I planted straight 8 cucumbers but got these monstrosities instead…

Let’s Review.

I planted seeds from this package:

And this is what I got at harvest time:

I’ve heard that cross pollination between cucs and zucs is a myth, but what the heck?  They taste like a cross between a zucchini and a squash.  I mean, I will take some blame in that maybe I did something wrong, but seriously?  Did I harvest them too soon?  Pretty sure these fat boys aren’t going to thin out and become long thin cucumbers….

First off let, me start this post by giving a shout out to the lady who passed me as I was stuck in the middle of the road and honked at me multiple times: I didn’t do it on purpose to ruin your day, you are mean and you suck.

Secondly a shout out to my minivan with an instrument panel that doesn’t work in spite of all the money we’ve put into getting it fixed: get it together, baby, I need to know when there is no gas.

Okay, good.  

Sunday on the way to church the instrument panel decided to blink on thus alerting us as to our mph, other important panel things and also the fact that we had no gas.  As we were already late, and are committed to not spending money on Sunday, we got two gallons of gas and were on our way.  I planned to get more gas on Monday before I drove 45 minutes into Seattle and back.  On the way home from church, the panel went bye bye once again.

Monday came, I found myself driving into Seattle with little gas, I remembered this only after I was on the freeway, and decided that I could make it there and would need to get gas on the way home.  Reasonable plan.

Here is where the dilemma came in.  We went to the science center (clean bathrooms) and afterwards went to the Center House for ice cream (questionable bathrooms).  I needed to pee, but decided it would be better to not haul my three small children into an unclean bathroom. Nobody else needed to go anyway.

Well, you know how it goes when you have to go, but you still have 45 minutes of driving to do!  I knew I needed to get gas, but I just couldn’t handle the thought of standing in the cold pumping gas with a full bladder.  I wrestled with how I could use the gas station bathroom, but hello, not a clean place for the children.  I could leave them in the car…  but well, not as safe.  As I knew at least one would be asleep anyway…  

I drove home without stopping.  The funny thing is, I didn’t even race into pee.  I dinked around on the computer, putting stuff away until I remembered the little feeling.

Tuesday.  I know I need to get gas before i go out.  Everything is a little frazzled, I make a product delivery, leave town without gas and a third way up the big, windy, twisty hill, the van sputters and stops in front of about five other cars. I turn on my emergency flashers, the other cars figure it out and I pull out my phone to call Charming who turns out to be less than helpful..  I still think I should have called 911 or something, but he advised me not to.

Fortunately, a nice homeless-looking man (whitish beard and stocking cap) with a British accent stopped in front of me and came to see if he could help.  He tried to start the car a couple of times without success, but was then able to put the car in neutral and ease it closer to the side of the road.  Our car was then not completely blocking traffic, but closer to the blind corner where another car (going too fast) could have easily rear ended us.  (Had the honking lady not been speeding, she might have laid off the horn, for example). And then the Microsoft employee man (as it turned out he was on leave from there) left to get us some gas.

After what felt like 45 minutes (maybe more like half an hour) of being a sitting duck and listening to crying, whining children (Spider was happy) the kind man returned with the gas and the County Sheriff’s arrived to direct traffic.  Two gallons was not enough on the steep hill, so the sheriff left to get some more.  The man who helped us went home without me ever giving him proper thanks or any money for the gas, and when the sheriff came back with more gas I was on my way.

I was reminded of a few things yesterday amidst all this mess.  One– there are good people in the world who will help strangers.  Two– most people are not this way, at least 50 cars passed me, and that man was the only one who stopped.  Most people rubbernecked to see inside my vehicle and one woman honked angrily.  Three– God will always watch out for you.  It was a miracle no one hit us while sitting there, and quite a blessing that the man stopped so soon after we got stuck.

And fourthly, and perhaps most importantly, peeing your pants while pumping gas is much more desirable then running out of gas on an uphill, twisty, narrow and relatively busy road.  And yet, riding home in wet pants, just doesn’t seem that great to me, even now…

P.S. To my kind hearted rescuer, thank you.  If you ever read this, please don’t be offended that I called you homeless looking, I was kind of scared when you first approached, but my children and I will forever be indebted to your kindness and willingness to serve people you didn’t know.  Thank you for being a neighbor and good samaritan.

Engineer has to catch the kindergarten bus at 8:40 am every morning.  It is an effort most days to get him fed, dressed and out the door, because he takes life at a leisurely pace and I like to sleep in.

I woke up yesterday at 8:35.

Oops.

And of course, the boy was NOT dressed nor had he eaten breakfast.  And he was in no rush to do so.  We have a rule at our house that you eat breakfast and then you get dressed right after.  It would have been the other way around, but the rule was the for the whole family, and I personally like to eat my kix in my jammies so I insisted breakfast first.  Anyway, since Engineer is a RULE FOLLOWER, my asking him to get dressed while I made his breakfast was just plain insanity. 

He cried, protested and yelled at me.  

I put his waffles in a tupperware and he cried harder because he wanted to eat them at home.

Engineer and I were both frustrated, angry, irritated and emotional.  We got out the door and he was sobbing, freaking out because it’s cold and just being stubborn and I was yelling at him to get moving.  I practically drug him up to the bus stop, and left him there crying while my neigbor stood there with her son, thinking the kinds of thoughts you think when you see someone yelling at their kid.  I stomped down the hill without a hug, a kiss or a nice word for my baby.

I got home, sat down, took a minute and started feeling the guilt.

It overwhelmed me to the point that this Mary Kay lady, gathered up her two other children, drove to the school in my pajamas and no makeup to apologize to my six year old son.  Moral of the story?  I should have just let him eat at his own pace and then driven him to school since I ended going up there anyway.

Sheesh. 

I met some ladies at Starbucks today to do some Mary Kay stuff.  I bought 2 strawberry and creme a ma bobs and wasted about 20 nerves on the children.  But I got to laugh on the way home as my children discussed pronunciation.

Eng: Next time we go to Star Box we are going to get a pink drink.

Sug: (who’s 4) No, Star BUCKS.

Eng: Star Books?

Sug: No Star BUCKS!

Eng: Mommy is it Star Box or Star Bugs? 

Me: It’s Star Bucks.

And then he erupted with riotous laughter.

It’s Engineer’s fourth day of kindergarten, his second day of riding the bus and the novelty has officially worn off. 

He told me today that he didn’t want to go back.

My momma-loves-her-little-boy for ten seconds contemplated homeschool and then the real me told him to suck it up.  Okay, well, I didn’t say it like that.

Turns out part of the reason he is so done is that he got in trouble today.  In Engineer’s class you see, when they don’t "make their day" by following the rules they get their frog taken down.  And here the lad is chatting with me about how he took his own frog down because he didn’t want it up there anymore because he doesn’t want to go to school.

So like any suspicious parent, I checked his bag and found the teacher note saying he didn’t make his day.  Why?  What was the issue?  After several requests from the teacher to get him to complete his work he responded by yelling and crying and thus disrupted the students.  This is of course, typical behavior for the boy with large emotions.  The boy with no in between level.

 I sure hope she can do a better job of gettting him to simmer down, because I’ve sure had a heck of a time with it.

The trip pics and stuff are coming, I promise!  But until then– a quaint story about how some grown-ups surprisingly still act.

So I was with my kids at music class today and as usual they were not particularly well behaved.  I actually felt they did better than they have in past classes, but there was the typical running around at inappropriate times and all of that.  They tend to feed off of each other, so even though Engineer and Spider are normally well behaved, if they see Sugar being a goob, they follow suit. I’ve  apologized profusely to the teacher several times and she always says the same thing, "Your kids are good.  They don’t scream or cry– that’s the kind of thing I don’t like.  Your kids are fine."

So today, rather than trying to constantly chide them and reign them in and leave class all mad, I just kind of shrugged my shoulders and I stepped in only when I felt they were acting age inappropriate.

Now, hold that thought.

In this class is a little boy and his nanny.  The nanny is infamous among my fellow music class goers for being loud, bossy and generally obnoxious.  She talks really loud, answers her cell phone in class and tries to overcorrect her little "charge" when she thinks he’s not doing the activities right.  She’s really not that bad, honestly, but she does strike me as someone who is a little attention starved.  As I made that realization today in class, I actually started to feel a little bad for her.

That is until she made her snarky comment to me.

Return to the previous thought that my children were not models of behaviour this day.  

And so she says to me, without eye contact, without ever a proper introduction, "What class are you going to be in in the fall?"

And me, sensing what was coming, feeling that pit in my stomache and not wanting to have a conversation with her told her that I didn’t know.  Eh.  Her reply?  

"Because I don’t want to be in the same class as you."

Hi, my name is Stephanie.  I am a real person and I have feelings too.  Didn’t your mama teach you if you can’t say nothing nice, don’t say nothing at all?

If someone had said something like that to me back in my postpartum depression days where I was already feeling low and sinking, and frustrated with my children, I would have been downward spiraling.  As it is, I got that shaky feeling that I get when someone makes an attack on my individual person and then I shrugged it off.  I was a little appalled at her lack of tact, but I don’t even know her, and I don’t really care.  I am actually sort of relieved because it means I won’t have to be in her class either!

It just is weird to me that grown ups still act that way.  It doesn’t bother me that she wants to be in a different class than me and my children.  I can’t really say that I blame her as I am not sure I’d want to be in my class either if I was someone else.  But really isn’t that something she should have just brought up with the teacher?  (Which she did, by the way, very loudly while I was still in the room.)  Did she think she was doing me a service by subtlely telling me that she thought I needed to up the parenting skills?  That it would help me in some way by making sure I knew that my kids were obnoxious in class?  Or do you think she just likes being snarky?

Well, whatever.  Today is a new day.  I am so over it.  But it sure is a good thing I am a grown up at least.  Because my inner teenager came up with some choice follow up conversation. 

…Or "garage sale finds cost more than you paid for them."

Here’s the deal– I think freecycle total rocks.  Free stuff is great– most of the time.  If you are getting something for free that you really need/want/are dying to have then whoopee! you have arrived.  But you need to know one thing about free stuff– it is rarely, actually free.

Example 1: I recently acquired a freecycled ceiling fan.  Thinking it would be hot around here sometime (joke’s on me and everyone else in Seattle) I felt it would be good to have one in the house.  After significant driving to pick up the fan, I immediately went out and purchased supplies to repaint the "treasure" that now sits in a box in my garage.  I have also noticed some missing wiring that will need to be replaced if it is even possible to do so.  Cost so far: $10 and counting.

Not free.

Example 2: I bought an Oreck vacuum at a garage sale for $30 and also got a free handvac from someone else.  Vaccuum bags anyone?  That little steal just doubled in price.

Not as cheap as I thought it was.

I keep seeing things on the freecycle that I think would be great for me, and I keep re-evaluating the actual cost.  King sized mattress?  I’ve always wanted one, but I don’t have box springs or King sized bedding or a place to put my perfectly fine queen sized bed.  Gas grill?  Oh, well, I don’t have a propane tank.  Size 2 designer dress? Can’t afford the personal trainer, darnit.  

Seriously.  The free?  Not so much.   

Free is good, my friends, it often is.  However, I would advise that you Freecycle wisely. 

(And have you ever noticed how people want their c-r-a-p picked up immediately?  That always cracks me up.) 

Walking into the quaint, antiques store/cafe in the teensy town of Snoqualmie, I was immediately confused as to if they actually served food. All I could see was coffee and coffee cake. When I posed the question to the three ladies behind the counter they handed me a menu and told me they were currently serving breakfast, but would switch to lunch at noon. (Who serves breakfast until 12? I wondered.) Charming was the most nauseous from the car ride and we quickly decided to split one overly priced plate of bacon and eggs between the five of us.We had a train to catch in about 20 minutes and were in a bit of hurry. Where did all the servers go all of a sudden?

One server remained. I asked her if we ordered at the counter and she said, we sat down first and then she came to get it. So we found a seat– three small tables in a row– the only place in the vacant "cafe" for a family of five to sit. And then we waited while she farted around behind the counter. Apparently my communication about when I would like to order was not made clear. Finally with enough stare down, she sauntered over. Charming indicated our rush and  with rolled eyes she told us that eggs was fairly quick and so we ordered that, and then watched the clock get closer to our departure time while we waited for the elusive eggs and bacon. And while we waited, Engineer discovered an entire wall of "art" behind us, where we sat.

Naked people. A wall full of someone’s "artistic" renderings. For sale nonetheless. Fortunately, none were p*rn*graphic or se*ual, just poorly drawn people in the buff. But they were very large and very predominant. Engineer has lately developed a fascination with human anatomy and was quite the chatterbox about this wall of wonders. Finally we all moved to the other side of the table so we could enjoy a scene of antique books instead of amateur figure drawing and get the boy’s mind on something else.

Now I haven’t said anything about our server– but let me just say, she was one of the worser servers I have had. Either she woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning, or she never woke up at all. Maybe it was a bad day for her, really, but regardless, she was unwelcoming, unfriendly, unhappy and she made me uncomfortable. But to her credit the eggs arrived about three minutes before our train was to arrive, we scarfed them down (I would have been embarassed if I gave two hoots about what our server thought of us) and we caught our train just in time.

It was Mother’s ride free day you see, at the Northwest Railway Museum. A 65 minute ride to North Bend, then up to Snoqualmie Falls and back to Snoqualmie. You could get off the train in North Bend, and then catch the train in an hour when it came back, but I opted out. Yeah.

There are of course no bathrooms, on the train. And though Sugar and I had a lovely conversation about our weddings (mine past, her future) in the bathroom before we left, I got the urge twenty minutes into the ride. (No, Mom, I am not pregnant). It’s like my body decides that though I drank very little to justify the need, that as soon as I am in a position where I am not allowed to use the restroom, then that is the very time that everything needs to move on out. Not fair. I crossed my legs and relaxed tried to enjoy the view.  It was lovely, because it is of course gorgeous in this area.  The best part though was when we reached the top of Snoqualmie Falls.

I cannot even express how breathtaking and terrifying it was at the same time.  And since I forgot my camera that day, I am going to have to try.  We were up so high looking down over the top of the falls and then looking down over a deep chasm.  Waterfalls, and beautful, lush green trees.  Such a view!  Engineer is like a mini me– he took one look and then went and sat on the other side of the train refusing to look again.  Poor boy.  I stayed put, but silently wondered if there was a possibility that the train could tumble down the ravine now that everyone on board was on the one side looking down over the falls.

Now I borrowed this image from the internet but this gives you somewhat of an idea of what the view was like:

Of course, there was no creme brulee (there weren’t even teddy grahams, as Sugar made mention of– since we  weren’t allowed to pee or eat on the train), and the view was from the other side of the falls and not the lodge side.  And really it was way better than even this image depicts, but apparently no one has ever taken a picture from the train and then published it on the internet. The lodge view seen here is lovely, but not near as scary as when you are in a rickety old train with all the people gathered on one side.

Anyway, the last bit, the view was fantastic.  Charming said it made what we paid truly worth it ($24 for our whole family).  And I agreed.  A good day.  Naked people and all. 

Aren’t they adorable?  The kids just love them. 

Rosie loves them too.  We took this picture a couple of days ago, but today I caught her sitting in the brooder with them. 

Chicks are fun!  And so far, really easy.  We just got the four, two rhode island reds and two black australorps.  They all should be layers of brown eggs.  That is if one isn’t a rooster… We can’t keep a rooster where we live, and I don’t know what we’ll do if one ends up a boy (we have 90% odds of all females).  I told Charming, I couldn’t eat one of my own chickens.  They are my babies! 

So for Earth Day today, we decided to do a fun little craft that I found on the internet. (Though I will tell you now, all I did was decorate the cans and put dirt in them, none of that drilling they called for over there.)  We rinsed out cans and containers (recycling!) and used fun scrapbook paper to decorate them.  Then we filled them with dirt and herb seeds.

The lovely Laylee and Magoo (oh yeah, and their mom too) came for some Earth Day festivities and we had a fantabulous time playing outside (yay, sunshine!) and then herbing away.

To do the craft the kids first drew a picture and wrote the name of the herb they were going to plant on a little paper.  Engineer and Laylee’s handwriting was quite impressive, while Magoo’s was quite Kathryn’s.  Both Magoo and Sugar were sort of helpless about the drawing part– Magoo insisted that he simply COULD NOT do it himself and to his mom said, "you DO IT," and Sugar just begged for assistance. I wrote and illustrated the label that Sugar quickly turned into "blueberry oregano" by using a blue crayon to fill it all in.

It was very fun, and very naptime.

And after it was all over, I received a special package in the mail.  Some plants I had ordered online.  (On Earth Day, how appropriate.)  As I was looking at the packing slip, I read something really funny– down near the bottom it said, "You are going to rock this gardening experience."  And I laughed and thought, "I SO am."  No really I was thinking, "they are so humorous over there.  What a funny thing to put on a packing slip."  And then I laughed even harder as I remembered my online ordering experience had allowed me to input some notes.

Yeah, it was a message I had sent myself.  I’m still chuckling about it.  

And here is our finished project: