Gremlins!

In dryers all over the world there is a sub-species of the same creature that gnaws through important automotive belts, drains all the oil in a vehicle, and generally clabbers up any mechanical device.

It is.... the Sock Gremlin.

It's native habitat is unknown for sure, as no one has ever actually seen a sock gremlin, let alone followed one home. Theories vary from alternate dimensions, to mouse holes in laundry room walls, to dryer motors. Personally, I think they live in a symbiotic relationship with the boogey bears that our dogs chase and bark at, in between chasing and barking at the birds.

Anyway, these gremlins are notorious for stealing one sock of a pair, and leaving the poor laundry doer scratching their heads over a pile of "strays." Occasionally they have been known to deposit one mismatched sock, usually in a color and/or pattern that you know you don't own. Whether this is their idea of trade, or just an amusing joke for them, I don't know.

Why am I telling my fabulous readers all of this, when they're sure to have encountered the sock gremlins before? Well, I've discovered a new kind of gremlin, closely related to the sock gremlin.

The Lesser North American Underwear Gremlin. Maybe some of you have run across this particular type before, but I haven't.

I've named it the Lesser North American Underwear Gremlin, because it only seems to be interested in little boys' underwear. Particularly, Middle and Youngest Child's.

When CM moved in to his apartment, he somehow lost all but three pairs of their underwear, so he bought a package of six. Assuming there weren't many accidents, and that CM did laundry once a week (not such a stretch) they should have been able to make do for a while.

Vanishing underwear was at first attributed to Youngest Child. He doesn't always wake up in the middle of the night when his bladder is full. When he'd gone a couple of weeks without a late night accident, CM let him wear his underwear to bed instead of a pull-up.

Of course, when he did have an accident after that, he was embarrassed. So he would hide the soiled underwear and put on a pull-up, when he awoke to the... er... oops.

A small talk with Youngest Child quickly solved that problem, assuring him that it's not the end of the world if he has an accident, but that he needed to put the dirty underwear in the dirty clothes and not hide them.

Most of the time since then, he's put on a pull-up on his own before bed, anyway.

And yet... there are five pairs of underwear for the boys in the house. We looked where Youngest was hiding them before... no dice. Under beds, under dressers, in closets, behind the toilet, in the couch cushions. No sign of the missing tighty-whiteys.

Farmmom chimed in that they might be going down the potty ("undies go down the hoooole!") but CM swears that their toilet doesn't have the juice to suck a pair of underwear down.

Thus... The Lesser North American Underwear Gremlin.

I wonder if they prefer plain white undies or the Spidey-man kind? Or if its more about the scent of dirt and sticky things that hovers around little boys everywhere?

I shall pursue the investigation into the habits and behaviors of the Lesser North American Underwear Gremlin... any other data on the subject is of course, more than welcome.

I wonder if I could catch one for further study... sticky traps maybe?

Ahh Domesticity

I'm feeling much better today, folks, so you can stop worrying. My glands are still a little swollen but the sore throat is going away and my energy is returning. Thanks for all the advice (which amounted to "go to the doc"... HA! We don't need no steenking doctor,) and warm wishes!

Last night CM asked me if I wanted pork chops for dinner tonight. I gave him a look and said "I'm making pot roast tomorrow."

"Oh, really?" He said skeptically.

See, I've been promising him a good old down home pot roast for a while. I had the roast, and had him pick up onion and carrots last week. Then I got sick. For two days the thought of food, making it or eating it, made me want to blow chunks. So no pot roast.

The third day, I was just wiped. I couldn't summon the energy to peel and quarter the potatoes. How sad is that??

Ever since the day I mentioned it last week, CM has been bugging me about the pot roast. When I was sick, the first day he left it alone. The second day, when I was complaining about nothing sounding good, he was throwing out ideas, and gave me this ingenious look and said "Pot roast?"

The third day (yesterday) he told me I wasn't allowed to die, because I still "owed" him a pot roast.

Today... I put the pot roast in the crock pot with the potatoes, carrots, and an onion, and some salt and pepper. It's smelling really good right now. I love my crock pot, have I mentioned that? Granted, I don't love it so much that I don't still want one like Farmmom and Mamaw have, but I still love it. I have two, actually, a big one and a little one.

Given his... disbelieving... attitude about it last night, I pretty much expected him to ask me about it by now. "Did you remember the roast?" He hasn't, yet, but I noticed when I got in his fridge this morning to get the veggies that he thawed the pork chops. Distrustful darling man. Either he thought I would forget, or he's skeptical about my pot roast.

Just because I don't cook very often, he starts to assume that I can't cook. Which makes me want to prove him wrong. Unfortunately most of the things that I enjoy cooking the most (and that I'm damn good at cooking) are fairly expensive, and everyone is on a strict budget. That, and I can't do things like my fantastic whole baked chicken, because none of them will eat chicken on the bone. Philistines. Maybe once I'm back in classes and get my financial aid disbursement I can splurge once or twice, make trash pizza, or fondue.

Given the size of his appetite, and the appetites of the children, I'm not sure that there's going to be any leftovers. I threw in extra veggies just in case, and I might do the frozen corn on the cob that's in the freezer as well. When in doubt, make more sides.

I'm contemplating making mashed potatoes and gravy, but more than one kind of potatoes are usually reserved for holiday dinners, in my family. It might be a bit much. But maybe devilled eggs? Hmmm...

Sicky

For the last two days I've been down and out with some kind of rampant illness.

It really started Thursday night, with what I thought was my body's usual reaction to the new month on das patch. For several months I'll get a little queasy in the first week, as my body adjusts to the hormone rush, no big deal, it goes away eventually, I can deal.

I also had a tiny bit of a sore throat, on one side. not too surprising this time of year, plants are starting to cure out and for some reason I'm mildly allergic to dying things. Unless it's a pine tree, and then I'm seriously miserable around it.

Woke up Friday morning and I felt like hammered crap... body aches, queasy stomach, sore throat, swollen glands... just a touch of a fever.

The last two days have sucked. I've been weak as a kitten and twice as useless (I haven't even been cute!)

I'm feeling better so far today... more alert, no fever, body aches seem to be more a case of being horizontal for most of the last couple of days than illness related now.... but my throat still hurts, and my glands are still swollen.

It sucks... I can handle sitting up for more than ten minutes now... but I can't yawn, talk very loud, or swallow anything without wanting to cry.

We'll see how it goes today, I'm going to putter a little bit but not get really exited about doing too much, see if things start easing up. If not, I guess I'll have to go to the doctor and see what the heck is wrong with me.

Can't really afford it, but if this doesn't start resolving on it's own soon, I'm not gonna have much choice.

Suddenly...

Well, it's a fantastical thing, stepping into a ready-made family. Suddenly I'm surrounded by laughing children every evening, filling up the house with the kind of energy and enthusiasm for life I can vaguely remember from my own childhood.

Suddenly, not only do I get to curl up on the couch with my honey and watch a movie in the evenings, but I get to lean in the doorway to the boys' room and watch him fold himself into the lower bunk to read them a story. I never realized what a tender feeling it brings, to watch children curl up next to their father and drift off as he reads to them.

Suddenly, I've got a beautiful, intelligent young lady who includes me when she's making "I Love You" pictures, who asks me to help her with her hair. And who often asks me, "why don't you just move in?"

Suddenly, I've got two little boys who, with the artlessness of youth, tell me "My dad needs to give you a trophy!" "No Bubba, if he gives her a trophy she won't be happy and then she won't come back. Daddy needs to give her a ring, and then they'll be married, and she'll be happy, and she'll stay!"

Suddenly I've got dinner around the table, reminding the youngest to chew with his mouth closed, Middle Child to eat his vegetables, and Eldest Child that bigger bites don't count for extra points.

Suddenly I've got new challenges. Middle Child still doesn't accept authority from women very well. We have battles, when he gets in trouble. Youngest Child follows his big brother's lead, except instead of screaming, he'll give you his big blue eyes and say "Aw wight," and then do it again five minutes later. Eldest Daughter, well, she mothers her brothers, instead of being a kid herself.

We're working on all of that, and being consistent and firm is helping the boys a lot. I have to remind Eldest Daughter to just play, a lot, but she's starting to figure it out, too.

Suddenly, I've got a day care schedule to work around. I'll be dropping them off every weekday morning at eight, and picking them up at five most evenings, starting Monday.

Suddenly........... Suddenly I've got a family. Three great kids and a wonderful man who thinks that I'm perfect. He's crazy, but he's sweet.

If you'd told me, a year ago (right around the time I started this blog, remember?) that I'd be here, now, I'd have said you were nuts. And, I'd have been terrified of the prospect. Three kids? Yikes.

But, suddenly, it's not so bad. Suddenly, I find myself doing all the things that my mother used to do for me. And suddenly, I find that I like it.

I might have days that I want to pull my hair out, and I might have days when I feel like there is no way I'm up to the challenges, but even on those days, I wouldn't give it up for the world.

Learning To Rope...

I am a farm and ranch girl. I've lived in a farming and ranching area all my life, and yet, I've never learned to rope.

I tried a couple of times, but I think the main problem is that my teacher was Farmdad, who admits freely, whenever it comes up, that he can't catch a cold with a rope.

Here I am, sitting in the middle of a lot of people who know how to rope, and I haven't taken advantage of it... how dumb am I?

Well, honestly, I was a bit busy with my horse, so I suppose I can be excused for not doing it yet... but I really should take advantage of the opportunity while I can.

Now, I just have to find someone to teach me, who doesn't mind that I'm starting from... well.... nothing.

Classes start August 18th. We'll see how things go.

The Pitfalls of Spontaneity

So yesterday about two in the afternoon, CM looks at me and says "Hey honey, lets go fishing!"

Sounded good to me, so we started gathering things, and as we gathered the discussion turned into "Lets go camping!"

Now, normally, I'm a pretty good camper. I've got my personal camping routine down, I can load the car and be on my way in about an hour... if I'm at the old homestead.

Since I wasn't, it was a bit more challenging. Find tent, got sleeping bags, changes of clothes for the kids and the adults, food, stop by Wally World to renew the fishing licenses and oh we need buns and chips and worms and OH! S'mores ingredients!

Get out of Walmart after eighty bucks worth of "oh, yeah" and get headed to the lake.

We went to John Martin Resevoir... well technically we went to Hasty Lake which is on the other side of the dam from the resevoir. Let the kids swim for a while... oh crap, we forgot towels.

Back to the campsite for some supper, after buying firewood from the parks service at six bucks a bundle, then let the fire die and go fishing just at dusk. That was fun, we had Eldest Daughter's friend with us and she'd never fished in her life... she was the only one to land a fish, a nice sized crappie.

I had a honkin big fish, easily two feet long... and he broke my line right at the edge of the water. Bastard.

So we went back to camp and made s'mores and roasted hotdogs, the kids told scary stories ("Once upon a time, there was a big sized monster and an itty bitty baby living in a house. The monster ate the baby. Amen" - Youngest Child) and went to bed.

Whoops, forgot pillows. I used CM, he used my hoodie, and the Middle Child used my feet. Did I mention it was a little tent?

Well long about midnight Eldest Child's friend got to wanting to go home. This has become a pattern, and CM and I agree that it's pretty useless to invite her to stay over any more. She gets upset in the middle of the night and has to be taken home. Last night her mother had to drive for thirty minutes to come get her.

If Eldest Child somehow convinces CM to let that friend stay the night again, I'm dosing her food with sleeping pills.

Well, once her friend was gone, Eldest Child didn't want to sleep outside the tent alone. She tried the back seat of the car, and that didn't work for her. So, three kids and two adults wound up in a tent that, honestly, is only comfortable for two people.

And Eldest Child kicks in her sleep, as I learned the hard way. Right in the face.

So yeah, it was a long night.

Next time I'm home, I'm kyping our tent, and the rest of my camping gear. I'll find somewhere to stash them.

That way, I can put the air mattress in the big tent and be comfortable, and use the little tent for the children. Little ones tent, big people tent. That way I don't get booted in the face at four in the morning. (And react badly, leading to me nearly beating the crap out of CM because he was the one holding on to me....)

And next time we go camping, (and I love camping, so we will be going again) we'll be better prepared, because I'll just rework my emergency camping kit for four people instead of one. All we'll absolutely have to remember will be the food, and clothes.

Now, I have to go shower, and then take a looong nap.

Talk About A Hook...

I was at Wal-Mart today and in the treating myself mood. Give me a break, I'm menstrual, and I wanted a new pair of pajamas.

So, as I can rarely resist I took a swing through the book aisle, and they'd got a new shipment in. Perusing the covers for one that looked like a book I'd read (step 1 in the Farmgirl Buys A Book Guide to Literary Addiction) my eye caught on one that isn't really my usual style, a street scene with a dark motif.

The title was The Man with the Golden Torc, by Simon R. Green. I was just barely intrigued enough to pick it up and read the back.

The back copy was iffy.

They say, in writing, you have to have a kick ass first page. When submitting to agents, or publishing houses, you have to capture their attention in a few pages, or they'll just toss off a form rejection and call it a day. Every writing guide I've ever seen (that I was sure wasn't a joke) has instructed me to make my first page pop.

Simon R. Green has mastered this concept. I flipped the book open to take a peek at the writing to see if I wanted to give it a chance, and with just a skim down the first page of the first chapter, I knew I had to own this book.

On the first page an unnamed political figure ("Lets call him Mr. President, and no, not the one you're thinking of,") has contracted a supernatural venereal disease during a goodwill tour of Thailand, subsequently becoming pregnant with "something the very opposite of a love child."

If this is the first page, I can't wait to see the rest of the book.

On a related note, I now feel like my first page is a flop...

I'm off, to start reading the book. And yes, Farmmom, Farmdad, you can have it when I'm done with it...