AM that really hairy, ugly German woman.

---

Happy Tuesday, everyone! It's back to work for me...

I have seen the future... we're gonna burn

I looked at the radar last night and saw - what appeared to be - the end of the world.

Then I remembered that Michele Bachmann was announcing her bid for the presidency today in Waterloo, Iowa.

Which explains a lot.

Hell, even in her opening prayer in the Legislature, she's convinced the End Times are upon us...

Lord, the day is at hand. We are in the last days.... We know that the times are in Your hands... The blossom on the fig tree is opening, the day is at hand, Lord, when Your return will come nigh. Nothing is more important than bringing more sheep into the fold... Lord, this is all about replacement. You tell us in Your Word to go and make disciples... I thank You, oh God, that You are literally, right now, by faith, You are lighting a fire, a fire of the Gospel, that would sweep this city, that even moreso, that it would sweep Minnesota, and that Minnesota would just become [whispering] a burning incense, a sweet-smelling incense of praise and sacrifice, into Your kingdom.

If there's anything we need more of, it's uber-Christian, loud-mouthed women in politics. When did it become popular or normal to wear your crazy on your sleeve? Remember back in the day when old conservative men would say something racist and we'd all be "They're just senile... bless his heart," but now they've got tits and hair stylists so it's okay to systematically discriminate against people who aren't straight white Christians, not only in personal lives but legally?

I have two words: Go, Mitt!

Anyway.

Steph's Farmer's Market went fairly well this past weekend. I sold one set of jewelry and spent most of my time trying to pronounce kohlrabi. That's a real thing. And people evidently love them.

Steph had so much lettuce, we were giving them away as parting gifts. Oh, you bought 5 tomatoes and some kohlrabi? Here's your free head of lettuce.

The little old ladies liked the jewelry, but weren't as amused (as I was) at my magnets.

It was fun. I added yet another layer to my sunburn, and my children are just now starting to turn chocolate brown. Thank Jeebus they got Mike's skin.

Since everyone's thinking about sunburns and sun protection, I thought I'd post this picture I found from an Australian research group.

It shows the extra skin cancer cases that are projected over the next 50 years due to the increased UV radiation caused by - you guessed it - the depleted ozone. Radiation. The sun isn't just sending heat... it's radiation. You think global warming is a myth? That's fine. Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy your complimentary melanoma.

And on a final note:

For people who say that the Japanese nuclear crisis could never happen here? I live in very close proximity to an active nuclear power plant. There very well could be a day the sirens would go off and I would have to throw my kids in the car and never come back to my home. Don't believe me: ask the people in two Nebraska towns how confident they are about their power plants' abilities to avoid a more severe flood in the future.

Mother Nature is more powerful than we are. Just a thought!

(You never heard of a broken windmill forcing a regional low-level emergency... or worse.)

Because I never know what day it is

Hey, guess what! Yesterday was Titillating Tuesday. I thought it was Thursday until the neighbor informed me otherwise. Yay for unemployment!

---

I called my sister from the road at about 1:00 yesterday. We're on our way home from Menard's with the swingset materials. I'm hoping we can finish it up tonight and get back to my other projects.

Yeah right, you won't get it done tonight.

Wanna bet?

Sure. But I expect photo evidence.

What do I get if I win?

Sushi.

You're on.

By the way, I - unlike Mike - see nothing unsafe about having 14 feet of lumber running through the center of the Suburban while traveling 75 mph. If anything, we've become one giant ramrod.

Emma: Why does it stink in here now?

It's the cancer-causing chemicals in the wood, honey. Don't worry, though. It's in there so our swingset doesn't dry out or rot. Enjoy the smell!

Mike rolled up (in his now-fixed car... it was supposedly a "burp" in the radiator line) about 7:00. I had the A-frames completely finished and was working on manhandling one of them perpendicular to the top boards. That seems really late, but I spent an hour looking for EITHER ONE of my two measuring tapes. The kids run off with them all the time, which is why you'll hear me hollering at them if I hear How tall is my bike? How long is my shoe?

I did find my kids' Scholastic book marks with built-in rulers, but I refused to mark my project up, 8-inch increments at a time.

It's feast or famine around here for help, and holy crap, last night I was running out of jobs for people.

Mike held the frames upright while I worked. I borrowed a 3/8" drill bit from the neighbors just up the street (two times on the blog in one week, Natalie... you're movin' on up!) because out of my ENTIRE KIT, it was the only one I needed and the only one missing. What kind of crappy operation am I running here???

Then neighbors started converging on the site like it was a fatal car crash.

Another neighbor grabbed his wrenches and pitched in.

Yet another climbed up to try to attach the chains (the frame is sitting 10' off the ground currently).

All trying to finish up before THIS rolled through:

Ominous, yes?

Maybe they could tell how desperate we are for outdoor entertainment for the children.

OR they overheard something about winning free sushi.

OR they overheard me saying that we should forget sinking it 2' in the ground and leave it tall enough in case the adults get drunk and decide to swing. In a literal sense.

After all that work, we still couldn't attach the swings. It didn't stop Alison from being the first child to injure herself on it by running full-out into the frame, hitting her head and her collar bone.

I'm rethinking this whole endeavor...

Anyway, I sent this picture to my sister:

She can't tell that it's not this:

...and instead is a swingless skeleton.

I'm wondering if she wins by technicality because we're missing the clasps to attach the chains?

Todays' task: sinking that sonofabitch 2 feet deep and wrestling it to its final resting place.

One last note: Late this morning, I sat down and futzed around with a few ideas for that extra end piece. The kids love pirates...

I've got a bunch of extra lumber lying around my garage.

I'm going to pick whichever child is annoying me the most and make her test it out. I'll let you know how it goes.

Date night and the garden exchange

This past week, the girls and I drove to Stephie's shop to cover it for a few hours while she took Elliott to the doctor. The doc said he's having what are called 'partial seizures.' (He goes in on Thursday for an EEG... hopefully we'll know more very soon.)

My sister has since kissed my arse and bought me flowers and taken my children overnight. I haven't been courted this intensely since... well, never.

In case you're curious, Mike and I spent our Date Night at Zeppelin's where I had the most delicious Beef Foie Gras on top of mushrooms and asparagus with a side of parmesan potatoes. Ohmygodyum.

The food is delicious and the atmosphere is very museum-underground-tavernesque.

Plus when the "boss" took my drink order and got it wrong, he brought me a second beer even though I told them it was fine and I would choke down a Bud Light. Maybe not in those words.

Mike agreed they were trying to get me drunk.

Especially since we'd just come from a graduation party for our neighbor's son and I'd tied a few on.

Which might be why I found this funny on the walk home:

It reads: Get off the phone and drive.

And the car parked behind it:

Scrape!

Maybe it was just funny to me...

Anyway, the rest of our date night was spent at Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, my father-in-law's house to feed his cats, and then to MY parents' house to crash and watch Hall Pass. Funny but not a real feel-good movie if you're living in the world of Everyone I Know Is Getting Divorced This Year.

We're the lamest 30-year-olds EVER.

Just to prove it: I was more excited that my radishes were ready to harvest than I was to have a Date Night.

So excited that I immediately ran some over to the neighbors' house to share in my radishy wealth.

They, in turn, gave me a heaping handful of rhubarb. YUMMY!

I'm thinking we should work out some kind of crop rotation between the three of us neighbors who are gardening and have a garden exchange. We could mix it in with that game night we'd been talking about reviving. I'll see your garlic and raise you a head of lettuce.

We could knock out grocery shopping and Date Night in one shot.

The next phase

Things around here are pretty fantastic, as always.

My beans and peas and corn and other late-seeded veggies are poking through the ground...

and my main garden is full and growing "fuller" every day.

Holy cabbages.

My shelves are done in the garage, and my gardens are in.

So of course that means it's time to add a new project.

I spent the last two days - hence the lack of blogging - working on my Fall schedule. I'm going to finish my Bachelors Degree in PoliComm and Psych Minor. I only have 32 credit hours left. I can say "only" now because I've decided that I'm graduating this next Spring even if I had FIFTY GAZILLION hours. I'll be the first in my family to get a Bachelors, so this is important to me. Important enough to go back on a Caffeine Only diet if need be.

(For those who are unfamiliar, 12 credit hours is full time. Usually 3-4 classes.)

I'm currently signed up for 16 credit hours for Fall and aiming for 3-6 more as Independent Study.

I can hear your doubts.

I am READY for this part of my life to be over. I enjoy going to school, but I hate hate hate driving 45 minutes each way and HATE juggling my children and housework and schoolwork.

Because I'd prefer not to spend every moment with them cleaning, but they do not cooperate when it comes to limiting their damage. Even when they're not rubbing mud on my walls or plugging my toilets or stashing dairy products under the furniture, they're constantly moving stuff around. Or creating hazards. Every time I open the dishwasher, an alphabet soup of letters clatters to the floor.

They hide my stuff from me.They reorganize and redecorate.

It's a miracle if I can find stuff, let alone put it back where it belongs so I can start to clean.

I call it Square One.

I haven't seen Square One in months.

After getting the house at least in the vicinity of Square One, I reach the phase of my cleaning called: I Stopped Giving a Shart Two Chores Ago.

I shiver at the thought of what my house might look like in August.

In fact, I'm considering asking for slightly more in Student Loans to hire a maid for the duration.

In other late-breaking news, my father-in-law is getting married in two months to a lovely woman he met at the end of last year. Proof that lightning can strike at any time. Mazel tov!

I would like to take this opportunity to tell my sister that he's 60 this year, so it should give her hope that she won't always be a cat lady. Even though she tells me she prefers the cats...

Mike will also have a new 15-year-old step-sister.

Whom I've never met, but I'm sure she's lovely as well.

My new goal? Graduate before my step-sister-in-law-to-be.

---

My sister called me this morning saying she's pretty sure Elliott's been having seizures again. They go in to see his ped (also our girls'... he's a neonatalogist and FANTASTIC) this afternoon. Keep them in your thoughts, if you could.

N is for Nuts in your Nostrils

We have big plans for the day, which of course means this beautiful sun is going to be interrupted in the afternoon by thunderstorms.

Mike wants me to drop him off in Cedar Rapids so he can bike all the way back home. I sure hope he can pedal fast...

I'm hoping the storms break up because I'm building the girls their swingset today.

I'm more excited about it than they are.

Yippee!!!! Mommy's gonna get some time away from you lovely children whom I love so much all I could think about last night was what I'm going to do while you're outside swinging for hours and hours and hours.

So I don't have much time to chit chat.

And if you pray, pray that this storm magically averts my town.

I'll leave you with these visuals of my sister at the crawfish boil yesterday:

Because if you learn anything from MY family, it's that: food with arms must be played with. (My mother can never pass up the opportunity to dance with cornish hens.)

And: if it can fit in your nostril, it should definitely go there.
My children are growing up to think this kind of behavior is normal.

God bless us, every one!

Biopsies: Add to my list of Things I Wish I Could Do Myself

My sister texted me last night. Or should I say: this morning. At 3:30.

Omg there's a bat in my house

I locked myself in the bedroom and am letting the kitties have at it!

I can't hear them running around anymore so maybe they got it!

I told her they were probably winded - they're fat cats - and sitting to watch it fly around her house.

To which she replied a calm AHHHHhhHhhh

Mike asked me why my phone was going off over and over and over again. Is your phone updating?

Yep, honey... updates. Go back to sleep, sweetie (as I chuckle at the thought of my sister hiding from a flying rodent)...

I had nightmares for the rest of the morning that her cats became infected with Rabies.

To add to the excitement, I found a 1" lump in my neck before bed.

I'm about to school y'all, so hold on to your britches.

See the region marked "sub-maxillary"? And the one next to it with the number 5 ("sub-mental")? At the anterior (toward the chin) of those sections and on my left side is where the lump is. And it's not hiding. It's a hard, round BULGE.

Anything larger than 1.5 cm is treated suspiciously and quickly. From palpating, mine seems to be about 2-2.5 cm.

So there's that little problem that I have to deal with now, on top of my rotting flesh (I had a bad makeup reaction that looks suspiciously like lepresy).

I really, really, really hate the idea of a needle going into my neck. Almost as bad as the thought of someone slicing their Achilles tendon. Necks and stretchy things should be left alone at all costs. I'm contemplating letting it marinate a while to see if it grows or goes away.

My favorite moment of the day? When the receptionist at the doctor's office told me I needed two appointments: ONE to make sure that there's a lump in my neck at all. Because I might not know what a lump is. TWO to do the biopsy to find out if it's an enlarged lymph node (and WHY it's enlarged) or a foreign growth.

I don't know about you, but I'd love to spend my afternoons driving 60 miles in a Suburban needlessly at $3.80/gallon.

If this is any indication how my summer is gonna be, I want to go back to Winter.

Since that's not possible, I need to get my ass outside and finish those shelves.

Where have I been?

If someone could message me with the start date for the CPU school year of 2011-2012, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm starting a countdown survival calendar.

Emma: Mommmm!!! Alison pulled off a heart on my new princess bike!

Alison: There's still one left...

Me: It's not your bike, why are you breaking things off of it?!?

Alison: But there's STILL ONE LEFT.

Me: I don't care if there are FIVE left, it's not your bike, LEAVEITALONE!

That was on Day #5 of summer vacation.

There's no way we'll all come out the other end unscathed or without severe psychological trauma.

Just one day into vacation, I was yelling at the kids, Keep your hands to yourselves or I'm gonnapulloverthisgoddamnedcarandbreakthemOFF.

Then I started laughing.

And the kids started laughing.

Okay, so there's a chance we'll make it through, but we might all need therapy come August.

If not from the constant fighting and breaking it up, from the storms. Oh, the storms. I love having a random Tornado Warnings roll up on us.

In between "fire drills" to the basement, I've spent my time in Perpetual ProjectLand.

I'm determined to wrap up some long-awaited jobs. Like painting the fairies on the girls' bedroom wall that I started to do 100-kajillion decades ago and never finished.

I can only get that stuff done with the kids preoccupied, so Mike is in charge of them. Which means Movie Time or Computer Time. Here's Kristin staring patiently at the microwave timer:

When the weather's nice, I've been using my power tools and getting picked on relentlessly by the passing neighbors. (One of whom told me that I'm "the hardest working person" she's ever seen. I offered her $10 to repeat that to my husband.)

And up went the storage unit...

I have to rip the OSB out of the basement - since we're now doing an acid wash directly on the concrete floor instead of carpeting - and cut them to make the shelves. That's for another day...

Right after that picture, we had to drag the kids off to their T-ball game. It should have been their fourth, but it's been so crappy and stormy that it was only their second.

We got there.

The other team got there.

No one else from our team showed up, not even the coaches.

Mike ran back to the house to grab my phone (I'd forgotten it in the mad dash) and I called the coach 20 minutes after the game "started."

He said that there had been a change in location and it was now at the other town, 10 minutes away, and that the other team and my family should pack up and high-tail it to meet the 4 kids over there so we could play for 20 minutes in the ensuing rainstorm.

(The T-ball season has been a scheduling NIGHTMARE. With all the makeups and this being the organizer's first year of being responsible for it, it's been all over the place. There was no apparent reason for the location change since our field was free. I had checked the details on the league site before leaving the house and made sure which field was listed, so it's not like I didn't CHECK.)

We said SCREW IT.

We stayed put and played Adults vs. 6-year-olds. (We lost.)

Mike had decided to come with at the last minute, and I'm sure he's glad he did. He had a lot of fun trying to outrun small children.

We took a "team picture" of all the kids since they'd had such a blast. In fact, we were playing so hard we didn't realize we'd played for 90 minutes in the rain. (There are 2 sets of triplets in this picture... the boys on the ends and the girl 3rd from the left. All of those kids are adorable!)

They asked us to play with them again on Tuesday if we're able to make it. We're trying to figure out our schedule because the girls would love to.

Other than all that craziness, I've been spending most of my time at my sister's hoop house, Bloom. It was CRAZY this weekend for her open house. I know nothing about flowers, so I spent most of my time chasing my sister down with questions or flat out guessing how big plants would get. Of course I explained they should take it with a grain of salt since I have a black thumb.

We had a lot of visitors, mostly human. Some? Not as much.

I told Stephie they were there to flirt with my chicken.

The kids spent some time with my parents while camping this weekend. They'd been begging to go with them, so I finally caved in.

Of course this meant that a couple huge storms rolled through and scared the bejeezus out of them.

Dad told me: I went out for a cigarette and it wasn't even windy, then I went in to make a pot of coffee and Mom was yelling, Scott, the awning is lifting straight up!!! We went to pull it in and the girls - Alison and Kristin - were at the door screaming and screaming and trying to get out. Things were blowing everywhere and a couple branches landed on campers and tents, and we were yelling at them to stay put.

Mom: We put pillows around the kids and had them sitting by the couch, so they were kinda protected, but the wind was so strong the camper was rocking and I thought for SURE we were gonna flip over.

Emma asked me later if we'd had a bad storm at our house, too. I told her we did. She said, It was scary. Mom, you should have come and got us. When the storm came, you should've drove over and GOT US. Maybe next time, dear.