For Brett From Home (5/22/12)

Well, it has happened--I got computer help from my nine-year-old son. After seeing me struggle for a little while on the computer, Todd came in and fixed the problem for me. Don't ask me how it happened, but the desktop was rotated 90 degrees. Which means that working the mouse felt off as well. I'm still not sure how he knew the solution so quickly, but I was grateful that he helped me out before I got frustrated.

I was also paid a nice compliment on Ryan's behalf at school last week. The mom who comes in for Smiley Math (a once-a-week volunteer-run program that gives kids the opportunity to earn points by working out logic problems, etc.) chatted with me in the library. There was a calendar-related problem on their last worksheet, and she was impressed with the unique method Ryan used to solve the problem (relabeling the days of the week to calculate the question more quickly). She said Ryan was the only one who approached the problem differently and it really showed "thinking outside the box." I often get frustrated that Ryan goes through his work so quickly (and sloppily). She pointed that his desire to get done quickly helped him come up with an easier (and still correct) solution. It was a good reminder for me to look for the positive qualities in my children and not just be quick to criticize when things are not done my way.

I am finding it hard to eat up the food in the fridge and freezer before summer. I am simply not cooking like I do with you at home. (I would miss cooking more if it weren't for the baseball schedule.) My lazy protein has been cooking with eggs, quite often. A typical late breakfast or lunch for me is an open-faced fried egg sandwich with Cheddar on an English muffin. Mmmm. I have also been known to cook that for dinner when the boys eat at your mom's. It's also good as an after-the-boys-are-in-bed supper. It's good anytime of day!

I missed the roses blooming on the side of the house this year. I just didn't take the time to check on them. I didn't miss out on the hydrangeas. They are full of blooms and I have enjoyed cutting them and keeping a vase of them in the kitchen. I have vase full of beautiful blue blooms right now. I love them! I am also enjoying the gardenias. They don't last too long before they start wilting (inside or out), but they smell so sweet. I love them, too! I also love my pink Gerber daisies, though they are not producing as many blooms these days. I started quizzing the boys on the flowers I kept inside, just so they would know what some of Mommy's favorites are.

You'll never believe what I saw about two weeks ago: I drove by a young man rollerblading on Forest Rd. with his dog! After ten years of rollerblading with my dog in this neighborhood and a few more years in our previous neighborhood it was fun to see someone else enjoying this form of exercise.

I have been more cautious with Copper, though he has run off a few more times. Once, he ran off in the rain?!? But this last week has been good. I have also been trying to play Frisbee with him more, now that he will finally run for me. He gets so excited when he sees his toy come out. He doesn't even mind if the boys play too.

The wrens nested again in the very same spot. The babies just left the nest this afternoon. I think there were three fledglings. They were making a ruckus during my piano lessons. I explained to Todd and Ryan the conversations that were taking place between Mommy or Daddy Wren and the babies.
Mommy/Daddy Wren: Dinnertime, dinnertime, dinnertime. Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?
Babies: Food! Food! Food! Here we are! Here we are! Here we are!
Of course, it was much cuter when I was using little birdy voices to act it out. Todd, especially, liked it.
I was a little afraid of opening the garage door and moving the car out to go to baseball practice this afternoon. I didn't want to run over one of them. So I had Todd keep watch for me, and I think it worked out just fine. I have enjoyed watching the wrens this last week and it really made me miss you.

For Brett From Home (4/24/12)

I miss having you around to share my little nothing-happenings. However, it has been kind of fun recording these daily thoughts. Years from now it will be interesting to see what concerned me and what I thought about.

I mentioned on the phone that the sago palm is splitting. It is forming two cones. It isn't the sago palm right by the mailbox as I first told you. It is the one closest to Bobby's yard.

The lawn mower is working well enough that your dad was able to use it today. It still has troubles though. I'm not sure what the diagnosis is, but the motor keeps dying. I blew off the back patio and your dad successfully mowed our yard yesterday. Hooray! Hopefully the oaks are almost done dropping. I will make a point to check the gutters and clean them out soon.

We finally got some good rain last Tuesday. We needed it. It was pouring hard for at least a half hour right after the boys got on the bus. I would like to have been curled up in bed, but no such luck. It was kind of a cozy, snuggle-up rain. I don't suppose you have that same feeling about rain these days.

We got more rain on Saturday. Since then the temperature has dropped, and it has been quite nice, although windy. The wind chimes were so loud on Sunday when Jen was over that she shut the sliding glass door. She said she felt like she had to yell to talk to me. I was thinking about you all day today wondering how cold you have been. I heard that had some snow in New England.

The spring weather has been beautiful lately. There have been a few days (today included) when I would really like to have driven the Mustang. I'll just have to wait until you're back in the fall and make a point to drive it then.

The boys are still not getting to bed with any regularity. It would drive you crazy. There was one day last week when Ryan just didn't wake up on his own. He was completely out of it, and I felt so bad for his tired little body that I let him sleep in until 7:45am. I finally had to go in and wake him up. He was thrown off by the fact that he had slept in past the time that the bus is supposed to come. It made him a little grumpy until he discovered that I had decided that all of the boys would just be car riders that morning.

I have also not been going to bed well (big surprise!). I am not staying up past Midnight; my bedtime has been more like 11:30pm. But the six or seven hours of sleep I get each night just hasn't been enough. It is starting to wear on me. In fact, last week I had a dream where I came across an alligator snapping turtle (which didn't look like a real alligator snapping turtle--its shell was covered in fuzz...). I knew that the turtle was quick and vicious and I had to move it out of the road (I'm not sure why...). But I was simply too weak and tired to get it out my way. I wasn't just tired in my dream. I was weak and tired in real life, even though I was sleeping, and it carried over into my dream.

In fact, I have been remembering a lot of my dreams lately. Some of them are good dreams. Many of them are spurred by real-life situations. (Anne had recently told me about coming across an alligator snapping turtle in the middle the road.) I had a dream where I attended an end-of-the-year function at the elementary school. There was some drama in the dream, but what stuck out to me was the table of desserts we got to sample. One of the desserts served was pineapple upside-down cupcakes. I had recently seen a recipe for them in my recipe binder (in real life and in the dream) and was so excited to be able to try them. I woke up wanting to bake them, but have had to hold off because we still have too many sweets around the house from Easter and now Todd's birthday.

Monday was Todd's birthday. It may take me a while to get used to him being NINE years old. We celebrated yesterday and today. I will probably let him invite a friend or two to do something fun this Saturday as well. On Friday your dad took Todd and me out to dinner (Chinese) for our birthdays (even though mine is still a month away.) On Sunday we had the whole family over for cake and ice cream. Todd got a few presents from the family. Yesterday morning I let Todd open the few presents from me before breakfast. I made him orange ricotta pancakes, which he had requested the night before. And I baked chocolate chip cookies for him to share with his class at school. The boys had baseball after school and I had chorus practice tonight, so we didn't really do anything to celebrate in the evening. All in all, we kept it simple, but I think Todd was really happy with his birthday.

Baseball is still going strong. I feel like I haven't seen very much of their games. Last week I stayed home from Todd's two games in order to put Ryan to bed earlier. When your dad took us to dinner on Friday he told me that Todd had been hit by the ball during his game the night before. I asked Todd to show me. He has a huge bruise on his thigh! He never mentioned it when he came home that night. (It was so late that I had to hurry him along just to get him in bed before 10:00pm.) And he never mentioned it the next morning before school. Poor tough guy.

Last week it seemed like Copper was not keeping up with me very well on his walks. Last night was a completely different story. He was so full of energy. I asked your mom if we could give him a run yesterday evening just as it was getting dark. Copper ran harder than I have seen him run in a while. When I got back I told your mom that I was sure that he would have run away last night without that run. This morning he was in the mood to run as well. I'm glad that I was able to give him his morning roller-blading run. He had no trouble keeping up with me. Since the morning was crisp and beautiful I made sure that I went a little longer for him.
The other day I mentioned smelling the honeysuckle vines on the golf course. The flowers smelled so sweet last night that I commented on them. Todd corrected me and informed me that they were jasmine. I looked it up on Wikipedia last night. He was right, of course. And clearly I know nothing about flowers!

I am looking forward for your return for Copper's benefit possibly more than mine. We sure try to do our best with him, but it's not the same. On Sunday he did something that he hasn't done in a very long time. I had gone to Publix the day before and bought a baguette. When I came home from church all that I could find of it was the plastic bag it came in torn in pieces. He ate the entire thing. Luckily it doesn't look like it made him sick. Thank goodness he left Todd's birthday cake alone. It was cooling on a rack, covered with a dish towel.

I have been getting my fill of chick flicks while you have been gone. Lately I have been crushing on Zac Efron. Yes, he is quite young and was a star on Disney's High School Musical. But he has grown to be quite the good-looking man. I'm looking forward to seeing the latest chick flick he starred in.
Wishing you were here to hug and kiss on. Hope you're doing well.
Much love from home.

Spring is Here! I Love You!

Every year I am overwhelmed by how much I really do love spring. Unfortunately, it never lasts as long as I would hope. There is such a short window when the weather is absolutely perfect. And I am usually so busy at this time of year that I don't get out to enjoy it with the boys as much as I would like.

I love noticing all the different shades of green as I drive down the road, especially the light greens from all of the new growth. Here in the South spring offers color everywhere you look with the blooming azaleas. My neighbor has some huge bushes in yard.

Our azaleas are pretty scrawny, but they still offer a little color here and there. On Sunday, Ryan picked two azalea flowers and presented them to me saying,

"This first flower says, 'Spring is here!' The second one says, 'I love you!'"

That little boy knows how to melt my heart.

I love the changes that spring brings to my modest gardening efforts. I do not love working outside in the garden, but somehow spring motivates me to get out there and enjoy it just a little. I love my big-leafed shamrocks and their dainty purple flowers that return every year. (We've also seen the return of a lot of little-leafed clovers in our grass, much to Brett's dismay.) And I am overjoyed that my Gerber Daisies are coming back. They looked so bad after our cold winter that I really didn't know if they would.

Over the winter we finally had success with our orange tree. Now that spring is here the tree is covered with fragrant blossoms (pictured below left). I think we will have another great crop this winter. Our pathetic little apple tree --which isn't so pathetic when you realize that this tree grew from a seed Brett planted from an apple he ate in our first apartment and transported and transplanted a few times until we settled in our own home (did you follow that run-on sentence?)--Our apple tree is also full of blossoms, though we do not have hopes for a plentiful and edible crop.

As far as my gardening efforts go, I am pleased that my two mints have returned (barely), and my garlic chives are flourishing. This year I planted more rosemary, lemon balm, cilantro (pictured below left-which is growing like crazy, much to Brett's delight), parsley, and basil. I don't always cook a lot with these herbs, but I love having good smelling plants around. Ryan has also discovered the joy of rubbing the leaves and smelling them.

I was so excited to see some baby tomato plants that are popping up from last year (below right).

This year I planted two tomato plants, a bell pepper and a poblano pepper plant, three strawberry plants, one crookneck squash, and some peas. It's not too much, especially when I compare it to Anne's impressive garden, but hopefully it is just enough for the boys and I to enjoy without being more than I can handle.

Just as I am excited about the baby tomato plants popping up, I also get excited about the promise of roses and hydrangeas in bloom.

Speaking of roses, I can't help but admire this rose bush. Not because it is a beautiful bush, but because it has determination. When we bought our house, there were three or four rose bushes in the backyard. We didn't like where they were located, and I wasn't crazy about the type of roses they were. So we decided to dig them up and plant them somewhere else. We figured, if they survive, fine. If they die, fine. They didn't die. They were just as happy in their new spot. However, after a few years I got tired of them. I still wanted the traditional roses. I told Brett I was ready to replace them. We dug them up, threw them out, and planted two new rose bushes. Evidently, when Brett dug them up he unknowingly left a part of one of the rose bushes in the ground. Don't you know that bush came back and has grown stronger than my other two? Now I can't bear to dig it up because it has proven to be such a fighter.

The weather is still cooperating, so maybe I will still get out and do a little more planting, a little pruning, and a little more weeding.

I hope you are enjoying your spring as well as I am enjoying mine.

Weeds Pulled--Check

Last weekend was absolutely gorgeous! I wish that I had been able to go play at the beach. Instead, I was responsible and took Todd to his baseball game. After the game the boys spent the afternoon at Oma's house. I stayed home, did some chores, and yard work. Do I look exhausted? I was.

The good news is that now that my beds are weeded, I can do some planting. That is, assuming the weather clears up sometime. We were in a tornado warning earlier this morning, and I think it is supposed to rain for the rest of the week. By the time I get back around to planting some flowers the weeds will all over again. Groan. Not to worry though. I will get my plants in the ground, and I will have flowers for spring. It's hard not to stay motivated when the weather is beautiful, which it should be next week. By summer, I will be over it. Then there will be no more yard work by me until fall. I'm such a wimp outdoors.