Stroke of Genius

We all know I'm smart, I mean that's a given, right? Well, now I feel I've moved into a whole new category.

Genius

I solved a problem this week that I have struggled with my whole life.

The problem with boiled eggs.

The problem with boiled eggs is that you have to put them in the refrigerator if you want them to not spoil. Plus, they need to be in an egg carton in the fridge so they don't all go rolling around in there. We can not have lose rolling eggs all over the fridge, that would just be mayhem.

So how do you tell the difference between the ones that have been boiled and the ones that are still raw?

It's easy at Easter time, all the colored ones are boiled, duh!

There is nothing worse than wanting to eat a boiled egg but you mistakenly pull out a raw one.

Sticky yucky raw egg all over your fingers and probably the ground, too. GROSS!

In the past I have just tried to remember which side of the carton I placed the boiled ones.

Can we say less effective?

All together now, "Less Effective!"

I end up standing with the fridge door wide open racking my brain tyring to remember where they are, knowing I could end up with egg goo disaster.

I finally remember I left the raw ones next to the raw ground beef. So I grab one from the other side, pleased with myself for remembering correctly, for once.

I go over to the sink very pleased with myself, my taste buds all ready for the salty egg whites and delicious yellow middle.

CRACK!

Oh, ya, I forgot I had 7 raw eggs and the one on the end was NOT BOILED.

The drippy sticky egg goo makes me lose my appetite for boiled eggs and I go without.

Well no more, my friends.

I have come up with a solution once and for all.

You all have probably done this your whole lives, but my mother never taught me this trick, I was all on my own!

So here it is

You mark the boiled ones with a B. I used a Sharpie.

Then look at this, you can put them in the same carton with all the raw eggies you want and you can always tell the difference with just a quick glance!

How smart am I, I ask you?

Genius, I tell you, sheer genius!

P.S. See that egg on the far side of the picture? You know, the Ginormous one? Yes, I feel sorry for the chicken who laid that one too. Well, it ended up being a double yolker! First one I have ever gotten from my chickens. I did get one once that was super tiny and had no yolk at all. Weird chickens, We sure do love them though!

A Thought for Thursday

Photo by Sanjay Kittimani

I have been thinking a lot about starting a new tradition on my blog. I'm sure you all are getting tired of hearing me ramble

on and on and on and on.

I thought I would share with all my fabulous readers a new thought from someone other than myself every Thursday!

This gives you all a much needed break from my insanity and it gives me a chance to share with all of you some of the insights I have learned during the week.

They may be funny, inspirational, thought provoking, or even song lyrics that I really like.

I hope this becomes a fun tradition.

You have to know going into this that I read a lot with my kids so don't be surprised if a lot of the quotes are from children's literature.

So let's get this thing started. We just finished reading

The Trumpet of the Swan

by E.B. White.

Here is one of the passages I thought was beautiful.

"The sky is my living room. The woods are my parlor. The lonely lake is my bath."

DRAMA!

OK Sharida, remember taking these pictures way back when? These were taken nearly 6 years ago.

Oh me, oh my, how time flies.

That is the cutest, sweetest, softest, biggest blue eyed baby girl ever!

I loved those sweet smiles and the wobbly little legs.

Now just look at her.

She is 6 and as tall, if not taller, than most of her 8 year old friends and cousins.

She is reading well, coloring to her hearts content, loving every animal she sees, especially my sister's baby kittens and our horse and chickens.

She loves to go horse riding with her grandpa and her favorite "Dead Aunt".

She builds roads for Hot Wheels with her little brothers.

She plays games on the computer with her dad.

She takes care of her baby brother in the sweetest way.

She loves her tap dance class.

She loves to be dirty, especially while camping.

She loves to eat, all day long, every day!

She makes my bed when I'm not looking and leaves little paper hearts on my pillow.

She bathes herself and buckles her little brother into his car seat every time we get in the car.

She loves picking out books to read at the library.

She loves her home school friends and going to their book group and park days.

She is the biggest daddy's girl on the planet.

She has become very independent.

She is suddenly all grown up.

You know what else she has become?

A DRAMA QUEEN

Need I say more?

Yes, I need!

AAAAGGGGHHHHH!

I just might strangle that precious child if she rolls her eyes at me one more time!

Keys

Have you ever just sat and thought about keys?

OK, Maybe I'm the only one, maybe I'm just really weird. They really are thought provoking little buggers.

When you have your keys everything goes well. You hop in your car and just go about doing what you want to do, without really thinking about those little things hanging from the ignition. Alas, if it were not for those little things you would not be going anywhere!

You'd be stuck, marooned, stranded, possibly in a very desperate situation.

You'd be kicking yourself, racking your little brain trying to figure out where on earth you left them.

When you have them you unlock your door and just go in the house.

Without them you bang on the door to no avail, it will not budge without those tiny magic keys.

You feel so close, if only you could just get past that pesky door, you feel trapped outside.

FRUSTRATION SETS IN!

When you have them you take them for granted.

When you don't you could go insane thinking about where they are and where you need to be in 10 minutes and how you could be there by now if it were not for those pesky lost keys!

What, am I the only one that has ever lost her keys?

Well, then you'll just have to trust me because heaven knows I have lost my keys enough in my ever so short lifetime to make up for all of my loyal readers!

Ask anyone who knows me, I am just a tad bit absent minded. Just today I got in the car all ready to go to church but left the baby snoozing away in the house. The rest of the family was in the car waiting for me. I hopped in and Mr Bird just looked at me. I said, "What are you waiting for, let's go."

He said, "What about Baby Cakes?"

Oh ya, minor detail!

I could give you countless examples of times I have lost my keys and put myself in very desperate situations indeed!
The first year Mr Bird and I were married I must have done it about 100 times. It got to the point that I became worried he'd leave me if I couldn't keep tract of those things so he did not have to keep rescuing me.

I thought how on earth can I have babies and be expected to keep track of them and all the "stuff" that goes with them if I can't even keep track of my keys. It was a really big problem.
With a lot of practice I became more disciplined about keeping a tight rein on my keys. They found a home in my purse where I put them everyday so I would not have to hunt them down.

For the most part I have done well over the past few years keeping track of them. I have been proud of myself.

You can imagine my delight when one day about a year and a half ago Mr Bird comes to me and says, "Have you seen my keys, I've looked everywhere and I cannot find them."

Finally the tables were turned, it was his turn to go insane looking for his keys, to be frustrated not knowing where they were. Maybe now he'd understand the pain I had every time I lost my keys.

Time passed and his keys never turned up. We finally bit the bullet and had another set made and we all lived happily ever after.

Until last week that is. I was going through all my pre-pregnancy clothes trying to determine what still fits and what I need to get rid of. I came across a pair of carpi's that I only wore a handful of times, I just never really liked the way they fit.

As I was trying them on I felt something in the pocket, something heavy-ish. My first thought is Quarters! I love finding missing money.

But alas, It was Mr Birds keys that were lost so very long ago!

It's no wonder he could not find them, he left them in my pants, DUH!

My New Vacuum Cleaner

I have a new vacuum!

I have been needing one for I don't know how long. When Mr Bird and I first got married his parents had just moved into a new home that had a central vacuum system and no longer needed their vacuum. So they did what any good in-laws would do...they gave their old crusty, but greatly appreciated vacuum to the poor newly weds who barely had enough money to pay rent and buy food to eat.

Here we find ourselves eight years later still using the same old decrepit hand-me-down of a vacuum. I think it's nearly as old as Mr Bird.

Needless to say it was time for a new vacuum.

Here is a picture of the old thing, not much to look at.

Plain and simple design, works ok, could be better, lots better.

Our new vacuum has a much better design. It has a special tool for cleaning really close to the wall. You know all the little bits that get shoved into the crevices that the ordinary vacuum has no chance to get at. The attachment is easy to use, no long hoses to drag through the house, it is a self contained gadget, always easily accessible.

Our new vacuum is self propelled, no more lugging and pushing a huge beast through the house in order to have spiffy clean carpets.

Plus it works great on tile. All the food tidbits that the kids drop during meal time are a thing of the past. This vacuum gets them ALL!

My new vacuum picks up things our old one left behind. I used the old vacuum then put the new one down and it found so much stuff that I didn't even see.

It's a good one!

I bet you want one too, don't you!

It only has one problem, it gets clogged too easily. If it finds a bit that is too big it sputters and chokes. I am constantly putting my finger in the filter to clean out the big pieces!

Are you ready to see a picture of my new, dearly loved vacuum?

It's a beauty

Here it comes!

You're gunna want one too!

Oh, how you're gunna want one!

I have the best vacuum on the block.

We even named it!

We call it the Baby-O-Matic

Best vacuum money can buy!

This One's a Keeper

I love, love, love Homeschooling my kids, most of the time. Sure we have days when I don't want to do anything and the kids fight all day long, but for the most part I really love it. It has been a year since we officially started on this crazy journey, although I feel I've been doing it since Doodle was born. That was when we started learning together and it has not stopped. There has not been a day when we have not learned something new together. All the kids are like big sponges. They just soak up every drop of information that comes their way. Beano is especially porous. He has question after question. The thing about Beano is he really retains what you tell him and can tell daddy almost word for word what he has learned.

When the public schools got out for summer vacation I did a big sigh of relief and thought "Yes, summer vacation, I need a break!" I was fully prepared to take the whole summer off from "school" and just play and have fun all day everyday. Three days later I changed my mind. The kids were going down hill fast. You see, we had all gotten used to our morning school routine. It gave us a reason to get going in the morning. We had to eat breakfast and get our selves dressed. It gave us something to do after breakfast, something we all enjoyed. So when that structure was gone it was not pretty. All summer long we have done a very watered down version of school. Some days it did not happen, but I did not stress about it. Some days school lasted 1/2 hour, which I was also fine with. But we love the structure of a day with school.

A few weeks ago at our weekly trip to the library we found one of the coolest books ever. It is called

A Drop of Water by Walter Wick

. It has the coolest pictures of water doing different things. It explains surface tension, evaporation, condensation, how snow flakes are formed compared to sleet, how water reflects versus refracts light. I learned so much, not to mention the kids. We made our own rainbows using water. It seems like every other page we would put the book down to go play with water and try the "experiments" the book was explaining. We made water condensate on a cold cup, we saw how the water molecules move faster in hot water than cold, we saw how water expands when it gets colder and freezes, we played with surface tension, we made thing float and sink. I really loved this book. There are some books we find at the library that I just have to end up buying, this one is definitely a keeper.

The great thing about this book is that you do not have to be a homeschooler to enjoy it. The pages read fast and the experiments require no prep time. Even if your kids are too little to understand the concepts I can guarantee they will love the pictures and they will love playing with water and watching all the cool things it can do. If your kids are older they can do the experiments themselves, they are super easy and fun to do.

Next time you're at the Library do me a favor and check it out,

You'll be glad you did!

To see what others are talking about this fabulous Tuesday Visit

The Lazy Organizer

Couch Potatoes

I bet you all have been wondering what we've been up to this week.
Well, since you asked...
We've turned into full fledged couch potatoes!
We have watched hours and hours of the boob tube everyday for 3 days straight.
Doodle even told me the first day, "Mom, we should turn the TV off, we've been watching it WAAAYY too much today!"
Ya, I did a double take too, a six year old being worried about watching too much TV!
I bet you all think there must be some educational series that will only be on this one week to warrant so much TV watching.

Well, you'd be wrong! We've been watching cartoons, Disney Movies, The Olympics (which I don't feel totally guilty about), Talk Shows. You name it, we've watched it this week.

I bet you want to know what we've been eating this week too.
Pizza, macaroni and cheese, fish sticks, Wendy's hamburgers, Carl's Jr. hamburgers, ice cream, pop cycles, soda, junk, junk and more junk!
So what has happened to the lover of educational programming, health nut that we all know and love, you ask?
She has been sick!!!
I'm not talking about some silly little cold with a runny nose and body aches.
What I had made a cold feel like a vacation.
I was knocked down on my bum sick. I had a fever of 102.5 Wednesday night. I took Tylenol or Motrin every 4 hours to the minute and it still only got my fever down to 100.7
That fever stayed with me all night long. My whole body ached. My head , my hips, my joints, my muscles, everything.
The thing that hurt the worst hands down was my throat.
I could not swallow anything.
Swallowing my own saliva felt like eating little steel balls covered in tiny needles that were on fire except worse (and that was with all the pain pills I dared take!)
So while my family was pigging out on all the junk food they could get their grubby little hands on, I was on a saliva only diet, and I wished I did not have to swallow even that.
Yes, that's what happens when Mr Bird is in charge of meals, heaven forbid I should die, EVER.
So after two torturous nights like this I finally went to the doctor yesterday morning.
You guessed it, strep throat.
The Doctor gave me a choice of antibiotics for 10 days or one shot in the bum. I chose the shot just so I would not have to go to the store to get it. For one thing I felt totally miserable and could not picture myself standing in line waiting for a prescription.
Secondly, I thought the shot would start working faster since I could have it right then and it might take 20 minutes off my total suffering time.
Totally worth it.
As a bonus they include it in the copay for the office visit and I did not have to shell out more money for a prescription.
So one pain in my big bum and one night's sleep without a fever, later and I almost feel like new, almost.
So for any of you that have seen me earlier this week and end up sick, I am so sorry. I will come to your house and take care of your children and make them healthy meals while you are
gagging down your own saliva.
For those of you we have not seen in a while,
count yourselves lucky!

Donut seeds

Hello my beauties, welcome to Talk about Tuesday!

For my Birthday this year I could not decide what kind of cake I wanted. Doodle and I agree that traditional cake and frosting is a colossal waste of calories. It just is not very tasty. The only reason we have them is because of tradition, so this year I think we gave birth to a new Weaver family tradition.
I was thinking I did not want to bake my own Birthday cake.

I know, I'm spoiled.

But I did want to do something fun and special.

Then it hit me...

DONUT SEEDS!!!

They look an awful lot like Cheerios, but on Birthdays they become magic!

You have to get an early start or the magic will not have time to work.

First you find sticks in the yard for each member of the family. Then you let each member of the family decorate their flag and tape it to their stick.

Now get going, you're wasting precious time. All the seeds must be planted by 9 am or they will not have time to sprout by the end of your magical day.

Don't forget to sprinkle the dirt with the magical colored sprinkles you have in the baking cupboard!

Then you wait

And you find some dirt to play with as you wait.
And then you wait some more.

You guessed it, just keep on waiting.

Then you go in and eat dinner and come back out only to see they still have not sprouted.
Only one thing to do...Wait some more.

Then you go in to watch a movie. You'll have to be sad and wonder if it will really work.

Then you're sitting on the couch mindlessly watching the boob tube when Daddy bursts through the door and drags everyone outside to see the strange things growing in the dirt!


It is just like MAGIC!


Then you open your mouth as wide as you can and shove as much of the gooey sweetness in as you possibly can.
Then all the children will declare the need to plant donut seeds for every Birthday forever and for forever more!


That birthday treat went faster than any old frosted cake with candles ever could.

Happy Birthday to You, You Live in a Zoo

You look like a monkey and you smell like one too!

Yes, I know I smell, and now I smell one year older.

Happy Birthday to me!!!

I think the kids and I are going to celebrate tomorrow.

Or I could pretend I am not getting any older. I could hide my head in a hole and just pretend I'm still in my twenties.

I could call it my such and such annual 29th Birthday, for the rest of my life.

I could stay up until 3am and pretend it would not kill me the next day.

I could eat a whole batch of chocolate chip cookie dough and pretend I won't gain 10 pounds

instantly.

I could play Nintendo all evening long and pretend I didn't have any thing else to take care of.

I could eat A LOT of ice cream and pretend it won't give me gas.

I could read a book all day long and pretend I don't hear 4 children trying to murder each other and tear the house down around our ears.

I could eat whatever I want and pretend I'm not making sure I have enough fiber to not be totally blocked up for the next week.

I could wear a mini skirt and pretend I'm not worried about the whole world seeing my g's and my varicose veins.

I could go on a roller coaster and pretend I'm not totally nauseous and shaky for the rest of the day.

I could decide to not make dinner and just eat popcorn if I get hungry and pretend I don't have 5 other mouths and rumbley tummies to worry about.

I could pretend the baby I'm holding is my older sister's child because I'm much too young to have children of my own, let alone 4 of them!

I could pretend the prom dress hanging in the back of my closet is not hideously out of style.

I could pretend those lines on my tummy and butt are just lumpuckaroo from my jeans that are just a tich too tight and not stretch marks.

I could pretend I still look good in jeans that are just a tich too tight.

I could pretend to be happy about having another birthday and being yet another year older.

I could pretend to happily claim all of the things, good and bad, that have happened in my life to bring me to this blessed year and have made me who I am today.

I could act like a crazy twenty something year old instead of a crazy thirty something year old!

How can it be that I'm thirty something?

See how I'm not telling you exactly how thirty something I am?

Ya, I'm sneaky like that.

Let's just say I'm thirty enough to have dairy induced flatulence and an ever so week tummy at theme parks, not to mention varicose veins and 4 children!

Where did that come from?

Those are problems my mother used to gripe about. Now it's me!!! I've almost turned into my

MOTHER!

Ya, Ya, I heard you, Happy Birthday to me!

Caged Animals

I am ready for the construction zone to leave my yard.

Wait, I don't think I said that loud enough,

I am ready for the construction zone to leave my yard.
See the color red? It symbolizes passion. That was said with all the passion and energy of soul of a cooped up mother to 4 little heathens.

Yes, you heard me, HEATHENS!!!

They are starting to act like caged animals. They pick on each other just because they don't have anything better to do.

This morning they were all in the corner for one reason or another before breakfast!

The reason could not possibly be a stressed out mommy.

Maybe I would not be so stressed if they would sleep past 6:30 at least one morning. Ask anyone who knows me, I am not a morning person.

GRUMPY ME!

Don't worry, this will pass. I will not hurt my children, I just need to vent. Maybe now I can put on a smile and go look at them again.

They really are cute, and they say the funniest things.

OK, I do love them, you're right!

Plus Mr Bird will be home in T-Minus 3 hours.

I'm happier already.

My Life is in Shambles

Welcome to Talk about Tuesday! Too see what everyone else is chatting about visit the

Lazy Organizer.

This week the topic for Talk about Tuesday is home tours.

My post and all my pictures from my home this week are intended to make everyone else feel better about your own homes.

Trust me, you'll be content with whatever mess might be living in your home at the moment when you see my colossal mess and hear the story behind it all. Let's just say I hope to have better pictures and a conclusion to this story the first Tuesday of next month when we do our home tours again.

The good news is that we're getting a garage!!!

YIPEE!!!

The bad news is that it is taking a long, long, long time! We started tearing out the cement in the existing car port 3 1/2 weeks ago. Things are just dragging. Did I mention it's taking a long time?

They had to tear out some of the cement so they could dig 4 foot deep trenches along all 3 sides of the new imaginary garage. They needed the trenches so they could pour new footings for the imaginary garage.

Did you know building had feet? I did not. It is what the foundation walls sit on. See there, you learn something new every day.

Here is the trench with the cement guy pouring the last of the footing. When it was all poured They stuck rebar in it. I did not get a picture of that. So in our yard we have huge mounds of dirt with 4 feet deep trenches right next to them which have rung after rung of rebar sticking straight up out of the ground just waiting to impale a child. So needless to say we have been playing indoors lately! Not the most child proof back yard at the moment.

Here is what is left of the little shed that was at the head of the carport, and our mounds of dirt.

Now for the kicker. When the guys came to pour the footings I was home with the kids trying my darndest to keep them entertained indoors. Doodle and Beano were in the family room in the basement playing make-up. They made up a fictional game in which Doodle was Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer and Beano was her friend mouse. I was in the office checking my email. I hear things like, "Now I wanted to ride you." "Ya, and you got on but I was so frozen from being in the North Pole too long that you kept falling off." Then in the same make believe voice I heard Beano say, "ya, then there was water coming in the wall." At that moment I thought, wow, they sure do think of some weird things when they're playing. The next thing I know Doodle is running in the office screaming, "There's water coming in the wall!" It was surreal. I thought they just wanted me to play too so I came in the family room with them. And sure enough there was water coming up the basement floor!

It turns out the guys outside had hooked their hose to our water faucet on the outside of our house to mix water with the concrete. Well, little did they (or I for that matter) know that that pipe had frozen during the winter and when they turned the water on it burst. So then we did this.

We pulled up the carpet and the carpet pad to try to dry it out. That was my feeble attempt to fix the problem. See how the carpet pad is still wet all along that wall?

Mr Bird came home that night and pulled the carpet and pad out twice as far as I did. We had fans blowing on the things to try dry them out. Good thing we live in a desert. We had to leave it that way for 3 days. Three days of no going outside, no walking on my treadmill, no watching TV, which we really don't do a lot of anyway, but it may have been nice since we were trying to stay indoors. Not to mention no playing make-up in the living room.

The living room is all put back together now, thank goodness. I even let the kids watch TV today, just because we could. They are coming tomorrow to pour the foundation walls. Then it will just be a measly 7-10 days before we can start framing. This is taking too long!Hopefully once we start building it will go pretty fast!

Wish me luck! I need to find things to do to keep me sane while I wait!

Help Me Rhonda, Help, Help Me Rhonda!

Before I begin I just have to say I LOVE this picture. I love it for many different reasons. The thing that struck me just now is the fact that Dubs's shirt is all wet. See how his sleeve is wet all the way up to his armpit? The ordinary person may or may not have picked up on this fact, but to me it sticks out like a sore thumb. That boy is always playing in the water. ALWAYS! In fact I think I hear water running upstairs right now.

Hold on a sec!

Yup, that turkey doused the bathroom AGAIN! I'm beginning to think he will never grow out of this stage. He's been doing it for almost a year now. How do I make him stop? You just can't reason with a three year old. He looks up at me with those big blue eyes and tells me, "I won't do it any more, mommy" with all the seriousness in the world. Then he tells me, "Sorry, mommy" and gives me that bashful, side of the mouth grin. Then he wraps his scrawny little arms around my neck and gives me a big bear hug. And for a second I believe him. But just for a second cuz then I realize we have done this song and dance about 100 times in the last week. I just can't figure out what happens in that little 3 year old brain from the moment he's hugging me close and begging my forgiveness to when he's caught red handed in the sink AGAIN!

I digress. That is not what this post is about. This post is about this fact that Mr Bird is getting on a plane tomorrow morning and he's never coming back. I didn't have the heart to tell my family and friends in person that we are separating, for good. I wanted to blog it here first to soften the blow to you all. I must say I'm not handling it very well. HELP!

Just kidding. He is getting on a plane tomorrow but it's not forever, I just wanted to mess with you. I know, I'm so mean. I just wanted to see if you were paying attention. Oh, good, you're listening.

He is going out of town for work until Thursday. That makes 4 miserable days without him. See, I was good at math in school, see how I counted those days super fast. I was in the top of my class you know. Again, I digress. What I meant to say is that I hate it when he goes out of town, especially on an airplane! I always have visions of his flight being high jacked by terrorists or the pilot being drunk or the auto pilot failing and they crash into another plane head on or any other bad thing that has ever made an airplane crash. All these scenarios run through my mind faster than I can count to 4, over and over again. I start to imagine me turning on the news and finding out there was a plane crash, then I imagine the phone ringing and it being the airlines telling me they had a problem. Then I imagine my life without him. Then I cry, a lot. I think I'm a little obsessive. I'm OK once I know his plane is safe on the ground. Then when he goes to his hotel for the night I'm worried he's lonely and bored with out 4 children to entertain him. I worry he does not have a cute wife to talk to him and rub his poor tired feet. Oh, wait, I don't do that when he's here either, TeeHee. I think I worry most about the fact that he is actually enjoying the quiet. He might enjoy not putting Beano in the corner for hitting Dubs a little too much. He might sleep really well in his perfectly quiet, perfectly air conditioned, perfectly childless room without me, a little too much. I worry he might enjoy being without us a little too much.

Sad *cry*

I hate not making dinner for him every night.

I hate not making sure the house is picked up before daddy comes home.

I hate that the sink might start leaking at any moment and he will not be here to fix it.

I hate having family prayers without him.

I hate that I will not have a grown up to talk to on the couch after the kids go to bed.

I hate locking the doors for the night in a quiet, dark, lonely house.

I hate sleeping alone.

I hate putting the garbage cans out on the street for the garbage man.

And plus I'm sick. I have to handle 4 kids for 4 days all by my poor sickly self.

HELP ME RHONDA!

How will I ever survive?