Robee's Birthday Party (a bit late)

Due to the problem (see previous post) of NOT having Robee in August, I instead had him on September 2nd, 1999. This lends itself to two problems: his birthday collides with both Labor Day and the first day of school. Every year. It's a pain.

So we decided to have his great homemade birthday cake on his birthday but postpone his party until school began and Labor Day weekend ended. Robee wanted a Sonic cake but homemade. This was a blast to make actually and we had a great time eating the leftover frosting! I didn't get the nickname "Lardbutt" at WSU for nothing you know! I'm a frosting QUEEN!

The date? September 18.

The place? Woodenville Fishing Ponds.

The response? "Awwwww ..... that sounds lame. Everybody wants to go roller skating. Or bowling."

The other response? "Trust me and Dad. This will be the coolest party ever."

The outcome? You guessed it. The coolest party ever.

Boys.

So we planned on driving two cars since my new car doesn't handle more than five people (which is a blessing really) and there were nine boys planning to go. However, Jack and Sam (the twins), Reilly, Jake and Robee were the only boys actually going. So I shoved four boys in the back and one in front with me (Thomas, the skunk, took Felix in his car because he said "you're so much better at this than me") and off we went on a 50 minute drive to the fishing ponds.



Have you EVER rode in a car with five boys? Five boys (two of whom are twins) who are farting, burping, punching, talking about AND punching penises, butts, boogers, and whatever else comes to their minds? Have you??

Excedrin really helps.



And there are those women out there who are going to say "Oh how you will MISS those days when they're gone (those women who's kids are all grown) so enjoy the farts!!" but I say to that, "Whatever." Right now? During the drive? It's total gross chaos. Afterwards (like now) it's funny to remember. But honestly, I'm not really sure I will miss the smell of five boys farting in my car. Pretty sure about that one. Honest.

I brought a Polaroid with me and each boy got a picture of their catch. From left to right: Sam, Reilly, Jack, Robee, Jake. As a side note: all parents should have a polaroid for parties. These kids LOVE watching pics come right out of the camera. Some of them have never even seen a polaroid before. Funny.

They did have a good time and Robee was the hit of the day.

And in the end, that's all I wanted for Robee's birthday: a memorable day for him so he will smile when HE'S all grown up.

A tearful goodbye to August

I love the month of August.
I can truly say that August (right next to July) is one of my most favorite months of the year.
I tried to have Robee in August so he could have an August birthday.
I would love to have my birthday in August.
I love August so much, I go into depression because I hate September so much more.

31 things I love about August:

1. Hot sunny days at the river.
2. No major holidays.
3. Owen's birthday on August 5th.
4. Jetty Island.
5. Blackberries in full, juicy goodness.
6. Painting my toenails in summery, coral colors.
7. Swimming every day of the week.
8. It's usually five weeks long.
9. Hot nights with a full moon.
10. Warm mornings with fog over the Stilly River.
11. Big puffy clouds in a blue sky.
12. Cooking outside.
13. Fairs going on in almost every town.
14. My Sweet Millions are ready to pick and eat.
15. Watching the goats eat the green grass in the field.
16. Feeding the trout in the pond.
17. Listening to the bullfrogs sing at night.
18. Stopping to watch the doe and her twins cross our road in the morning.
19. Porter's Birthday on August 3rd.
20. My mom and dad's Anniversary on August 30th.
21. The smell of grass being mowed.
22. Seeing a summer tan on my legs (always with spf 30).
23. Watching my Blue Girl and Sterling Silver lavender roses bloom.
24. Hanging washing out to dry.
25. Washing the car on the lawn.
26. Eating a cuke while I'm sitting in my garden.
27. Listening to the copper windmills blowing with the evening breeze.
28. Taking pictures of honey bees on my Shasta Daisies.
29. Sitting on the porch in the morning drinking my green tea.
30. My kids out of school for the month and going to movies in the middle of the day.
31. The Evergreen Fair and hanging out a whole week with my baby girl, Felix.

Goodbye August until next year. I will miss you so much.

A Picture is worth a thousand words

A painting of me (Kiki) by Owen. This watercolor painting has an interesting story. Read on:

So, I'm going home after dropping off Owen to his mum. My lovely painting is sitting on my dashboard, along with other papers and mail and such. I'm dinking around with the windows and open the passenger side and WHOOOOOSH!!! The paper with my portrait flies out the window on to I-5 in the oncoming rush of 5:30 pm. I see it flying at cars and then ... gone.

Of all the papers on my dash, this is one to leave. I'm weeping and trying to drive and think of what to do. I have only one choice: I must go back and try to find my precious paper.

It flew out between the 88th and 116th exits (those of you familiar with North I-5 will understand) so I make a full circle back around, taking back roads to get back on to the freeway and my quest begins. I drive to the halfway point of where I remember it flying out the window. I figure with the traffic and how light the paper is, it probably flew around a few cars then landed in the grass to the right and might also be carried by drafts north. I park my car way off the shoulder, lock it and start walking ... praying the whole time.

I know it sounds silly; it's a child's water color painting. But he was so proud of it and I was so happy to "sit" for it that I just had to try at least to find it. I had the foresight to take a pic of it earlier but I still wanted to attempt the search.

So with traffic clicking by me at breakneck speeds, I search the ground, looking for a piece of notebook paper with blue eyes and black hair painted on one side. I'm walking for perhaps 30 mins and I'm getting closer to the 116th exit, not seeing anything. I'm ready to turn around.

A voice says, "go all the way to the exit." I say, "yeah but I lost it clear back there." Voice, "go all the way to the exit." Me: "okay, okay. Might as well. I'm this far now." Surprisingly, I was not arrested for talking to myself while walking on I-5; it's fairly common.

I'm to the exit ramp, just where the transportation crew puts in guardrails due to the curve. I look up and over into the high grass and what do I see waving at me?? A piece of notebook paper with blue eyes and black hair painted on one side.

I scream and run and clutch it to me, thanking God for helping me out with this seemingly impossible search. It has small holes where tires ran over it and a couple of tears but all in all, for the journey it took, it looks great to me.

I haul back to my car, not realizing an hour has passed.

This lovely pic will now have it's own frame and find it's own place on my wall.

This was a good Monday indeed.

Heath and other things (cont. from previous)

Here I am, nine days aspartame free.


I read that it takes 60 days to de-tox and get the aspartame completely out of the body. There is even a test using one's hair to tell if it's gone. I'm not that Nazi about it; I'm just going to assume that I'm clean. I'll really be able to tell when my memory finally comes back. I truly believe that my unusual memory loss has something to do with my constant surplus of aspartame in my body.



This is used to be one of my most favoriate drinks. *sigh*



Gum, drinks, candy, and other "diet" foods that I have been consuming since about 1989 no doubt have something to do with the fact that I can't remember how to say certain words. Or that I can't remember which husband went with me to a favorite movie of mine. Chemicals played horrible tricks on my mom; I refuse to become like her.

Speaking of becoming like my mom, I have had someone look at my back problem (see previous rant about my back).

I went to a massage therapist (which is different than an actual massage which I can't STAND because to have some body rub my back or shoulders - it creeps me out) on Monday and he bent me like a freaking pretzel (said the girl to the boy at the picnic). It was FANTASTIC!!! I was finally able to stand up without pain and without hunching over while allowing my back to straighten itself. I'm going back next Monday and will continue until he's unbent, straightened, twisted, loosened, and otherwise fixed my back. No more Excedrin for me.

So in the same vein, I thought I would try to eat some healthy food too (since I consumed crappy Taco Bell last night followed by a bag of Nibs) and found a really interesting recipe using ............... wait for it .............. Dandelion Leaves!! Doesn't that sound like fun?? And with some other things from my starting-to-produce-finally-garden, I thought I had a total winner for dinner. Salmon from our fishing trip (puking trip) in Ilwaco, dandelions and spinach and onions and beets from my garden and mushrooms from .... well, Safeway actually. But everything else was from me. Kinda cool.






Yeah. Right.




You know how you read something and it sounds great



and then you try it



and it turns out ........................



not so great?



Okay. So the dandelions were a TAD bitter. Actually, they were more than a tad bitter. Really bitter. Those are now in the yard waste bin. I did convince the kids to try them JUST so they could say "Yeah, I've tried dandelions before" and sound cool.


The roasted beets were yummy as well as the poached salmon. So two out of three ain't bad (a nod to Meatloaf).

This, tho difficult to see, is half of a roasted beet. It's on the left hand side.



Then I washed the whole thing down with half a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Mmmmm!! I'm feeling better already.



Physician, heal thyself!!!

Aspartame Free

The whole reason I started the health rant was because of aspartame.

I am now four days free of aspartame. Why you may ask? Probably because it's a silent poison tauted as being "safe" for those of us who are trying to not eat sugar.

I've made my kids switch to sugarless gum for their teeth but in turn, have been poisoning their brain cells.

I wonder why in the last few years my memory has been going south.

Could it be due to what I'm ingesting? Possibly.

Aspartame has now been sneaking into foods without our knowledge; even foods that STILL HAVE SUGAR. Why?? What's the purpose?

Money.

http://sweetpoison.com