Elflingsmama's Sanity Keeper

I don't know if this is a true quote, I got it from a FWD email, but I love it nonetheless!

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." - William Faulkner (about Earnest Hemmingway)

Justin came running into the house today exclaiming that his tomato plant had sprouted pods. So I went out to look and sure enough, what we thought was a Campbell's tomato seed must've been a bean instead, LOL!:

I thought the big leafy plant on the left was a lima bean (planted as a seed from Justin's school) and the tall climbing thing in the wire was the tomato plant. Shows what I know, lol!


Here's a picture of my Square Foot Garden. Please ignore the grass and weeds, our weed trimmer broke and we haven't replaced it yet. I wanted to wait until it was trimmed to take pictures, but after I saw the bean pods on the tomato plant I just couldn't wait!

The two squares in front with the long spiky leaves are mini-amarylis, but all they've done so far is sprout leaves and no blooms or anything! The next square in front that's going crazy are Lucky Shamrocks. In the morning the flowers open up and they're shamrock shaped, too :) The last square in front, and the one behind it have some strawberry plants. Hiding behind the Lucky Shamrocks are a strawberry plant and a begonia that Ryan gave me for Mother's Day. Then comes the "tomato come bean plant" :P and I have no idea what's growing so well in the back left square, lol!

I woke up at 3 this morning with my head pounding. It's definitely sinus related, not that that changes anything. And why do my eustachion tubes have to swell, too? I don't want to move my head, I just want to sit here with my eyes shut, and my ears hurt :(

Like we needed another one :P Actually, we got him to play with Simon to help ease tensions that were building between him and the older cats. While Simon and Raja get along just fine, Raj has reached the point where he simply doesn't want to play with Simon very often or for very long.

So we headed to the shelter where roane works because one of the feral kittens she fostered was still up for adoption there. His name is Blue, for the blue collar he was wearing at the time she brought him home (he's all black with 3 white patches on his chest and belly). We met Blue first, and quite honestly we thought he was cute in that all kittens are cute, but he wasn't really all that. So we moved on to look at older cats. I wouldn't have minded a kitten that was closer to a year old, but pickin's were really slim given our home situation (loud kids and other cats in the house). So we checked out a few more baby kittens and then roane looked in on Blue again and realized that we hadn't actually met Blue but another black kitty he shared a cage with! Turns out there were THREE black cats in the cage and the real Blue was curled up behind the fluffy black kitten so we thought there were only TWO in there. This time we met the real Blue and he was an instant hit :)

Justin is completely enamoured with the kitten and is doing really well approaching him calmly and trying to curtail his exuberant impulses while trying to get Blue to play with him. He wants to rename him Phantom, but no one else really cares for it.

Now that we've had some time to truly meet Blue I'm really thinking Harley or Speedy would REALLY fit him. When this boy purrs, which is pretty much the moment you pick him up, it's LOUD and steady; very reminiscent of a Harley Davidson. As for the "Speedy," well, the boy has one speed while playing: ZOOM!

I think Simon went a bit too far and both Raja and Rascal are letting him know it. Mind you, I only heard the altercation (the neighborhood did, I'm sure), but I walked in on Simon crouched low with a huge tuft of Rascal fur hanging from his mouth. Rascal was standing over him and they were growling at each other. What makes me think someone went too far is that Raja was in on it this time. He was standing off to one side, but was just as tense as the other two and was just staring at Simon. I got the feeling it was kind of an admonishment because usually Raja stays out of the politics between Simon and Rascal. I don't understand cat dominance at all, but in dog terms it looked like Rascal came out on top based on the body language from both of them.

Now they're pretending to ignore each other while their tails are swishing vehemently. Raja is now in his accustomed spot away from the "excitement" acting like there's nothing going on at all. Except he's eyeing me because he wants me to go to bed already :P

Justin has decided he's vegetarian. I don't know why he has suddenly decided this, and I wouldn't have a problem with it if he actually liked and ate vegetables. To date the only veggies this boy eats are corn, tomatoes, and mashed sweet potatoes. He also doesn't eat much in the way of healthy carbs (and pretty much nix on whole grains altogether). That doesn't exactly spell healthy vegetarian diet.

I personally think this is a control thing. He's been avoiding breakfast the past couple weeks, even the granola bars he likes, and barely touches dinner. This came out of the blue the other day when he suddenly announced he would no longer eat meat (meaning beef, pork, and chicken). He's old enough to start making decisions like this for himself so I'm going to do some research on vegetarian diets for kids and give him a taste of what he's decided he wants. I'm thinking this is a case of "see what mom will let me get away with" so I don't think he'll stick with it for very long. Maybe I'm wrong.

Ryan learned a harsh lesson today. His favorite Webkinz stuffed animal, an orca he named Bubbly, was stolen from his locker/cubby at school :( The worst part about this is that Bubbly had been missing for two days and suddenly turned up this morning. Ryan was so happy to have him back that he took Bubbly to school with him. He's done this before and usually puts the animals he takes in his backpack. But we forgot the backpack today so he just set Bubbly on the bottom shelf of his locker. When he went out of class to get him, Ryan discovered he was gone. We suspect a kindergartener decided Bubbly needed a new home, as they share the locker area with the preschoolers. We're hoping someone's mom discovers the stray whale and sends him back to school tomorrow.

I know several of my LJ friends are eco-conscious, and so may have already heard of this company. But I just learned about it and couldn't help but pass on info about it's existence!

The PTO at the boys' school recently signed up with a company called TerraCycle. You save things like Capri Sun pouches, Nabisco cookie wrappers, and Frito-Lay chip bags and send them in to TerraCycle where they pay $.02 per item to a charity of your choice. They take the items and make them into usable products like backpacks, pencil pags, tote bags, flower pots, etc. TerraCycle also has eco-friendly cleaners and various other products that you can buy (packaged in the recycled items they recieve). You can sign up to do this as an individual and TerraCycle will send you postage so you can send the items to them. Please check this out; it's such an innovative concept, it looks so easy to do and a charity of your choice gets money...what's not to love? :) www.TerraCycle.net

I can't express enough just how excited I am about this. I'm really good about not finishing things that I start, especially brand new things I'm not entirely comfortable with. But I bought the Square Foot Garden book and did all the research and planning and Jason bought the frame materials and the stuff for the soil mix, and yesterday he put it all together! The boys helped me mix up the soil on a large tarp and then Justin and I planted things! It's only 2'x4' because we thought 4' deep would be too large for our little yard. But the box I have now looks pretty tiny, so I'm already making plans for an expansion next year :)

The point of a Square Foot Garden is to have a grid partitioning off each square foot, giving you excellent visual cues on how much to plant where in a square rather than all lined up in a row. Well, I knew we wanted strawberries so I ordered some from a fundraiser at Justin's school, along with some Lucky Charms and Mini Amaryllis. This leaves me with 2 1/2 squares available for veggies. I'd like to do some tomatoes for sure, but I'm not sure what else. Perhaps some parsley, and maybe next year I'll try lettuce. I might do some bell pepper, cucumber, or zucchini. Ryan keeps asking for watermelon, but I'm not ready for something that large yet. Hee, I wonder how much room a sunflower needs? :P

bangping, do you think you'll have some tomato plants in need of a new home? If so, I have a great home ready and waiting :)

Hmmm, I might've said this a time or two, lol.

Tonight Jason gave his old wireless keyboard and mouse to Justin to play with. He brought it upstairs while I was getting them ready for bed. While playing some DS with Ryan, Justin would periodically exclaim, "Oh, that is SO going on my Livejournal!" and tap furiously on the keys, pretending there was a huge monitor on the wall. He would even tell me when a friend would reply back with something funny :P

Just got the Explanation of Benefits from Ryan's ear tubes. Let's see, $7,500 total charges, minus $2,500 that insurance paid, minus $5,000 "less participating provider savings." Tell me medical costs aren't inflated, I dare ya. Thank God we have excellent insurance and good participating providers.

I attended a really cool meeting yesterday. The school district is closing a nearby elementary school and plan to merge the students into the school Justin and Ryan attend. Parent emotions are running rampant about this whole thing; I guess it's a hazard of living in a small town. But the schools are trying to make the transition as smooth as possible, ruffling as few feathers as possible and I personally agree with that philosophy. So I joined a committee to discuss new grading policies.

At the meeting yesterday we decided on a new system that looks just awesome. It's called standards-based report cards where the class objectives are clearly stated and students are graded on how well they meet those objectives. By 'clearly stated' I mean things like "Can count to 1000," and "Develops topics or main ideas and supports them with details", not just "demonstrates understanding of numeration" and "Uses strategies to construct meaning." The students are graded with numbers (following the MEAP Test) where a 2 is fully meeting the objective (basically an A) but leaves room for a student to strive for a 1 which is consistently exceeds expectations. Parents will be able to look at the report card and see exactly where their child needs help. Instead of simply a "B" in math, it might show that the child understands most of the concepts but is weak on a couple of them. Then the parent knows what exactly to help their child with or can take it to a tutor and say, "this is specifically where my child needs help". The teachers are super-excited because they are looking at this new report card as a useful tool for helping them ensure they're covering all the material, and it will more easily show trends on which concepts the students aren't quite getting.

Now, while they aren't using letter grades for most of the school time, the middle school and, out of necessity due to college applications, the high school do use letters. So the 5th graders will be given letter grades towards the end of the year in an effort to acclimate them to letter grades before heading off to middle school.

It was really interesting to be a part of the decision to adopt this new system. It was neat to sit with the new principal and teachers from both schools and give a parent's perspective (even more so since I have an education background and understood most of the jargon ;) ).

While draining the dregs of my pop, the pile of ice at the bottom suddenly rushed forward and hit Justin in the mouth, to which he responded, "I got ambushed!"

Jason came up with this new nickname for Michael. Justin is still The Chaos Lord and Ryan is clearly The Imp. If it weren't for the fact that the boys are unaware of these nicknames we'd have to make superhero costumes for them :P

Simon vs. The Windows

To say Simon is loving having the windows open would be an understatement. While open there's a nice wide ledge that will accomodate Raja and Rascal, so there's plenty of room for Simon's skinny butt. But only while open, and Simon is learning this the hard way. Last night he made a flying leap to land, very catlike I might add, in the kitchen window. Well, he attempted the maneuver again this afternoon...except the window was closed, so he lost his balance and plopped into the trash can (nothin' but net!). It was funny as hell!!

In a completely unrelated event yesterday morning, Simon discovered what looked like a higher ledge on the front window (the middle part where the lock is). Before I knew it, while on the window sill he attempted to jump to said ledge and discovered there was no room, leaving himself literally hanging by his front paws!

Simon vs. The Bed

We got Michael a new bed. It's a really cool raised bed with a clubhouse underneath, a ladder, and a slide. The boys LOVE it. Simon made it a personal mission to find a way to get into the bed and finally figured it out! If he gets the right momentum, Simon found he can pad up the slide with only minimal claw action and then curls up quite happily on Michael's quilt. He uses the same principle to get down :)

Last night my chorus heard two things from our director that we've NEVER heard before: 1) that we had great faces and lots of movement, and 2) an apology for nitpicking, but there just isn't anything else to work on! As we prepare for Contest (still another 4 weeks away!) we've reached the point where we're looking for opportunities to earn more points, like smoother/more emotional delivery on certain phrases, as opposed to mostly technical stuff. Of course we still have issues with clean intervals and matching our vowels and such, but we've gotten so much better that we aren't spending entire rehearsals trying to fix them. It's a great feeling :)

The image that conjures up is silly enough that I just had to share. It came up in a conversation J and I were having this afternoon.

Me: "I ordered strawberry plants and Lucky Shamrocks for the garden."
J: "Why'd you get shamrocks? Now we'll have leprechauns, and you know what a mess they can make."
Me: "Yeah, but they can keep the bunnies from eating the strawberries."
J: "Oh no, they'll just ride the bunnies!"

Justin's guppy has apparently run away from home. One of his dwarf platys died last week, which isn't surprising given we've had these fish for over a year now. That left 1 dwarf platy, 1 fantail guppy, and 1 cory cat. Two days ago I went to feed Justin's fish and discovered the feeding lid was left open. Not the first time that's happened...not by a long shot. But a quick scan of the tank showed only 2 fish with the guppy missing. That was only noticeable because the guppy usually swims to the surface when it sees us, hoping for food. A thorough search tonight revealed that Justin truly has just 2 fish left in his little tank, with no body of the poor guppy to be found. I'm wondering if it either managed to jump out the top when it was left open (and thus became a kitty treat when it hit the floor), or if maybe Simon went fishing for his own kitty treat. Rascal leaves the tank alone, mainly because he's too old to try jumping on top of Justin's dresser. The thought of Raja hauling his 19lb self up to the tank is laughable (sorry, buddy). Simon, however, is young, nimble, and quite the imp when it comes to getting into things he's not supposed to when no one is around. The problem with the Simon theory is Justin's room is now Rascal Territory and Simon tends to respect that unless I'm with him.

Anyway, the poor dwarf platy that's left is fairly scared out of it's mind. It was always more shy than the other two fish, diving for cover whenever I peer into the tank, but eventually coming out for food. But now, alone, it hides all the time, and zips out of sight as I move around the tank trying to get a good look at it.

...but this one REALLY churns my stomach. Honestly, how tasteless can you get?

"NEW YORK – The Fox network is making a reality show out of the troubled economy.

An upcoming series titled, "Someone's Gotta Go," lets employees of a small business decide which one of their colleagues will be laid off.

Fox says it has no air date yet for the series, which is being developed by the company behind "Big Brother" and "Deal or No Deal." Each week, a different company lays off an employee."

Yesterday was Justin's 8th birthday and I think he had a blast. J and I took him, Ryan, and 4 friends to see "Monsters vs. Aliens" and it worked out really well! The movie was awesome, the kids were awesome, and no cleanup before or after was awesome! It was a good chunk of change to pull it off since we paid for the kids' snacks as well, but when it was all said and done I honestly think it was the same price as a party at home with all the decorations and games and food. Definitely something to keep in mind for future birthdays.