Hanging with the Sickie

We have entered day 2 of "Bored at Home with Mom". Today her fever was up to 103.4. She said she felt fine until I told her she couldn't feel fine with fever that high. Nice try, but you are still not getting on the computer and phone all day. Today was also spent with our good friend SpongeBob. I love Spongebob and even more, Patrick. I can stand a day of SpongeBob alot easier than I can stand a day of Dora or something similar. She is enjoying all of the phone calls from friends letting her know she is missed.

Hopefully she will be fever-free soon. She has a talent show at a nursing home with her Girl Scout troop planned for Saturday and a horse back riding trip planned with the troop on Sunday. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Hot, Hot, Hot

Cara woke up this morning running a fever. I took her to the doctor and they ran strep and flu tests. I was positive it was an ear infection, but her ears looked fine. She keeps telling me she feels fine. She is bored when she stays home cause the mean old mom doesn't let her hang on the phone and the computer when she is sick. I just hate when that happens.

P.S. Both the strep and flu tests came back negative.

Stay Off the Roads...Not Really

Robyn finally decided she wanted to learn how to drive. She took the classroom portion of Driver's Ed over the Easter Break. Now it is time to get behind the wheel. She was excited about driving. Me...not so much. It is a rite of passage for a teenager, but I am just not ready for her to grow up. Talking about college visits, asking teachers for letters of recommendations, taking AP exams...I feel a Mom rebellion coming on. I keep telling her to stop growing up. She doesn't listen to me.

Draft Dodger

Originally, we had carpet through most of the house. Over the last several years, we have put in hardwood as the carpet started to "ugly out" instead of wearing out. The bottom of the master bedroom door was cut to allow for the carpet allowance. Since the carpet is gone, the air conditioning from the bedroom flows under the door. Jasmine is ready any time of day or night to jump in and block that air from entering the den. What would we do without her? She chooses to lie upside down so as to block the opening in the most efficient manner. We are so fortunate to have such a considerate and giving canine daughter. Thank you Jasmine.

A Cat's Work is Never Done

One of Whiskers' favorite places is on the sofa. Last fall, we bought new furniture. On the old sofa, her perch was on the right arm. The new sofas do not have arms perfect for setting up a cat's office, so there was some discussion in the family as to whether she would claim a new spot or ignore the new furniture. She has claimed her office space. On the new furniture, her spot is on the back of the love seat. It still has to be on the right side. She is completely uninterested in the left side. Pretty sometimes uses the left side when Whiskers is working elsewhere. Once Pretty made the mistake of working on the right side. Whiskers let her know pretty quickly that was unacceptable.

Whiskers particularly loves to stick her leg out for everyone to admire. Sometimes she will stick them both out. It often does not look comfortable, but she doesn't seem to mind. We will walk by and discuss how lovely those legs are. She acts as though she already knows it, but I guess even cats cannot be told too often how beautiful they are.

PMC Class

Today, Robyn and I drove up to Jackson to take a class in PMC (Precious Metal Clay). PMC is made from silver which has been reclaimed from old film. It is mixed with a clay like binder material, making it easy to work with. When the PMC is fired in a kiln or sometimes with a torch, the binder burns away and fine silver is left. I was supposed to take the class with my friend, Lisa, but she was unable to do so. Robyn happily stepped in. I thoroughly enjoyed spending the day with her. I would love to be able to say that any skills I learned several years ago from my clay (wheel)classes came back to me, but I can't. We did have a great time creating silver pieces to wear or to give as gifts. Hopefully, we can attend another class and continue the fun.

Working the Needles

Lately I have been knitting up a storm. I really am loving it. I posted about it twice already here and here. I have found a pattern that is easy for me and one I can adapt in size, texture and color. The last two hats I knitted, I used bamboo circular needles. It was ok for one of the hats. That yarn was a little slippery and moved easily on the needles. The last hat I completed, I did not like the bamboo needles. I am not real thrilled with the yarn either. I bought some new nickel circulars and as now using them on this new hat. It is making a big difference. I am using the same yarn as the previous hat, but the new needles are making it easier to knit with it.

I am making these hats to donate to Children's Hospital in New Orleans. Robyn's best friend, Jonathan, lost his battle with brain cancer in December. He spent some time in Children's Hospital during part of his treatment. He was a wonderful person and is greatly missed. You can follow my progress on my hats by looking at the little graphic on the sidebar. I will update it with the latest number of hats completed...in case anyone is interested.

Slap Ya Huh?

I went to the grocery store today to pick up the goodies to put in my Pay It Forward box. I wanted to get some Louisiana items to share with my winner, Paige, who lives in the Midwest. I had a fun time going through the store and picking out items produced in the state. One of my favorites, is "Slap Ya Mama" Cajun seasoning, not because of how it tastes, but because of the name. It is a phrase heard around here occasionally like, "That gumbo was so good you wanna slap ya mama." There are great phrases like that all around the country. I love to hear the "local speak", especially when they are "passing a good time".

Meeting Inspection

Today I received my Pay It Forward goodie bag from Lin of Duck and Wheel with String. Lin sent some wonderful treats for me and even a little something for the cats. The strawberry jam body yogurt smelled so wonderful. Jasmine and Skittles followed the jar as I moved it from the bag to the table. They were extremely interested in everything in the bag. They assessed each item as it was removed. It is a good thing our personal inspectors were here when the package was opened. Lin, you will be happy to know your items passed the rigorous scrutiny of our highly paid examiners.

Sluggish

Yes, it is a second installment of Merry's Morning Musings. Sometimes when we open the garage door, critters will come in the garage. Other times they take a ride on the "garage door express". This morning, Mr. Slug took a ride. He just hung there twisting and turning as he worked toward turning himself around on his slime strand so he could crawl back up to the top. I started thinking about how strong his stomach muscles must be to turn himself around like that. Do slugs do crunches to keep in good shape? Do slugs have a "good" shape? Oh, it is way to early in the morning to have such deep thoughts.

Moon Musings

I am not a morning person. In fact, no one in my family is. Mornings are pretty crabby around here. I do not enjoy getting the girls up at 5:30 to get them ready for school. This morning, I was standing on the driveway with Robyn, while she waited for the bus to come. In the sky was the moon. While most of the time I think it is pretty cool to see the moon during the day, when I see it at the crack of dawn, I think I should be sleeping. I am not a morning person.

The Boil

Today was Ye Old Boil. Phillip was so happy. It is his "thing". I was happy to be in the shade. We had a great time visiting with friends and just enjoying the day. The mudbugs were spicy and the sausages and potatoes were supreme. I parked myself in front of the taters and sausage and went to town. Yum. I like crawfish ok, but the potatoes and sausage are my favorites. Last weekend was Gary's birthday, so we put a candle on a cupcake and we sang Happy Birthday to him. It was a great ending to our Spring Break.

Watch out Mr. Trump

Phillip has decided that when he retires, he will become an Ebay mogul. He likes to look around the house and find things "we" could sell on Ebay. I use the term "we" because he doesn't want to learn how to do the listing. He wants to be the one who finds the item, tells you what to say in the listing, and the one who bugs you to find out if there are any bids. He is so funny about it. He gets such a thrill out of a watcher and even more...a bidder. He has roped Robyn into helping him with his latest Ebay offerings. She is frequently without or short on funds, so he appealed to her monetarily. She will get a percentage of the selling price, if she helps him on the front end of the deal. It has worked in her favor about as many times as it has not. I hope they are successful. It is always good to have money in the old Paypal account.

Goldilocks and the Ker Cube

We have a couple of beds for the cats. Not that they don't take a nap wherever they want, but around the house there are additional spots for them. One of these has been named the "Ker Cube" which is short for WhisKERs'Cube. Whiskers loves to spend time in the cube. It is one of her many places to do her "work". Every once in a while Goldilocks AKA Pretty will do her work in there. When the Baby Bear AKA Whiskers comes in to go in her bed and sees someone in her bed, she must get the intruder out of her bed. Whiskers will nonchalantly sit on the side, looking around or washing her face. Then she rears up and starts swinging. Pretty will put up a small fight, but she eventually shoots out and finds another spot. I tried to take the picture in mid-leap, but I was not fast enough. Baby Bear was successful. She was able to regain her bed and set about her "work".

Preparation

Boil King decided that he could not get through this season without having a crawfish boil. So he has planned a boil for Sunday. My job today was to go out and get the fixins. He wanted small potatoes, onions, salt, and sausage. He said he had enough boil seasoning. When I took it out of the panrty to put it in the picture, I see that he must have forgotten he used it earlier. A job tomorrow will be to get more "boil".

Check out my other blog, Cheese and Chocolate. I am holding a Pay It Forward challenge. You might want to enter.

Added later...I stand corrected. I didn't look on the pantry floor. He does have enough "boil".

My Library Haul

I know we all heard about my hat yesterday, but today it still about knitting. I thought I would check out the library to see the treasures I could find. I found several knitting books that looked interesting, as well as two Jodi Picoult books I have not read. Woo Hoo...books for me. I love books!

Knitting in the Round

On Saturday, I posted a picture of my first hat. It seems as though I am on a knitting kick, because I could not wait to start another hat. This time I am trying circular needles. At first, I have to admit I was a little worried. As soon as I figured out how to connect the first row to the second one, I was off. I like using these needles. The first pair of needles I bought were 29" long. That was annoying, because it was too much cable connecting the two needles. Yesterday I bought some with 16" cables and I love them so much more. Now of course I didn't read the hat directions all the way through. As I work toward the top and start decreasing stitches (another new first), I will have to switch over to double pointed needles. Those look even more scary, but I know I will triumph over those needles too.

I like the way the hat is turning out. I am using two different types a yarn. One is a regular acrylic yarn and the other is called "eyelash". The eyelash yarn is what gives the hat the fuzzy look. I might need to make me one to wear to an LSU game.

Fluffy Dog

Jasmine is our resident diva. With a house full of females, someone is bound to be. Jas is happy to fill the role. She loves to sleep on fluffy things. Flat does not work for her. We often call her Fluffy, because she is a collie and she loves fluffy. It is funny to watch her shifting around the blankets in her crate to create just the right loft. Sometimes she comes in the computer room with me and tries to fluff up the carpet. We have many discussions about how the carpet does not fluff like she wants. The piece de resistance of her creations is that her head is usually lying on the highest point, like it is her pillow. When she is lying "on the flat", she will find something to lay her head on for her pillow. Tonight my shoes were the pillow. It does not look comfortable to me, but it works for her.

Babies...(horses that is)

In the spring, we like to drive up to Folsom and look at the new foals. Folsom is about 15 miles north of here and has many wonderful horse farms and riding stables. One of the larger farms is on the highway and has the best horse and baby viewing. The foals are so cute. Two of them were jumping and running around. They would play a bit and then stop to graze. The mares just continued eating and pretty much ignored the young characters. Another foal was lying in the grass, enjoying the warm sunlight. I could sit by the side of the road and watch them frolic for hours. It was a great day for baby watching.

The Knitting Bug

Sometimes I go through phases of reading, scrapbooking, or doing some other craft in my spare time. Lately, I have been doing a little bit of knitting. One of Robyn's teachers asked Robyn to teach her how to knit. Mrs. V has some friends who are knitting hats to donate to cancer patients and she wanted to make some as well. I thought it sounded like a fun project for me. As usual, I did a lot of buying of supplies before starting the actual project. Today, I finished my first hat. Those who are knitters can probably see every flaw (and believe me it is flawed), but I was excited it turned out looking like what it was supposed to be...a hat.

Cara is modeling my creation. She likes to have me take pictures of the back of her head (that is a whole other topic). It was fun to make the hat and I already have my yarn ready for the next one. This time, I will attempt to use circular needles. Robyn will try to teach this old dog a new trick.

St. Charles Avenue

Today, the girls and I took a trip across the lake to go an uptown yarn store. On the way there, I drove down Magazine Street. I wanted the girls to see what a great street it is, with the eclectic stores nestled among residences. It looked like we passed at least one of every kind of store along the way. Many of the shops have unusual names and the girls enjoyed calling out the names as we passed. On the way home, I took them down St. Charles Avenue. St. Charles Avenue is one of the loveliest streets in New Orleans. It has wonderful old oak trees lining the avenue. Down the center, are the streetcar tracks. This line of the streetcar was damaged during Katrina and was finally returned to full use in June of '08. Robyn has ridden the streetcar several times, but I don't think Cara has. Cara brought a friend with her today, so they were chomping at the bit to get home. I want to plan another trip in a couple of weeks to take her on the streetcar and enjoy more of this interesting city.

Spring Fling

Today was the Spring Fling party for Cara's class. The kids were so excited about the upcoming spring break. The party was a simple one...ice cream sundaes all around. At their age, fun is food and hanging around talking to friends. Some of the other classes were having Easter Egg Hunts. For 6th graders, that would last what...a whole 3 minutes? The party Cara's class had was perfect for them. They were able to make and eat their "gorgeous" creations, talk to their friends (either near or across the room), and pose for goofy pictures. All in all, it was a fun way to end the day.

Morning Routine

I have a certain routine I follow in mornings while I get the girls off to school. After seeing Robyn get on the bus, I come inside and make Cara's lunch. She always has a PB & J sandwich. When I get the bread out, these 2 little birdies (in dog form) come to get a piece of bread. As you have already guessed, Skittles eats hers immediately. I throw hers up in the air and she catches it. She has acquired a great skill in being able to eat the entire piece without any dropping on the floor. The Princess Diva, Jasmine, daintily comes and takes hold of the bread by grasping the tiniest bit of the corner. She trots into the den, circles 3-4 times, lies down and looks at it. It takes her about 5 minutes to eat her bread. This morning we had the added excitement of an empty peanut butter jar. I cut the jar in half and set them on the floor of the kitchen. Skittles takes hers to her "room". Jasmine looks at hers on the floor and then up at me so as to say "It is beneath me to carry that into the other room." I carry her bit into the den and she begins working on the jar. She chases it around the room as it moves and rolls. There aren't too many things better at our house than an empty peanut butter jar.

Poker Night

When Phillip and I were dating and for a long time after we were married, he and his childhood friends would gather and play poker almost every weekend. Sometimes I dreaded those games, because (1) I was the only female and (2) it would get boring after a while watching them play for hours on end. For the first year after we were married, we lived 3 hours away from New Orleans. When we came into town (again almost every weekend), I had the option of going to the games or sitting at home with the in-laws. I choose the poker game. After we moved back "home", the games moved to our house. That was not so bad as I could find entertainment at my own house. Once we moved "across the lake", the games stopped as we were a distance away and the guys had other interests as well.

Ten years ago, Phillip and a couple of friends started a monthly neighborhood poker group. They take turns hosting and usually have 5-6 guys attend each month. This group does not have the sentimental value as the old group of childhood friends, but it is a great group. Several years ago, they decided to run for the neighborhood board. They all won their prospective positions and had board meetings at the poker games. They made some controversial improvements to the neighborhood and the next year, another group decided to run against the "poker group" running the show. The poker group didn't want another term, so it all played out to everyone's liking. Every once in while I hear a story about those "poker guys" who did this and that. I just smile and say "Yeah, I heard about those guys."

The Socks

Sometimes as a parent, you see things that leave you speechless. Those who know me know that me being "speechless" is a rare occurrence. This morning before school, the girls and I were talking about the upcoming day. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cara wiggling her foot. It didn't look like the "normal" foot with a sock. I turned and looked more closely. This is what I saw. Who knows how long she has worn those socks. Usually she puts her shoes on in her room and I don't see anything but the top of the sock. When the socks actually make it into the dirty clothes, I throw away anything that remotely resembles a sock like either one of those she was wearing. Obviously, these socks have not made it to the wash in many, many days. Most likely they were worn repeatedly because she is very picky about socks. When she was little, she had issues with seams. She would have a fit if she could feel the sock seams. She grew out of that one and now is in the "they have to go up to here" phase where they have to be a certain length. Once I hog tied her, wrestled the offending socks off of her feet, a took them to the garbage can waiting on the curb for today's pick up, I went to her room. In the corner pushed behind some stuff was a brand new bag of socks. At least I can rest easy that today she had on clean socks. Tomorrow? That remains to be seen.

Farmer Phil and the Boys

Phillip has a very good friend who is his fishing bud. Bill lives "down the bayou" southwest of here. They have a great time getting up in the middle of the night to get out on the water at the crack of dawn. I have never understood why that would be fun, but that is not really relevant to this story. Bill lives on a ton of land and on part of it he grows several different types of citrus trees. As part of the fish stories we hear when he gets home, we also hear about Bill's orchard. He goes on and on about how Bill can just walk out the door and pick his fruit. You know where this is going...right? Well as you might have guessed, he has decided he will grow fruit trees. Hopefully, sometime this summer we will have lemons, satsumas, and grapefruit. And who are the boys mentioned in the title? The girls thought it would be great to name the trees with male names since Phillip lives in a house of females. Some evenings and on the weekends, he can be found outside doing his male bonding.

Adventures in Cake Decorating part 2 (or the house didn't burn down)

The girls had a great time with the cake. They began baking the cake while Phillip, Cara and I were at the grocery store. When we were unloading the groceries, we noticed a burning smell. The girls overfilled the pan and the excess was oozing over the top and onto the heating element. What a lovely smell. They also had a little difficulty getting the cake out of the pan. I told them that you can hide all sorts of flaws with icing and not to worry. They had the best time mixing up the colors of icing and using all of the different tips. We had some difficulty with the pastry bags. They were old and split when they tried to use them. No problem, we were able to adapt zip-loc bags. Once Mr. Bear was complete, they loved posing with him and showing off their creation. As you can see, the Squid and Moose hats made another appearance. You cannot decorate cakes without your favorite hat.

Adventures in Cake Decorating part 1

Tomorrow, the girls have a day of cake making/decorating plus movie watching planned with Shelby. Many moons ago, I took a cake decorating class with the intention of making these beautiful cakes for my family's celebrations. I did that a couple of times and found it was so much easier to just buy them from the bakery. Since I had all of this stuff sitting in the pantry, I thought they would get a kick out of using the different tips and mixing up the icing. I looked through the bin of supplies and it all looks good. I will replace the coloring since it is 10+ years old. Tomorrow will be the unveiling of the finished product.

The Messy Room

This is a picture of the room of one of my daughters. I am not saying who is it, but her name starts with R. Her room drives me nuts. She on the other hand, sees nothing wrong with it. She tells me that a messy room is a sign of creativity. I am not sure how much I buy that. Tonight, she went to her first concert. She rode home from school with a friend and a group of girls drove up to Baton Rouge. I have not seen her since 6:20 when she got on the bus for school.  Cara was happy talking on the phone with her friends and hanging on the Internet much of the evening.  The house was so quiet.  I miss my oldest baby. A couple of times I stood in the doorway of her room, just to look at the chaos. The mess means she is home. Next year she will be a senior and then she will be off to college. She gets a perverse thrill out of making comments about how she will soon be gone. What will I do without her presence? I tease her and tell her that we are turning her room into a media room with a huge flat screen and theater chairs. I don't know. Maybe I will leave it looking like it does now, so I can pretend she is just out with friends and will be home soon.

What the Dog Brought In

Ok, I know I said yesterday that it was the last of the in a row Skittles posts. Sorry. I didn't think that through. When I run errands, I put the pups outside for them to do whatever work needs to be done. There are squirrels and birds to harass, neighboring dogs to talk to and apparently yard patrol that needs to be done. When I let them back in, Skittles immediately went to her "room" AKA crate. She doesn't do this unless she has brought in something "questionable" or something she doesn't want to share. This was both. I look in the crate and she has brought in a trespasser. I guess she needed to do further interrogation as to why it was in the yard. I rescued the poor thing and put it in the front flower bed. It has a little bit of blood on its shell. I hope it is ok.

P.S. 30 minutes have passed. I checked on the turtle and it is not there. I guess it is ok. The turtle lives to trespass another day.