That Book Was Accidentally Destroyed Maliciously...

In an impulse of self-pity, I decided if I can't adopt certain children, then I should foster kittens. I signed up with the Humane Society for more information, and after several emails, several forms and several weeks, I got a phone to come pick up my first litter! 

These five baby kitties don't have a mother and aren't old enough to be adopted. Thus, for the next five weeks, I am their mother. I get to bottle feed them, teach them how to eat  dry food, clean them (after every meal. They are so messy!) and love them. 

They are SO CUTE. We have spots, stripes, solids, and the twins. 

Kittens in books and on the internet are cute, but kittens in person are SO ADORABLE! I love them. And as soon as they are too old to be adorable, I can trade them in for new kittens! 

Did You Hear the Helicopter Dropping Me Off That Night for Our Anniversary Dinner? No. Oh, Percussion Grenades. I was Partially Deaf That Evening

Ideally, celebrating our wedding anniversary would be as big and daring as getting married. I want us to do things we've never done before! I want to get our adrenaline pumping! I want to watch the sunrise from a hot air balloon, hundreds of miles in the air. I want to ride tall and fast roller coasters or go hang gliding over a cliff. One year Drek and I went horseback riding up in the mountains, and that was wonderful. Two years ago I had scheduled us to go skydiving, but by the time our anniversary rolled around I was pregnant so we had to cancel. Last year we had something grand planned, but Drek was on a business trip on our anniversary and by the time he got back we had to move so we settled on a nice hike. 

This year Drek and I talked about doing all those things. We finally decided to go snorkeling; something neither of us has done before. To facilitate this, Drek and I got each other an inflatable Kayak as an anniversary present. Well, in the tradition of our anniversary plans, the snorkeling didn't work out, but we still had a kayak! 

We took it out on the ocean for the first time yesterday. It was perfect beach weather. It was warm, the ocean was clear and for the first time since we moved here, the water was warm! 

The only drawback was that the ocean wasn't exactly welcoming kayaks. The waves were huge and seemingly endless. It wasn't a matter of getting over the waves and into flat ocean, there was always one more wave to get over, each one bigger than the last!

Due to a miscommunication about when were actually taking the kayak out onto the ocean, Drek and I left our lifejackets back on the beach and I was still wearing a dress over my swimsuit. We had a limited amount of time, so we decided to go out anyway and I slipped off my dress and dropped it in the bottom of the kayak.

We headed out into the waves. The thrill of a huge wave crashing toward you, trying to head into it as straight as possible and then falling down the other side; it was so much fun! We got out pretty far before Drek said he didn't feel comfortable going farther without our lifejackets. Right after a wave hit we turned the kayak around as fast as we could. The first wave hit and we rode it a little ways towards the shore. And then the second wave hit: It threw the back of the kayak over the front of the kayak and Drek and I tumbled out into the deep blue ocean. I dropped the paddle I was holding and swam for the surface. As soon as I came up I saw Drek, still holding faithfully to his paddle.  The kayak was flipped over and the waves were taking it back to shore for us. I tread water for a few seconds before realizing Drek was standing up and the water was only came up to my shoulders. We laughed and retrieved my paddle. We tried to body surf on the waves but mostly ended up going under most of them. We made it back to shore and the only casualty was my dress, which I'm sure has been picked up by a dolphin by now.

We had a blast. I can't wait to take it out again! It's not as dangerous as skydiving, but it still got our adrenaline pumping! And now that we have a kayak I'm sure we'll be able to go snorkeling sometime soon.

Good Morning? You're Bellatrix Lestrange, Not Some Dewey-Eyed Schoolgirl!

Yes, I am one of those nerds who goes to midnight premieres or movies and book releases dressed as a character. I've done it several times, not just for Harry Potter, but for Lord of the Rings, X-men... It goes great with my personal motto: Any excuse to throw a party. 

And what a party it will be. I have a ticket to the 12:01 am showing of the last Harry Potter movie. I'm going dressed up as Bellatrix, I'm going with Moaning Myrtle and Tonks. 

In the last two weeks I've watched all the Harry Potter movies except the last one, which will watch in line tonight. 

I'm very, very excited. 

Ash isn't going, but she did wear this shirt today: 

It was made my my super-artistic friend. Not only do I love the shirt, but it's good to know that there are people out there just as excited as I am.

The Pressure is Three Tons Per Square Inch, Enough to Crush Us Like a Freight Train Going Over an Ant If Our Hull Fails. These windows are Nine Inches Thick and If They Go, It's Sayonara in Two Microseconds

For Christmas last year, in an effort to give more "time" and less "stuff", I gave Drek a Groupon to go on a scuba diving adventure for two! 

I will spare you the details of the horrible company giving the scuba tours, the nightmare of scheduling, the lies the owner told and the overall problems and skip right to the good part: 

Saturday Drek and I left Ash with a babysitter and drove down to the bay. Thanks to no traffic, we arrived an hour early and spent it hanging out, just the two of us. It was wonderful. 

Right on time our instructor arrived with all the equipment. We suited up (scuba diving wet suits are thick. Thick wet suits are very HOT!) learned a bit about the gear, and then wore the gear. Here is a fun fact for you: Those oxygen tanks are not light. They are heavy. VERY heavy. We then walked across the park, across the beach, and finally, into the water. That was just about the hardest walk of my life. I do not think I am built for backpacking trips. 

We got in the water and swam around a bit. The instructor took us down one by one to give us our safety test (water in mask, air running out, loosing your air hose). Drek passed in one minute flat. And then it was my turn. Before we went down I had her explain how to surface one more time. I don't know why, but I have an irrational fear of submarines. I really can't stand stories about the bends or lungs exploding because a diver surfaced too fast. Things like that really freak me out of some odd reason. I've always wanted to go scuba diving, but at the same time, I was very nervous I wouldn't be able to handle it. But the instructor was very nice, explained it one more time and said "just don't go faster than your air bubbles." And then we dove. 

As soon as we started diving my ears decided they didn't like it. I panicked. I motioned to go back up and then promptly forgot how to go back up. I inflated my air vest to surface (a huge no-no) and shot to the top. Since we were only ten feet under, the air in the vest didn't really matter that much, but I had the instructor walk me through surfacing one more time so I wouldn't do it again. I also explained the problem with my ears. She said some people are affected more than others, but I might just have to get used to it. She showed me a trick she thought might help, and then we went down again. We dove to about twenty five feet. 

Ow. Just ow. Sure it was cool that I was underwater, and even cooler that I was breathing underwater, but my ear was EXPLODING. Even underwater, that is not pleasant. But I tried her trick and it did make it hurt less so I tried to ignore it as I did the tests. I did fine and she signaled to go back up. We started swimming toward the surface, but I was terrified of going too fast and kept stopping to watch my air bubbles and push all the air our of my lungs. When I finally surfaced she commented "Did you get lost on your way up?" Which made me realize that I was being a bit ridiculous. We were not deep sea diving. I could swim faster than I have ever swam and still be fine. With that fear abated, we went and got the rest of the group to go on an adventure! 

We were in a cove that wasn't very deep, the deepest we went was for the tests. I think after that we were only ten to twenty feet down. The bottom was all silt and visibility wasn't that great, but were there more for the experience rather than the sights. Even so, it was pretty cool. We saw giant bright orange fish, silver purple fish, teeny tiny shining fish and even a few black spotted fish. Drek saw a sting ray. That is so cool. 

But the best thing for me was that I was breathing underwater. I loved it. I wish I would have stopped swimming for a bit and just floated there for a while, just to take it in, but I was too excited and didn't want to miss seeing anything. I was SCUBA DIVING! It was awesome. 

An hour later we climbed out. I was freezing, but the weather was perfect and as soon as I took of the wet suit the sun warmed me right up. For the next two days my ears kept popping and every so often they would scream with shooting pain, but I think I'm passed that now. I want to go again. I want to go in a coral reef or some place with crystal clear water. I want to go where the water is warmer and the dive is a bit deeper. Although, in all honesty, I was grateful for the shallow dive for my ears' sake. Also, I'm still a bit nervous about my lungs exploding. 

I hope Drek had a good time. Merry Christmas, Drek! 

Dear Diary: Today I was Pompous and My Sister was Crazy. Today we were Kidnapped by Hill Folk, Never to be Seen Again. It was the Best Day Ever

I love our new house. We live down a dirt road, we own chickens, and we have three awesome neighbors. We have such awesome neighbors that just assumed everyone around here is awesome. We have a neighbor to the left, an neighbor to the right, a neighbor behind our backyard, and I thought that was it. I thought wrong.

Yesterday I walked down our dirt road to take our trash cans to the curb. An older gentleman was walking toward us. He carried four grocery bags. When he saw me he called out "Do you own a gray cat?"
"No", I answered. "We only have chickens."
"Is that scrawny red one yours? That keeps coming into my yard, too. She lays eggs in my yard all the time."
"Kate?! Kate lays eggs in your yard? She's not mine, but she wanders into my backyard all the time. I've been trying to get to her to lay an egg in a nesting box I made for her. Where do you live?"
"Right here." He pointed to the end of the dirt road. I was surprised: Not only did I not know we had a neighbor I hadn't met, but I had no idea there was a house back there. He introduced himself and I introduced me and my little one. As it turns out, he was just returning home from walking to the grocery store (one point four miles away). Naturally thinking he was another one of our awesome neighbors, and curious about this hidden house of his,  I offered to help carry his groceries. He declined, but asked if we wanted plums. He said he had a plum tree that needed harvesting. I jumped at the chance and he led us down the dirt road, behind our neighbor's house, where the road dead ends at a padlocked fence. He undid the padlock and led us into his lot, all the while explaining that his father built this house and he moved here after his father died, about twenty years ago.

It was at this point; as we walked across the dirt lot toward a small, hand built, serial-killer-looking homestead, and passed several rusting, broken down, serial-killer-looking sheds, that I realized the dusty, sun-baked lot was bordered by huge green trees. There was no grass, no flowers, no car. The house and sheds were so broken down, that even if they were spotted them through the trees, they could easily be mistaken for abandoned. No wonder I didn't know this house existed. A part of the lot shared a fence with my own backyard and yet, I never thought anything was back here.

"I'll just go inside and grab you a bag," he said. "The plum tree is over there, next to the almond tree."

"K la," I said to myself. "This may be the most dangerous situation you have ever gotten yourself into. Definitely not your smartest move." I looked back across the barren lot, wondering how fast I could run with a baby on my hip if things turned bad. I held my breath and listened for calls for help, screaming, or scratching coming from the abandoned sheds.  I confirmed there was, in fact, a plum tree with lots of ripe plums needing to be picked, but that didn't mean this guy wasn't planning on locking me and my baby in one of  his sheds for the next twenty years. If I didn't know he lived back here, did anyone else? How would anyone possibly find us? And then I thought that perhaps I should have read the book Room. A book like that would come in handy if I found myself locked in a shed for twenty years. I resolved to move it to the top of my "to-read" list if I got out of this mess. Just in case.

I nervously looked back toward the house, waiting for him to come back out with a bag. Was this guy dangerous? Was I overreacting? Kate came over here all the time to lay her eggs and if she felt safe, how bad could he be? But she is, after all, just a chicken, and chickens aren't known for their brilliance. I wondered if I should just leave, and then tried to balance being polite with being safe. I decided to stay: He was really old. I could totally take him as long as he didn't have a weapon.

He came out with a bag, handed it to me and thanked me for taking the plums off his hands. He said he needed to put his groceries away so he went back into the house. I picked plums until the bag was full, at which time he wandered back outside. I thanked him profusely and said I would make him some plum bars. He said he'd follow me out to lock the gate behind me.

And that was that. I went home with my little one and enjoyed the most delicious plums I have ever tasted. And now we have four awesome neighbors. I wonder if there are any more hiding around here.

President Eisenhower Celebrates 40th Wedding Anniversary. Not Pictured: Mrs. Eisenhower

Happy Anniversary to us! Drek and I were married four years ago today. I love my husband. He is the best guy ever. I have loved every minute I have been married to him.

To celebrate, I decided to clean out my purse a bit: we had gift cards to Bed Bath and Beyond, given to us four years ago as a wedding present, that we had yet to spend. After our wedding Drek and I only had a tiny apartment and we knew we would be moving several times before we finally settled into a house. We didn't want to spend our gift cards on fixing up a transitional apartment, so we saved them up. Well, here we are, four years later, in a house that needs some decorations!

I got new sheets for our bed, new pillows, and a new bed spread. I'm quite delighted that everything we wanted was on clearance and our bedroom now looks so modern! So thanks, everyone whose gift cards we used!

Maybe next year I'll get around to using the Victoria Secret gift cards I got at my bridal shower...

There You Go, Thinking You're All That, But You are Not as Charming as You Think You are, Sir. Yes, I Am.

Ah, the Fourth of July. A Day when we celebrate this great country and the great heroes it has seen. How do we celebrate? With exploding fire.

We had a wonderful barbecue at a friend's house and drove home just after sundown to but the baby to bed. Five minutes from home, a beautiful display of fireworks went off in perfect view. Drek pulled the car over and we watched the celebration. It was beautiful.

At the conclusion of the finale we started the car and pulled back onto the main road. Suddenly we were surrounded by hundreds of pedestrians and lots and lots of cars. Instant traffic jam! We quickly jumped into the left had turn lane, deciding it was the quickest way out of the mess.

From the moment we got into the turn lane all traffic stopped moving. Not even the lanes going straight moved, but the baffling part was that the left turn lane wasn't moving. There were breaks in oncoming traffic, there were breaks in the masses of pedestrians crossing the street, but the car in the front of line did not even attempt to turn.

We waited. And waited. And theorized on why we weren't moving. Did the car break down? Was he dead drunk? Could he not see in the dark? Did he think now was a good time to take a nap?

We discussed one of us jumping out and directing traffic. I decided that while I was impatient enough, I was not brave enough. Other cars in line honked their horn, trying to get the front car to move. We honked our horn. Still, the front car didn't budge. At last I opened the door and jumped out. I had a much better view of the car at the front of the line, but I didn't want to leave my car, I just reported back to Drek.

"Go tell the car in front to move." Drek told me. But again, I wasn't brave enough.

A guy walk passed me. "I'll go see what's up." He informed me. He walked up to the front window of the car and talked for less than ten seconds. He then jumped into the middle of the road and directed traffic. He got our whole turn lane out of there in less than thirty seconds.

That guy is my American Hero.

I Was Taking a Walk With Scott and Steve, and I Was Like, Dude, Who are Scott and Steve?

Meet the girls:

She's got a bit more white feathers, making her blond. She is the hardest one to catch: very fast, good at hiding and quite smart. She seems to be a bit of a loner, uncomfortable with the rest of them. She's the only hen I have to pick up to put back in the coop at night.

 Her name is Juliette. 

She's got a white tail feather. She is very quiet and loves to sneak around behind backs. I think she is very conniving.

Her name is Sun

She's a redhead. She's loud, the last one to do everything and I don't really like her all that much.

 Her name is Charlotte. 

She is the adventurer. She was the first in the coop, the first to explore, and the first out of the house in the morning. She bosses the other ones around and does not take orders from anyone.

Her name is Anna Lucia. 

What? Firefly doesn't have enough females.

Remember, You are the Dreamer, You Build This World

How to build a Frankencoop: 

Step 1: Find a structure resembling a deep bookcase by the side of the road with a "free" sign attached. Take it home. 

Step 2: Find cabinet doors and hinges by the side of the road with a "free" sign attached. Take them home. 

Step 3: Find a discarded wooden pallet next to dumpster. Take it  home. 

Step 4: Find free chicken wire. Staple chicken wire to the bookcase to make the floor. 

Step 5: Attach cabinet doors with the hinges. Attach laminate left over from previous floor project. 

Step 6: Set up chicken yard by using a dog kennel the previous owners left in your backyard.

Step 7: Set up coop around the kennel by making legs out of wooden pallet. Make sure the whole thing is secure with chicken wire, lattice, cinderblocks and bricks, or whatever else you happen to have lying around. 

Step 8: Make nesting boxes out of 5 gallon buckets, padding and fresh cut grass.

Step 9: Add ramp: 

Step 10: Add chickens: 

What About Dinner? Kronk, This is Kind of Important. How About Dessert? Well, I Suppose There's Time For Dessert

I love dessert. I love eating them, I love making them. Life is much better with dessert.

For Father's Day, I wanted to make Drek Cherry Cream Crepes, but cherry pie filling is expensive and packed with red dye 40 and High Fructose Corn Syrup. So I took a deep breath and plunged into the unknown: Homemade cherry pie filling.

Oh, it is awesome. It is both simple and delicious. It has fresh cherries, corn starch and lemon juice. I used Xylitol instead of sugar. The texture was perfect, the taste was yummy.

The crepes were also delicious:

But that was only lunch. After dinner, we needed dessert! We had my good friend Bonnie and her son over for Dinner. We were celebrating. Jordi's birthday. He is sixteen. SIXTEEN!! I was taking care of that kid when he was five. I remember is cute little round face, his love for everything Thomas the Tank Engine, his silly laugh and his endless question.

But now he is sixteen, driving, and is old enough to request dessert. He didn't really want cake. He likes tropical fruits like Mangoes and he likes pudding. So I created a two mango-strawberry-coconut trifle.

It was a masterful creation. Most delicious. I made vanilla cake from scratch for the cake part. As soon as I finished it occurred to me that coconut cake would have been a better choice. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to make dessert again tonight...

Time for Some Thrilling Heroics

When I was seventeen I worked as a lifeguard at at water park. One day this little boy (I'm going to guess around ten years old) went off the rope swing, got scared, clung to the rope, and thenlet go of the rope at the exact wrong moment. He hit his face on the cement and then fell back in the water. I jumped in and with my year of experience, pulled off an underwater spinal save. That part was fine. The scary part was coming to the surface and seeing that the kid's whole face was covered in deep, dark, gushing blood. The blood was all over him, in the water, and just kept gushing. When he coughed, the blood oozed out of his mouth.

The water park's EMTs pulled the kid out of the water, rushed him away, and I was given a nod of approval. Later I was told the kid was just fine; it was only a mouth injury.

I think of that as my big calamity situation; as gruesome, but with a happy ending. Up until today, that was my crisis situation: I may have been scared, but I handled it with composure, calm, and correct action.

Until today, when my little toddler fell off a swing and landed on her face. I picked her up and to my horror, saw that blood was already gushing out of her mouth and down onto her shirt. I knew in an instant it was a mouth wound, that it would bleed a lot but be just fine, that there was no risk of a spinal injury and certainly no risk of drowning. I didn't need to jump in and save her, simply calm her down and eventually clean her up, but I was terrified. This wasn't some random ten year old, this was my child, my baby. I have never been more scared in my whole life. I have never felt more guilty. I have never felt more helpless.

Outwardly, I calmly picked her up and carried her to my friend's house. I waited for the bleeding to stop then cleaned her up examined the wound. I took her home and rocked to sleep before I called her pediatrician who confirmed what I already knew: I had done the right things and there was no reason to bring her in because they couldn't do anything for mouth injuries.

And now she has a swollen a lip and a bruised face. It looks awful, but she seems ok. I hope she will recover quickly and forget the whole experience. I hope I am the only one traumatized by this experience.

Listen. We'll Either Die Free Chickens or We Die Trying. Are Those the Only Choices?

Drek and I are building a chicken coup. I'm very excited. We should have chickens by the end of the month. 

We already have one chicken...sort of. She runs around from one backyard to the next. No one owns her. She's free and doesn't really have a place to call home. I named her Kate. 

A few days ago I discovered Kate had laid two eggs in random places in our yard! Delighted, I decided to make a nesting box for her so she could have a proper place to lay her eggs (and so I could collect those eggs). I also got her some water and some food: 

Voila. A chicken trap. Except I'm not really trying to trap her, I'm just hoping to get some eggs out of her. I'm also hoping that she'll join our little coup as soon as we have one. Maybe she'll be able to call it home.

I'm a Damsel, I'm in Distress, I Can Handle This. Have A Nice Day

Drek is away on a business trip. He come home today. I'm so glad. I do not like it when we are apart. I find I need him more and more. He is so wonderful. 

On the day he left, after he was gone I climbed into the shower to see this on the wall: 

Awwww. Best husband ever.

Also on the day he left  I came out to the kitchen to find a GIANT spider on the floor. GIANT. I freaked out and dropped a plastic cup over it. And then I froze. I decided to just leave it there until Drek came home:

But two days later I realized I was avoiding the kitchen and developing an unhealthy fear of red plastic cups. So I took Charity's advice and used a long vacuum attachment to suck up the spider out from under the cup. It worked great. That is, until I kept vacuuming and accidentally sucked up a small thumb drive. I can't just get it out of the vacuum because there is also a spider in there. So that will just have to wait for Drek.

See how much I need him?

This Will Be a Day Long Remembered

Welcome to another edition of "K La's crafts: What NOT to do "

I am not a crafty person. I really don't know why I am so craft-challenged. Perhaps it is my short attention spa...hey look, Darth Vader at Disneyland!

What was I blogging about? Oh yeah:

A while ago we bough a little Radio Flyer tricycle from a yard sale for two dollars. It looked old and rusted, but in surprisingly good shape. I discovered later that what looked like rust, was actually gold spray paint. I guess someone didn't move the trike out of the way when undergoing a craft project of their own.

I wanted to make it look a bit nicer. So I decided to take on a craft.

Step One: Tape it up. This is always a must for me because I am so messy with spray paint. It gets on me, it gets on the grass, it gets on a passing squirrel, it finds its way into the smallest crack in my tape job:

Step Two: Spray Paint. I went to the hardware store in search of spray paint that would both stop rust, and make the trike shiny and new-looking. I found spray paint that promised to do just that. Alas, the colors were limited so I picked silver. Because silver and chrome are the same color, right? 

Tip: Silver and chrome are not the same color. 

Step Three: Remove tape. It turned out ok. Silver spray paint managed to work it's way onto some red areas, and it looks more retro than shiny, but I do think it's an improvement.

I Will Give You One Hundred Pounds to Save This Man's Life. Madame, I Would Pay One Hundred Pounds Just to See Him Hang.

Community Yard Sales have become my new favorite thing. And it just so happens that they are pretty popular here in Sun Land. Hooray for me!

Why do I like them so much? It's just more fun to buy things at yard sales. Part of it is that buying things other people don't want anymore is a form of recycling, so I'm saving the planet, some of it is that everything is so inexpensive, so I don't feel so guilty about spending money, but I think a lot of it is the treasure hunt and the social interaction. I also find the money aspect so interesting. If you charge too much, people don't even try to bargain. If you charge too little, people think the item is worthless.

In a way,  I think people at yard sales are only pretending to ask for money; they don't want the item anymore, to them, it is junk. If you don't buy it, they will throw it away. But if they don't ask put a high enough price on the item, no one will value it enough to take it home.

Yesterday I went to a community yard sale and found the treasure of a brand-new still-in-package boogie board. The sign said twenty-five dollars. I offered ten to the middle-aged women drinking iced-tea in the shade of a giant umbrella." At that point, she knew I wanted it, and I found out later she was desperate to get rid of it (so she wouldn't have to ship such an awkward item to her son). But she had to ask for something. She countered with twenty, I offered twelve. She agreed, but then didn't have enough change. We both shrugged; I didn't care if it cost me one dollar more, and she didn't care if she earned a dollar less. so I ended up paying thirteen and we were both happy.

I was not alone in my treasure hunt. My good friend, Jen, went with me. We finished up and decided to stop at one last sale. As I was still climbing out of the car I heard Jen shriek and rush across the driveway  toward a very old and very small box. Apparently it was an old game that Jen played with her Grandma. The game was no longer made and Jen had been looking for it for several years. She recognized it immediately from all the way across the yard. The women selling the game was delighted she had helped out and was even more delighted to make a dollar and get rid of some clutter. See? Everyone wins! Maybe that's why I like yard sales: Happy endings all around.

If this Keeps Up his Hand is Literally Dead Meat. His Hand is Connected to His Arm; His Arm is Connected to... I'm Not Sure, But I Bet It's Important

I'm a huge in believer in people taking charge of their own health care. I think people should memorize what prescriptions they have taken and should know everything about what they are currently taking. I think people should have their own copies of their own medical records. Sure, doctors are smart and educated, but they aren't magic. I think we need to help doctors to help us.

I think I should take my own advice.

Four years ago I went to a doctor to get some issues worked out. She gave me a cream.

Now, four years later,  I am in a situation where I think that cream would help. I know my body well enough to know that it helped last time, that this is a very similar situation, so I wanted to use that same cream again. And yet, I didn't remember the name.

I googled it, but I couldn't find the name or the brand, only the type of cream. Still, I got some good, very general information: I need a prescription.

I hoped my last doctor could just re-write the prescription, even though I am in a different state now, and it has been four years. This doctor had moved offices in the last four years, so she didn't have my medical records and, sadly, Neither did I, but I held out hope that she would remember me.

I called up that doctor's office and spoke to the receptionist, who has his own God complex. After three phone calls over a one week period, I finally realized there was no way he was going to let speak with this doctor unless I agreed that it was a phone consultation and paid $120.

I asked my child's pediatrician if he would write a prescription for me, he said no, but gave me a phone number for another doctor who might. She wouldn't give me a prescription either, unless I did lab tests.

 I finally asked my insurance for a local doctor who could help. They found me one and I made an appointment with a local doctor for a check-up. After a mountain of new-patient paperwork, and a  check-up, I asked for a prescription for the cream. Although she was very willing to write one for me, she didn't know what I was talking about. I tried to describe it to her, but even after a phone call to the pharmacy we still didn't know the name of what I wanted. If I didn't know what I wanted, how was she supposed to know?

Defeated, I went home. I tried calling my old doctor again, but the office isn't open on Friday. On a whim, I decided to use Google Images to see if I could recognize a picture.

It worked! I did recognize it!

It's over-the counter. It costs $15 on Amazon.

And I am an idiot. Well, lesson learned. I hope.

Humans Would Put Seeds in the Ground, Pour Water on Them, and They Grow Food - Like, Pizza!

Remember back in April when I planted a tomato plant in a global bucket? This was then: 

This is now: 

This gardening thing really works, people.

If you buy plain Spagnum Peat Moss and a bag of Perlite instead of the fancy pre-mixed stuff, it's much, much less expensive. We got it down to less than three dollars per global bucket.

After a few weeks of seeing our tomato plant grow, we decided to plant a few more buckets. And then a few more. And then a few more. I planted two more yellow squash plants today. Currently, we have ten global buckets, one tomato plant in a normal bucket full of backyard dirt (which is doing well) and one small normal bucket full of special dirt and herb seeds. We also have a garden that we actually planted in the ground in our backyard. Crazy, I know, but we are forward thinkers in this household.

We have Cauliflower in a Global Bucket:

and potatoes in the ground. The potatoes are doing amazingly well. I am thrilled for our potatoes.

 Our cucumber plant is also doing well in the ground. I am excited for it to grow a cucumber because I recently discovered that cucumbers can be called "cukes" and I would like to try this out.

Our row of onions:

Baby tomatoes that will one day grow into a my tomato basil soup.

Toddler tomatoes growing on our tomato plant-in-a-normal-bucket.

We also planted an avocado tree (not in a bucket) and will plant a few more trees in a few more days. I'm hoping to get some raspberry bushes in this year, but we'll see. It's a work in progress. 

Uh Oh. Two Independent Thought Alarms in One Day. The Students are Overstimulated. Willie! Remove All the Colored Chalk From the Classrooms

The first time I walked through this house I found a small mystery in the laundry room.  Besides the scary carpet, broken desk, the hole in the ceiling and the trash that had been left behind, part of the wall had been boarded up. Looking behind the boards we found exposed pipes for a washing machine. Why had they covered this up? Was the piping illegal? Were they afraid it would explode? Was it a secret door to another dimension? Some questions never got answers. 

After a bad paint job, where they painted around the boards before they removed the boards, we finally took possession of the house and moved in. This was in the laundry room: 

I took that board, turned it upside down, removed the rusty nails and drug it outside: 

I washed it off and then painted it with a base coat:

And then I painted one side with chalkboard paint:

After fixing up the laundry room, I moved the board back in: 

and added some chalk! 

Ash loves it! She spent ten whole minutes today enthralled in her art. It was an easy project for me, and since the base paint (half a can found in the back of our new garage), chalkboard paint (Mandy let me use her leftovers), and chalk (after my last post I had two people give me their unwanted chalk!)  was all free, this project only took time, not money. Plus the scary board got transformed into something useful instead of ending up in a landfill! Those are the best kind of projects.

Daddy Says It's Only For Emergencies. This is Definitely an Emergency

It's May 23! Thus ends my self-imposed non-consumer store/shopping ban.

Last month I decided to celebrate Earth Day by saying that for one month, I could not buy anything new (besides food) from a store. The point was to take a stand against our out of control spending culture, help the earth, save money, and really try to value the things I buy. If I don't value it, if I don't NEED it, then don't buy it!

So here is my report:

What I didn't buy: 
A clothesline. I needed one right away. Instead, I did this. It was awesome. It was a good choice. Happy feelings, everyone!

A couch. We don't have one. We need one. We have abundant space for one. I can justify buying a couch. I will value a couch. Alas, I couldn't buy one new and I haven't found a used one I like. Also, at the moment, there just isn't money for a couch. If I could have bought one new, it would have gone on my credit card and right now I need the money than I need the couch. I'm glad I had my shopping ban. It saved me from a not-so-great credit card debt.  I will buy one, hopefully used, when I can afford it. Patience. I don't need everything right now.

An oven. Again, I need the money more than I need the item. I'm glad I had my shopping ban. It's so much more fun this way. Not buying an oven and not having a stove paved the way for a little creativity, and re-using other appliances. In fact, today I am learning how to make an entire meal in nothing but a crock pot. Necessity is the mother of invention. And from that invention, I'm thinking I can hold off buying an oven/stove for a few years at least.

Chalk. I'm not finding used chalk anywhere. I made Ash a chalkboard, and I want chalk to go along with it. It's a valid purchase. I've made up my mind about it and can justify the cost ( I'll scrounge some coins). Now that my month is up, I will go buy some new chalk from the dollar store.


Stuff off of Amazon. This may be the first month in over a year that I haven't bought anything off Amazon, Ebay, or Half.com. Amazing!

Impulse stuff. It seems that every time I go to a store I impulse-buy something ridiculous. But, since I didn't go into the store, I didn't see anything I didn't need and I wasn't tempted to buy junk. Hooray!


What I did buy:
Food. I also bought the ingredients to make laundry soap, but I considered that part of my food shopping as I bought it in a grocery store.

Home repair stuff from Home Depot and Lowes. In my defence, I didn't buy it, Drek did. But we did make several trips and bought several things. Yes, it was cheating. Yes, I'm sure there were ways around it, but I didn't care that much and Drek really didn't care at all.

Clothes. I hit the jackpot on Saturday when I arrived (at 7am!) to a garage sale with baby clothes. The price: $1 a grocery bag and you could stuff in as much clothes into one bag as you liked. My only restriction was the amount of clothes she had available to buy. It was awesome. I only spent $2, but I got LOTS of clothes. At another garage sale I found two new dresses for me and some new shirts for Drek. $1 total. And that's why I love garage sales.

A toddler bed, a tricycle, ladders, cabinets, a garage work table,  a set of bath toy alphabet foam letters, school work books, cabinets, DVD's, horseshoes... All from yard sales. All for super, super cheap. All of them have some funny or happy story about the person I bought it from. All bring a smile to my face. Did I need all of that stuff? No. Actually, sometimes I only bought it because the price was so awesome ($1 for a  DVD! They had all the Harry Potter movies! It only cost me $6! I was going to spend that much renting them from RedBox when we had our Harry Potter movie marathon leading up to Harry Potter 7.5!) So, not so great on the "valuing what I buy" front, and terrible on the minimalism front, but I did buy them used, from a yard sale. The items are being loved and used rather than thrown in a landfill, and the money went to real people (awesome people) instead of  mean corporations. I paid in cash, so no debt was accrued, and like I said, each one was a great shopping experience.

Probably the best one was when Drek and I stopped at a yard sale a few blocks from our house. They were selling an extension ladder, which Drek had wanted to buy at Home Depot, but wasn't willing to pay the $175 for it. Drek asked how much, the guy said $50, and Drek said sold. He went home to get the cash and left me with instruction so see if I could also get the dolly (marked at $50), the horseshoes and the tricycle. I went into full haggling mode: I walked around the ladder, poked it, and said "it's really dirty. How old is it?" And the guy said "Old. It's old and dirty. Like me." And he laughed, his brother laughed and I laughed. It was pretty funny. The guy was pretty old. So we joked and haggled over the other items and by the time Drek came back it cost us $56 total for everything plus a few more things. And we had made a friend.

Lesson learned:
Not-buying things new from stores is great. It takes more time, more creativity, but it also saves money, is more rewarding and is way more fun. I'm so glad I did this. I consider it a highly successful endeavor. I strongly recommend it to everyone. Especially Americans living in America.

I want to make this a permanent part of my life. Of course, there will have to be exceptions: It's ridiculous to take little things like chalk to an extreme, but the little things add up, so there still needs to be boundaries. As Krisling pointed out in the comments last month: I will need to buy some clothes brand new. And that is fine, as long as there are still boundaries. So I'm not quite sure how it will work: Do I get a certain number of exceptions per month? Should I have a shopping ban every other month? The sustainable answer is just to be cautious and wise about what I buy, but I don't think I'm that point yet. If I hadn't had a month long ban on shopping, I would have bought a clothesline, a couch, an oven, possibly a dryer, and I would have taken a few trips to Wal Mart and made several impulse-buys. That would NOT have been ok! We absolutely cannot afford that right now! The earth cannot handle that kind of consumerism. I cannot get everything I want right now, or I will only want more things right now and be forever miserable. So I need some rules. Suggestions are appreciated!

Come, All Ye Saints of Zion, And Let us Praise the Lord

I have never considered myself a "church person". As a kid, I usually tried to get out of going to church. As a pre-teen I remember being astonished at the stories my cousin told of things she did on Sunday (you mean it's like another Saturday? You get to do whatever you want? TWO Saturdays?) As a rebellious teenager coming back to church after two years I remember thinking "Three hours? Are they crazy? I'm not sitting still for three hours after a week of classes." Three hours was hard. I squirmed, I tried to get out of it, but mostly I knew church was where I was supposed to be and I was usually dragged there by good people.

I married one of those good people. My husband is awesome. In so many ways, he makes me a better person. One of those ways is by taking me to church every Sunday. Sometimes he drags me, sometimes I'm excited to go, but he makes sure I am where I need to be.

After going to church for a long time, I started to see why church is so important. It came slowly, week by week, year by year, but I understand more and more what people mean when they say they look forward to church. They feel recharged by church, refreshed by the classes and renewed by the Sabbath. I understand more and more the yearning people have for Sunday, for a day of rest, for church and for learning the gospel. The more I went to church, the more I understood why I went to church.

Today I am sick. So is my daughter and my husband. So we stayed home, fearing we would spread our sickness to the entire congregation. At first I was excited, even a little giddy: "Hooray! A we get to stay home today! Drek is letting me stay home!" But then I was sad, and, startlingly, I even missed church. I find myself yearning for that spiritual renewal. I know church with a toddler is ridiculous and I'm either in the halls or in nursery anyway, but even still, there is a peace there that builds me up. It recharges me for the week. It gives my hope. It keeps me going. It has taken me a long time to find that peace, to recognize it, but I am so glad I did. I'm so glad I have church. I can't wait to go next week.

Dude, You've Got Some Artz on You

The oven/stove range that came with the house was very scary when we moved into this house. It looked like it hadn't been cleaned in, well, ever. The bottom drawer was filled with spiderwebs and dead bugs and the outside had a thick coat of grime that proved very difficult to remove.

When we had the gas company come out to turn on our gas, the guy came inside to inspect the gas oven/stove. He informed me that two of the burners had broken igniters. He also commented that the stove/oven was very old and I should think about replacing it. 

I did think about replacing it. I thought about it a lot. After the gas guy left, I did two things: One, I put a lighter by the stove so I could manually light the burners (works great!) and two, I called the home warranty company to see if out oven/stove was under warranty. It was! So we payed the fifty-five dollars to have a repairman come look at it. 

While we waited, I discovered that the oven never reaches the programmed temperature. It also makes the house smell very strongly of gas when we turn on the oven, and anything we cook it the oven, tastes like gas. This made the safety of the oven highly suspect and I decided to exclusively use my small, counter-top, electric toaster-oven. It bakes, it toasts, it broils, it even turns off after the timer dings (meaning I can leave the house while something is cooking). I can't bake a whole loaf of bread, but I can bake mini ones. I can't fit in a whole cookie sheet, but I can do several batches. It works out just fine. 

The oven repairman discovered: One, the stove/oven is filthy. Two: the oven is broken. Three, two of the burners had broken igniters. Four, the stove is so old and rusted that in order to repair anything, the whole stove has to be replaced. Five: mice has chewed through several of the wires. He recommended I get a new stove/oven. I told him I agreed and he should make sure he passes that recommendation along to the warranty company. 

While I waited for an answer, I continued to cook on my stove by manually lighting the burners, and bake in my little toaster oven. 

The answer was no. One tiny bite mark one any wire automatically disqualifies the entire stove/oven from warranty. 

So I decided to finally clean my stove/oven. It took several hours, and some scratches and stains couldn't be fixed, but it looks much, much better. I got used to the idea that my stove/oven has personality, if not functionality. I decided I would replace my stove/oven, it would just take a few years. 

A few days ago I decided to call up the repairman and ask how much he would charge to come out and fix just the stove part. He nearly had a heart attack: "WHAT?! You are still using that death trap? It's dangerous! It CANNOT be repaired! Don't you realize that every time you manually light the stove you are playing with your LIFE? IT COULD EXPLODE! You are lucky it hasn't already exploded! It will explode your kitchen! It will explode your house! It will explode YOU! You cannot ever, EVER use it again! 

Oh. Good to know. 

But I cook. A lot. And even though I enjoy cooking, I don't really enjoy gambling with my life every time I cook. Although I can see the draw: EXTREME COOKING: Feel the heat. I could start my own reality cooking show. Learn new techniques, get new recipes and watch the contestants explode! Last cook not-on-fire wins! 

We can't afford to buy a new stove/oven right now (or anytime soon) but I can't NOT use a stove (maybe now is a good time to go RAW? Is the universe trying to force me into a new life choice?)  Thankfully, my mom had it covered. She shipped me a "Space Saving Buffet Warming Electric Double Burner" which is basically two stove burners that you but on your counter and they act just like a stove. 

So now I have an electric counter-top stove, and an electric counter-top oven.  It's a good thing my new kitchen has plenty of counter space. 

Ok, my faithful blog readers, you may want to sit down (but, really, who surfs the Internet standing up?).

Acouchi is missing. Presumed dead. Presumed eaten by a coyote. She's been gone for over a week.

I'm sure she's much happier now than she was here. At least she's not sick anymore. And in some ways, I think becoming prey is a better way for an animal to die than to die slowly of kidney or heart failure.

And I assume she had a good, long life. I had for almost seven years, and she was full-grown when we got her, so I'm assuming she was old.

No, I will not be getting another cat. Acouhi is one-of-a-kind and I will not even attempt to replace her.

Whoa. Talk About Your Fixer-Upper

This weekend has been very productive. Drek's dad came to stay with us for a few days to help fix up our house. I'm astonished at how much he did. On Thursday the missionaries came over to help us in our yard. Drek's brothers also helped us with some stuff, and Drek completed quite a few projects. I think it's safe to say that our fixer-upper home has been turned into a fixed-up home! We still have projects that need done, but all those projects are optional. Our house doesn't repairs anymore, now it just needs improvements!

Well, besides our yard. Our "lawn" is made out of weeds in the front yard, and dead straw in the backyard. We do have landscaping plans to make our yard beautiful, but those will have to wait a few months. Maybe a year. Maybe two years. Ok, probably two years at least. But we'll get there.

After a month and a half of living in this house, we are officially moved-in and fixed-up! Now for the parties...

It Wouldn't Be an Irrational Fear of Bees If I Could Just Pull Myself Together, Would It?

I have a very vivid childhood memory of going to a playground with my sister and seeing a daddy long leg spider. My sister told me that daddy long leg spider's mouths are too small to bite humans, so we found a few more and let them crawl all over us. I remember thinking it was fun to watch the spider move and to look at it up close.

A few years later (still a young child, I'm thinking maybe ten?) I was playing a computer game in which the last level had you battling a giant spider. The game was in first-person perspective, and I remember freezing up: my heart raced, I began to shake and my thinking became fuzzy to the point where I couldn't play. I lost, and of course, tried the level again with the same results. After a few more tries and a lot of "What in the world is wrong with me?" I realized I just might have arachnophobia.

I don't know where it came from, although after reading a few books on childhood phobias I could hazard a guess. But ever since then I have an irrational fear of spiders. It's a very physical response: I immediately jump into fight-or-flight mode. But from repeated nightmares about spiders, I've also developed a metal response: AHHH! SPIDER! Run away before my body has time to physically react and/or I have a nightmare about it tonight!

Sometimes I wonder if it's become an all-mental thing. A few times as a teenager I tried to touch a spider; to let a daddy long leg spider crawl over me like I did in the park with my sister. I'll take a deep breathe and tell myself that it's fine, but the anxiety hits, I'll start shaking, my heart will race and my vision will become blurred. It's really weird.

If anything can cure me of my arachnophobia, it's this new house: There are spiders everywhere. When we first looked at this house: I walked into the guest bathroom and a huge spider came down from the ceiling right in front of my face. I did not go back into that bathroom until we had lived here for over a month.

In one twenty-four hour period, I killed five spiders, most of them outside. In another twenty-four hour period, I saw four spiders inside the house. Besides the spider in the bathroom, I've been handling it well: I kill them quickly with no physical response or I yell for Drek to come take care of it. I started, once again, to wonder if I was getting over my arachnophobia.

Today I was brushing my hair when I felt something tickle my arm. I looked down and there was a giant black spider crawling up my arm to my shoulder. The response was immediate and automatic. There was no thinking involved: I screamed louder than I have ever screamed before, brushed the spider off my arm and jumped up onto the bathtub in one fast motion. Drek came running in to save me.

Afterward, it took me a long time to calm down. It's been a few hours and I still jump every time I fell the smallest tickle.

So, still working on it.

Because a Cat's the Only Cat Who Knows Where It's At

I'm a cat person. It's not that I don't like dogs; I do, I think dogs are great and I love to play with them, but there is something about a cat that is mesmerizing. I love how they walk, I love how they purr, I love their eyes and their claws; I just love cats. Especially big cats.

That made our trip to the zoo yesterday even more exciting: we were finally going to go see the big cats:

I'm glad the camera was pointed at the Jaguar, because I wasn't looking. I was transfixed on this amazing animal four feet away from my face. It actually stopped and looked me in the eyes. It was amazing. 

Right after the leopard, we we spotted a squirrel up in a tree. The squirrel isn't an exhibit at the zoo, but it was fun to see him anyway: 

You Need a Mother Very, Very Badly!

Drek got me flowers for Mother's Day: 

And chocolate: 

and a homemade card. And he made me breakfast. Best husband ever.

At church today they gave me a king-size Symphony Bar. It was awesome.

Also at church the Relief Society president said something I wanted to share: She said that Eve was called "the mother of all living" before she ever bore a child. All women have this sacred calling from God, whether or not they have children in this life. God has given all women gifts of empathy, selflessness,  and a nurturing spirit. So even if a women isn't nurturing her children, she is nurturing God's children, and that makes her a mother.  So Happy Mother's Day to all women everywhere.

Here is a great article on Mothers. 

And Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful mother, grandmothers, and mother-in-law.

But, Honest! He Said Just to Mention His Name. So, Start Mentioning Name, Rodent

Our backyard is home to all sorts of creatures. We found a sparrow's nest with newly hatched baby chicks, there is a lone chicken than wanders in and out, and there all a lot of these really ugly things Drek calls ground squirrels. Acouchi loves ground squirrels:

¡Ven Conmigo! ¡Te Mostraré las Maravillas de la Galaxia, y Juntos Lucharemos Contra el Despiadado Zurg!

My romance with minimalism has lead me to spend a lot of time thinking about my kitchen; the stuff the occupies it, how often I am in it, the time I spend preparing meals and what I get out of it.

I think I spend a lot of time cooking. My average dinner takes about an hour of hands-on work, and several hours of "let dough rest" or "soak beans" or "allow to rise" or "marinate" and such. I usually start making dinner around noon. Is it worth it? I love to cook, but I do I love it that much?

I do love the results: delicious, healthy meals and a feeling of a job well done. But can I get those same results with less effort? With less time?

I decided to try: I've been browsing the Internet for vegetarian crock-pot recipes and asking friends for their easiest vegetarian recipe. I've made a list of "half an hour or less" meals and started thinking about freezing meals (something I have never done before. I don't even know how). I also asked a few close friends if they wanted to try a dinner swap once a month.

Tonight was the first attempt at a dinner swap. Instead of just exchanging a dinner, we decided that we wanted the social aspect as well; we'll have them over for dinner and the next week they'll have us over for dinner. Tonight they came over to our house. Since it also happened to be Cinco De Mayo, I decided to try something Mexican.

My wonderful grandmother recently gifted me tortilla bowl pans: just place your tortilla in the bowl and bake for a few minutes. I decided to make those:

They turned out great! I filled our taco bowls with sauteed onions and green peppers, black and pinto beans, brown rice, taco TVP (YUM!) fresh lettuce, fresh tomatoes, fresh avocados, and topped with Greek yogurt (my new substitute for sour cream. I can't taste a difference so it works great) and cilantro dressing.
Made-from-scratch virgin margaritas:
and for dessert, my best tres leche cake yet with whipping cream and fresh organic strawberries.

So far so good.

Bang Head Here

Several months ago I ran a red light. I was turning right at a three-way intersection with a traffic cam. I stopped, but didn't come to a COMPLETE stop. A few weeks later Drek received a letter that said his car had run a red light and the fine was $500. The letter also said the date he needed to appear in court, that another letter would be coming with all the information needed to pay the fine, and that if he wasn't the driver, he should fill out the form and mail it back.

There was no phone number to call with questions in that letter, so I looked up a phone number on line. I called and informed them they had the correct car, just the wrong owner. They told me to fill out the form and mail it in. I told them it was the same address, same phone number, same last name, it was just me and not Drek. I asked if I could pay the fine then. They said to fill out the form and mail it in. So I did.

A few weeks later Drek got the second letter in the mail, giving him his citation number and a special phone number to an automated system to pay his fine. Once again, there was no other phone number listed. So once I again I went online, found a number and called. After spending fifty-eight minutes on hold I finally got through to a guy who told me I had the wrong branch. He gave me another number to call. After spending and hour and five minutes on hold, I asked the guy if they got the form I had mailed in. He said he didn't know and couldn't find out. He looked up the citation and said something had heppened, but he didn't know if that something was the fine was paid, the ticket was cancelled, there was a warrant issued, or my form was recieved. He said I would just have to wait to see if I got a letter in my name. I asked if I could just pay the fine. He said no.

A few weeks later I did get my letter. It told me my court date was April 8th (my birthday) and that I would get another letter with more instructions. I never got that letter. Granted, I was movng at the time, so I could have lost it, but regardless; I woke up on my birthday realizing I never paid the fine. I called a number I found on the internet and talked with a man in the warrant department. He said there was, in fact, a warrent our for my arrest and that I needed to take of this right away. I asked him if I could pay the fine. he said I couldn't pay him, but he did give me my citation number and a phone number for an automated system. He also told me I would probably have to go down to the court house to take of it, and that the court closed at five. He advised me to pay the fine that day, not to wait over the weekend. He said it takes the system a while to process and if I wait until after the weekend, it could be too late.

At three twenty I arrived at the court house to find that they close at three thirty. The girl at the door said they were already closed, she didn't care about my case, she hated her job, her life, and me. I informed her I had cash, a checkbook, a credit card and a debit card; I just needed to pay the fine. She told me they were closed and to get lost.

I walked across the street to the actual court house (not the traffic division) and walked through he front door. Next to the metal detector was two security guards. I informed them I really, really needed to pay a fine. They said to come back on Monday. I told them I had a warrant out for my arrest and just needed to pay a fine. The security guard said if he let me in he would arrest me and take my baby to foster care.

And that's why it was the worst birthday ever.

I left, went home, and decided to call the automated number. The mechanical person told me I could pay my fine. I gave it my credit card number, the expiration date, the security code, and then the recording started over. I wasn't sure if it had worked or not and I didn't have a confirmation code, but there was no one I could call and had no way to check. So I hung up.

Today I got a letter informing me my account had gone to collections, and I now owed a $300 late fee on top of my fine. After spending another forty six minutes on hold, I spoke to a women who said that only way to get the charge reversed was to go to court.

To recap: I was begging them to take my cash, check, or card. I gave them my credit card number, my security code and my expiration date, and they still couldn't figure out to get the money. And people wonder why this state is bankrupt.