Seriously.

Jerry, aka dad, is a mechanic (now the proper term is “technician”, I believe). I grew up in a grease monkey’s home. The smell of oil and “garage” was always around. Dad’s hands were always cracked and raw and covered in dirt and grime, and his blue uniforms always smelled of a hard day under the hood of a car. For as long as I can remember, I always had a Ford – until I rebelled and bought a Mazda – then an Isuzu, then a Toyota.

I always fancied cars. I try to stay current with new makes and models, the changes from year to year, prices, options – that kind of thing.

The stuff under the hood, however, I’ve always left to a “Technician”.

In the midst of the construction around my house, I hit a bump in the road. I had to pull our truck (Yes, a Ford) out of the garage. It wouldn’t start. The annoyance was not even that it wouldn’t start, but that every time I attempted it grew more and more weary of me.

“Rowr-rowr-rowr” soon became “click-click-click”. If you know what I mean.

It’s been in storage for years. That’s a nice reduction in annual registration stickers as well as insurance costs – but it sure does wreak havoc on a battery.

Iew. So. I hooked up the jumper cables (scared little mouse that I am when I see a spark) and tried to charge it up with my car. No go. It clicked at me, and went away. Literally.

I called for some consults, and ended up being referred to WallyWorld (blech) for a new battery. I selected one – someday someone please explain to me why there are so many – and lugged the 50 pound beast home. Then I had to figure out how to get the rusty bolts loose off of this petrified rusty old thing.

Word of advice: don’t wear a nice fuzzy cute new sweatshirt while you do stuff like this. D’oh.

So, I got the old battery out.

Then I got the new one in.

I tightened up the bolts and doohickeys and gadgets, keeping my girlish soft skin in check all the while – and presto, the truck liked me again! It started right up, and gave me a nice pretty battery gauge reading.

I’ve done stuff to cars before, you know, the simple stuff. Added oil. Wiper fluid. Coolant. Changed the air filter. But this, this is harder than that easy shmeazy stuff. Phew. I think I should get some sort of certificate of accomplishment or something, you know?

Do I have any other Amateur Technicians in my midst? Please do show off your mechanical prowess. I am green with envy if you know what size socket wrench to get when you see all my screws loose.

I spent the entire night lastnight being nine months pregnant with the baby’s head pressing against my pelvic bone ready to come out.

I spent the entire night going about my business as if I were on the verge of delivery, but not quite.

The entire night being a weebol-wobble, my left hand against my lower back, rolling my hips side to side because my belly was so big and the pressure of the baby’s head was making me crazy.

All night long, I was told by doctors and nurses that they’re advice to me was to get into the Labor & Delivery room as soon as possible, and all night I wanted to get more stuff done before I went to the hospital. I kept telling myself the baby would wait, it would not come until I was finished.

I totally woke up feeling pregnant, too. Good grief, let me never have a dream like that again.

Days are flying by lately, zipping before my eyes in a blur. We’ve got construction going on here at the homefront – a little bit of this, a lot of that, and in the end, we’re two steps closer to where we want to be with our household projects.

Did you know we’ve never had a working garage door that opened and closed – with actual space to drive a car into the garage and park? Nope, we haven’t.

We’ll have that by the weekend. I’m freakin’ out a little bit about that. We spent a good chunk of time this weekend clearing the stuff and things – and more stuff – out of the garage to get rid of years worth of collected – uhm, stuff (for lack of a better word), and then assembled the remains in an orderly fashion so there’s space for the contractors.

We did yardwork, which was pretty much negated by the rain and wind Saturday night, but we did get a lot of things taken care of (trimming a few branches off our tree, which was fun and really took a lot out of us – but cost much less than hiring someone to do a complete hack job of it), now by the end of the day tomorrow our property – well, all but two feet of it which has been lost in translation – will be surrounded by six foot privacy fencing.

The birds will be happy. My bulbs will be happy. Our house will be happy because it will have a barrier against the northern wind this winter. I will have a beautiful backdrop for photographs, and above all else, I will not be distracted visually while I’m painting.

I think tomorrow afternoon, I will have a naked party in my backyard. All by myself. Whose gonna know? (ssssh, it’s just between you and me, and my fenceposts.)

Then there was pumpkin picking, and carving. The girls wanted their pumpkins to have carvings of things that didn’t exist in stencils, so I drew them for them. That was a challenge! I did my best, and we carved our little pumpkins out, and these are the results:

This is Chickeymonkey’s pumpkin, George. Of course it’s George! She’s a monkey-aholic. He turned out cute for totally wingin’ it, I think.

Catybug’s was much more of a challenge. She has a thing for penquins, and likes Bruce. Yeah. Okay. Figuring out what to cut out and what to leave was no easy task, so it took a lot of planning, and stuff. It’s always nice to have dry erase markers handy for this kind of stuff. That battery operated carver was nice, too.

Mine – my pumpkin is still sitting on the table. Big fat guy, he is, nice flat front, a little green around the edges. He’s perfect. I drew up my own carving, too. I’m excited to get’er done, but I need time, and peace and quiet, and patience. Today doesn’t look like a good day for that – we’ll see what tomorrow is like.

Oh yes, and the blog design. I’ve been working on that, too. I’d like to finish it today, we’ll see how that goes with all the running around and tripping over nailguns and things!

So. You’re all caught up now with all the stuff and things and more stuff that’s going on here, pretty much.

What’s up with you? Where ya been, and how ’bout them snowflakes?

Catybug giggled as I doodled out her “sandwich bag art” this morning. We had 5 minutes. Then 3 minutes. Then one minute – then we were late to leave the house. When we’re about to be late, and I still have a headful of hair to comb – that would be me – the little stick figure with the “Oh No! Mr. Bill!” look on his face.

I dug the espresso machine out of the pantry lastnight, cleaned it up and stopped by the coffee shop for some ground beans and vanilla flavoring. That was a smart move, because I needed that latte to put me in overdrive and get the girls to school on time today.

Now if I could just figure out how to go back to “idle” mode…

(zip da dee doo dah, and all that is holy and caffinated.)

Never in a million years did I think that I’d spend 20 minutes looking at Band-Aids, trying to select the perfect band-aid for a certain wound.

It has, indeed, come to that.

I comparison shopped Band-Aids yesterday. How many of you have done this? Debated over flourescents, cushioned – waterproof or flexible fabrics. Sheer or clear? Big or small? Will that little bitty patch of cotton cover the wound? Do you really need 80 of them, or will 15 be enough? If you’re using an antibiotic ointment, is it okay to get the ones with antibiotic in the pad now, or is that overkill? Do you not use the ointment? Is the stuff in the pad as effective? Oh hell, go back to the Disney Band-Aids. Do you need the clear ones, or the neon? Would the girls rather have soft pastels? Do they care? DO I CARE? OMG.

O. M. G.

What have they done to us, these cruel Band-Aid Manufacturers? Look at how bad it is, that a Mom spends 20 minutes staring at hundreds of boxes, just as many selections. For one finger wound. Because we’re almost out. Of course I have to consider all future wounds – or at least 80 of them, otherwise I’m throwing money away. Right? Right. Why buy a box of assorted Band-Aids if the little square one is never going to be used? We do use them, those are our amusement Band-Aids. The ones that show we care about that little freckle you’re calling an owie, and we will cover it up as long as you think it hurts.

It’s just a freakin’ Band-Aid, people. Cover the wound until it heals. Isn’t that the point?

So.

Twenty minutes later, I make a selection. I was so proud of myself, they were even on sale! WoOt!

I get home, and I’m so organized that I went and grabbed the nearly-empty box to transfer it’s remaining contents into the new box.

Guess what.

I bought the same freakin’ kind.

Sigh. Twenty minutes out of my life gone. I can’t get them back, those twenty minutes – and for what?

Our neighbor has two big beautiful apple trees in their backyard. We stopped over the other day and he filled a grocery bag full of yellow and red apples for us. This weekend I peeled and sliced well over 10 cups of apples, and I still have a sink full. Catybug and I made this lovely deep dish apple pie, and I made 5 loaves of apple walnut bread. We shared the loaves with the neighbors, of course!

In other news, and as you can see (unless you’re feedreading), I’ve finally completed the blog design to match my new gallery design. Please let me know if anything is broken – or if there are regular features that you can’t find.

Now that the weekend hustle and bustle and slicing and dicing is over, I can resume normal activities – and munch on some tasty goodness during breaks!

What have you been up to? And more importantly, when is the last time you made (or ate) home made apple pie?

MmmMMMmMmmmmm…

Our little Tucker reminded me so much of Barkley with his little innocent “petmepetmepetme” look.

“Come forth and pet me like the soft fuzzy puppy that I am”We had a little photo shoot this morning since he’s freshly bathed and I gave him a pretty little furcut to clear his eyes. The top of his head is turning creamy white now, and I really don’t want to have him groomed or trimmed because he’ll wind up losing that pretty Wheat (aka Wheaten/Wheatie terrier) color they’re born with.

Here are a few more feature shots from our little Studmuffin Tuckerhead today:

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The truth finally came out today about why my little Chickeymonkey never finishes her sandwiches at school.

Every day, I doodle a little something on the girls’ sandwich bags. It’s always different, always just a cute little surprise to remind them I’m around in the middle of the day.

Today, I doodled this little girl. I thought she turned out so sweet and cute, I knew she’d be appreciated.

Sure enough, when I picked up the girls from school, I asked my daily question – “did you finish your lunch today?” and got my standard answer, “Nope”. I asked “why do I keep making you sandwiches if you never eat them?” and her reply just tickled me and brought a tear to my eye.

“I didn’t wanna finish my sandwich mommy because I didn’t wanna throw my bag away because the girl is too cute!”

Awwwww…..Then the guilt hit me. My kid isn’t eating her lunch because she doesn’t want to throw away the bag.

No wonder she comes home and eats me out of house & home – I’m starving my Chickeymonkey! Maybe next week I’ll doodle full bellied little girls throwing away bags with doodles on them.

Even the gibbons know she’s a monkey. She’s my little Chickeymonkey, and she’s five today. Happy Birthday to my little big girl!

Me: “So, you’re gonna be five, huh?”

 

Chick: “Yup!”

 

Me: “Does that mean you’re going to turn into a gorilla, or an ape? Now that you’re getting bigger?”

 

Chick: (Making a sad face) No. I don’t wanna be a gorilla or a ape. I wanna stay a Chickeymonkey.

 

Me: “Yeah, you like being my little Chickeymonkey, don’t you?”

 

Chick: “Yeeaaahhhh” (grins)

*****************

Me: “You can have french toast sticks,”

 

Me: “Or you can have some cereal,”

 

Me: “And you can have some milk.”

 

Me: “You can have some grapes in your lunch, if you want,”

 

Me: “But you can only be four for ONE MORE DAY.”

 

Me: “Then you have to be five.”

 

Chick: “Awww Maaaaan!”

*****************

Me: “So, how old ya gonna be again?”

 

Chick: “Five.” (holds up this many)

 

Me: “Wow. That’s a LOT of fingers.”

 

Chick: (giggles)

 

Me: “So then what are you gonna do?”

 

Chick: “Then I’m gonna be SIX. And then I’m gonna be SEVEN, eight nine TEN and then I’ll be the same as Catybug!”

 

Me: “Yes, well, by then, Catybug will be 15. I don’t think you’ll ever catch up.”

 

Chick: “Awww Maaaannnn” (rolls eyes)

*****************

A day in the life. What I wouldn’t give to have my biggest complaint be that mom is yanking my hair out when she is trying to brush the knots out. To be five again. To have such a wonderful, helpful big sister to play Littlest Pet Shop with, who only tortures you on occasion. To be a snugglebug, cuddly little kissyface brown eyed munchkin whose smile lights up the room, whose giggle is contagious, whose dry snarky sense of humor is too much like her mother’s. Who eats every ten minutes and chooses peanut butter on a spoon more often than not because “that’s protein, mom!”

And to think, five years ago today I was in tears, not knowing whether or not she was going to make it. Wondering how I could possibly help her fight for her little life, lungs under-developed, broken collarbone, tubes winding in and out of her little body in her little incubator oxygen tank. Crying that I couldn’t nurse her, couldn’t hold her. All I could do was feel her little fingers wrap around me for short periods of time a few times a day. Bringing her home finally, after a week in the NICU, and I swear I never put her down.

Now I can’t even pick her up.

Happy Birthday, Chickeymonkey!

Love, Mom