Saturday, September 6, 2014

Two Years!

So it's been two whole years since I last posted on this blog.  I've gotten lots of encouragement to start back but it's hard.  It's like seeing an old friend who you haven't seen in years and who doesn't happen to be on Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter, so you truly have no idea what's happening in their lives.  Where do you start?  And that's how I feel.

But yesterday a friend asked what I was doing this weekend.  When I said I didn't have any plans because with our lives our Saturday is essentially the same as our Monday, he said I should blog.  He told me to "just start, because you won't ever start until you start."  And he was right.  So here it is.  I think a two-year hiatus is long enough.

So for a quick recap, we still have two gentlemen living with us.  It's the same two we started with two years ago.  Although they are pretty settled in and we don't have quite the behavior problems we used to have, we still have the crazy.  For instance, last night we could hear one of the guys crying in the middle of the night.  I went to check on him and he was standing against the wall in his dark room.  He looked like he was in some strange kind of time out.  Turns out he had gone to the bathroom, come back to his room, and his eyes hadn't quite adjusted to the dark.  He was crying because he couldn't quite find his bed.  He was just wandering around like a blind man in a newly rearranged room.

And then there's the other one.  If you've followed my blog long, it's the little guy who likes to play the piano.  And be naked.  And we love him like he is our own. We'd keep him even if we weren't getting paid.  (But don't tell that to the people who write the checks!)  It's one of those things where the heart makes a decision that the mind can't understand.  He can't talk.  He gets really mad when he doesn't get his way.  He keeps us up all night (more often than not here lately - more on that later).  He slams doors for no apparent reason at all - like until the door frame falls off slamming doors. And yes, that really happens.  But we can't help but smile when he walks in the room.

And then we have an 18 year old son. How is that even possible?  We are looking at colleges and other states and scholarships and grades and ACT tests and all that goes with being a senior.  And that's about all I can say about that without crying.  It's going to be awful.  So we probably won't be discussing that anymore!

Life in a nutshell.  It's good to be back.

Monday, June 4, 2012

A New Noodle

I realized tonight when I walked next door and saw our resident chef cooking that I really should never have stopped blogging.

He was making a frozen pasta meal - the kind where you cook what's in the bag and then make your own pasta to serve with the meat and sauce. Except he was cooking it all in one pot. And the noodles were hot pink.

Hot pink. Noodles. Gross.

He then proudly tells me that he's figured out a great new way to cook pasta. Instead of using water, boil them in cranberry grape juice. It gives the noodles a great flavor apparently.

After I left the room to gag for a while, I went back for a picture.





Although the color in the picture didn't come out the true hot pink you can get the idea. Nothing like adding a whole container of macaroni and cheese powdered cheese and a bottle of juice to a your pasta dinner.

Excuse me while I gag some more...

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

He's Not Weather-Discriminatory

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays this man from swiftly discarding of his property out the window any time he is mad.




Friday, December 9, 2011

My Fantasy Football Experiment

I've mentioned a time or two (or eighty) that fantasy football is a religion of sorts here in my house. The guys have been in a league with some friends from church but then realized other friends wanted to play so they started a league of their own.

Now if you know me, then you know I'm a game girl. I am super competitive and will do what it takes to win. I am not one of those moms who will throw a game of Candy Land so my kid can win. Oh no. If you beat me, it's going to be a hard-earned win. And then you have to deal with me pouting about it the rest of the day. All that to say, I love games.

But, and here goes the heresy, I think fantasy football is dumb. I mean, I get the idea. I do. And I kind of understand the appeal. But when they guys needed one more person to have a team in their league, my first thought was not, "Oh yay! I'm so glad I get to play."

But I agreed. When they explained how the draft worked, I thought about it for a microsecond and decided to let the computer pick my team for me. (And because of scheduling issues, everyone else did the same.) But then they all started changing and dropping and trading and dealing with something called waivers, and well, I don't really understand all the rules. So I decided to do an experiment. I told the guys I was naming my team "Luck o' the Draw" and sticking with whatever I was randomly given. They thought this was so crazy.

I took it relatively seriously. I downloaded a couple fantasy football apps to my phone so I could keep up with it all. I paid enough attention so as to change players out (but only those from my own team) if someone had a bye week. Lowell tried to get me to make some trades at one point using the excuse that THREE of my players were hurt and not playing. Yes, THREE. And, oh, I was tempted. Because I still like to win, even if the game's dumb. But I didn't give in. I knew he was just setting me up so if I won, he could use the argument that I actually played. So I stuck with my players. Nobody can accuse me of being a fair-weather fan.

And then I started having fun. Throughout the season I found myself fairly regularly checking my points. I started looking forward to Monday night football. Not to watch it really, just to check my games when it was over to see if I won that week. At week six, I was in the lead. I almost blogged then, but I didn't want to jinx it.

But I figure now that it's fantasy football playoff week, I can let y'all in on my season. Check it out.



Yep, that would be Luck o' the Draw in position one. Numero Uno. That's me. I may lose it all in playoffs. But that's okay. I think I proved my point. Fantasy football takes no skill or knowledge of the game of football. Fantasy football is dumb. And I honestly can't wait until next season...

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Airing Our Dirty Laundry

Well once again, life's gotten crazy. We have a new guy. He moved in at the end of August, which is why there haven't been any posts. He keeps us on our toes.

Our guy with zero short-term memory moved out on August 31st. He called us every day for a month to check in. But we think maybe his lack of memory has gotten the better of him because we haven't heard from him in a couple of weeks now. Which is good. Because some days, even having to answer the phone was enough to push us over the edge.

New guy is a tad, shall we say, busier, than old guy. He's an active little fellow. Literally. He's a smidgen over four feet tall and weighs about 100 pounds. And he could win a strongman competition when he's mad. It's odd. Anyway, he is non-verbal (which, I must add was a welcome break from Mr. "Talks ALL the time and then repeats it all because I don't remember what I just told you.")

So he's quiet. Except he plays the piano. Not so quietly. Sometimes he plays in such a way as you might think you are in a jazz bar. Sometimes, a haunted house. He doesn't know how to play so to speak but he plays in a different way than a toddler might. It's not just banging. But it's certainly not playing.

Another "quirk" of our Pianoman is that his preferred state is naked. I could say that one took me a bit to get used to. But honestly I don't think you ever get used to a grown man stripping down to nothing. This month I've said the words, "If you want to be naked you need to be in your room" and "We don't play the piano naked" more times that I could count.

He also changes clothes more often than a teenage girl getting ready for a first date. It's ridiculous. He's very particular about what he wears. Maybe that's why he prefers naked. So he will rip off his clothes and run to the laundry area. He then stuffs his clothing in the washer (or sometimes the dryer), no matter if there are clothes in there already or not. So him adding dirty clothes to the already clean clothes means we are doing more laundry than the local dry cleaners. It's ridiculous. It's hard to think of it as a "teaching moment" when there is a four foot naked man standing in front of you, but we've been really working on teaching that the dirty laundry goes in a basket. It's a steep learning curve around here ya' know!

So anyway, last night we realized that he had changed clothes but hadn't put them in the washing machine. We got a tad excited thinking that our days of non-stop laundry might finally be over. He's learned to use the laundry basket. But alas, we were wrong.

When Lowell went outside this morning, this is what he saw:





A basket seems so limiting when there is a whole yard right outside the window. Just push out the screen and toss the clothes as far as you can. So it's not quite in the laundry basket. But maybe we are getting closer. Baby steps, y'all, baby steps.

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Football - It's That Important

Football is pretty important in our house. And that's putting it mildly. If you remember last year, we missed what turned out to be a very important banquet because some idiot scheduled it on draft day.

And while we L. O. V. E. real football, fantasy football is a very close second. You may remember my family's preferred decor from last year's fantasy football "preseason".

And it's that time of year again. It's ridiculous really. (We went out to eat while on vacation and the waitress gave us paper placemats. The boys immediately took this to be their invitation to write up a mock draft while we waited for our food. Gotta be prepared right?)

So I'm not sure why the events of this week were surprising really. I called Lowell while on the way home from an appointment and he told me he'd been working on his draft. And then I hear the smoke alarm. And no Lowell. So I rush home to see this:



The smell hits me before I can get to the door. And I walk in my house to see two firemen and an unimaginable mess. I said, "Smells good honey, what's for dinner?" (The firemen thought this was funny. Apparently most wives would be freaking out. Not sure what it says about our life that a fire in the kitchen is a little thing.)


Did you know that if you put a kettle on and then go get so engrossed in your draft that you forget about it, the tea kettle will catch fire? And oh, if it has a plastic handle it will completely melt into the stovetop? And that those microwave doors melt? And that if you spray a fire extinguisher, you will find the dust in every drawer and cabinet in the room and somewhere in every other room in the house? It's all true. I know.

But no worries. The kitchen may have burned up but the fantasy football rosters are safe. And isn't that really what matters??

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Our Beach Safari

We just got back from a MUCH NEEDED vacation to the beach (thanks G-Dad!). We stayed in a really nice condo, but the decorations were a little, well, crazy.

I am totally that person who walks through TJ Maxx and sees all the cute beach decorations and thinks, "If I had a beach house, I'd definitely be buying that." Because there is A LOT of cute beachy decor out there. I get it. However, our condo wasn't just beachy.

It was almost as if Ms. Condo owner walks through TJ Maxx and thinks, "If I only had an African Safari home, I'd buy that." And then decided to go ahead and buy it anyway because, hey, what doesn't go with beach theme????

So this was our home away from home for the week.


Really nice furniture, but don't miss the parrots nesting on top.


And who doesn't want to bathe with an anchor, sea shells, African elephant, and Mr. Scaryface? He was all over the place.








But no worries, we also had Jesus by the bed.


I love Jesus, I really do. But it's still a little weird for me to have an image of Him by the bed. (He was screwed to the wall by the way.)

Here's another good example of "it just doesn't go together." (Don't miss the parrot heads peaking out behind the flowers.)



And how's this for fancy?



And how's this for, well I don't even have a word for the spiral cat sitting by the lighthouse. Odd, maybe that's the word I'm looking for.



I guess I'd choose sleeping next to Jesus and African idols over frogs.






And doesn't every beach house need a good wasp's nest over the tv?



Notice the note on the corner of the mirror. It said, "Do not recline sofas. They are screwed shut." And although this would have been sufficient there were at least eight other places that had similar notes.


Like the entertainment center.



And the lamp.


And the curtains.


And the refrigerator.

And I don't even know why we were surprised to open the pantry door and find another. But we were.



They REALLY didn't want us to try to recline the sofa.

So we didn't. Although they certainly made it tempting.

So our accommodations were at the same time weird and wonderful and all in all we had such a great time.



Doing a little physical therapy (you had to be there).



Catching crabs by the bucketful! I swear I am reminded of the story of Noah as he opened the doors to the ark and the animals came. I think Joshua just has to put his net in the water and ocean critters just jump in. We had crabs all week. He caught jellyfish like crazy. And also several of these:


I get the heeby-jeebies just looking at it. (It's an electric ray by the way).


Lowell built me a sand, uh, wall? I guess. And the whole time the waves were crashing over it the children's church song about the wise man building his house on the rock kept playing in my head.

And we had fun dinners out with extended family.



And we ended the week all tan and refreshed and relaxed.



And now back to reality...


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