Friday Update

I usually do Five Question Friday on Friday. Lately, I haven't liked the questions so I haven't participated. This also means that my blog hasn't been getting updated because I have less than nothing to say. I've been using 5QF as a handy writing prompt. I was holding out hope that this week's questions would be appealing to me but they're not. No offense.

Summer has gotten off to a slow start. We haven't done anything. The girls keep having sleep over after sleep over to the point where I told them no more until next week at the earliest. The other night, they each had a friend over so I had four girls, three of them teens, in my house. I didn't get ANY sleep that night. I needed a break. When they're not having sleep overs, they're hanging at the pool. I have to say, I'm very thrilled that we have a neighborhood pool within walking distance. There are actually two that they go to even though they have to kinda, sorta, cheat to get into the other one.  Oh wells.

I'm mostly ready for the Oldest Child's 16th birthday. I already have her big present and I just need to round it out with a few smaller things. She wants me to bake her a cake (isn't that sweet of her?) so that's easy peasy. She's not planning a big party. We had to browbeat her into the casual get together that she decided to have. She insisted that she didn't even care to celebrate it at all. She sounds just like me, lol. My 35th birthday is in eight days. I really don't want to talk about it.

I do have something sort of funny to share. Our neighbor across the street moved this week. Well, his family moved to Texas and he moved in with a friend until he retires at the end of this year. Anyway, they really didn't get along with their house neighbor (we live in duplexes). To express their dislike of this neighbor, they tp'd their car using Vaseline to hold the toilet paper in place. LMAO! I love it. I'm really ambivalent towards this person seeing as how I don't share walls with them and they've never bothered me. I really wish that I didn't like them so that I could have gotten in on the action though. I haven't done that since the first time we lived here. Although...we do have a certain person on our street that we really wish the ground would swallow her up. Or maybe an earthquake could knock her house into the canyon. Or maybe a giant pterodactyl could come and pick her up and drop her into a volcano. Hmm. Maybe, if we manage to move before they do, I could get a little of my own back on the way out. That would be fun. But only if her husband was deployed because we actually like him. He's on his current deployment voluntarily because he wanted to get away from his own wife. See?? I'm not the only one that doesn't like her.

And on that lovely and positive note, I'm off.

Summer Time

Mission Trails - A shot from our Memorial Day hike.

I cannot believe that June is here already!! Am I the only one? This year has gone by so fast. I think it's all the kids' activities that we had this year that made the school year fly by. Between band, JROTC, sleepovers, birthday parties, open houses, etc., etc., my days revolve around trying to figure out which kid I'm taking to which activity. A "soccer mom" I am not.

The Oldest child could have gotten her driver's permit back in January but due to the fact that she's been in trouble off and on and she hasn't even asked to get it yet, she hasn't even checked it out at this point. I didn't get my driver's license at 16 either, but we only had one car and my step mom worked all the time. I could have had ten driver's licenses and I still would have been walking everywhere or hitching rides with friends. This isn't the issue at all for the Oldest though. She would have a car to drive to and from school 3-5 days a week if she wanted it. She would certainly have a car to go shopping or drive to work in the evenings should she want to. I'd really like her to get her license just so that she could drive herself to her own appointments. She was in physical therapy for her shoulder, twice a week for about two months. It would have been really nice if she could have driven herself to some of those appointments. For the summer, she's getting a job whether she wants one or not. There are quite a few places in town that she could work that are within walking distance to our house but she'd have a lot more choices open to her with a driver's license.

The Youngest child doesn't have any plans for the summer so far. She's already brown as a berry. She'll probably continue to work on her tan as she hangs out with the neighborhood kids on her vacation.

As a family, we haven't made too many plans. We'll be celebrating the Oldest's 16th birthday in July. We'll be going to Sea World at some point. We also want to get in more hiking this summer. We went over the Memorial Day weekend and had a blast. We're lucky in that one of the staging areas for Mission Trails is about five minutes from our house. We've hiked Mission Trails many times over the years and still have probably about 3/4 of the park we haven't been to yet. We'd also like to do some hiking in the mountains this year too. Honestly, we don't hike as often as I'd like and I can only say that it's because we're too lazy to get out of the house on the weekends.

As for me, I'm job hunting myself and trying to decide what I want to do about school. This last semester was brutal. I read all kinds of Shakespeare and seven modernist novels over the course of eight weeks. That's not to mention the mountains of papers I had to write and projects I had to do. For the summer, I intend to read as much as I can for leisure. Being in class tends to kill any desire to read anything other than the required stuff. I also want to buy a fire pit for the backyard and do some container gardening (hopefully not container killing). The snails have disappeared for anyone that was wondering.

All in all, I'm just looking forward to the leisure days that summer brings. No schedules. I can cook dinner at 8 at night if I want to. I don't have to nag the kids to go to bed. We get to SLEEP IN! One week until summer vacation starts! Woohoo!

Smokin'

Random picture of Bailey because you're insane if you think I had the presence of mind to take a picture of the flaming smoker.

We're very low-key when it comes to celebrating holidays. We do up Thanksgiving and Christmas but all the others, I really could do without. Seriously, if I didn't have kids I think holidays would be just like any other day. The Mister agrees with me on this.

Still, we did up the 4th of July this year pretty good. We had plans to grill out and then hit the fireworks show in Santee like we do every year. Well, every year that we're in California.

The morning of, the Mister and I needed to run a few errands. We needed some melon, an extension cord, mosquito repellent, and other stuff that I can't remember now. We went to Home Depot first because it's easiest to get to from our house without a lot of traffic. We're going through the store and picking up what we needed and walked down the aisle with the grills. We have a fairly new gas grill but we had been wanting to get a smoker for some time now and what better occasion than the 4th of July? Sadly, the only smokers Home Depot had were in open and damaged boxes. Seriously. How do they expect to sell crap like that? We put down all of the things we picked up and went to Lowes.

Our nearest Lowes is located in a highly populated shopping area. It's in the same strip as the Ikea and we were really trying to avoid going there on a holiday because, as we expected, traffic was maddening. After parking ten years away from the store, we go in and find the extension cord, a few varieties of wood chips to go in the smoker, Off Clip-On fans (which I recommend), and the smoker. We get everything into the car (because we were dumb and didn't bring the SUV to the hardware store) and head home (forgetting the melon).

The Mister, being a man, is totally excited to get the smoker put together and try it out. This is what he's doing while I head to the grocery store for the forgotten melon. I get home and he's all ready to put the meat in the smoker. Living next to an open canyon in Tinderbox Socal makes me leery of having open fires so I ask him if he read the directions and knows what he's doing. Of course he has!! Um yeah. I'm looking at the rather large flamage going on in the smoker out of the corner of my eye while the Mister, the oldest child, and I play some Monopoly Deal on the patio. (No way in hell was I going inside while we had a potential raging inferno on the patio.)

We're playing, flames are growing, smoke is getting thicker, and I'm getting more nervous by the second. I ask the Mister again, at the risk of sounding all naggy, if he's sure that he has everything under control. Of course he does!! But, all three of us are watching the smoker while our cards are forgotten in our hands waiting for the inevitable. Then the Mister points out how the paint on the side of the smoker is bubbling and melting off the side. Huh. Is that normal? Next thing you know, flames are shooting out the door of the smoker and the freaking PAINT (or what's left of it) on the side of the ding dong thing is on fire. This is when I jump up, freaking out, run into the house to get my phone in case I need to call 911 (in my frenzy, I've forgotten that my phone was sitting next to me on the patio table) and the Mister is shouting, "Get the hose! Get the hose!" Nuh uh. I'm not coming back outside. He's on his own to get the garden hose and put the smoker out. Ok. So I'm not so good when it comes to fires. The oldest and I watch from the door while the Mister is soaking the smoker and putting the flames out and we both breathe a sigh of relief. I'm thinking that the smoker is going in the trash on Tuesday but no. The Mister, being a man, is eyeing the smoker with the same look that I'm sure prehistoric man had when he was trying to figure out how to cook his mammoth for the first time. The smoker is now a thing to be conquered.

He drags the thing out into the yard so that the sun can dry it out a bit saying how he's glad we bought so much wood chips so that he can try again. And lo and behold!! He reads the directions (the same ones he claims to have read already) and sees that the thing has a fill line for the heat source. He had WAAAY overfilled it, obviously. The second attempt goes much more smoothly considering that the flamage was much more under control and we were able to actually put the meat on the thing this time. So we're smokin' and playing our game waiting for dinner to be done. By this time, we had been at it for HOURS trying to cook some chicken. The youngest rolls home (she had been out playing with her friends up to this point) asking when dinner was going to be ready. She was STARVED. We tell her that it won't be much longer (really having no idea if we were right or wrong).

It's starting to get late. We need to eat, get ready to go, and drive to Santee early enough to get parking before they close the streets down. The girls and I get the side dishes ready while the Mister checks the chicken which is nowhere near done so he gives up on the smoker and tosses the bird parts on the gas grill, lmao. Still, having had the benefit of being on the smoker for as long as it was, the chicken tasted fantastic.

The Mister has since attempted to smoke meat once more with much better results (he had done some research on the web). We had a beef roast that tasted amazing but it took all freaking day to cook because he couldn't keep the temperature high enough on the smoker. The smoker is still a thing to be conquered.

The Summer...So Far

It's been forever since I've had a real blog post. I read somewhere that you're not supposed to acknowledge time away from your blog or apologize for it. I think that's funny but even so, I won't apologize. Life happens, ya know?

So, the summer. The Mister spent most of his summer in Jacksonville at Staff Sergeants Course. If you're not familiar with this, it's basically a bunch of Marine Staff Sergeants getting beat down with PT (Physical Training or exercise to you and me.)and supposedly learning how to become better Staff Sergeants. No biggie. He was able to come home every weekend and even some week nights. The girls and I manage quite well on our own. I enjoyed not having to cook hardly at all this summer. With the Mister gone, the girls and I ate light and had many "catch whatcha can" nights.

The oldest child celebrated her 13th birthday back in July. She had two different sleep overs for it and managed some pretty good loot. She got a new cell phone, some clothes, DS games, and her first real, not play, makeup.

My 32nd birthday was 6 days before hers and I spent it at home. I honestly don't remember if the Mister was home, if we went out to dinner, or what. My own birthdays mean very little to me.

The youngest child has been herself. She's made a couple new friends in the neighborhood and has stayed busy, out and about, all summer. Oh. And we've decided to home school her this year. Maybe I'll talk about that in a separate post sometime.

Work has been pretty crazy for me. CRAZY!! I've had several big projects due this summer and with the kids home and the Mister gone, I've been busy. I even worked overtime for the first time last month. I may or may not have a couple new clients lined up for the coming months as well. I'm pretty ambivalent about that. Don't get me wrong. I'll be grateful for the work but I'm to the point where I'm happy with my the steady clients that I have now so if these new ones don't work out, I won't be too sad about it. In addition to my consulting work, I've been trying to write for another blog that has to do with social networking and working from home. It's really tough keeping up with two blogs let me tell ya.

Also, the Mister and I are on the very cusp of being officially open for business with the soap project. We've made three new and improved batches that we are taking to Ohio (more on that in a minute) that we plan on hawking to friends and family to sell. I've redesigned our website, designed a logo, made cigar labels, and we are just about ready to open our virtual marketplace. More on all this in another post as well but feel free to ask any questions and pass along the word!!

So, Ohio. We are planning a trip there. This will be our first, for real, honestly, planned trip to Ohio that we've ever taken. We've gone for weddings, funerals, illnesses, and to pick the kids up but never just to visit. The last two times we tried to plan a trip, someone in our family died. I kid you not. The last time, almost two years ago, the week we were going to go, my brother-in-law was killed in an accident. We hadn't even told anyone we were coming cuz we wanted it to be a surprise. I'm telling you what though, if someone dies this time, I will never plan another trip to Ohio again. That would just be too freaky. We have lots planned. We are taking the oldest child to Cedar Point. It will be her very first trip there and she's very excited. It's almost a rite of passage for someone from Ohio. The youngest isn't going because she won't ride rides. She'll be hanging with her cousins and grandparents. My step mom is also treating us girls, and my sister, to a day spa. They're getting mani/pedi's and facials while I get my hair cut and colored. I'm not much for having people touch me so I opted out of the other stuff. We're also going to a zoo. We haven't decided between the Indianapolis Zoo or the Columbus Zoo yet. We're also going to try and fit in a trip to COSI in Columbus. I used to LOVE going there when I was a kid and I would really like to take my girls there. Man. I'm kinda tired thinking about all that, lol.

Anyway, we've made a couple trips to the beach but not nearly as often as I would like to have. I timed it the other day...From the time we get up, get ready, and drive to the beach, it takes us two hours till we hit sand. Two hours makes it so that we don't get to go as much as I would love to go.

To fill in the nights, I've been watching some new TV shows. I really like True Blood and Hung. They're fun and pretty over the top. The Mister and I have also started watching Nurse Jackie on HBO. I love that show. I've been a fan of Edie Falco's from when she was on the Soprano's. Old summer shows we're still watching and loving are The Close, Raising the Bar, and Weeds.

I've also been reading again. I read the entire Sookie Stackhouse series (The books from which True Blood is based.) in a week, lol. I downloaded them all to my Kindle app on my iPod. I've also been reading my English Royals non fiction books as well. I'm reading a book about Henry VIII's wives and a book about Mary Queen of Scots. I'm really enjoying them both. They make me miss watching The Tudors less, lol.

I don't think anything else of significance has happened this summer. It's been relatively quiet. The Mister graduates from his training on Wednesday and we leave for Ohio on Saturday. We'll be back a couple days before school starts and that will be the end of summer. I'm a little sad about that. I look forward to summer all fall, winter, and spring and it just doesn't seem to last long enough.

So. What did you all do with your summer?

My Summer Plans (edited)

Now that the semester is over and I don't go back to school until September, I figured it would be necessary to do something with myself over the summer. Also, my kids will be heading to their grandparents' in Ohio at the end of next month, so I really won't have anything to occupy my time other than the dogs. Here's how I plan on keeping busy.

The local community college here in N.C. is offering some courses that are right up my alley. Neither of them would be for credits but they will be fun and interesting. One is an editing class. Yeah, I just finished up an editing class but that was for technical documents and such. This class is for fiction and non-fiction novels, articles, and things of that nature. The other class is about publishing. Both classes sound really cool to me and they have five different start times so I can stagger them to make them last longer.

Another endeavor of mine is to help the Mister finally get his cheesecake deal off the ground and moving forward. He needs some help with the particulars like finding a box supplier, figuring out something for a website, things like that. I'm also going to see about approaching some of the local restaurants around the area as well. We figured out how to ship them and it is not cheap. Of course, the customer would pay shipping, but still. This could, potentially, be quite a bit of work in the end.

We're also going to try and find the time to go to Texas this summer for about a week or so. We're considering the Houston, San Antonio, Austin area as a future place of residence. Do you know how amazingly inexpensive real estate is down that way?? It's nauseating.

Then I have the usual odds and ends. Things like my blog, catching up on some reading, Readers Anonymous, a new blogging project, and the beach. I've been keeping my nose in the classifieds but the job market here is dismal to say the least. I'm not qualified, nor am I willing, to work in construction or sales and that's about all there is. Sometimes living in small, rinky-dink, rural America can be a drag.

That's about it. Now that I'm over the disappointment of my unplanned break from school, I'm actually looking forward to it. Really looking forward to it. I can see now that I was starting to feel burned out.

**Edited to add that I forgot to mention that I'm also participating in a volunteer proofreading project. I'm sure you've all heard of Project Gutenberg. Well, they have an affiliate website called Distributed Proofreaders where volunteers edit pages of the books that are uploaded to the Internet for people to read. My editing prof mentioned this at the end of class and I think it's a worthwhile activity. Plus, it gives me some editing experience even if it's not a paying job. Plus, you can do as much or as little as you want so there's no pressure. Me likes. ;)