Fourth wishes!

Wishing everyone a safe, happy Fourth of July!!!

From Mother of the Munchkins, the munchkins and the hub!

It's not like we're ancient. Yet!

I realized today that I'm starting to sound like my maternal grandfather when he was around us grandkids...

"Hunh?"

"Waddayda say?"

"Speak up, child, you're mumbling!"

That's basically what I said ALL day as I worked outside. As the munchkins inquired after one thing or another. And lets face it, don't kids have a tendecy to harrass you a thousand times more when you're preoccupied?

Anyway... the only difference between grandpa and me was that I sounded like this:

"Hunh?"

"Waddayda say?"

"Speak up, child, you're mumbling and I'm old!"

Hey, at least I'm willing to admit my age. Grandpa refused to admit he was ever even partly to blame.

*

After getting up at the crack of dawn to be prepared for another round of Little Garden Shed work, my "crew" decided they were too sore to work and wanted to wait until Sunday.

Sore? Ah, come on, slap on some Ben Gay, take a couple of Tylenol and wrap up what hurts the most and get a move on! It's not like we're ancient. Yet! (I can hear Grandpa now. Bunch of wusses!)

HA!

No, no... I'm not complaining that lil' bro was too sore to work today. One can't crab over free labor. I'm simply disappointed that the LGSP will be yet another day, (Make it two!) from completion. I mean, I found plenty in which to occupy myself. All outdoor work. In fact, I just finished up and am now relaxing for the remainder of the evening. Minus some laundry calling my name. I'll get to it. If I can manage to extract myself from this chair, that is. I'm tired! I did a lot today. If anyone is going to be too sore to work on the shed come Sunday it's going to be me! But again, so long as I've a tube of Ben Gay, I should be fairly good to go. Everyone just has to stand down wind of me lest they want to be overcome by my Ben Gay goodness.

Cheerios and Happy Fourth, folks!

There was a hiccup

After spending all of Wednesday playing catch-up on housework, today was spent on the Little Garden Shed Project. The big plan was to put the finishing touches on the major work. Major meaning sawing, moving heavy things, lots of hammering, breaking things that you hadn't meant to break, unable to break things you really want to break, climbing ladders with knees crunching in everyone's ears, risking tetanus at every turn... that sorta major work. But, as with all projects, there was a hiccup. I should know by now it's a given but I admit to a deep level of hidden frustration that all the work I'd done for the last six or so weeks, including destroying what little was left of my knees and back, was for nothing. Then, low 'n behold, the hiccup worked in our favor. Weird how some things have a way of working themselves out, eh? Too bad it couldn't happen in more areas of my life. Say, accidentally coming across a winning lotto ticket after falling into a trash can. (I don't know how, but it could happen. I suppose. Oh come on, if it's going to happen to anyone it's certainly going to happen to me!)

... anyway....

I'm currently nursing a few splinters, very tired feet and an achy head. If anything written above makes sense then I'm doing far better then expected. At the very least, I should sleep awesomely well tonight. Speaking of which, I'm off! Should I not write tomorrow, either engrossed in LGSP activities, in the hospital having accidentally cut off a finger with the saw, or deliriously celebrating my winning lotto ticket found in the trash, (A mix of all three...) then, please have a safe, fun-filled fourth!

Cheerios!

You can blame the tea

Today seems a good day for a mini story, or two. I've got a heck of a lot of chores to do about the house that I attempted to start extremely late last night. (Have no idea what I was thinking...) It seems that whenever I get busy outdoors the indoors suffers tri-fold. Cheerios!


There are so many funny stories I could relate to you about my mother. Especially as of late. She does some wild and crazy things. Though nothing will ever compare to the infamous lost meatloaf of the eighties... but that's another story, another day. Today's story is about mom getting into scrapbooking. She stopped by yesterday to show off her first foray into the hobby.

"The pictures were from last year. I was so worried I'd put 2009," She replied, passing the book off to me, "Tell me what you think."

I opened the book, glanced at the very first page and started laughing, "You definitely didn't mess up with 2009."

Noting my laughter mom immediately demanded to know what was wrong.

"Well, according to this first page, smack dab in the middle of the page, mind you, last year was 1908. Damn, we look good for our ages!"

...You can blame the tea...

Laughing and teasing over the 1908 scrapbooking, mom and I hit the road for plant shopping. (We were taking full advantage of being sans munchkins, who are not the least bit interested in our plant and craft shopping adventures.) We were at our third and final stop, a home improvement store's garden center, where we found ourselves in deep discussion on the pros and cons of some groundcover. Just shy of throwing the plants to the ground to see if they really were in fact, "steppables" a lady from across the aisle interrupted, "Excuse me, I'm looking for some tomatoes, where are your tomatoes?" (Not word-for-word, but something of that nature. Oh, and she was looking straight at me.)

Mom and I looked at each, brows furrowed, mouths hanging open a tad. Both of us were well overloaded with ice tea related caffeine so we'd been quite off our rockers all day. So it is of little surprise that we proceeded to bust up with laughter.

Turning back to the lady, who looked slightly put off, I replied, "Me? I'm sorry, I don't work here."

"Oh! You were being so helpful I thought you did."

"Nope, but you can hire me!" Guess she didn't want a personal plant-picker for the day as she walked off, with mom and I still chuckling.

Ah, yes, just another adventure with good ol' mom!

Light at the end of the tunnel

After several hours of working on the Little Garden Shed Project, sitting on the deck, enjoying the near completion of this debacle, Brianne does approach. "Oh mommy," She replies, peering closely at my face, nose scrunched up as she scrutinized. "There's something wrong with your eyes!"

After a hard day of yard work I figured it was crud at the corner of my eyes. Or something of that nature. So I quickly wiped a single finger over and under each eye. This wasn't good enough for Brianne, who shook her head back and forth, hands on her hips. "Oh no, mommy, there's all these cracks around your eyes."

A moment of silence. Then with a heavy sigh I replied, "Those would be wrinkles, babe. Thank you for the concern."

*

Sorry to have been away for so long but it was time to get the walk put down for the shed while I was feeling up to it. It was a ton of work and fortunately the hub laid out the pavers for me because honestly, if I had to lift those suckers yet again I was going to end up in the hospital looking something like a pretzel.

Drum roll for the results! (Thus far, anyway.)

Still a lot of work yet to be done, not to mention clean up, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. (Erm... maybe I shouldn't have said that... I may very well be seeing such if I don't take a break.) Anyway, compared to how it was all looking not so long ago I have to say I've done a pretty good job.