Trey and I have talked about getting a fake tree this year.  Actually, we talk about it every year when we think about all the care involved in getting a real tree.  Here’s my thing – most of the fake trees I’ve seen, that we can afford, didn’t seem even remotely real and they don’t have that “Christmas Tree” smell.  That can be fixed with a pine scented car thingy, but the trees that do seem real are way expensive – for us, anyway.

Well, here’s an opportunity to win one of those pricey, yet beautifully full and realistic looking trees from Balsam Hill.  Now, I do understand that I most likely won’t win, but I entered anyway because I’m an incurable optimist.  And I’m spreading the word so you, too, can have an opportunity to win a tree.  It’s not entirely altruistic of me, though, because if the winner is referred from my website, then I win $500.  I can ‘t win both, though – that would be greedy and against the rules.

So, if you want to take a chance and win a beautiful Colorado Mountain Spruce Tree valued at $799, just click on the link in my post (the contest link is at the bottom of their home page) or the button on the sidebar.  Who knows, you might actually win!!

I’ve been thinking about this post for a while.  It has to do with friends and how close they are.  It’s a concept that I heard a long time ago.  In fact, I had to go back in my blog to see if I had written about it before.  Nope.  But that in itself got me thinking about people who blog for a living and have pages and pages and pages – years’ worth of posts; how do you keep from getting repetitive?  But I digress.

It’s the concept of “refrigerator friends”.  The basic definition is that a “refrigerator friend” is a friend you’d let look in your fridge (or you would go in their fridge) if they were at your house.  I’m not talking about looking like snooping, but one of those times when you’d say, “Sure, help yourself,” when they ask for a drink and they go to your fridge to get one.

Think about what is in your fridge and would you let a friend see it?  You have leftovers stacked on top of each other.  Bottles of condiments playing Jenga in the door.  Maybe even a science experiment growing in the back.  Or maybe you’re the kind of person that has the TV commercial fridge that’s absolutely perfect.  If you do, this concept might not apply to you.

The idea is that if a friend is close enough to see the “junk” in your fridge then they are a true, dear friend.  There are no pretensions, no fronts.  I love having friends like that.  It’s too much work keeping up pretensions with people who are close to me.  What’s the point?  Why bother?  Having that open friendship allows us to laugh and cry with each other.  We’re honest and caring and when troubles come, we have a place to turn.

Sure, I have acquaintances and I’ll invite them over for a party or gathering, but I may set up my house and kitchen so that they don’t look in my fridge.  I mean, I do have some pride (my fridge is a mess on any given day).  And I have refrigerator friends who don’t live near me any more; friends made in early childhood, school and college and beyond.  That distance, though, makes no difference.  If they were visiting, even if it’s been YEARS since hugging their neck last, I’d still say, “Sure, help yourself.”

I love my refrigerator friends.  They are a blessing to me and mine.

Do you ever find yourself wanting to say, “What the hell?”  I do.  All.  The.  Time.  The problem is that the children are with me most. Of. The. Time.  And often they are the driving force behind my desire to exclaim, “What the hell?”  Now there is the occasional “what the hell is that?” or “what the hell’s going on here?” that can be associated with something seen along the road or in stores sometimes while shopping.  I mean have you SEEN the People of Walmart website?  But back to my offspring.

The “what the hell were you thinking?” is usually the first to pop in my mind, generally after they do something I specifically tell them not to.

Or all of a sudden I’ll hear them both screaming and crying and “what the hell’s going on?” will bubble to the surface.

And then finally, there’s the “oh, what the hell,” usually considered in resignation when the deed done can’t be undone and there’s really nothing else to do but sit there, sigh, and try and laugh about it.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I don’t actually SAY these things, just think them really loudly in my head.  There have been times when “What the…?” will sneak out but I always catch myself before the third word.  But sometimes I wonder what the reaction would be.  If I actually said, “What the hell were you thinking?” after busting them for something, would the impact be enough that they would never do it again?  Hmmm…. food for thought.

Parenting children can be such a challenge.  Fun and enjoyable most of the time, but sometimes there are days when “What the…?! is the name of the game.

This past weekend was a good one.  A dear friend had to have shoulder surgery last month and as a surprise, I planned a pedicure session for a group of us to pamper her.  It was a great excuse to go get a pedi and she hadn’t had one in years.  It was fan-tab-ulous!

While we were sitting around letting our toes dry and finishing our glass of wine, I got a call from Trey.  He usually doesn’t call unless something is wrong but this time he was calling to share a funny story.  I’m here to share it with you.

It was a beautiful day – perfect fall weather – so he and Little Man were outside playing and doing yard work.  Trey was working on trimming some bushes that had grown too high by the house and decided to get the ladder out to finish the trimming from the roof.  While he was up there, he started cleaning off the leaves and getting junk out of the gutters.  As he’s telling me this, my first thought was the Little Man had climbed up the ladder to join him.  Nope.

CRASH

Little Man had knocked over the ladder.  Trey is stuck on the roof.  Trey said that Little Man was standing there like “what?” then started trying to lift the ladder up himself.

“I can’t get it, Daddy!”

“Go get Monkey!”

“K!”

So Little Man returns with Monkey.  Trey tells her that Little Man had knocked over the ladder.  Monkey tells him Little Man said Daddy did it.

Monkey was able to get the ladder up (she’s really a strong little girl) but it was very unstable.  Trey and Monkey worked together to find a stable piece of ground so that he could get down without falling.

I can’t even begin to tell you how badly I wished I could have seen it all happen.  I would have been standing there with a video camera for sure.

Well, it would seem that Charlie has encountered her first opossum last night.  What is it with dogs and opossums?  Or is it just my dogs?

Last night, just before bed as part of our routine, I let the dogs out for one last potty break.  The next thing I know, Charlie is barking vociferously at something near the fence.  By the time I got to the door to call her back in, she and Puppy were both involved in whatever it was they were barking at.  The next thing I saw was Charlie cutting across the back yard holding something big and furry in her mouth with Puppy chasing behind trying to get said furry thing out of her mouth.  There have been times, before Charlie came along, that Puppy has chased small furry creatures at night, not wanting to come back inside when it’s time, but this is the first time it was caught.  I think he was jealous.

Ugh.

So, yeah, my dogs thought a poor little opossum was a chew toy last night.

This isn’t the first time, either.  My first dog, Cheyenne, liked to harass opossums in our yard, too.  She treed a raccoon once, too, but that’s not part of this story.  I truly feared for those opossums because not only would Cheyenne carry them, she’d shake them really hard, too.

By the time I got shoes on to go rescue the poor creature and bring the heathens back inside, Charlie had at least dropped it on the ground.  The dogs were circling and barking and sniffing and not about to go inside.  I grab collars, but naturally, Charlie’s is too loose and slips over her sleek little head.  I get it back on, cinch it tight, and practically drag her to the door.  I couldn’t really see the opossum all that well to tell if he was breathing, but he was laying there, on his back, looking really dead.  My hope was that by the morning, he’d be gone.

He was.  When I let the dogs out this morning, Charlie went straight to the part of the yard where she had left the opossum and sniffed and searched.  I’m hoping he learned his lesson and won’t be back in our yard again.  That was just too much activity for me at 10:00 at night when all I want to do is go to bed.

 

Little Man’s preschool went on a nature walk last week and he brought home a dozen or more pine cones.  Monkey thought we could make bird feeders with them using peanut butter and seeds.  We decided to make six or seven of them yesterday and hang them out for the birds.

However, we should have called them squirrel feeders.

I have discovered that I would not make a good professional blogger.  I’m just not on top of things.  Really, I’m surprised I made it this long maintaining a blog.  If it weren’t for the few regulars I have, I probably would have quit a long time ago.

Life around here has been fairly “normal” if you can call it that.  Homeschooling is moving right along, nothing too exciting there.  Although Monkey did bring home an experiment from her enrichment program that could be fun to do a photo-blog of.  It’s on making a lightbulb (they’ve been studying Thomas Edison all semester).  Maybe I can get the all the pieces and parts for that and actually do it.  Hmmmm….  Ok, well that’s one day’s post covered.

The kids haven’t really said or done anything too funny lately, at least not that can be adequately relayed in words on the screen.

The dogs…. well…. the dogs are a bit much right now.  You know how I said that Puppy needed a playmate because he was irritating me to death?  Well, sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.  I’m kinda missing the irritation right now because it was easily taken care of.  Whenever he came around to “irritate” me, he was just trying to play or get some attention.  I’d throw the ball a few times, give him a scratch or roughhouse with him and he’d be happy.  Now I have TWO dogs irritating me to death.  And today is a rainy day so I can’t just herd them outside.  Thankfully, they’ve found a quiet moment; one is sleeping on the couch and the other on the floor.  I’m sure it won’t last long.

Holiday madness is quickly approaching.  Shopping to be done, wishlists to create, pictures to be made, cards to be mailed, gifts to make, travel plans to make – and Thanksgiving is a mere 16 days away with Christmas right around the corner.  Have I mentioned that I’m NOT one who has all their shopping done before Labor Day?  Or Halloween?  Or even the 15th of December?

I’ll be lucky if I can maintain two updates a week.

Insanity has found a roost at our house.  And her name is Charlie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our puppy, who is no longer a puppy, needed a playmate.  Why?  Because I was tired of him trying to chew on me.  Poor Puppy was in so need of a playmate that he was irritating me to death.  Now he has a friend to irritate.  Although, right now, I think it’s the other way around.  Charlie likes Puppy’s toys and enjoys playing “keep away”.  Puppy doesn’t like that much.

The thunderous sound of them running up and down the hallway, crashing down the stairs and sliding on the hardwoods has become the background noise of our house over the last 24 hours.

Yep.  They were made for each other – that is, once they figure out who’s in charge.

Here’s a conversation I was witness to the other day.  It was all Trey and I could do to keep a straight face.  But before I go any further, let me explain that it involves the toilet and whether or not it has been flushed.  You know the saying, “If it’s yellow, let it mellow.  If it’s brown, flush it down.”?  Well, as adults, Trey and I sometimes follow this – old habit from when we were in a drought – but we always encourage the kids to flush every time.

Heard from Little Man in the bathroom:

“Daddy, you didn’t…! ”  Little feet pad down the hallway.

“Daddy, come with me.  Come with me.”  They walk down the hall together.

“Did you do this?”

“Nope, not me,”  Trey says, possibly because it’s what the kids tell us all the time.  Payback, you know.

“You have to flush when you use the bathroom!”

“Ok, I’ll do better next time.”

Nothing like being scolded by an almost-4 year old.

Check out Potty Training Power for more cute potty success stories!

Did you know that physical therapists like to hurt people?  At least, that’s what mine told me last week.  She said it was one of two jobs she could go into and get paid to hurt people.  She wasn’t a good enough shot to be an assassin so she went into physical therapy.  She’s got a great sense of humor, that one.

In all seriousness, though, she’s well aware of the reputation that surrounds PTs and she uses it to her advantage.

What?  Why am I seeing a physical therapist?  Oh, sorry, forgot I didn’t mention that part.  I have bursitis in my hip and it’s been there for four years.  I’ve been through PT before, I’ve had steroid injections and prescription anti-inflammatories and I’ve gone to a chiropractor.  There have also been many months in between where I was just too busy to try doctors for it again and just bulled through the chronic pain of it.  It’s worse in the evenings and if I’ve had an active-on-my-feet kind of day (which is everyday when you have two young children).

But I finally got tired of it.  I like to be active and I had finally reached a point where I’m done with the pain.  So I went back to the doc and started physical therapy about 3 weeks ago.

I can tell a difference between this PT and the last one I had.  She’s tough but in a good way.  She has actually been working my hip muscles and even from her initial evaluation of my hip and legs, I knew that I had made a good decision.

But I do think she’s out to kill me.  Slowly.  Painfully.  Who says Physical Therapists aren’t assassins?