Pictures from the garden

Moss Roses around the mailbox


Basil


Hibiscus


J-man and the cherry tomatoes


Squash in the making

When life gives you 'maters...

make tomato soup!

When you think comfort food on a rainy day, what is it your mind conjures up?

For me it's grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.

Sure, you can go to the grocery and pick up one of those red adn white cans and pop it in the microwave, but why be so boring? Besides, I've got an abundance of tomatoes and basil in my garden right now, and I NEED to use them.

So, I'm no good at sharing recipes because I don't follow any, but here's my best attempt:

Sautee an finely chopped onion in a little olive oil until transparent, adding salt and pepper to taste. Add to the pot roughly 2-3 lbs of roughly chopped (I just cut them into about four sections) tomatoes and some chopped garlic. Cook until the tomatoes have boiled down and are mosty liquid. At this point I threw in a half of a jalapeno and a spoonful of sugar to cut the acidity of the tomatoes. Zip in the blender until smooth, strain to remove larger pieces of skin and seed, return to the stove, add heavy cream until desired consistency and color and bring back up to temperature. Toss in some basil for flavor.

That's it! Easy enough, right?

So Fast

Sometimes I'm afraid that if I blink I might miss something with Jonas. He's at this age right now where he changes almost daily.

Just last week we were in the terrible fit stage where any time he didn't get his way he'd have a total melt-down screaming "My! My! Mine!" and stomping his feet.

This week I think he's picked up at least 10 new words and a great deal of communication skills. He can usually tell me what he wants now instead of doing the point and whine thing. I can't tell you how nice it is not to have to listen to a whining child all day. It's not that he was being whiney just to be a brat, it's just that he wanted something and couldn't tell me what it was. Now he can go over to his toy shelves and point and say "book", or "choo-choo", or "man" or whatever he wants. Yesterday, after nap, he climbed up into his highchair and I asked him what he wanted for lunch. He got this really thoughtful expression on his face, turned his head a little to the side, and said "Ummmmmmm...... baboney!" Heh, the kid likes processed meat. So bologna it was. How can you refuse?

He's also taking a huge interest in potty training. Twice in the past 24 hours he's sat on his little potty chair and actually gone potty. Heh, as if you guys want to come here and read about bodily functions, right! But it's amazing to me the way he's picking this up. I mean, we haven't pushed him or anything. Pretty much all we've done is set up his potty chair and he's done the rest.

And they say that boys are more difficult than girls.

In other news- he took his nap in his OWN bed yesterday. Ok, again, not something that sounds like breaking news, but it is. He laid down himself- in his bed- slept by himself-in his bed- and after waking up, stayed in there for about 20 minutes without freaking out about being all alone.

Yes, I realize that my son is nearly two, and it's high time he start doing stuff that most babies are doing by 9 months or so, but we've spoiled him a little. And besides, we just got air conditioning to his room a few weeks ago. Before that it was just too damn hot to let him sleep in there.

And finally, (drum-roll please) we're losing the bobo. For those not familiar with that term, it's his pacifier. He's so attached to that silly thing. I had an old lady in the store the other day look at me with all the sympathy in the world. She patted my arm and said "I used to swear that my kids would be the first to take their off to college with them."

Well, we went all day yesterday without it, went to bed without it last night, didn't wake up looking for it even once, and hasn't had it all day. As a matter of fact, I've got it stuffed in my pocket so that he can't find it. So far he hasn't even asked for it.

Wow! All of these changes all of a sudden. It's amazing, isn't it? Seems like only yesterday that I was holding my little tiny baby in the crook of my arm.

I'll leave you with a cute picture from a few days ago.


He calls his sunglasses "eye... cool!"


**As I was getting ready to hit the Post button here, Jonas came out of his room with a bobo stuffed in his mouth. I guess I forgot to round ALL of them up. Oh well, one thing at a time, I suppose.***

Trivia Time

At a website that I frequent there is an ongoing trivia game. Each day you log in and play and it's become quite addictive. So now, for your brain-stumping pleasure, I have set up a daily quiz that we can play here.

It's pretty neat, go give it a shot. :)Mudpuddle's Daily Trivia

Yes, I AM that bored today.

I'll work on adding the link to my sidebar here in a little bit.

No news is good news, I guess

Not much to report on the baby sister/baby situation. The magnesium sulfate seems to have helped. Since early afternoon she's ben down to an acceptable number of contractions per hour and has had no further dilation. They've cut the dose down a bit and are trying to wean her off of it. They'll keep her in the hospital until at least Saturday to monitor her, and continue weaning her. As long as there is not an increase in contractions or any further dilation, they may release her.

It's my understanding that once you start early labor like this, you can only prolong it for a little while, so I still think that she won't be leaving the hospital until she has a baby in her arms, or if she does, she'll be going back soon.

There was some mention of an ultrasound, but they haven't done one yet. The doctor is fairly confident that the baby is probably around 5 lbs, and that's a fairly decent weight for being so early. They've given her either two or three injections of lung surfactant, and so the baby shouldn't have any difficulty in that department. Of course, the longer they keep her in there, the better, but if she were born right now, she'd probably be just fine.

And so, that's the report- not much of anything. I can't believe my baby sister is having a baby.

An early delivery?

My little sister is in the hospital today. My guess is that by the end of the day today I'll be an aunt again. She's not technically due until August, but she's already about 3 cm dialated and somewhere between 75 and 85% effaced. They've got her on a magnesium sulfate drip and yesterday they gave her the necessary steroid injections and lung surfactants to help the baby mature a little more quickly.

Waiting for news is so hard when you're so far away. I'm thinking that they'll send her for an ultrasound sometime today to see how big the baby truly is. That's what they did with J when I went into the hospital a month early. I remember it being a scary time for me, not knowing if my baby was going to be big enough and strong enough to not have any complications, and I hope that she's not freaking out like I did.

Anyway, J's at Abuela's and I'm supposed to be working on school stuff, so I guess I better hop to it.

Lay off the chips, fatty!

Ok, so it's no secret that I've struggled with weight issues most of my life. After J was born I was determined to do something about it. I didn't want to be the mom on the playground that was forced to watch from the bench while the other moms and dads were able to chase and tumble and play along-side their kids.

So I began dieting and trying to get a little more exercise- or at least be conscious of how little I was doing. :) Now, dieting is a very personal thing. What works for one doesn't always work for someone else. What worked for me was cutting out the unnecessary extras and retraining myself to look at food as nothing more than fuel instead of the decadent luxury that it is.

What do I mean by extras? Butter, cream, mayo... that sort of stuff. I began using fat free ranch dressing in place of mayo where I could, and even then, only in moderation. Sandwich bread was replaced with less caloric whole-wheat wraps, and instead of a little lettuce with my meaty sandwich, I learned to fill up on the veggies and skimp on the meat- one slice is enough.

Measuring played a big part of it. I don't think people realize that when they pour a bowl of cereal they're usually pouring twice the amount that's in a serving, according to the box. So, when a serving said "one cup", I'd pull out the measuring cup. Wil would laugh, watching me eat cheerio's out of a measuring cup, but it worked.

At one point, several years ago, at my very heaviest, I was nearly 220! I fluctuated, though. Going anywhere between there and about 175-180. So, I lost the weight. Went from a post-pregnancy weight of just under 200 to 135 over the course of several months. Wow! What a difference! It's not a vanity issue at all. As a matter of fact, I think I probably looked better when I was a little more plump, simply because there wasn't the loose, flabby-skin factor to deal with. But I feel so much healthier, I'm able to do so much more. When I was fat I had no idea how much it was affecting me. I mean, I'd get winded just walking to the mailbox sometimes, and when I was in classes that were held on the second floor, I found myself taking the elevator more often than not. I'm not saying that I could run a marathon now. Heck, I probably couldn't make it around the block without gasping for air, but I can chase my kid. We can wrestle and jump and tumble without me having to constantly take breaks. I can pull him in his wagon for miles in the afternoon and we can stop and look at all the birds, trees and flowers.

In short- I'm pretty proud of myself.

But here's the thing. Once I reached my goal weight, there became this new challenge of re-introducing some of the "forbidden" things and finding a way to eat without losing anymore weight, and yet, not gaining anything back. This has been ultimately more challenging than dieting.

When I was working it wasn't so bad- I mean, I didn't have constant access to the fridge, ya know. It was breakfast in the morning, lunch, and then dinner with sometimes a snack in between. Now, with the kitchen right there, calling my name all day, I'm finding it harder and harder to stay away. Even now, it's not that I eat so much, it's just that I'm so much more lax on the things I used to be so strict on. Things like rich vanilla creamer in my coffee in the morning (a habit just recently picked up, as I've always taken my coffee black in the past). And yes, we all need our little indulgences, I understand that. But since I've quit work, I've gained back almost 5 lbs. Considering it's only been 3 weeks, I'm looking at some serious trouble if I don't do something about it soon.

So, starting here and now, I vow to be more conscious of all the junk that passes my lips. See, it's not dieting- it's altering your mentality about food.

Beach Day

Jonas and I went to the beach this morning. It was hot and sticky and magnificent. Of course, Jonas didn't like the sand, and was afraid of the water. :) You can't win them all, can you?

We stayed just long enough to get good and sweaty and he crashed in the car on the way home. Here are a couple of pictures where he doesn't look miserable.

Pre-Father's Day Dinner

Happy Father's Day to all the daddies out there!

Since we'll be spending today between my parent's house and Wil's parent's house, I figured I'd fix Wil a nice Father's Day dinner last night.

Now you have to understand two things before you can appreciate the beauty of this meal:

1. Wil isn't into gourmet food.
2. I absolutely despise pizza!

So what did I make for him? Let's look and see...



First up: Dough-knots. A local restaurant serves these, swimming in butter and garlic and with a side of alfredo for dipping. They are sinful and delicious! Here's my attempt at recreating them. They weren't bad, although I used a lot less butter. I did sprinkle some parmesan cheese over the tops just before taking them out of the oven. Both of the boys enjoyed them.



And here's the pizza. Instead of red sauce, I used the leftover alfredo sauce as a base on top of a homemade garlic, parmesan and basil crust. I then layered spinach, tomatoes, chicken, red onions, dollops of ricotta, more parmesan and some chopped fresh basil from the plant outside and sprinkled with a mozzarella and cheddar-jack blend. I would have preferred plain old mozzarella, but didn't have any in the fridge. Now, as stated above, I can't stand pizza, but this was hardly pizza. More like good food on a crisp cracker. It's amazing what a difference there is between home-made pizza and the crap you either buy in the store or order from a shop. This absolutely proves it. I ate two slices. Jonas ate the cheese off of it.



And for dessert- something homey and playful. These are my ghetto version of rice krispy treats- only they're made with the cheerio's that Jonas refuses to eat. And instead of all the butter melted down with the marshmallows, I used mostly peanutbutter with just a little regular butter because without it the mixture was too sticky to stir! And as it cooled and was pressed into the pan, I tossed in a few chocolate chips to keep J-man interested. They aren't bad, to be honest, and a little better for you than the sugar-laden rice krispy version. At least, I can fool myself into believing that due to the peanutbutter in them. We've affectionately dubbed these "Monkey Bars" because Jonas likes them with bananas and, well, he's a monkey. :)

Anyway, that's the dinner round-up. I'm off to toss a dirty, jelly and butter covered baby in the tub and get ready for brunch at Daddy Dave's.

Because Eve Asked

Here are some pictures of Wil. None of these are very recent since we seem to spend all of our time taking pictures of Jonas. But they are a few of my favorites.

Have a banana

Obviously, there isn't a whole lot going on in my life right now. School work, and hanging out with the J-man who, by the way, can now reach light switches! *ack*

I've made it almost all the way through the grammar unit of my course. Man has it kicked my butt! It's very humbling to realize how little you know about the language we speak on a daily basis. I've certainly learned that I have very little clue about the use of semi-colons, colons, dashes and hyphens. And the words "followup" and "follow up" still confuse the heck out of me. When do you use which? But I've taken all but the last test in the unit and I've scored above 80. Yes, I know that in order to graduate from the course I have to score at least 85, and preferably in the 90's, but I figure the more I dwell on this, the worse I'm going to do. So I'm going to plug through it, move on to the next unit- Anatomy and Physiology- and then go back and review a section each day before I start the day's work.

I'm almost afraid to say that I think the A&P will be fairly easy for me. I've taken the course before--more than ten years ago--and I managed to retain most of the basics. I could probably still name almost all of the bones and muscles, and I understand things like organ systems and functions. Of course, I thought I knew grammar, too.

I've decided to get Wil a gift certificate for a massage and one of those lumbar support things for his work van as a father's day gift. He's constantly complaining of back pain, and I know that if I spent 10-12 hours a day alternating between sitting in a hard vinyl seat and lifting heavy equipment, my back would ache, too.

This is when I wish Laura lived closer. She gives a great massage! :)

So today I'm going to go through the phone book and find a few local massage places. We have a massage school here in town and I think they offer a lower per-hour rate.

Anyway, the whole purpose of this post was to provide a link to this article that I read this morning. We all know that bananas are good for us, but I found this pretty amazing. As an added bonus, Jonas loves bananas, and probably eats two pounds of them a week.

That's all. Nothing earth-shattering, I know. I'm taking a much needed break from school work this morning. Jonas and I are working on our ABCs. He can already tell you what about 5 letters are. He's such a little genius, isn't he?

Yup, that's how it goes

Last night, itching for an excuse to get out of the house for a little bit, but not wanting to spend the money on really eating out, especially since we had plenty of leftovers in the fridge to devour, we decided to go on a late night run to Krispy Kreme.

You see, there's only one Krispy Kreme within about a 200 mile radius of our house. It happens to only be about 15 miles away, and since their donuts are like crack to me, it's probably a good thing that they're not any closer. So the three of us piled into the car well past Jonas's bedtime and off we went for the sugary, yeasty temple of goodness.

Upon arrival, it was obvious that something was wrong. Where was the sign announcing hot donuts? The glowing neon beacon to all pot-heads and pregnant women of the world was gone. Store empty- closed.

Now, I know that Krispy Kreme is struggling financially, and that Dunkin Donuts has really taken over the whole donut market. I know that when your struggling financially you sometimes have to make cuts in your hours of operation in order to stay afloat. But to close the shop at 9pm when most of your business probably comes either in the morning with the commuters or late at night with people like us? Why not close through mid-day. Does anyone eat fried sugary dough for lunch?

So, now on the other side of town, and with no donuts to fill our disappointed bellies, we turned back for home with me sulking silently in the passenger seat. This is the part where I tell you that my husband is sometimes a genius. Sometimes only because if I tell you that he's a genius ALL of the time he'd get a big fat head.

What's the next best thing to a Krispy Kreme donut? That's right! Sonic.

So we pull up to the menu/speaker thing, and we decide what we're ordering, Wil pushes the little button, and in the most psuedo-ghetto white girl trying to be black accent I've ever heard:

"Welcome to Sonic. Whatchoo want?"

"I'll take a small strawberry shake..."

"WHAT?!"

*Wil looks at me as if to say "Is my accent that bad?"

"A small strawberry milkshake..."

"We ain't got small. You can have a medium."

"Ummm... is that the smallest size you sell?"

"Yeah"

"Then it's a small, isn't it?"

"It's a medium, I told you."

"Ok, a medium strawberry shake."

"That all?"

"No, an Oreo Blast sundae."

"You wanted oreo?"

*Looks at me again with disbelief*

"Yes, oreo."

"that all?"

"No, and a large Cherry Limeade."

"We don't got cherry coke."

"NO, A CHERRY LIMEADE!"

"Oh, a limeade."

"Yes, a cherry limeade."

"What size you want?"

"Large... if you have it."

"Ok, that'd be $5.27. Be out in a minute."


Good freakin lord! Can people really be that stupid? Do they even realize that they sound that stupid? And look, I understand that working the drive-up at a Sonic is hardly an esteemed career, but I've always felt that if you're going to do a job, you should at least pretend to do it well. And if I were this chick's manager she wouldn't last a single shift.

Ugh. Maybe I'm just getting old.

BTW Amanda, Jonas isn't as big on the "cokey-lime" as Aaron is. That still makes me giggle. He does however like the "stah-bie" shake. :)

Ok Smarty-Pants!

I thought I had a really firm grasp on the English language until I came across the grammar section of my course. This has left me curled in the fetal position sucking my thumb. I really thought I knew what a noun was until I came across this exercise. Now, let me tell you that the first time I took the unit test, I scored in the 30's! Yeah, don't laugh at me. I guess the brain gets rusty if you don't use it enough. After many, many, many, retakes and further clarification from Daily Grammar I was able to get a 90.

So, without further whining, I pose this challenge to you. I will copy the exact sentences from my exercise and the first one of you smarty-pants people to get every one of them correct according to the electronic grader will receive a prize. Yippie! A contest! Sorry Jessica, you can't play. But if you'd like to offer your sympathies I'll gladly take them.

Ok, so are you ready?
Here we go!

Identify all the nouns and pronouns in the following sentences.


1. Neck is significant for cervical spine pain with palpation.

2. Skin is warm and dry and well perfused.

3. The pleural effusions seem decreased on repeat chest x-ray.

4. The patient has a history of breast cancer.

5. Bilateral bone marrow biopsies with aspirate were performed.

6. The patient has known atherosclerotic coronary artery disease.

7. He developed the sudden onset of left chest pain, which was worse with deep breathing.

8. An ultrasound of the lower extremities was normal.

9. He was taken for a right and left heart catheterization; this revealed pulmonary capillary wedge pressures of 41/13.

10. He was deemed inoperable at that time.

11. There were osteophytes at the C5-6 and T1-2 levels.

Ok, when you have all the nouns and pronouns picked out, post them in the comments section.

*The above sentences were completely plagiarized from the Career Step online program's Parts of Speech and Grammar section.*

Contest

So they're holding a "Cutest Baby in Brevard" contest, and we all know that I have the cutest baby in the world, so he's guaranteed a win. I don't usually enter these silly things, but my step-mom emailed me the entry form and I figured "why not?" So, now I need your help determining which picture will guarantee the win. Of course, I've posted so many pictures of him in the past that if you think of another that you'd prefer, feel free to let me know. so here they are for your viewing pleasure. :)
The winners will be published in a 2007 calendar.

Where do they get these things?

Jonas has a new favorite gadget. One of his favorite things to do is rummage through the kitchen drawers. I have one particular drawer that I keep my rarely used gadgets- a pasta fork, some random measuring cups, tongs, and an egg slicer.

The other day he pulled the egg slicer out, studied it intently, turned it this way and that, ran his fingers across the little wires. When he realized that it made noise he placed it in his mouth and wandered through the house "playing" his new instrument. Why he thinks it has to be held in the mouth is a mystery to me, but it's darn cute.



The quality of the picture sucks, I know, but Jonas also enjoys playing with the camera, and I think the lens is covered in little finger smudges.

In other news, Wil took him over to visit Abuela for a few hours, which left me with some time to work on my MT course. My eyes are twitching from staring at this computer screen for so long, but I've muscled through the entire unit on word building and I know have a vast array of medical jargon swimming in my head. ARG!

So off now to cuddle with my men.

Oh little grasshopper!

Does anyone remember that old parable about the grasshopper and the ant? Yeah, the one where the diligent little ant spent the fair weather days storing food for the winter while the grasshopper whiled away his days enjoying himself and having fun. When winter set in the ant was nice and cozy while the poor grasshopper starved.

Today I am a grasshopper.

We've been in an incredible drought for the last six months or so. Hardly any rain at all. As I mentioned in a previous post, I planted my squash plants in an area that gets a lot of runoff from the roof during rain storms, and with the one and only real rain we've had since their planting they nearly drowned. Well, at that moment I realized that I needed to devise some sort of gutter system to make the water flow away from them, but being my typical self, I've procrastinated and ignored it, not really concerned about any impending storms.

So what do I see on the weather channel last night? The first tropical depression of the season, and it'll be making it's appearance here this afternoon/tomorrow. They're projecting anywhere from 2 to 8 inches, and while I'm not turning my nose up at some much-needed rain, I'm certainly kicking myself for procrastinating.

And as a complete oxy-moron to the above situation- I've been working on my MT stuff the past several days. I haven't officially recieved my package from them which includes the texts and the footpedal software, etc. but I have access to the online stuff, and so I've been working my way through all of the medical prefixes, suffixes, and root words. Man are there a lot of them, and they all sound damn near the same. I mean, some are obvious enough, but others I'm struggling with.

Since Jonas doesn't really allow me to spend hours glued to the computer, I've been taking all of the different words and creating study sheets in Word, and then printing them to read over while we play. Well, after typing up 18 pages of root words yesterday, my little sister tells me "there are flash-cards that come with it." ARRGG!! You mean all that work for nothing? Well, maybe not for nothing. I mean, just the physical typing of all of them and their meanings had to do something for my retention, right? But it was funny that twice in one day she wsa the one to point out my impatient streak. :) Thanks Jessica!

In other important news, my grandmother made it through surgery yesterday. She did "surprisingly well" to quote my Mom. She's still got a few weeks of recovery time in the hospital, of course, but I'm glad to know that the surgery is over and that it was successful.

And with that, I'm going to go convince Jonas that breakfast is a good idea and maybe check the shed for something I can use as a make-shift rain gutter.

Hope y'all are having a good weekend.

Today

My beautiful and elderly grandmother will be having spinal surgery this morning to repair a ruptured disc. Please keep her in your thoughts- surgery at any age is not easy, but I know that recovery for her is going to be long and difficult.

If I had $13

I'd buy one of this guy's CD's. This is exactly what I love in music, and this kid is incredible! Ok, so I say kid, but he graduated the same year that I did, and from a school just south of me. Amazing that such talent can reside close to home and it takes this long to discover it.

I get my final paycheck today from the clinic. I'm hopefully optimistic that it'll be decent. I had a bunch of sick time and vacation time to cash out, along with the Memorial Day holiday pay, and the handful of hours that I actually worked. As long as it's about the same as my average paycheck we'll be good, and maybe I can afford the CD.

Of course, it'll have to come after groceries and a few other necessities, and some hubby convincing. :) And of course, Father's Day is just around the corner... and I've got friends and sisters with babies due very soon, and my nephew's birthday. Ok, so the cd can wait. But it will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine to quote a really stupid movie.

Anyway, I got started on my medical transcription course last night. The entire first module is nothing but typing and exercises to help increase your speed. I'm finding it incredibly boring and I'm itching to skip to the next section and just say that I finished this one. But I suppose even the best typist could always use a little refresher, right? And, well, maybe this is just a lesson in dropping the cocky "I already know this stuff" mentality. Gotta start with the basics, right. But it seems so stupid to spend hours typing "asdfjkl;" over and over again when I already type 85 wpm.

Jonas is going to go visit Abuela today so I can try and muscle my way through all of it in one sitting, and then maybe by tonight I can actually get into the medical part of the course.

And I've already learned the that hardest part of doing anything from home is the procrastination factor. Sure, you know you need to do this particular thing, but before you can sit down and do it, there are a million and one other things that you thing need to be done first. So I've already done the dishes, cleaned the kitchen, swept the floors, emptied the litter box, started the laundry, and I'll hit the grocery store on the way home from dropping J off. Then, as long as I can hide my knitting from myself for a little while, I shouldn't have any other excuses to NOT focus on old "asdf".

Blink

Ask me how to spend an ungodly sum of money in the shortest time possible and I'll give you the name and number of the company that installed our new a/c yesterday. :)

Yes! We have cold air again! It's funny, though. We've been so long without it that now that we have it, it's COLD in here! I guess the body adapts to it's surroundings eventually.

So, new a/c yesterday, and I also registered for my Medical Transcription courses. I'm waiting, rather impatiently for them to send me my login info so I can get started. Yes, I know that Rome wasn't built in a day, but I'm really itching to get started on it. They've got until tomorrow morning before I start sending harassing emails!

So, yesterday was productive. Today, not so much. J and I went to the store this morning for diapers, coffee, and milk- just the essentials. We can live comfortably for a week with just those three things, I think.

I never realized what a coffee snob I'd become until I woke up this morning and I was out of my Blue Mountain. Digging through the cabinets I came up with a can of Bustelo, which used to be my favorite, back before I had the fancy coffee pot with the grinder. Don't get me wrong here, Bustelo is good coffee. Dark, ground to nearly a powder. But it's better brewed as espresso than it is percolated. My coffee experience this morning was lackluster, to put it nicely.

Heidi stopped by earlier, too. She had been to the vet with her kitties and Kelly sent her out of there with a bag of fresh tomatoes for me. God I miss her. That's been the hardest part of not working, and she was the only person I cried over when leaving. She's been so wonderful to me for all of these years. Not having her around all day is difficult. I miss her particular brand of humor and her quirky comments and just her friendship in general. I'll have to call her in a little bit and thank her. She grows some of the most delicious tomatoes I've ever eaten. They rival my Daddy Dean's in size and sweetness. All throughout season she'd bring in bags full each morning and we'd have tomato sandwiches for breakfast- heavy on the pepper, with Miracle Whip- the juice running down our hands like a bunch of slobs.

That's what I had for lunch just now- and it was like swallowing a little piece of heaven.

And so, Jonas is taking his awefully late nap. I just got an email from Dr. T's wife inviting me to the next Mom's club meeting. And I've also found that Jacob's wife is involved with them too. (Like I expect you guys to know who Jacob is!) He was one of Wil's groom's men in our wedding and since then we've sort of lost touch with each other. Maybe this will be a way for us to reconnect. Lord knows that Wil could use a friend just as much as I could.

This has been just another ramble. Think I'll go work on cleaning out J's toybox now.

Daddy Dean would be proud

Yesterday we had a pretty incredible storm and the poor squash plants were swimming! They're in an area that collects the water that runs from the roof. I didn't even think about that when we planted them there. They survived, it seems, but the rain washed away most of the soil, leaving behing just some pine needles and sand. I'm now working on constructing some sort of makeshift gutter system to whisk the excess water away.

I'm rather proud of these plants. They're the only ones I've kept alive for more than a week and that seem fairly healthy. The biggest tomato plant is now bigger than Jonas, and the others, while smaller, are already bearing edible fruit. Yum! We also have tiny peppers on our pepper plant. Yippie!

We're thinking about adding a row of beans against the shed wall if I can come up with some sort of trellis for them to climb. We'll see. We may have our hands full enough. And it's pretty late in the season to be starting seeds, isn't it? But that's one advantage of Florida living, if you can stand the heat you've got a really long growing season.

One Lonely Crocodile

I finished my first sock this evening while Jonas and Dada were over visiting with Abuela.



Not bad for a first-timer. I now know that I need to practice grafting! Luckily it was a very small piece of the work, but were this more than just a tiny sock toe I think I would have burst into tears!

There are a few places in this sock where I can see a mistake I've made, but none of them are so glaringly obvious that I'm upset about them. A twisted stitch here or there. But overall I'm proud of myself.

For the past several weeks while I've worked on this everyone, meaning hubby and other various family members, have teased me a little bit by asking "So, when's it going to look like a sock?"

Yesterday Jonas woke up from his nap, stared intently at it for a few seconds then smiled and said "shoe!". Close enough, baby!

So, in order to stave off onesockitis I've already cast on for it's mate. Just as soon as I have feeling back in my fingers I'll get to work on it. I think the second one will go much faster since I already have some familiarity with the pattern. At least, I hope so.

Must make these

After trying to convince Jonas to hold an old Dada sock stuffled with a ziplick bag full of crushed ice on on his knotted forehead, I now know that these little guys would really come in handy.

Figures...

So, in my first attempt at stay at home wonder-mom stuff, I took Jonas to a local park this morning. I think I mentioned it previously- it's in the nicer area of the city and it's covered and has all the newest equipment and whatnot.

Here is where I pause to tell you how frustrating it is that all of the playground in all of the city parks are designed for older kids. Aside from an occasional swing, there just isn't any age appropriate equipment for Jonas to play on. The slides are too high, the steps too wide, the drops to far, etc. You'd think that there would be at least ONE friggin park that has a baby area, right? Well, there isn't. At least, I haven't found it yet.

Ok, so we're at the fancy park enjoying the shade and playing on the equipment that's really too big, but we're having fun. I brought along a couple of his little trucks and a bottle of bubbles as well, so that he'd have something that was ok for him to do. It was fairly quiet when we arrived- just one other lady with her two kids.

Jonas and I were blowing bubbles and this little girl comes up and asks if she can blow, too. I tell her that's fine with me, as long as it's ok with her mom. Mom nods to me and goes back to sipping her coffee and about this time J takes off with a truck, so I prop the bottle of bubbles on the bench and tell the little girl she can blow them all she wants but to be careful not to spill them. She nods solemnly and continues waving her wand in the air.

Next thing I know, the little girl is gagging and sputtering and spitting and otherwise having a fit. The bubble container is upside down in the mulch and she's chugging water like there's no tomorrow. Yep. She drank the bubbles. Now why the hell would a kid, roughly five years old, think that bubble solution would taste good?! And get this- super mom the coffee sipper is mad at ME because her kid drank my bubbles. Get real, lady! Maybe you should supervise your kid! She grumbles something about how I'd better hope they don't make her sick. In my mind I'm laughing and imagining what potty time is going to be like for her later today.

So J and I throw away the bubbles and head for the slides. Now, I've read the warnings about letting kids climb slides that are too big for them and all that, but to be honest, this slide seemed fairly benign. A little tall, yes, but the platform was wide, well railed, and the slide itself wasn't horribly inclined, so I figured "What the heck?" Besides, Jonas is pretty good at sliding. He has a little one at home and he knows how to sit and put his legs in front of him, and he counts to three before yelling "GO" and pushing off.

First ride down the slide and his sweaty little leg sticks to the plastic of the slide. His ankle twists around and catches on the edge and down he goes, like the world's tiniest contortionist.

Time to go home.

Even now he's limping a little on that leg. It's certainly not broken, but it's sore. He'll probably never want to play on a slide again.

And it figures that, after only two days, I've managed to break the kid.

In other kid news, I hearby claim that ketchup is a vegetable, dammit, and Jonas likes it!

That's all for now. Just felt like bitching a little. And now the hunt continues for a more small-fry friendly park.

** As a post-script to this: As soon as I hit post J and I went to the kitchen for a drink and he slipped, fell and conked his big melon head right on the corner of the deep freezer. So now he's got a scrape on his knee from Tuesday at Abuela's, he walks with a limp from the slide incident, AND he has a big blue knot right in the middle of his forehead! I swear I don't beat this child!**