Gretchen

I hope everyone had a good 4th of July.  We spent it competing in a very small, mostly chainsaw, competiton.  We, or at least Daddy, was a big fish in a small pond.  He took first in most of the classes, with chainsaws he ported himself.  (rather than by someone else)

W traveled from his home to ours, then rode with us the rest of the way.  He took at least one first place too.

Me, on the other hand, had several oporator errors and didn't place in the top 3 in any of them.

T started out bored, and begging to go to the jumpy house, but I couldn't take her there, and it was too far away to send her by herself.  I eventually figured out that 3 girls were somehow attached to another competitor, and "introduced" them to each other.  "This is T, what's your name?" and then left them to go run a chainsaw.  When I got back they were playing with her little people.  I spread out the blanket (old quilt) and they eventually had the entire bag emptied of toys.  But they all helped clean up at the end.  After cleaning up we headed down to the jumpy house, and after lunch (about 2:30pm) she went back into it again.

When we first got there T and I spotted a balloon taped to the ground, actually it blew away from somewhere else, and lodged there.  She claimed it, and played with it some in the car.  It exscaped at one point, and I retrieved it.  later, Daddy's starting to give me some directions, and I realize T has tears running down her face.  We all have ear muffs on, so I hadn't heard her crying.  When I went over to her she was upset about loosing her yellow balloon.  It was quite windy, and my first assumption was that it had blown away, but she was adimit that it was in front of her and someone had taken it.  I looked around, several times, scanning the small croud, the forest edges, and could see no yellow baloon.  So I started walking with her on my hip toward the majority of the people, what I was going to do if I spoted the baloon I don't know.  Then I did spotted a red balloon skipping accross the ground in the wind.  So I angled off to intercept it.  T not understanding phisics yet,  - "there it is mommy!, it's over there!"  We got within, oh, 40ft of it and I put her down and she ran up and pounced on it.

So she ended up with a red baloon for the day.

After we got home, we went and has some ice cream. yum

T and I went grocery shopping on sunday, not an unusual event, in fact it's about a weekly event.  Anyway. While there I noticed they had s'mores makings on sale, I already had gram crackers on the list, and I tossed in a bag of marshmellows and chocholate too.

When we got home T ran up to Daddy - "'We're going camping, Mommy bought marshmellows!"

Now, I had said nothing about going camping to her, and in fact we won't be for a few more weeks.  But, I guess the only time I buy marshmellows is when we're going camping!

On friday evening there was fireworks down in, er, town (hamlet? gathering of houses? the valley?...) T was all excited, and we got her ready for bed, ie pj's medicine, etc.  Unfortunatly it doesn't get dark untill after 10pm these days, 2 hrs past her bed time.  So we found a place to park on the side of the road at the bottom of the hill, and waited for the action to start, and waited, and watched the neighbors light up little fireworks, and T got restless, and tired, and more tired.  It did eventrually start, and was good, especally for such a small town. 

T fell fast asleep in her Daddy's arms before the finally.

But we enjoyed it, then pored her back in her car seat and headed home to a freaked out dog.

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Bad Mommy moment of the weekend.  Sunday night we ate dinner later than we should have, which crunched the evening rituals. As I'm starting the bath water, I realize that we hadn't fed the dog.  So off goes naked T to feed her doggy*.  I hear a bang, crash and crying.  The dish washer door was open, and there was some water on the floor in front of it, that I had spilled earler, and just left to dry.  So I think she was going to fast, slipped in the water and scraped up her chest on the corner of the dishwasher door. No bleeding, but the skin was scrapped, and red.

However, the dog working her way accross the spilled dog food worked as an effective distraction.  (eventually) Then in to the bath for a shortened bath, much to her dismay.  She dumped water on me from the cup in protest, at that point I pulled her out, no more playing while the water drains. Which resulted in more crying.  She did calm down enough for story time, and fell asleep rather rapidly.


*T has had the chore of feeding the dog for years now, but won't remember on her own to do it, and I don't expect her to remember, so my falt for not remembering untill after I started the bath water.

That load of laundry I hung out yesterday?  Yeah, it's still on the line.  Just before quitting time yesterday the sky's opened up.  It poured, and the wind blew, and poured.  I waited 15-20 min, then ran for the car.  By the time I got home the sun was back out, although everything was soaked.

But not the dog, she's developed a fear of thunder the last few years, and apparently she hid in her dog house.  I was expecting to have to go looking for her, as I know if she's scared/determined enough she can get out of her outside kennel.

So I left everything on the line, figureing I'd let it dry a bit before putting it in the dryer.  Started dinner, set the table, T got the milk out.  "Look Mommy, I'm really strong!"  Then the lights went out! Then the timer went off to pull the food from the oven, whew, talk about timeing.  So we ate by candlelight. Then went down into town to pick up a "dead-head" hammer that Daddy had ordered and get icecream.  And came home to a still dark house, sigh.

We put T to bed with a candle and the cranck lantern as nightlights.  Then Daddy and I played cards by candle light.  (I won the first, he won the second game.) Then, leaving a couple candles burning (the great big many hour ones) as night lights if T woke up scared, went to bed ouselves. 

The power came back on shortly after 11, so we got back up and turned off what had gotten left on, blew out candles and went back to bed.

If the laundry doesn't dry today, and if my power stays on, I'll dry it in the dryer tonight.

We need more D size batteries, and a new battery back up for the computer.  As the latter didn't stay on more than a few seconds after the power quit.

As I am hanging out laundry this morning, it occured to me I could well be hanging my daughters clothes out with the same clothes pins that her Great-gramma hung her Bapa's clothes out with.  Cause, you know, clothes pins can last a really long time under normal wear and tear.

Abuse/abnormal use, yeah, not so long...after several years of being on the line 24/7/365, some of mine were gonners.  But the ones I'd had inside - still going strong.

And heck, for all I know, some of these are even older than that!  Maybe one of MY great-gramma's used them before she did.

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And a full load of whites, with all those socks, does NOT fit on my clothes line, sigh.  The last dozen or so socks I had to drape over the edge of the clothes basket to dry.