Ramblings on All Hallow's Eve Eve

It is Day 2 of Halloween 2010. Yesterday was costumes at school. Today is trick-or-treating. Tomorrow is the actual day, but probably be the most un-Halloween of them all. That's good. I think we'll all need a day to come down out of the sugar stratosphere. (I'm glad I'm not subbing in Primary tomorrow!)

SuperDad is traversing the neighborhood in the wind and rain dressed as his alter-ego, Greg, and accompanying his two youngest sons on their quest for the largest candy haul ever. I haven't seen anyone else out, so the chances are good. I, the Mom, sacrificed her fun and super hero status to stay home in the dry house and man the front door. I think I'm ok with that. It's quiet, so I thought I'd sit at the computer and see what comes out the ol' fingertips. Then, I'm off to make pumpkin seeds. Ok, the pumpkins made them. I'm going to bake them. And then eat them.

1) We watered the dirt in what used to be our garden for 30 minutes in the rain today. Seems a bit over-the-top, but we added sulfur to the dirt to make it more acidic and it needs lots of water to start dissolving. I never knew that sulfuric acid is one of those things a garden needs to grow, but apparently it is. Here's hoping for a bountiful strawberry crop next spring!

2) I'm being very creative on the costume front this year. On Day 1 I was an undercover Tobacco and Firearms agent masquerading as a mom. Today I am an undercover CIA agent masquerading as a YW Camp leader. I have the shirt and everything. Tomorrow, I'm going to be an undercover FBI agent masquerading as a Latter-Day Saint woman at church. See, very creative. I thought of that all by myself while I was doing dishes this afternoon and made the idea retroactive to yesterday.

3) I cut up all the bell peppers we grew and put them in the freezer this afternoon. They were either not all the way ripe or hotter than the ones you buy in the store because my hands were tingling for over an hour after I finished and I had washed them several times. Never had that happen before. I'll have to remember to use them sparingly.

4) It's been 35 minutes since my family left to go trick-or-treating and we just had our first visitors who are not related to me or are one of the relatives friends. I'm seeing lots of left-over candy in our future.

5) The garage smells like heaven because of all the apples out there waiting to be made into sauce. Mmmmmm! Can't wait.

6) We actually got about 5 pounds of potatoes out of our garden and some of them were actually regular potato size. They'll be dinner next week.

7) 10 more minutes and trick-or-treating set #2 has just left. They thought our Halloween decoration that consists of 5 jack-o-lanterns with a glow stick inside one of them was cool. They are my favorites.

8) Greg pulled out the little 3 or 4 foot pine trees growing on either side of our garage this morning. I love having them gone! Neither one was doing fantastic, but one of them really was about dead. I don't know how long the trees have been there, but we've been here over two years and they were here when we arrived. Greg tied a rope around it a pulled it out with the car to find that it's roots were all still in a ball. No wonder the poor thing looked like it was about dead. The weeds underneath it seem to be doing pretty well, though.

Ok, the rain has stopped and the doorbell keeps ringing, so I'm out of here. Although, what's up with the teenagers trick-or-treating without at least attempting a costume? Maybe they are undercover secret agents, too. We're all over the place, I tell you.

Have a happy Halloween!

This, That, and The Other Thing

There's no real rhyme or reason to the title. That's just what came to mind. I'm also posting this now because I'm hungry for something that I don't have and am hoping that this will prove a good distraction.

So, a while ago I mentioned on Facebook that I was finally getting around to hanging curtains at our house. Last night it was suggested that I post pictures for the whole world to see. So, here we go. I am NOT, by really any standard or definition, a decorator and am most grateful for anyone with talent along those lines that help me in anyway. These curtains were made by our friend and decorating hero, Yvonne, in NH. She was, once upon a time, an interior decorator who took pity upon me when we were selling our house in Manchester. She took me shopping, tried to teach me some basic rules for decorating, and stayed up MANY nights sewing curtains for every room in our house. I'm not much of a drapes/curtain person, so they're all valences. And, I must admit, I would have loved to have our house look just like it did when we sold it for the whole 3 years we lived there. Some of the valences are made to exactly fit the windows in Manchester and I don't have windows here they fit, but the ones in the living room, kitchen, and bathroom do. I also have some that still aren't hung, but I'm working on it.

These were taken last night, because I thought the colors would be easier to see in controlled lighting. You'll see I was right if you get to the bottom.

Here's the living room. The painting between the windows was painted but Yvonne. She's a woman of many talents and very few of ours in the creativity department overlap. The walls were green when we bought the house. Luckily it still works with the furniture and curtains. I'm not really up to painting right now.

Here's the dining room. You can see Yvonne's painting better. My favorite, which you can't see, are the little red berries in the blue picture. The lamp has similar berries on it and the red chairs in the living room are the same color. Tied it all together! Also, the other painting was done by Greg's mom. I'm not sure when, but they've had it as long as I've known Greg. I like the fruit and it's a little reminder of her.

Kitchen. Yes, Yvonne, I know you hate the little magnet board, but we use it too much to take down. Also, funny story, my camera must still be set on New Hampshire time because these pictures have the next day's date on them, even though it was just after 10:00 when I took them.

Living room today. I include this only because you can see how sheer the fabric is, not because it's such a great picture.


This is the bathroom curtain. It's made out of the same fabric as the shower curtain, courtesy, again, of Yvonne. I'm such a sucker for plaid. Love it!


This one, too, had a hard time with the lighting. Oh well, I'll take others later and hopefully post better pictures at some point.

Ok, mission accomplished and I'm now late to get the boys. Still hungry for something I don't have, though. Oh well. I'll see if I can forget while I'm out of the house!

Monday

It's 1:30 (in the p.m.) and I should be taking a shower, but I'm allowing myself to be slightly distracted for a little bit.

My day started out just fine. I even got up a little early to read my scriptures before everyone else was up and the noise level increased. The idea was that when I got back from walking my boys to school and getting some exercise I could come right in the house and get busy cleaning my bathrooms. Today was my day to do a complete Houseblessing. (If you've never heard of a Houseblessing, click here and scroll down to "Basic Weekly Plan".)

I was thwarted. Trying to be a cool mom and remember what it's like to be 16 with a freshly minted drivers license, I finally agreed to let Erica drive the van to school. Her Auto class will even wash it and change the oil for practice today. (Good deal, if no one dies and nothing gets munched in the parking lot. I've driven in that lot and others like it and am not totally sold on the idea.) The idea being that Erica can drive and I have to be home with my house blessing because I can't let a little errand- like that stamp I need- distract me.

I left the house with my boys right on time. We walked down to our friends and were just leaving their house when Ryan informs me he forgot his backpack. Not a big deal, except that it's a bit of a walk back up to our house and would require running all of the 3/4 of a mile to school to be on time. I'm all for exercise, but not so much for killing myself. I contemplated making him go to school without it and dealing with the consequences but today is "Penguin Parade Day". I had to get up at 7:30 (the only day to sleep in last week, mind you) on Saturday morning to help my 3rd grader make "clothes" for a paper penguin out of material scraps. I'll be darned if they don't get to parade! I didn't have a car to make the clothing run later or to drive Ryan to school. I probably should have just made him run and/or be late.

Deborah, my friend and hero of the day, offers to drive me back home, then to take the kids to school. (She's the best, by the way.) I thought I'd go for the drive so we could visit a little bit. Still trying to make Ryan somewhat responsible for his actions, I gave him the house key and sent him in to get the backpack. He did just that and very obediently locked the door with my keys still sitting inside on the chair. AHHHH!! Deborah added "Drive Shannon to Greg to get a key" to her list of things to do today and even managed to not laugh at me too much. Greg did, though.

Deborah and I visited for a while- longer than we would have on our walk- which was way more fun than cleaning bathrooms. I grabbed a midmorning snack and got going on the bathrooms. I got 1-3/4 done. The second just needs a floor job. I did get the floor in the laundry room washed, too. That's amazing in and of itself. The third bathroom will just have to wait. The rest of the houseblessing? Maybe next week, or later this week if the stars align.

So, here I sit with dry skin on my hands and the rest of me in desperate need of a shower. I need to leave in an hour to get the kids so that I can have at least a little exerecise today. My to-do list was hardly scratched today, but I'm thinking the following. It's sunny and almost 40 outside. If I don't look up, I can even ignore the terrible air quality from the inversion. The cleanliness of the house is a notch above what it was this morning. I have a family who fills it with love (and sometimes other stuff!) whenever they're here. They all love to be home and have their friends here. I have friends who are willing to help out at a moments notice and like me even if I haven't showered. I am blessed and wouldn't have it any other way. I'll clean the bathrooms and whatever else when I get to it. Someday my days and house will be quiet and empty much longer than the current school day. For now, I'm happy and in 30 minutes I'll be clean. What more can I ask for?

Taking a Break from a Normal Day

I was just thinking that I didn't have anything really to post about today when I heard fire trucks coming down the street. I opened the blinds to find a little diversion.

No word, yet, on how it started. The fire investigator thinks it's probably a cigarette tossed out a car window. That's the third fire this month within a block or two of our house. A little bit (or better yet, a LOT) of rain would not be a bad thing right about now. Let's hear it for such quick acting fire fighters!

Now, back to our boring, regularly scheduled day of cleaning which was already in progress.

$.99 Strawberries in March

Sunflower Market has $.99/lb. strawberries. The second week in March. That seems early to me, but I'm not one to complain about such things. They are beautiful, huge, and oh so juicy. (I would have taken a picture for your enjoyment, but the only way the camera is currently functioning is for Erica to press hard on the front edges of the lens with her fingers while pushing the button. We currently have lots of pictures of Erica's fingers and not much else.) I bought 5 tubs today. We ate one after school and the other 4 have been made into jam and are sitting in my freezer, except for a little in the fridge- some of which will probably not live to see tomorrow morning as I will eat a piece of toast before bed. I don't know who thought of having a sale on large, gorgeous, yummy strawberries in March, but today they are my hero. And probably tomorrow and the day after, and Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday as well. Maybe if I offer to keep them at hero status, we'll have them again next week as well.

PS- The suggestion given last fall about how to get the cents sign didn't work for me. I'm going to have to get a custom keyboard for days like today.

PPS- If your strawberries are cheaper, I'm glad for you. Eat many and feel good.

PPPS- Sunflower also had London Broil steaks for $1.97/lb., but they were out. They were selling sirloin steaks at the same price instead until their shipment came in. It was a happy grocery day. Glad it kind of fell apart yesterday (the regular day).

Courage

"Courage is that quality of mind which meets danger or opposition with calmness and firmness which enables a man to face difficulties that lie in his pathway to righteous achievement...Courage implies facing difficulties and overcoming them."
-David O. McKay

We had a little experience last night that has had me thinking about this quote for the past 12 hours. Last night was one of those nights where almost everyone has some where different to be at almost the same time. Spencer and Steven had scouts at 6:00. Spencer at the scout master's house. Steven at the church. Ryan had a soccer game at 6:30 and Greg was the designated driver and parent in attendance. Erica and I had Young Women at 7:00 at the church. As we currently don't have an 11-year-old Scout leader, Joseph was the only one not rushing out the door. Our schedules meant that he would be home by himself for an hour or so, until Greg and Ryan got home form the game. No big deal, he stays home all the time.

About 7:50 I had a call from home on my cell phone. I hate it when the girls (or the leaders) use their phones during YW and since Greg should have been home long before that, I didn't feel like taking the call and answering a profound question like, "Can we have some ice cream?" Unexpected calls from home always worry me, just a little, so I changed my mind and stepped out into the hall to return it.

The phone rang and was answered by someone. All I could her was yelling or hysterics over an extremely terrible connection. I couldn't even tell who it was. Finally I could make out that it was Joseph. He sounded hysterical and said something about a man and the back door and then the line went dead. My heart about stopped and fell out on the floor. My first thought was , "Where is Greg? He should be home by now." I called his phone. The game had started late, but he was almost to the bottom of our hill and was on his way to take Ryans friend, Jaron, home. I told him about Joseph's call and he agreed to book it home as fast as he could. I, being health and gasoline conscious, had of course walked to church and it would take me a good 10 minutes to get back home. Greg would definitely beat me. I called home, but no one answered. I decided to keep calling until either Joseph or Greg picked up.

Part way through my 4th call, I turned around to see Joseph sobbing and running barefoot down the church hallway. I gave him a huge hug and sat on the couch, waiting for him to calm down and tell me what happened-oh, and called Greg to tell him that Joseph wasn't home so he wouldn't freak out when he got there.

Turns out that the doorbell had rung and Joseph had answered it. A tall creepy-looking man with short, reddish blond hair asked to speak to his parents. Joseph said they weren't able to come to the door then and to come back later. Then the man looked at him very strangely and told him to go ask his parents why the couldn't come to the door. That was enough on the creep-o-meter for Joseph. He shut the door and locked it, grabbed the phone, and ran out the back door; calling me on the way. The connection was terrible because he was rapidly running through the backyard behind our house and away from the phone base. It went dead when he got out of range.

Greg got home and found no one. He made Ryan and Jaron stay in the car with the doors locked, just in case. He searched the house but found no one there and nothing out of place (except the total destruction in the basement from Ryan and Jaron playing all afternoon). He closed and locked the house and left to take Jaron home. On the way, he passed a man meeting Joseph's description at the door of our neighbor, Nicole, down the street. She's our Primary president, so Greg went and confronted him at her door. Greg said he did look kind of creepy and didn't seem at all concerned that he had terrified our son. Nicole called later to say that she had been kind of creeped out, too. The guy was going door-to-door selling essential oils. She had been trying to close the door and go get her kids to bed, but he wouldn't let her. I don't know where he went after that, but Greg came down to church to pick up Joseph and Steven and they saw him walking across the street on their way home. We haven't seen him since.

So, it was a totally freaky experience, but has had me thinking about courage. Courage really isn't the "laugh-in-the-face-of-danger" bravado that we sometimes imagine. It really is keeping a cool head and doing what needs to be done in the face of some obstacle or difficulty. In Joseph's case, it happened to be intense personal danger-or at least the perception of it. (I really want to believe that it was just a really bad case of miscommunication and misunderstanding, but I don't know that.) Sometimes courage is standing up to do what's right, even if it means doing so all by yourself in the face of laughter or ridicule. No one "laughs in the face of danger" at those times, but that's when the biggest character strides forward are taken and the deepest depths of your strength and faith are tested. I'm hoping that this particular instance gives Joseph the knowledge that he can remember the right things to do and then do them even when the doing seems impossible, whatever the circumstance. Because, last night, my hero was a terrified young man who faced a very huge difficulty and overcame it.