This Week

(This Week was actually typed day-to-day as we went through a trying last week.  The real week this week is much better/easier, thank you.)

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I am not asking for help, so please do not take it that way, but is this any sign that life is unraveling faster than I can knit?  And as crafty as I like to be, I have never knitted a stitch in my life. 

How’s that for an illustrative metaphor?

What got this “life unraveling” post started was this meal thing…. 

 

Sunday

Dinner, Sunday Dinner, not just another weekday quick meal, folks, this was SUNDAY DINNER for my family, literally consisted of what I could find in the fridge.  What I like to call “a little barnyard, a little insect”: 

Menu

Piggies in a blanket

Bugs on a log

Water

 

Monday

This was that memorable day at the pediatrician’s office. Lunch was Wendy’s drive thru, and supper was me swooping through the grocery ghetto known as Aldi’s to grab two pizzas and bake them at the Walton house (where there is a working oven) and eat them standing up while I did wheelin and dealin with Craiglisters coming to buy piddly furniture including:

   

Buh-bye, stuff. 

In between the wheelin and dealin and carting stuff out of the Walton house, there was no time for a Monday Music nor Movie post. 

Life is really interfering with my fun. 

 

Tuesday

Breakfast for me was two Milky Ways.

Minis, not regular size.  I know you were thinking that!

Breakfast = candy, maybe this crazy life is ok after all?

Besides completing a million sheets of paper for four kids’ school registration, mowing how many acres?, more wheelin and dealin, and moving stuff out of the Walton house, I made it to the real grocery store and stocked up on real food like Spaghettios, hot dogs, corn dogs, cereal, and not only packaged cheese/crackers but peanut butter/crackers.  Living large this week for sure, if living large equals death by sodium, a’la processed convenience foods. 

I will say I took a second at the grocery store to get my blood pressure checked (by a live nurse, not the machine this time) and it was perfect—see, I can handle the stress!  And a tiny shout out to Mother’s Little Helper, Benicar, thank you my little pill.  And why do all these people on the ad look like they are, um, older?

Wednesday

Lunch was graciously provided by Miss Caroline as I had a million things going on, and it consisted of chicken fries (in case you haven’t had the “fortune” to experience for yourself, they are nuggets in the shape of French fries), pizza bites, quesadillas, Wheat Thins, and lemonade, all presented on a blanket on the kitchen floor.  Indoor picnic!  That girl likes to make her work fun.

Since Jack had two boys over spending the night, I felt like I needed to go all out make something half-way resembling a meal that wasn’t straight from the freezer to the microwave, but seeing that it was 9 p.m. before I even got around to thinking about supper, it went like this. 

Me: Let’s do breakfast for supper!  How about biscuits and gravy, boys?

Me: Oh…shoot….we are out of milk. There goes the biscuits and gravy!

(as in “I left the new gallon at the Walton house”).

I did finally get something on the table in the form of scrambled egg, cheese, and sausage wrapped in a tor-till-a, and I will say, it was pretty tasty, if you were hungry. 

Beverage: milk  oj water

[I feel compelled to add that I also served oranges, peaches, and bananas.  So far our week’s menu might have left you thinking scurvy might soon be settin in, so rest assured there is fruit going on around here.]

Thursday

Still no milk in the house so there goes my cereal extravaganza idea. 

Breakfast:  banana with peanut butter

Two days to go until the renters move in!  We still have to remove from the Walton house:

• set of 5 white cabinets from the basement craft room
• a coffee table and end table
• white loveseat and chair from living room
• 3 barstools and 2 kid chairs (most everything I posted on Craigslist was snatched up but not even one inquiry on these?!  I think the kid chairs may be coming Karen’s way, ‘k?)

 

Ok, back to the list of things to move…

• Caroline’s desk and brass bed
• Dresser and four tables from basement
• This thorn in my side that I can’t get rid of/ yet can’t seem to finish after 13 years 

• Lamps and pictures
• Remainder of Gary’s workshop and attic(gasp)

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The garage is pretty much emptied so I just need to do a cleaning on it.  Upstairs is looking good. 

My plan is to cook a great meal today while I can and heat it up tonight as we are working on the house.  We’ll see how that goes:  shrimp stir-fry noodles.  I’ve got lots of broccoli for it.  Sounds heavenly right now.

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Update: Good home-cooked meal didn’t happen after all.  Gary mentioned “I’ll pick up pizzas on my way home” and that’s all she wrote, as my grandma would say. 

 

Friday

Ok, even though I spent a ridiculous number of hours at the Walton house yesterday, I still did not come home with the new gallon of milk sitting all alone there in that empty fridge, nor did I think to stop and pick up milk on the way home. 

I don’t like this life without milk.  I love milk.  My kids (minus Caroline) love milk.  This way of life is getting too outta whack. 

Breakfast:  yogurt with granola.  No milk.

And just when I thought my paint brush was put away for good at the Walton house, after moving out the white cabinets from the basement wall, I realized we needed to fill in screw holes and paint that wall.  Quickly got that done and Gary and I moved out pretty much the last of everything in two truck and trailer loads, and weeded and mowed in the rain. 

Gary took off work and the kids were at friends’ for most of the day Friday so we kicked some booty and got it done.  By 10 p.m. no less.  Except for the final vacuuming of the basement as I fried two of my three vacuums somehow.  The third one that Gary brought to me from the Rosie house wasn’t working for me either, but that turned out to be because he had removed the old filter and it had no bag.  No wonder it was spewing out as much as it was taking in.  We’ll just forget that vacuuming thing.  Give the new people something to do. 

Lunch was reheated pizza and supper was Wendy’s AGAIN. 

 

Saturday

We were up early to get to the Walton house before the walk-thru with the renters at 9 a.m., since we had some trash to gather up and a few odds and ends to do like sweep off the driveway and patio. 

By 10 a.m., we had a big check in hand for the August rent and the deposit and was pulling out of the Walton drive.  Whew.  What a week it was, but it all came together by the end. 

Brunch was me swinging through Jack-in-the-Box.  Afternoon involved unloading some stuff and then naps.

It felt justified. 

And I, with pleasure, vow this next week to cook my family healthy, nutritious food. 

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“Actual This Week” UPDATE

Good so far:

Sunday—The littles and I had Mexican in Clay County, and Gary took the big boys for Chinese buffet

Monday—pork chops with gravy and delicious garden sweet corn (thanks to Mom/Dad Gill)

Tuesday—roasted chicken with vegetables and rolls

Wednesday—salmon (and fish sticks for the picky eaters that prefer their fish not to be real) with rice and steamed broccoli

Thursday—it’s gonna be spaghetti and salad and bread tonight.

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I feel like a much better mom this week.

Music Monday— A Girl Like You

I came across this song the other day on my beloved Palladia channel on tv and have had it in my mind lately. It came out in 1994 and I hadn’t heard it in a very long time. It always sounded like David Bowie to me, and I really didn’t know the name of this guy who actually wrote and sang it until I looked it up.  It’s from his album titled Gorgeous George.  It can be found on a couple of movie soundtracks:  Empire Records and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, for gosh sakes! 

His name is Edwyn Collins, and it turns out he has an interesting story.

Edwyn is a Scottish musician who had a couple of post-punk groups in the late 70's-80's, called Nu-Sonic and Orange Juice, with just one hit.  Click this link of Orange Juice's Rip It Up to actually see his face, listen to his dreamy voice, and enjoy a totally 80's British-version American Bandstand snippet complete with dancers’ little short shorts and bunchy socks. 

Going solo after Orange Juice disbanded, Edwyn released this haunting song A Girl Like You in 1994, it becoming a one-hit-wonder in the US.  Following, he became a record producer. 

Then in 2005, at the age of 46, he suffered strokes brought on by untreated high blood pressure that left him paralyzed and having to relearn to talk and walk. 

He still has some visible physical effects from the strokes remaining, but has an album coming out in September called Losing Sleep, with two shows scheduled in London in August and September, and reportedly his voice sounds smooth as ever.  

Tetris

This week the boys went for their physicals and vaccines.  ‘Cept I didn’t realize there would be vaccines, so when they asked beforehand, I said “No, no shots today.”

So you can imagine the razor-broken-glass daggers shot my way by Grant when the nurse casually threw this into the conversation, “Ok, Grant you are here today for your check-up and tetanus booster.”

He was wise to this tetanus thing.  Gary had spent at least 38 hours going on and on earlier this summer after he had to get his booster, saying how bad his arm was hurting and how it was the worst shot he’d had and, yes, he’d had some doozies in the military with big honking needles you couldn’t even believe existed, and yes, this tetanus one was even worse.   Or at least that’s the way Grant remembered it. 

So, suffice it to say Grant didn’t take it well knowing he was going to be getting one of these worst-pain-on-Earth shots.  Without going into too much detail, I will say that I am fairly confident it is a day that goes down in that nurse’s history as the day “that kid totally freaked out.”

She, an experienced nurse, wisely decided it would be better just to get it over with rather than have him in that hysterical state as the doctor tried to do the physical, so she left the room to get the shot.  And Grant and I had this tense conversation:

Grant, I know I told you you wouldn’t have a shot today, but I didn’t realize about this booster.

But you said!!

Yes, I am sorry I wasn’t aware. But you know, as bad as you think getting this little shot will be, it is no way as bad as being in the hospital for weeks or months with lockjaw.  Do you know what that is?!  (followed by very embellished description of a slow and agonizing death—it was supposed to make the shot seem like nothing.)

Well, Dad said the tetanus shot was the worst shot he ever got and it’s gonna hurt so bad!!  I am NOT going to get it!! 

I AM NOT GOING TO GET IT!! 

Grant, I don’t know if you know this, but sometimes Dad makes a bigger deal out of things than they really are. 

He said…!!!

Yes, I know “he said” but really, your dad over reacts A LOT and makes a big deal out of things when it’s really not anything.

(Grant yelling at the top of his lungs, punctuating each and every syllable)

THEN WHY DID YOU

EVEN MARRY HIM?!!

I burst out laughing. 

Ohmygosh, I couldn’t not laugh.  And that really didn’t help the situation.  At all.  Nope, not one bit.

Long story shorter, he got the shot.  It wasn’t pretty.  It was very memorable for all parties involved but hey, he got it. 

Let me tell you:  Parenting is not for wimps. 

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The irony of this whole scenario was that just weeks earlier, Grant had teased Caroline that she was going to get a shot.  In reality, I just had to swing by the pediatrician’s office to pick up a form that was required for Jack to go to Boy Scout Camp (No, Ross, I am not going to let you forget it.  Evil Boy Scout Camp. There, said it again!)

As we pulled into the parking lot, Grant was really letting her have it, telling Caroline that she had to go in to get the worst shot ever, the one with the most pain on Earth, the one like Dad had just had,

a Tetris shot. 

Ok, that cracked me up, too, and I laughed out loud at him.  Who wouldn’t?

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Really, it brought to mind the Talia and Johnny story.  I hope I tell it right, but since I am almost 100% sure I will butcher it in some way, here’s the basic jist of it:

Johnny had been or maybe was going to the dentist and said something about the nicotine (meaning Novocain) and Talia jumped right on it to correct him,

“Gah, it’s Nicotrol, you dope!”

Tetris/Tetanus-- whatever.

 

Boy Scout Camp

BEFORE

Sunday morning

Six days later

AFTER

Saturday afternoon

 

 

Notice there are no AFTER hugging shots. 

The light patches you see on Gary’s shirt are those few parts not sweat-saturated.  Yep, that would be the pocket top layer and the tip of the collar.

Jack’s shirt looks miraculously white and clean.  I think he saved back at least one to wear fresh for the ride home. 

They had a great time!  Jack built a shelter and slept out in it in the wilderness.

No tools allowed. 

He made two rank advancements by working so hard on all his merits.  Way to go, Jack!

For his Survival Training, he learned to make fire, send signals, get water, and make shelter.

He said he learned that you don’t worry about food. 

That wouldn’t really fly with me. 

Gary met with some automotive challenges on the three hour drive up to Camp Drake near Danville, IL.  He said the roof of this place looked like it was about to cave in.  Is it just me or does it look like there might be 2 inches of clearance above his truck?  Nevertheless, some locals got the job done and from his description, I think GitRDun is in their vocabulary.  He, Jack, and the scout equipment trailer made it home safely.

And can I just say, I honestly have never faced such a laundry challenge as the one presented to me, and doesn’t that just sound like I was handed a present, when these boys got home.  Gas mask, please.  It’s a deadly formula. 

 

Clothes X extreme heat/humidity X dirt and other organic matter  X XY chromosomes X hourly perspiration-related activities X stuffing into a bag to sit for days = wicked fermentation.

You should be thanking me I haven’t added Smellavision to this blog. 

Mr. Speed Limit

 

Recently, Grant informed me of the speed limit of every street I covered.

“Mom, the speed limit is 45.”

Ok, Grant. 

“Mom, the speed limit is 35.”

Ok, Grant.

“I like to know the speed limit.  I don’t know, Mom, if you really ever look at it.” 

Well, not as much as you do, I can tell you that.

“Mom, the speed limit is 45.  You need to go up 5 more.”

Actually, Grant, that is the upper limit of what you are supposed to drive.  You can be below it as long as you are still being safe. 

“Oh.”  

“Mom, the speed limit is 45.”

Yes, and I am on it, Grant, right on the dot.

Viewing from the passenger seat at that angle:  “No, you’re not.”

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!

For rent, cheap:  Mini-cop. 

Cute as a button

but annoying as you-know. 

Funnies

Caroline and I were playing the game Taboo recently.  She gave these clues: 

Annie

Parent

Mother

Father

I didn’t come up with the right word.

So she told me the answer:

“Orp-a-han”

What??

“Orp-a-han!”

What’s that?

Grant, looking at the card, “Caroline, it’s orphan.”

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Which makes me think of the story of Oprah’s name:  It was supposed to be the biblical Orpah, but either got misspelled on her birth certificate or was mispronounced, so that she ended up being Oprah, probably the most well-known made-up name on the planet. 

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Two half-conversations overheard this morning that leave me wondering “Just what were they talking about??”:

Scene 1

(kids playing something in the basement)

Caroline to Sam:  Jesus can!

Sam: ?? (I can’t hear his reply)

Caroline:  Because he’s Magical Boy!  He’s God’s SON!!

[I really don’t know where the religious stuff comes from since we really don’t talk it—ever. 

Other than OMG!

And an occasional, What the H---?!!]

Scene 2

(kids riding in the van)

Grant to Caroline:  I am older.  I am bigger.  I have more anger.

Music & Movie Monday—Purple Rain

Now isn’t that clever?

It just occurred to me as I sat down to type this that I could have a double Monday post. 

Gary and Jack are gone for Boy Scout Summer Camp and while it still remains that I have a million things to be working on, I decided to take it easy and sit and watch some TV. 

My new favorite channel is Palladia.  Prior to our getting Dish Network when we moved in here, I had no idea it even existed.  I love it!  It’s kinda a modern version of the original MTV and less hokey-tv than the current VH1.  It’s all videos, concerts, interviews with musical artists, and apparently music-related movies as I caught Prince’s Purple Rain this morning. 

Boy, does that zoom you right back to 1984!

Both the album and movie came out the summer between my junior and senior year in high school, and if that’s not one of your heyday periods, I don’t know what is.  The music holds many, many memories for me during that time.  And it’s especially cool that Gary was into Prince, too, so he gets it.  I remember….

• a group of us friends sitting around at Andy Powless’ house listening intently, trying to make out the “racy” lyrics on the Purple Rain album.  These are reportedly the very ones that led to the use of Parental Advisory stickers on album covers.  I just have to say: Thanks, Tipper Gore and the Parents Music Resource Center, for helping us spot the albums we knew we wanted to listen to the most.

• Steve Gragert doing a super cool Michael Jackson moon walk to When Doves Cry across the auditorium stage for a Student Body President speech/skit.  So very Napoleon Dynamite now that I think about it!  Of the memorable events in our high school days, I bet that one ranks up there as number 1 for many. 

Steve + Prince + moonwalk = very cool!

 

• going on a date with the boyfriend at that time to see Purple Rain at the Flora Theatre.  I think that was the very night I excitedly stood up as the theatre owner announced my name as the door prize winner.  Turned out he called someone else’s name. Diane Ha-well?! How many could there be?  The speech impediment amplified through the bullhorn didn’t help one bit. 

 

• walking out after the show was over and seeing my “old maid” Great-Aunt Rea sitting at the back of the theatre with her boyfriend.  I am not sure who was more embarrassed but I have to think it could have been her, in her 70’s, witness to all this steamy, sweaty, skimpy, slithery, slick move of a movie. 

We never breathed a word.

 

• dancing at the wildly fun sock hops we had following home basketball games in the little gym at FHS.  Yep, Gary was there and we had such good times together!  I have to say Jungle Love as done by Morris Day and The Time in the movie, was one of my most accomplished dances, personally speaking, and no, really, I had no professional training whatsoever.  Something about those 80’s moves and I just meshed.  I will have to add in a video snippet of that just so you can appreciate.  I also did The Bird, but as a dance, it borders on too corny and contrived in my book, so let’s just let that one rest. 

 

• the white scarf Prince wore in the movie is identical to the one Gary wore our senior year and draped around my neck after he topped my head with his fedora and, yes, I still keep the scarf in my top-center dresser drawer.  

 

• Dez Dickerson made a lasting imprint on me, probably from the time I first heard his voice on Prince’s song 1999.  Turns out he left Prince’s band, The Revolution, after going holy in about 1980, no longer feeling ok performing Prince’s raunchier material.  But Dez was briefly seen in the Purple Rain movie with his group The Modernaires. 

 

How many shrimpy shrimps built like Prince could have pulled off the lace and puffy shirts, the button crotch skintights, the dancing and jumping in the high heels, and that mop of shellacked hair that Prince did, all the while seeming like God’s gift to all women on Earth? 

Gotta give the purple dude some credit.  He is good. 

  The closing line in the movie credits:

May u live 2 see the dawn.

Did you know that Prince only composed the songs for the movie?  I guess I mistakenly assumed he wrote the screenplay or had some other role in making the movie, but turns out, no. 

I will say Purple Rain, the movie, these days, seemed to move slow and the female actors were so bad, but the club performance scenes were still enjoyable and reminded me how great a performer Prince is/was.  

Purple Rain, the music, will rock forever, from 1984 on.

Correction/Confession

I can’t believe I haven’t had to post one of these before-- you know, a heading including the word Correction.  I probably have needed to many times, but lacked the awareness  every single one of those times. 

This one just hit me, big palm thud to the forehead, this morning. 

What was I thinking?!? And sadly, I am not even making this up to be funny.  I’m serious.

You know a few days ago when I was talking baby names and mentioned the presidential connection we had with the three boys’ names? 

[Now that I think about it, I guess you could even say that for Caroline, since that was the name of a First Lady (Harrison) and the name of a President’s child (Kennedy), but anywho….]

The thing that just hit me was that when I was typing that about the boys having Presidential names, I was thinking that there was a President named Samuel. 

There wasn’t.

There was John Adams.

 

There was John Quincy Adams.

 

 

That guy Samuel Adams was someone else. 

Head Spinning Days

Life can turn on a dime.  Sometimes it’s for the worse, sometimes for the best, and sometimes you don’t yet know.

On Friday, we were homeowners still trying to sell house #2 ourselves.

On Saturday, we signed with an unlikely but sharp surfer-dude realtor to help us sell.

On Sunday, we became landlords, first-timers, deciding instead to keep the house and rent it out.  That day we had a family look at the place and say they want to rent it for the next nine months to a year, starting August 1. The realtor let us out of our deal without penalty.

Well, ok.

Whew. 

Music Monday—Sweet Caroline

Gary and I had gone through all the thousands of possible boy names printed in the Baby Name Bible, each picked our top 10-20, and then he ran the numbers.  Well, no, actually he produced pages and pages of these charts with multiple columns.  We literally had spreadsheets compiled of hundreds of boy names in different combinations to help us decide the name of the boys.

James Marshall Gill

Marshall James Gill

Alexander James Gill

James Alexander Gill

Walter Geek Gill

Geek Walter Gill 

It was a big production, as it can be when you are married to an engineer.  There was even a column with just the initials to make sure they didn’t spell out anything questionable. 

There went Franklin Andrew Gill. 

With each pregnancy, our own top 10-20 would change so we had new pages of new results to ponder all those months until the newest baby came.  And ponder we did.  It’s hard to make that decision, picking what you think will be a great fit and respectable name, not too open to instant playground making-fun-of, not too trendy and not too stiff and not too cutesy, and on top of it, make both the mom and dad feel like they love it   like it  can live with it. 

One of our guidelines was “Can you imagine a President of the United States having this name?”  Guess that one guideline weighed pretty heavily since we have a Jackson, a Grant, and a Samuel. 

I really fought the Walter hard.

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All those years of us having babies, the girl spreadsheet wasn’t even a spreadsheet. 

We had one girl name.

Caroline Grace.  It never changed. 

We never doubted it. 

We both loved it, and that would be her name. 

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Right after she was born, we taught the boys to sing Sweet Caroline.  Jack was just turning five years old, Grant was turning three. 

They made up their own version they would sing to Baby Girl.   It was so incredibly sweet.  It went:

Sweet Caroline, bum, bum, bum….

Um, …something…

{OMG, I CANNOT BELIEVE I CAN’T REMEMBER IT!}

I can still hear Jack’s little voice and it had the words something like “We are your brother. There is no other—Sweet Caroline” but I cannot for the life of me pull it up in the brain right now!  Good thing we have all those family home movies, if I could ever locate them in my Gulf of Box-ico.

So anywho, Caroline has always loved the song and has seen it on YouTube so many times.  She does not care one bit for the Jonas Brothers’ version and I admit, she is right.  It totally, totally stinks.  Last summer while we stayed at a Best Western hotel in Dearborn, Michigan, they had some  promotion going.  There was a life-sized cutout of the three Jonas Brothers in the lobby and they gave out Jonas Brothers backpacks for the kids.  The boys refused theirs because, well, they’re boys.  Caroline refused hers because they stinkered up her song. 

Yes, Neil Diamond is/was forever the original, but here’s the Elvis in 1970 version that we have loved for years.  My favorite part is the karate arm moves for the bum, bum, bum part.

[Video link instead of video imbed brought to you courtesy of CSI-Rosewood—what I like to call my Country Slow Internet.]

 http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=Y00vd5HM_08&feature=related