All this introspective navel-gazing is making my head hurt.

The other day I told someone I was going to be 33 this year. I was wrong. I'm going to be 34. That, in turn, made Jaws upset because *he* thought he was going to be 37 this year. He's not. He's going to be 38. As in, two years from the dreaded 4-0. Poor guy.

Our 15th anniversary is this year, too. Crazy. As in 15 years we've been making each other crazy as well as being crazy in love.

Today I realized that I am not cute. I have never been cute. I will never be cute. Classic? Sure. Comfortable? Yes. But cute? No. I won't be cute. My house won't be cute. Cute is beyond my reach. And another dream bites the dust. (Not really. Well, kind of. I mean, I wouldn't mind having a cute house. But that would probably mean worrying about having curtains and decent furniture instead of making sure I have adequate bookshelf space.) I think the best I can hope for is neat. That's not too bad, I guess.

I have to start thinking about dinner now. Jaws complained that there was never any FOOD for him last summer. This summer, I have really made an effort to make sure there is FOOD for him, as opposed to munchies the girls and I would be happy to live off of from June till August. Tonight we are having BIG SALADS. I have lots of fresh veggies, and there will also be bacon, cheese and croutons. Tasty. I am making dessert, too. Strawberries and blueberries mixed with Honey Greek yogurt topped with crunbled shortbread cookies.

It will all be tasty, but not cute.

I wish it was raining today so I could title this post "November Rain"

Sadly, that awesome title will have to wait for another (non sunny) day.

I think our Indian Summer might have finally left south Georgia this weekend. There were days last week when it was in the mid-90's with crazy high humidity. How insane is *that*?? It about killed me. Today the high is only 81, and the low tonight will be in the mid-50's. This weather is bearable, but I'd prefer some high in the low 70's, maybe high 60's?? Is that too much to ask, Mother Nature??

I don't like to brag, but the girls looked pretty awesome for Halloween this year. You don't believe me?









A friend of mine gave me some clothes her daughters had outgrown. When I saw these dresses (which I knew the girls would never really be able to wear anywhere else) I immediatly thought of Halloween.

Madeline decided to be a 'Snow Queen' and Isabella decided to be an 'Undead Beauty Queen'. She wanted me to attach knife to her dress so it would look like she had been stabbed, but I thought that might be going a little too far. James took the girls around while I stayed home and handed out candy with Gertrude.



We have enough leftover candy to feed a third world country. It's not that I bought too much, it's that we were light on Trick-or-Treaters this year. James' crew at work will appreciate some of the leftovers, I'm sure.

So it's on to November. Three weeks until Thanksgiving holidays. Oh crap, I just remembered we have to pay our car registration this month. Why is your birthday so close to the holidays Jaws, why??

Speaking of Jaws, we've been asked to team teach the CTR 7 class at church. HAH! Can you believe that?? These are the kiddos getting ready for baptism! We're responsibe for making sure they know what they are getting into. ;) Who thought it was a good idea to let us teach that class??

Also speaking of Jaws, he just walked in the door, so it's time to eat some dinner.

Q and Eh?

Hey man! What's up?

Hey yourself. Not much. Just livin' life, ya know?

No, that's not what I mean. What's up with you? Why aren't you blogging this summer? Did I do something to offend you?

Of course not! It's not you, it's me.

That's what they all say.
No, really. It *is* me. You know how it is in the summertime. The days are lazy and soothingly repetitive. How many time do you really want to read about my taking the girls to the pool and how dark my tan is getting?

Well...

And think about it- if you have to get up for a job/small child/weak bladder, do you really want to hear about how I regularly sleep in past 10:00 9:00 am while my children happily entertain themselves??

I guess you have a point.

Sure I do. My not blogging has been for *your* benefit, see?

That's really thoughtful of you.

I know. I'm a giver.

But honestly, I've missed you and your witty insight into the minutiae of everyday life!

Sorry about that. I've tried to make a conscientious effort not to be in front of the computer so much this summer. It's been hard, seeing as how most of my closest friends live in my computer, but it's been good for my mental health.

What? Your mental health? What do you mean??

Never mind.

The least you can do is throw me a bone here. Haven't you done ANYTHING blog-worthy in the past two months? What about the chickens and the playhouse? What's going on with Jaws and the girls?

Okay, okay. Jaws went to Scout Camp at the end of June. We missed him a lot. He took my camera and came back with pictures like this:











A few days after James got home from camp, the girlies and I took of to Florida for a few days. We visited some old high school friends of mine, went to the beach, did some back to school shopping in the "big city" and generally had a great time.

The chickens are doing great! We almost double the flock to 15 after getting 7 more chickens from my brother. They are all getting big, and we should start seeing some eggs in the next month or so.

James finished their coop and run before he left for camp.



















Impressive, no? The playhouse still needs a real roof, some insulation and electricity, and James still has to build out the storage area under the playhouse (not to mention the whole structure needs to be painted). But the girls are happy, the chickens are happy, and I'm pretty sure we've become the crazy family in the neighborhood, as at least five different people have stopped and asked what the heck we were doing back there.

Jaws is busy with work. Madeline is excited to start middle school next month. Bella is excited to start 5th grade. I'm excited to start my third year of teaching Pre-K (and my 8th year of teaching preschool altogether). I am not excited that we will have to get up before the crack of dawn again. But that's still three weeks away, and I'm not going to think about it yet.

Good for you.

I know, right? See how much better my mental health is??

Uhh...

Trust me. It is.

I'll take your word for it. So what else??

Nope! You're not going to catch me monologing! That's enough news for now. If you want to know what I'm reading, check my Goodreads box on the side of my blog. For more day to day action, you'll find me on Facebook. If you really, really want me to post something (or something in particular) feel free to leave a blog comment. Now, I think I hear the UPS man delivering my latest order of books from Amazon, so adios amigos!

A Tree Fort in Our Yard (minus the tree)

If I had a million dollars
I'd build a tree fort in our yard
If I had million dollars
You could help, it wouldn't be that hard
If I had million dollars
Maybe we could put like a little tiny fridge in there somewhere
You know, we could just go up there and hang out
Like open the fridge and stuff
There would already be laid out foods for us
Like little pre-wrapped sausages and things

- Barenaked Ladies

Well, we certainly didn't have a million dollars, but we a lot of free wood, a friend who lent us a nail gun, and a man with a big immagination who would do just about to make his girlies happy.

The free wood had lots of nails in it that had to be removed before it could be used. Each piece of wood had at least 12 nails in it. James pulled them all out by hand.


The Bucket 'O Nails, at least two inches deep


Putting down the flooring while sitting on the flooring takes lots of talent!


Don't try this at home, kids!


Me, wondering how all of our projects get so out of control


Look! Progress!


James saying "Worship my mad building skillz!"


Look at that!! A real playhouse! And the beginnings of a chicked coop and run!


James, Isabella and 3rd daughter Katie on the balcony


The temporary roof- our old trampoline! It's not waterproof, but it makes great shade and it was FREE!


The girls decided they were going to spend the night in the clubhouse.


They got eaten alive by mosquitos, but they stayed out all night! Can you believe it?


Obviously, the playhouse isn't quite done yet. But it's playable, and that's all that matters! Work now turns towards the chicken coop, because the baby chicks are starting to look like real chickens.



(This picture was actually taken a week ago, and they are even bigger now!)

What a cross between Stonehenge and the Taj Mahal would look like if it were being built in So. GA

For about two years now, we've had a plan to build a playhouse for the girls. A playhouse complete with electricity (and therefore A/C) that could also double as storage, and just maybe a guest house for when people come to visit. Our neighbors heard about the plan and laughed. The next day we came home and found three chairs on the front porch with a note saying the chairs were a "contribution to the girls' first apartment".

These playhouse plans were also part of the motivation for James to bring home all that wood last spring. He built the compost bin last spring, and the pile of wood had been sitting ever since. In James' defense, he's a busy man. But with the addition of the chicks (and the return of longer days) James has been working hard in the back yard.

Which brings me to last week....

James' plan for the permanent chicken coop involved a long yard and a coop with nesting boxes, tall enough for us to walk inside without having to bend over. We planned things out together, spray painting marks on the ground where poles would stand and things would go. I left him to his work. James had been outside digging holes for poles for about two hours when he called me out back, saying he had an idea. This is what I saw.



His idea was to build a small "treehouse" on top of the coop for the girls to give them a place to play until the "real" playhouse was built. In our minds we were thinking of the treehouse my Granddaddy had built over at the compound.



You can see it in the above picture. Something simple. Something easy.

*cue ominous music*

The girls loved the idea, of course, so James go to work going through the piles of wood to see what he would need to use. About this point I suggested that it might be nice if the playhouse was just a little bit bigger than the coop, making a balcony up top, and a covered place underneath where the girls could park their bikes and scooters. James thought this was a fabulous idea and adjested his plans accordingly.

I'm not sure what happened next. The next time I went outside things were...bigger than I had imagined.



See those cross boards? Those are the supports for the playroom floor. Let me show you from a different angle.



James is over 6 feet tall. The floor will be 8 feet in the air. The playhouse itself will be almost 6 feet tall with a pitched roof. To say that this thing will tower in the air would be an understatement.

Then I got to looking closely. All of the posts seemed kind of far apart. James then explained to me that the dimensions had changed a bit to make it easier to work with the wood we already had.



All told, from one end to the other, starting with the entrance to the chicken yard to the end of the balcony this structure will be 38 feet long. The playhouse floor itself (8 feet off the ground, remember) is 8 1/2 by 14 1/2 feet. For the record, this is almost as big as our bedroom. It started out 5ft by 8ft. The plans now included enclosing the area underneath the playhouse and building shelves/cabinets for even more storage.

Please tell me why we can never, ever stick to a simple plan.

TO BE CONTINUED, AGAIN

Chickie Baby

Waaaaaaaaaay back in 2003, when we were still living on the Compound in Tifton, James asked me what I wanted for a Valentine's Day present. I told him "chickens". So he agreed to build a chicken coop in preparation for little, tiny baby chicks that would be available that spring. He drew up the plans and got as far as getting some 4x4s in place that would be the corners of the coop.

The Valentine's present turned into a Mother's Day present, which then turned into a birthday present, then James started schoool and before we knew it it was May 2005 and we were moving to Albany for his new job and I had never, ever got my chickens.

Last spring, James brought home a bunch of wood and made me a compost bin out of some wood he brought home from the base. I alluded to our next project in that post, and finally SEVEN YEARS after his initial promise, WE HAVE CHICKENS.

My brother David ordered 60 chickens from a mail order company, and they arrived the week of the family reunion. Dave set aside 10 chicks for us, and James (after checking out and reading every book on raising chickens from the library that he could get his hands on) set about building a Biddy Box that we figured they'd stay in for at least a month.

James built the box and set it up on some sawhorses over our garden box (which I had never got around to planting anything in this year, although the rosemary and thyme I planted *last* year are still thriving!)


The idea was that each day when we cleaned out thebox, we'd let the chicks run around in the garden.






I don't know if it's our tender loving care or what, but these chicks are SUPER CHICKS. Less than two weeks after the reunion we had to upgrade their "area" because they are getting HUGE!

James decided to mount the biddy box on the end of the (now) enclosed garden bed, giving the chicks a run. I think it's pretty smart myself.






So for the time being, the chicks have plenty of room, and they are happy and thriving. We still have 8 chicks (we lost two of them to a neighborhood cat who found away into the pen. James has sworn to have his revenge. Our ultimate plan has always been to build a bigger, permanent coop in the back of the yard, with laying boxes and plenty of room.

With it being the Memorial Day weekend and having time off of work, James decided to get to work building the permanent coop last Saturday. He had been outside for about two hours when he came into the house and uttered these immortal words....

"Hey, come see this. I have an idea...."

TO BE CONTINUED

What up, peeps?

1. Sometimes I worry because my vocabulary of slang is hopelessly stuck in 1995. I still use phrases like "You're da bomb!" and "As if!", I use the word 'random' far too often and I've been known to throw up the 'whatever' and 'loser' signs on a regular basis. And frankly, my usual term of endearment for the DH is "Dude" instead of "Sweetcakes" or "Honeybuckets" or "Knuzzlebunny'- whatever the cool kids are using these days.

2. Is it wrong the be thinking about what I'd like my grandchildren to call me before my own children have even hit puberty? And do I care if it is? Answer: no. I think about this far too often. Maybe it's hearing all of the grandparents names around preschool. In my class this year, we have grandparents called Dut and Bones (who are seriously hilarious people), Da and Moose, Pops and Lindy, Char Char, Gamma and Bookie and my personal favorites, Grumps and Begs. In the past I've had a Bets, Sugar, Sweet, Ya Ya, Papou and of course the more run-of-the-mill Grandmom, Granddad/pa and Granny.

James had already decided that, like David Ortiz, he wants to be called 'Papi'. I like it. I think it suits him. Me, I'm leaning toward having the little nippers call me Jennifer. Because I think it would be funny. Or maybe Gram or Grammy. Or maybe Deliliah, just because.

3. Speaking of family, about 20 members showed up over here last Saturday so we could descend en masse on a performance of OZ. We didn't get to all sit together. (Which, if you know my family is probably a good thing. Just ask the people who have the misfortune to be sitting in the hospital waiting room with us when a member of the family is in said hospital. Or sitting by us at a restaurant. Or a funeral.)

It was the first time James and I watched to play all the way through, and we were incredibly impressed and proud. The girls have handled the pressure and stress with a maturity we certainly don't posess!We have three more performances to go, and then we are DONE.

Pictures!

First costumes- Bella as a munchkin and Madeline as part of the Tin Man's "pit crew"


After the show in their Emerald City Citizen costumes






In addition to other things, James built Dorothy's house


and the Munchkinland Village!