Random, aimless, disparate, jumbled, various and sundry miscellaneous thoughts

In no particular order, here is a random assortment of the many rambling and disjointed thoughts I have bouncing around in my head today.  (Jeesh - no wonder I have a hard time sleeping sometimes!!)

* This is the sign our realtor brought out last week for Tim to put on the dock.  Last WEEK.  It's still sitting in the house.

(P.S.  Anyone interested in buying our house - call that number!!)

*  I went outside to take a picture of how low the tides have been lately, and it is so humid & steamy & muggy & stifling & oppressive that my camera kept fogging up  Still, I kind of like this photo because that is what it FEELS like!

When you walk outside, the air feels so thick that it almost takes your breath away.  

This was taken after wiping off the camera lens.

It is so hot and humid I have taken all of the houseplants outside.

THEY are enjoying the muggy, torrid air and are also quite pleased with the daily rain showers each afternoon.

* My boy doesn't care about how muggy it is...

This is his favorite way to spend a summer day.

*  Tim (and the kids) have discovered a previously unknown benefit to the ATT 

U-Verse....music channels...

One music channel in particular...that had several hours of Lady Gaga videos.

I decided to pass on this riveting entertainment.

THEY were spellbound.

* I slept really well last night.  I had weird dreams though.  I don't remember them - just that they were weird.

* Paige has an orthodontist appointment today.  She's hoping that he will tell her she will be getting her braces off soon.  Since she hasn't even had them on a year, I am doubtful that this will happen.  

* I need to schedule several doctor's and dentist appointments.

* My family is usually pretty good about hanging their towels up so they won't get soaked by the afternoon storms.

But, it appears that they forgot about the towels yesterday.

So I guess I will be doing a load of pool towels today.

In addition to the ton of laundry I need to do on a daily basis.

* I also need to go to the grocery store.

* I also need to pack...Tim and I will be driving Clay down to Fort Lauderdale early (really early) for the national competition for Taekwondo.

* I also need to clean the house - just in case someone wants to see it.

* Which brings me back to the first item bouncing around in my head...getting Tim to put the sign up on the dock.

Oy.

Life as we know it

9:13 am Monday morning:


Tim and I are both up, drinking our coffee and reading the paper.  The kids are still asleep.  They will continue sleeping until I have bellowed, "Time to get up!" a sufficient number of times (usually 3-5 times)...or until the dog whimpers loudly enough or licks their faces enough to rouse them.  


This is the difference in summer for adults and teenagers.  


Once the kids (aka the lazy teenagers) have risen, they will slowly shuffle into the kitchen and eat a bowl of cereal.  Clay will grab the sports section of the paper and will pore over it as though his life depended on what is contained in that section.  Once Clay has a bowl or three of cereal his brain will begin to function and it will be safe to speak to him.  Paige will wake up with her hair looking like a rat's nest, but will appear with a smile on her face - she is our Little Miss Sunshine.


After eating, both kids will read the comics and leave their bowls in the sink and the cereal containers sitting on the counter until their father or I will remind them to clean up after themselves.  They will then argue about which one of them used the cereal last, whose turn it is to feed the cat, whether it is supposed to rain or not, who is smarter, and whether or not the sky is blue (among other things).


At this point I will ask them both to go make their beds, get dressed, brush their teeth, etc.  This will take Paige about 15 minutes.  It will take Clay 10 minutes if he is allowed to go fishing... if he has other things to do it will take him 1-2 hours with constant nagging on the part of his father and I.


Once the morning chores are finished (which sometimes takes into the afternoon) the kids will most likely spend some time in the pool...where Clay has been known to entertain us all with his pterodactyl impersonation.

And where Paige will do acrobatics underwater, pretend that she is a mermaid or a whale, and sometimes will even swim laps.

When the kids become tired of swimming, they will move inside the house where Paige will read a book and Clay will watch the World Cup.

While the kids are swimming, watching TV, or reading...Tim and I will be working in the yard (Tim), doing laundry (me), running errands (both of us), etc.

At some point in the late afternoon, when my nerves start to get frazzled and it seems that the pterodactyl screeches and other goings on around our house are getting to me, my wonderful husband will be seen doing this:

Marriage really IS a partnership.

Things that go bump in the night

This morning I am ready to pinch some furry little feline heads off.  Grrrr.....


Gus and Jack were out of control last night.  First, around 2:00 am, I kept hearing all these banging noises.  I would mutter and pull the pillow over my head, but the banging and thumping just continued.  Then I tried yelling, "Stop it!!" in my most threatening tone of voice.  Tim rolled over at this point and asked me what "that noise is" (I'm not sure if he meant the thumping or my yelling) and then he promptly fell back asleep.  I tried to fall back asleep, but the thumping/banging noises continued...I finally stumbled out of bed and walked out to try to figure out what the noise was.  I saw this... 

running away from this...

I saw that the fireplace screen was falling into the fireplace.  I'm still not sure exactly what those rotten little scoundrels were doing, but apparently the thumping/banging sound was the screen hitting the inside of the fireplace (our bedroom is on the other side of that wall).

I saw Gus running away from the scene of the crime, but have NO doubts as to who the ringleader is.  I assume that Mr. Jack aka "Demon Kitty" instigated it all.  Gus is just slower.

After yelling "BAD CATS", fixing the fireplace screen, and turning out all the lights, I stumbled back to bed (where my husband was still peacefully snoozing away) and tried to fall back asleep.  I think I may have dozed for a few minutes while the feisty felines were planning their next round of doom and destruction...

Which included batting something across the tile floors, wrestling (wrestling so hard that they kept moving the dining room chairs across the tile floors....scrape, screech...), chasing each other throughout the house at full speed (which sounds like a herd of elephants) and just generally being extremely loud and obnoxious in what, I am sure, was a plan to bring about the total obliteration of what little sanity I have left.

I kept hissing, "shut up" and "stop it", but they ignored me.  Finally, I sat up and screeched, "SHUT UP YOU LITTLE MONSTERS!!"

This is when my husband finally woke up and said, "What's all the noise?"

This time I am SURE he was referring to me.

The fearsome felines finally stopped.

I should have been able to go back to sleep.  Instead, I reminisced.  I remembered when we were newly married and living in Colorado.  I heard something big walking on our roof one night and saw a big, scary shadow crossing over the skylight in our bedroom...I had to wake Tim up - he was completely oblivious to the fact that there was a big MOUNTAIN LION on our roof until it screamed.  The mountain lion screamed, not me.

I also remembered when the children were babies and toddlers and would wake up crying.  Tim never, NEVER heard them cry.  I would jerk awake at the first little whimper and go to feed them, or change them and he would wake up only when I was getting back into bed.  Sometimes, I would wait and let them cry for a while, just as a test, to see if Tim would wake up.  He never did.

He can sleep through anything.

I really hate that.

Florida + Summer = HOT!

I'm sure I have mentioned it a time or fifty, but it is really, really, really hot here. Hot and humid.  The yard really needs some attention (the weeds are getting out of control) but it's just too hot to do anything.

Yesterday I went walking around our yard looking for weeds to pull, with Ol' Faithful (my temperamental old camera) in hand....looking for spots (oasis!) of coolness.  Or at least spots that gave the impression of coolness...

I did manage to pull a few weeds (there may have been a bit of muttering and cursing as the sweat dripped off my brow and into my eyes), and I watered my poor potted plants (I may have "accidentally" drenched myself with the hose a few times as well), and I even hung a load of sheets on the clothesline (which now smell heavenly - like sunshine and summer), but mostly I just sweated.  I finally gave up and headed for the ultimate of "cool" spots...

But the pool water was lukewarm and tepid, and really wasn't that refreshing.  There wasn't even a breath of a breeze off the lake to cool things off.

Stifling.

Steamy.

Suffocating.

Finally, I gave up and came inside to the artificially cool house and read a book.

(By the way, if you haven't read this yet - get it.  Great book!)

Shalom, Ya'll

I didn't post anything yesterday because (a) I was veddy, veddy busy and (b) I didn't have anything to say.  Tim spent the day pressure washing and I spent the day shampooing carpets and doing laundry.  Oh joy.  See what I mean?  How much is there to say about THAT?


The good news is that my sweet girl is home....the bad news is that she came home sick.  Poor Paige.  She was running a fever yesterday of around 102-103 degrees, had a terrible headache and a sore throat.  Thankfully, her fever has broken and her temperature is normal again, but she still has the headache and sore throat.  She got home yesterday at 2:30, and has basically been sleeping since then.


She did have a wonderful time on her trip to Charleston with the youth group though...here are a few of her photos from the trip...

St. Phillip's Episcopal Church, cemetery

Fort Sumter

The tallest bridge in South Carolina

I love this one!

Sweet, innocent little faces in the pews!

Ha Ha!

Paige was fascinated by the Piggly Wiggly store!

The Heritage Oak

I am tired, tired, tired.  I was up until 12:30 am reading this...

and it is really, really good - a sequel to this one...

which came out 10 years ago.  My memory was a bit rusty as to what happened in the previous book.  Why are authors suddenly going back and writing sequels to books that came out 10 or 20 years ago?  I like it - but boy, my memory is definitely not what it once was!  

Anyway, I am enjoying this book - apparently a little too much, since I was up so late (early?).  The problem is that I haven't been able to sleep much past about 7 or 7:30 (usually because a cat or two will climb on top of me and start purring quite loudly), so then I am just dragging the rest of the day.  I think I will have to take a melatonin tonight and try to get to sleep a bit earlier.

Speaking of books though, I just read a great book.  

I loved this book.

Tim is reading it now, and he loves it too.  I highly recommend it.

Have YOU read any good books lately?  I'd love some recommendations...

Paige comes home tomorrow - hooray! I am looking forward to having my whole family together for a few days!  Last week Clay was gone (summer camp), this week Paige is gone (youth group trip), next week Clay will be gone again (National competition for Taekwondo), and he will be gone again for two weeks at the end of July (LIT at camp).  Paige is also doing two weeks of a summer intensive for ballet - but that is local (whew!) and she might do a week at summer camp as well...if we can scrounge up the money.  In addition, both kids would love to fly out to spend a few days of one on one time with their Aunt Cookie in Colorado - but I don't know if that is going to happen!  We're running out of vacation time!  What ever happened to the "lazy days of summer"?  MY kids try to pack so much into their (brief) vacations that it wears me out!

I have been being lazy though!  I just can't seem to get motivated to do a whole lot.  Yesterday, I did run to Wal-Mart to get shampoo for the rug shampooer (please note the distinction between buying the shampoo and actually shampooing the carpet) and a few grocery type items...I made a pasta and shrimp salad for dinner because it is just too hot to have anything else right now.  I also did a load of laundry...and...hmmmm....that's about all.  Oh wait - I did pet the kitties a lot (they were in very loving moods) and I played with the Kindle and I read and I took some pictures.  Does that count?