Poor gutter design has damned us again!

1. I woke up this morning and thought, "Wow it really looks like we got some rain last night." Then I went downstairs and noticed Cary had left his running sneakers in the middle of the entryway floor.
2. Then I went to put them back on the boot tray when I noticed it was wet.
3. It was wet because the patch of ceiling above it was dripping.
   
4. GRRR. I had just called the gutter guy to set up a cleaning yesterday.
5. The rain finally stopped. And then the dripping stopped. We have a patch of discoloration about 2"x15" on the ceiling, but otherwise nothing worse happened...yet.
6. My dad came over and diagnosed the problem, and we have an idea what to do next. He also thinks it wasn't related to clogged gutters, so I don't have to feel like a total idiot.
   

PS. We were damned again because a few years ago melting snow leaked in about two feet from where this leak happened, and that time we got a new roof. This time it should be a much cheaper fix.

It was a day that seemed to take forever

1. Henry was put in time out by me for purposely squishing a container of applesauce in the fridge that was left over from what he didn't eat at lunch time.
2. Henry was put in time out by Cary for purposely licking a door knob three times.
3. I think I may have killed my favorite clematis but hopefully it will bounce back soon.
   
4. Lucy is finally starting to feel better, although she still won't really eat and she cries inordinately. But I did take her and her brother outside for awhile today. I saw some errant grass growing near my blackberry lily and reached down to pick it. As I reached behind me to drop it on the ground I didn't realize she was standing right behind me and I clocked her in the face. Like the poor child hasn't felt bad enough for the past few days! Of course I felt terrible, but she did manage to recover well enough to scream throughout our entire dinner.
   

Five Things

OK, here goes.

Five items in my freezer:

1. Mrs. Repicci's Sausage. On our wedding day Cary asked his mother's friend Mrs. Repicci if she would add us to her Christmastime sausage giftlist. She hasn't missed a year since. Also it is almost gone.
   
2. Homemade English Muffins from Le Metro
3. Popsicles: Edy's Lemonade, Lime, Tangerine and Popsicle brand Root beer, Dr. Pepper, and Orange Crush. Henry likes popsicles.
   
4. Frozen Buffalo Meat. I should throw it out. I served it to Cary once and I don't think he has gotten over the shock.
   
5. Edamame. For that soybean humus I had every intention of making.
   

Five items in my closet:

1. A few presents for the kids hidden away for either rainy days or Christmas, whichever comes first.
2. A large number of Fresh Produce t-shirts.
3. My Pappagallo purse from fifth grade with all of my purse covers.
4. My bridesmaids dresses from Auntly H's and Mommy at Work's respective weddings.

Five items in the car:

1. One stroller.
2. Two pairs of Jackie O style sunglasses from the Watertown dollar store (one for me and one for Lucy.
   
3. Three car seats. We keep a spare booster seat in the car, mostly for Aidan.
   
4. Four pens.
   
5. At least five different obnoxious toys that require batteries.
   

Five items in my backpack
(ahem, it's just a purse)

1. ipod nano
2. A printed list of deer-resistant perennials from Russel's nursery.
   
3. Nasty strawberry gum for Henry
   
4. Aah-pops for the Luce
   
5. Diapers and wipes
   

One person I tag because LHM tagged all the other people I know with blogs!

1. Jen14221

Saga of the shade continues...

1. The replacement for the broken shade in Henry's room was supposed to arrive Saturday. Today I received a suspiciously light package from FedEx.
   
2. It was an empty box!!!
3. I called customer service at the company and they told me that the service department had decided that they wanted to repair the shade, so they sent me a box to return it to them.
4. I was never told that I was going to be receiving a box. I was told to expect a remade shade.
5. I didn't get mad so much about them wanting to repair the shade, but the lousy communications annoyed me.
6. When I finally figured out what I had to do with the shade and got it down from the window the box they sent was too small!
7. Fortunately I had the old box that the shade had originally come in, so I was able to substitute it. Now I just have to wait 3-5 days for UPS to pick it up, bring me a label, and take it back from whence it came. We shall see if they screw it up or not.
   

1. A mystery animal dug its way up into my back flower bed where it miraculously left all of the plants untouched, at least for today. I think it did dismantle my slug trap though.
2. Lucy banged and I think also bit the inside of her lip on the corner of a storage bench. Many tears and much bleeding ensued. Fortunately the cut was small and she rebounded nicely once she put on the hat she was trying to get in the first place and had an aah-pop.
3. A resurgence of Lucy's cold forced us to cancel our plans to go to Cary's parents house for pizza and swimming.
   

Just Another Rainy Saturday in July

1. Henry woke up well before 6 a.m. today. While I was trying to fall back asleep he was in my room with my dental floss stringing it back and forth between the knobs on my closet.
   
2. Lucy woke up at a reasonable hour, but with a fever. She seemed a little better throughout the day, but she is definitely sick.
   
3. I had another migraine.

I am definitely looking forward to tomorrow...

Fishy. No, seriously fishy.

1. I was outside doing some yard work when I heard Lucy was awake so as I was heading in to get her I noticed there was a dead fish laying on our brick path.
2. Where do I begin? It is just sitting there, lifeless, covered with flies.
3. How did it get there? Do our neighbors hate us or did an unlucky Great Blue Heron drop it while flying over head?

Cause and Effect?

1. The children both screamed more than normal, or at least more than I was able to tolerate today.
   
2. I think I am getting a cold.
3. Possibly because of 1 and 2, I have a migraine, but it is the first one since July 6th. I am hopeful that the neurologists suggestions will help me have fewer headaches.

But, in happier news, Lucy had something go very right today. We went to a different supermarket because Wegman's doesn't carry collards, and when we were checking out there were helium balloons for the taking with not one, but two dum dum aah-pops tied to them. Sometimes life is sweet!

AAH-POP!

1. Pain in the Molar. Lucy may be teething. I am guessing this is the case because she has basically refused to eat anything for the last 24 hours, preferring to subsist on milk fortified with flax seed oil (our preferred solution to constipation), except when we were in the grocery store today and she ate a cookie and a lollipop.
2. Picky Picky Picky. Lucy does not eat many things, and she is not the sort of kid that usually gets treats because she has never finished her meal (how can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?). But I started letting her have dum dum lollipops when Henry was at swimming because it kept her relatively quiet, they only have 20 calories and she never finishes them. But what she does do is now incessantly request an "AAH-POP" in a loud voice whenever she thinks of it, which is pretty much constantly. She is fond of requesting colors, usually blue or green, but will generally accept whatever we give her.
3. It's not always good to share. Lately Lucy has taken to try to get me or her dad or Henry to finish the lollipop. The whole point of introducing her to refined sugar was to encourage her to be quiet, but now after screaming "AAH-POP" she is yelling "mouth, mouth!" and shoving the slobbery gob near my face while I am trying to buy decide what kind of cereal we need this week.
4. She was given a helium balloon while we were waiting in line at the grocery store. I think because she was screaming. Lucy loves balloons and she carried it around for an hour or so until it was time for lunch and her nap. Then it popped. While she was asleep. What went right: miraculously she forgot about it when she woke up from her nap.
   

Swimming foibles continue

1. Henry's swim goggles went through the washer, but fortunately not the dryer.
   
2. He is refusing to go to lessons now because he wants his old teacher back. Town lessons make it nearly impossible to sign up, and they certainly do not let you request a teacher. So now he has convinced himself not to do something that he loved for an arbitrary reason. After asking him to wait in his room until he was ready to go to the lesson it only took him about five minutes to change his mind. Maybe the constant darkness of his room now with the broken shade helped hasten his decision.
3. At swimming he was doing great until he decided to jump in with a floaty barbell while the teacher was at the other end with another child. The lifeguard had to get in and I had to yell at him. But at least I know he can jump in and be safe because he does it all the time at his Grandma's.

What went right: Lucy is now saying "I love you."

Not in pieces

1. I left Henry alone for about 6 minutes so I could put Lucy down for her nap. When I came out of her room I found him sitting in his room and he said it was too dark. I went to raise his shade but it would not go up. Then he mentioned that he was really sorry but he had squeezed it and now it was broken.
2. I got very angry with him because this isn't just an ordinary shade. All of our windows are irregularly sized and I had to special order it. This is the third shade we have had for this window because they have all had technical problems, and I had to return them and wait for new ones to arrive even though supposedly it was made by a reputable company and is a quality product.
3. One of the reasons I got so mad was because I knew that I would have to deal with the company again to get it replaced. The shades have a lifetime guarantee, so they agreed to replace it for free. At least the person on the phone today agreed to that. It may be different tomorrow. And I don't think what Henry did should have been enough to break it.
4. I felt so bad that I got angry with him, but also feel like he is old enough to know better.
5. Cary's only comment: "it has been six months since he broke something that mattered to you." So I guess I have half a year to let go every time he breaks something that doesn't matter to me. At least we got the big one out of the way. Maybe I should celebrate?
   

Old Homes

1. Old Home Days. "Old Homes," with its affectionately ungrammatical nickname, is a carnival on a small park in the town I grew up in. It is magnificently tiny, unchanging, and provokes extreme reactions of either devotion or revulsion to all who attend. It was the centerpiece of the summer when I was in high school, when all of the people who seemed to matter magically reappeared for four days in the middle of summer.
   
2. Grassy Knoll. As adults, the main attraction is the beer tent. Technically there is a tent, but is really just a big grassy area surrounded by cops. You can buy six packs of cheap beer and if your sixer gets too warm, they let you exchange it for a new one. Just don't try and leave with it. "Drink it or dump it," as the cop said to a friend's husband when we were leaving. It is hot, crowded, and really freaking loud. It is really strange to stand around for hours in a place with as little ambience as Gitmo, screaming at a variety of friends you rarely get to see, not wanting to look up because you never know who might be there.
3. The afterparty. The beer tent closes at the ridiculously early hour of 11, so naturally it is necessary to go elsewhere after, but where? If you are with my friends, you end up somewhere just as crowded and loud (but oddly less hot though indoors) where seats are scarce and it is hard to get a beer. Men are short. Women are poorly dressed and very carefully made up.
   
4. Cherry on top. If you are me and my friends who don't read, you park somewhere you don't belong and get a ticket.
   

1. Escape. I was on my way to Henry's swimming lesson today, and it was raining, hard. I tore the house apart looking for an old raincoat to wear because it is an outside pool, and I can't just leave him and sit in the car with Lucy. I did find the coat, but when I came downstairs I couldn't find Henry. I went into the garage and found him sitting in the back of the car in his swim trunks and sandals with no shirt on. He was ready to swim. We were almost late, but I noticed that Sufi was not around. She didn't call when I rattled her food, so I went outside into the pouring rain (at least I had that damn coat) and found her under a tree in our yard, totally soaked.
   
2. Oh so wet. We proceeded to Henry's lesson thinking it would not be cancelled because last time it was raining they did not cancel the lesson. As we are standing there watching him get ready to swim, with Lucy jumping joyously in the puddles, it started to rain even harder. So ten minutes after we arrived they ordered everyone out of the pool. We were soaked and he did not get to do any swimming.
   
3. Ebay search is not working. Don't they know this is my only time today to price Marimekko coffee mugs?

But one thing went right ... all that rain meant golf was cancelled. Hooray!

Recreation?

Last time I checked, these are things we did for fun...

1. Golf. I signed up for golf lessons with my pal J.J. thinking that I might not have much time to get on the course this year, but at least I would get to play at the lesson. Wrong! The lessons are brought to us by Sr. Crazy, who never stops talking, talking, talking. Talking about the biomechanics of golf and how he read his daughter's pre-med text books to understand the subject. Talking about how all PGA trained pro teachers know nothing because they don't study biomechanics. Talking while I am trying to swing at the ball, which doesn't happen too often because, you guessed it, he never stops talking. Cary and I actually played nine holes over the weekend, and we both decided that hitting regularly at the golf course would be better than an hour and a half of torture with Sr. Crazy, but I feel bad quitting, so even though it is tomorrow I still haven't totally decided to go or not.
   
2. Swimming. Henry is enrolled in swimming lessons through the town we live in. The summer is divided into three two week sessions, and I had to go sign him up for session two last night. It was from 6-8, so after dutifully feeding my family and cleaning up after them, I headed out thinking it might take about an hour. There were well over 100 people in line when I arrived at 6:20. I waited in line for two hours! When I finally got to the head of the line I was stunned to see that the operation was staffed by only two women who were writing everything by hand!!! And I then learned that I could only sign him up for the second session. If he wants to swim in the third session as well, I have to go in two more weeks and repeat the whole crazy process. I think I spent almost as much time in line as he will have spent in the pool.
   

All was going so well and then...

1. Yesterday we had neglected to run the dishwasher. I started it the next morning, and it happened to contain all of Lucy's usual type of sippy cup. When she asked for "nilk" and I gave it to her in the cup reserved for water at the gym she threw the cup and started crying horizontal tears. This went on for at least ten minutes. She stood in front of the open refrigerator and screamed. It got so bad that I stopped the dishwasher, removed all of the cups component parts and washed them and gave her the milk. That seemed to do the trick. Sheesh.
2. I was upstairs balancing the checkbook and I heard Henry say "I just threw up." So down I ran and found him, cleaned and changed him. Cleaned up the mess which was on a new chair we just inherited, my PT ball, and the rug. I thought he had gotten sick because of the two Reese's cups and the entire box of Annies whole wheat macaroni and cheese he had eaten after swimming today, but I know my son. As he lay on the couch under a cozy blankie I thought to ask, "Did you do anything to yourself to make you throw up?" He answered, "Just stuck the screwdriver in my mouth." I looked down to see one of his play tools, a wrench actually, covered in vomit.