Thursday, May 24, 2007

If You Hang It, They Will Come

Well, in theory anyways. K and I hung up our hummingbird feeder, they have been sighted in the Edmonton area as early as the 12th. Please don't ask me how I know that nerdy information either LOL. However my tree (which I STILL am clueless as to what it is!) has some fantastic leaves and should be flowering soon....

Long story short. My sister bought me a beautiful, blown glass hummingbird feeder for my birthday. Do I really have to explain what happened? Can't you all just guess? I am SO sorry Karami, it actually DID make it to the tree. Then it fell off. :( I think K was more upset than I was.


Unfortunately, that's ALL we have to entice them. Last night there was a chance of frost so we took all our sheets out and covered up the plants that are in the ground already. I love that the neighbors get a peek at my sheets, lovely. As you can see its hanging all lonely there, waiting. My scarlet runner beans have no support (you can see them drooping by the fence, planted all along there) because I can't find the right netting between incompetent staff and a general lack of merchandise. I will have to check Walmart out tomorrow, and then I might have to just go with another idea. Which I have yet to come up with...they should be SO fantastic looking once they are growing...the flowers are edible and beany tasting (should be interesting to incorporate into a salad) and the beans are supposed to be delicious as well.

I also need a cheap archway, preferably white in color. My honeysuckle needs to be planted and I want to train it to creep over an archway to the flowerbed in the picture above. That's going to be a labor of love... can you get them at micheals? Hmmm mebbe buy a wedding one when they have their 40% coupon out....

My list of things to do gets longer and longer....I keep forgetting to buy organic soil so my peas and beans can be as healthy as possible, I also want to do some strawberries in it as well. Stepping stones....plant my damn seedling outside already....

I am going to run out of summer again before I get this all done. (am I boring you yet?)

Other than that, things are fine. I worked Tues and Wed and that was really tiring going back right as soon as we were home. K was sick this morning, crying and feverish, and then this afternoon after a nap and advil, was right as rain. Running around outside, ate a huge dinner, went to bed nicely. WTH that was I have no idea.

Mike's out tonight at Brett's and took the Wii of course, too much fun that Wii! I had craft night tonight but I haven't had an evening at home relaxing in almost 2 weeks, so I was just not up to going out. So now I should get my arse to bed as this weekend is going to be killer weather and that means I can finish up a whoooole lotta planting and yardwork.

Article- What Do Stay At Home Moms Do

TELL ME ABOUT IT ®

By Carolyn Hax
Wednesday, May 23, 2007; Page C10

Carolyn:

(Best friend has child. Her: exhausted, busy, no time for self, no time for me, etc. Me (no kids): Wow. Sorry. What'd you do today? Her: Park, play group . . .)

Okay. I've done Internet searches, I've talked to parents. I don't get it. What do stay-at-home moms do all day? Please no lists of library, grocery store, dry cleaners . . . I do all those things, too, and I don't do them EVERY DAY. I guess what I'm asking is: What is a typical day and why don't moms have time for a call or e-mail? I work and am away from home nine hours a day (plus a few late work events) and I manage to get it all done. I'm feeling like the kid is an excuse to relax and enjoy -- not a bad thing at all -- but if so, why won't my friend tell me the truth? Is this a peeing contest ("My life is so much harder than yours")? What's the deal? I've got friends with and without kids and all us child-free folks get the same story and have the same questions.


Tacoma, Wash.

Relax and enjoy. You're funny.

Or you're lying about having friends with kids.

Or you're taking them at their word that they actually have kids, because you haven't personally been in the same room with them.

Internet searches?

I keep wavering between giving you a straight answer and giving my forehead some keyboard. To claim you want to understand, while in the same breath implying that the only logical conclusions are that your mom-friends are either lying or competing with you, is disingenuous indeed.

So, since it's validation you seem to want, the real answer is what you get. In list form. When you have young kids, your typical day is: constant attention, from getting them out of bed, fed, clean, dressed; to keeping them out of harm's way; to answering their coos, cries, questions; to having two arms and carrying one kid, one set of car keys, and supplies for even the quickest trips, including the latest-to-be-declared-essential piece of molded plastic gear; to keeping them from unshelving books at the library; to enforcing rest times; to staying one step ahead of them lest they get too hungry, tired or bored, any one of which produces the kind of checkout-line screaming that gets the checkout line shaking its head.

It's needing 45 minutes to do what takes others 15.

It's constant vigilance, constant touch, constant use of your voice, constant relegation of your needs to the second tier.

It's constant scrutiny and second-guessing from family and friends, well-meaning and otherwise. It's resisting constant temptation to seek short-term relief at everyone's long-term expense.

It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything -- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.

It's also a choice, yes. And a joy. But if you spent all day, every day, with this brand of joy, and then, when you got your first 10 minutes to yourself, wanted to be alone with your thoughts instead of calling a good friend, a good friend wouldn't judge you, complain about you to mutual friends, or marvel how much more productively she uses her time. Either make a sincere effort to understand or keep your snit to yourself.

Write to Tell Me About It, Style, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071, ortellme@washpost.com.





I finally found a sentence that sums up how mentally draining it can be, and why those who don't stay at home (aka Mike) just don't get it sometimes.

It's doing all this while concurrently teaching virtually everything -- language, manners, safety, resourcefulness, discipline, curiosity, creativity. Empathy. Everything.

Monday, May 21, 2007

tired

Long time no blog. Its been a hectic and busy and fun and sad and everything 10 days. I can't believe how mentally and physically I am worn out. My mind just feels like mush, I haven't slept well in 10 days thanks to hotel rooms and beds that aren't my own, add a funeral and a driving a couple thousand kilometers, and well, hell, stick a fork in me. I am done.

I did some planting tonight, but aside from adding to my physical exhaustion, it actually cheers me up and refreshes my mind immensely. Mike thinks I am crazy and perhaps he's right, but I feel better after playing in the dirt for a few hours. My neighbor came over with her little girl for a bit and told me she heard frost was coming, I am going to have to look into that.I hope she's wrong LOL or its time to get out the bedsheets to cover the flowerbeds!

Walmart had the most fantastic plants out today, I bought snapdragons, marigolds, petunias and a couple peony's. The flowers are all gorgeous, they must have just been shipped in. If you need some, go to Walmart in the east end, the selection todays was amazing.

We bought a Wii in Dauphin, which just makes me laugh. We've wanted one since Christmas but just aren't the kind of people to stand in line for them when a shipment comes in. We just walked into the Walmart there and bought it. Crazy! We are really enjoying it tho, its SO much fun! After I finish blogging I am off to play it with Mike for a while.

Here's a pic of Kandice and Dan from the zoo that I thought was really nice. Kandice, your stomach is looking sooo wonderfully preggo! I should have taken some pics of it with all the nice scenery!

Thanks to Melissa for taking care of my plants and Luna while we were gone, it was much appreciated that I didn't have to worry about it. And there was almost no mail while we were gone so don't worry about not finding the mailbox LOL!

My laptop cord is broken so I have no links to anyone's blog or anything else till it gets here. This is my first time online in 10 !!! days other than messaging M to see how the plants and cat were doing and Facebook the other night. I have lots of catching up to do on all my websites!

We're going to relax at home the next few days, I work tomorrow and Wed night, but that won't be so bad I haven't worked in almost two weeks! Yikes. Here's to settling back into normal life again after 10 days on the road.