Thanks, Ray! You Made My Day!

Earlier this year, the stackable washer/dryer we were using in our rented farm house, gave up the ghost. First the dryer, (after months of a very noisy squealing noise while in use), and then the washing machine decided it shouldn't have to work anymore either. I guess it figured if the dryer was retiring, they might as well go together.

Anyway, for WEEKS now, we've been hauling about six loads of laundry to the local laundromat each week. That's only for 3 of us. If I did Jessica and CJ's too, it was more like nine loads. The washing machines cost $1.75 per load, and the dryers could be bribed to go a whole 8 minutes for a quarter. It was quite an expense, not to mention the chore of hauling it all out to a vehicle... and into the laundromat...and back to the vehicle... and into the house... Ugh! To say that I hated laundry day was a gross understatement. Some would say that it should have been the landlord's responsibility to repair or replace the appliances, but they've been very kind and patient with us, and besides, we had a perfectly good washer and dryer sitting out in one of the out-buildings here, from the house we lived in before.

So...first of all, we had to move the freezer from this corner, to where the stackable unit had been, so we could vent the dryer out the wall. Then Ray bought a laundry tub, which he later assembled and installed.

Notice there is no plumbing, gas hook-up, or electricity in this corner...
(Pay no attention to the hideous, filthy linoleum, circa 1930. It doesn't GET any cleaner)

Next, he cut a hole in the wall to put the dryer vent hose through...

And a week after I took the first pics, he had the electricity, LP gas and plumbing all ready to go. There was even hot and cold running water in the laundry tub!

Ray then hauled in the dryer, and I cleaned it up and set it in place, just to see what it would look like. It was finally starting to seem like this project might actually come together!!

But first, my old dryer had to be converted from natural gas to LP.
After that was done, he brought in the washing machine and hooked that all up...



And voila!! My laundry room was finished! I was pretty excited. No more traipsing to the laundromat! Yay!! We tried it out with a small load and it worked just great. The next day, I was happily doing my laundry, and had even brought a small TV in the room to watch while I was folding. Here's the thing that I DIDN'T expect to happen...
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*My grandson, CJ thought it was a great place to hang out, and he (along with the two dogs) sat in there (in a laundry basket of course), watching cartoons for the remainder of the afternoon.
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And to top it all off, when Molly came home, she promptly made herself a PB&J sandwich and joined him in there. She's sitting on the table amongst the folded clothes...Silly kids.

Oh, and if you're wondering how I took a picture from over the laundry tub...since this room was added after the rest of the house was built, there is a window between my laundry room and the living room. Quaint, don't you think?

The Return of... Pod-Molly!

Now, my 13 yr old daughter, Molly has never been remotely organized, (and of course, she gets it from her mother)....so this was a nice surprise. She has rarely gotten out of bed for school on her own, in fact, we have usually had to yell up the stairs numerous times to rouse her each morning...and then you never knew if she was actually going to get up and catch the bus. Well, for whatever reason, the night before St. Patrick's day, she wrote this on the white board in our kitchen:

And she's been using this check-list daily, ever since then, changing the date and info each night. She's been getting herself up every morning, and has not missed the bus even once during that time. I used to have to bring her to school at LEAST once a week. Ray brought her to school this morning, but that was only so she could pick up some stuff for a lunch for her field trip today. Otherwise she's gotten on the bus every morning before 7AM. This is huge for her...and a welcome change.

She's made some other steps in a positive direction too. Last Friday night, she offered to babysit for free for a young couple, so they could go out with us. She did say that "free will offerings" would be accepted...but I'm pretty sure she was joking. She also decided to join the Youth Drama Team at church, which I think she will really enjoy. She's always been a natural drama queen actress, and a very good narrator. I can't wait to see the skits they will put on.

I'm very excited about these positive changes in my daughters life, and I hope that she will keep up the good work! Good job, Molly!!

Good Golly, Miss Molly Was Even There Too!

Last Friday, Molly was extremely excited to participate in another "All-City" Choir Concert. This is where all the choir students from 4th grade through 12th grade come together in the H. S. gym and sing as one mass choir. Before they all sing together, they sing a song or two with their own class. Molly is a seventh grader this year, and here they are singing "Splish Splash." She especially liked the parts of the song about her. You know, "good golly, Miss Molly was even there too...and then there was something about Molly "dancing on the ceiling." That was kinda fun.



After listening to each individual choir; middle school, 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade, H.S. and Concert Choir, was the best part of the night. This is approximately 600 students singing a song called "Look at the World." I really enjoyed that song. Molly is in the front row, way to the right -hand side. She's standing next to two H. S. students, and her friend Nevynn, who coincidentally ended up wearing the same exact white shirt as she did.




The kids did a great job, and for the most part, I enjoyed the concert...other than the fact that we were smashed into a gym with all the rest of the parents/grandparents/siblings etc. of the 600 students that were singing. Hopefully, there will never be a fire during one of these events....I fear there would be several people trampled if we ever had to evacuate the gym during one.

Molly's Science Lesson: The Broom Stands Alone

My 12-year-old daughter, Molly heard on the radio, about how you are supposed to be able to stand a broom up on its bristles twice a year, during the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes. She decided to give it a try last night, and was pretty excited when she was successful. She borrowed my camera to document this strange phenomenon, and this is what I found on it this morning:

Pay no attention to the messy bathroom ;)

I couldn't quite make out what this last one was on my camera.

After I uploaded it, I figured out that she must have climbed up on top of the vanity, and taken this shot looking down from the end of the broom handle. Clever, don't you think?

Here's her video documentary:

Happy 233rd Birthday, America!

I'm pretty sure I won't get a chance to blog tomorrow, so I thought I'd say it today. It should be an interesting, busy weekend. We're going to my home town for the big parade in the morning, and then bringing my 6yr old niece, Shelby home with us for the rest of the weekend. Shelby was born with Down Syndrome, and is quite a character. The other day, her mother said she put on a hat, grabbed her guitar and said, "See ya, I'm going to Mexico, my band is there." And then she came back in and asked her if she'd give her a ride.

We had her last year for the Fourth too...that's when Shelby locked herself in the bathroom at ShopKo, and I had to crawl in after her...while she proceeded to crawl into the next one...

This year, I'll also have my 4 yr old grandson, CJ. Molly is having her friend Liz join us for the weekend as well, so hopefully the big girls can help us keep an eye on the two little ones. After the parade, we're going to come back to P-town for the festivities here. They've got kid's games, a pork chop dinner, karaoke, and then fireworks to top off the weekend. And then, I'll have to try to get all the kids up on Sunday morning to get us all to church by 8AM, because Ray and I are helping lead the worship. Hopefully, Molly and Liz can keep Shelby and CJ entertained while we sing. I'll let y'all know how it all works out. Happy Independence Day!!

Wordless Wednesday # 28 ~ How Tall is a "Typical" American 12-year-old Girl?

About this tall... (the one on the right is actually 4 months OLDER)

V.B.S. Takes Its Toll on Everyone!

Today was the first day of Vacation Bible School at our church. This year's theme is "Studio Go Game Show." It will be every morning this week from 9AM to 12:15. My grandson, CJ is attending with a lot of his friends. I'm helping out with the babies in the nursery, with my good friend Lisa, (QTpies7), and Molly is helping out by leading the worship etc with some other older girls. So far, so good. There were over 100 kids there this morning, not counting the 6th and 7th graders that were there helping out! Everyone is having a great time, despite the rainy start to the week today.

However, ever since school got out last Wednesday, we've been pretty lax about what time anyone goes to bed around here. Hence CJ and Molly...and I were up a bit later than we should have been last night. After we got home this afternoon, I made lunch and sat down to watch one of my favorite shows, and fell asleep on the couch. Molly had been on the computer and CJ was running around playing. I woke up after a few minutes and it seemed rather quiet in the house. I assumed CJ was upstairs with his mom in their bedroom...until I saw a little head lying behind the recliner in the living room...

CJ curled up next to his "trumpet" that he made in VBS

And then I walked into my bedroom and found this...



Molly had decided to take over my bed. I guess I'll call her "Goldilocks" from now on. I tried to get her out, but there was no budging her. It is now after 5:30 and they are both still asleep! I'd better go wake them up, so they don't stay up half the night tonight and repeat this behavior tomorrow!!

Why Yes, It Actually IS Rocket Science!

At least, it's middle school "rocket science". Molly was studying rockets in her 6th grade science class, and they sent home a form for us parents to order rocket kits for them to launch at school. The options were: a) buy a kit that could only be launched once, b) upgrade to the more expensive one that had a launch pad and 3 extra engines, or c) choose not to buy one at all, and have your child paired with another student that has one. I left the decision up to Ray, and being just a big kid at heart...he chose option b, so that he could play with it at home.

The sixth graders did this on Monday morning at school, and so when Molly got home that day, she and her 4 year old nephew were pretty excited to launch it again here. I told them they'd have to wait for Ray to get home, and when he finally did, we walked to the field next to the house and this is what happened:

The rocket went off without a hitch...after Ray took care of a few minor technical difficulties, and I caught it on video! The only thing was, I thought I had stopped recording after it went off..when I couldn't find the rocket in the camera's viewfinder! (That's why you see me aiming the camera it at my feet, because I was looking to see what I had captured.)

But the funniest thing happened AFTER I thought it WASN'T recording... If you listen closely, you can hear Christian say, "Whoa! Molly's rocketship goes that far?!" Jessica tells him, "Yep." If you can't understand his next comment, my grandson says, "That's a little SCARY!" And then I start giggling. It's a good thing I decided to watch it on my computer, because I realized I actually DID get the rocket coming back down with the parachute...and I had also forgotten all about Christian's comment at the end. We get to launch it two more times now...yay!

What A Weekend Part 2 ~ Off To The Races!

The second part of our busy weekend, came exactly 8 hours after the first one ended...back at church. It was our annual Awana Float-A-Boat and Derby. Remember how I said I'd drank a pot of coffee on Friday night? Well, because of that, I only got about 2 hours of sleep. I was sooo tired, but that's okay...

all I had to do was sit and sell donuts, muffins and SunnyD at the concession stand.

My husband, Ray is the Awana Commander, so he had lots more to do. He even had give a "sermon"...which he was busy writing when I got home at 1:00AM that morning.

The younger kids, ages K - 2nd grade do the float-a-boat. They each get a boat kit and make their own boat to certain size specifications. We then fill rain gutters with colored water, and the kids use their own "wind power" to blow on the sails and make the boats race to the other end.

We had a pretty good crowd for this event this year.

Here you can see all 4 lanes in action.



And here's a close-up of two of the "captains"...

One, of which went home with the 1st place trophy for speed. Way to blow, Raymond!

After (big) Ray's message, the crowd turned their attention to the Awana Derby.

This is where the big kids race cars that they've made out of blocks of wood, down a long track. The 3rd through 6th graders participate in this event.

Molly was one of the design judges this year.

She had her work "cut out" for her, here are a few of the cars...check out the second car from the left?

It's got a LIVE GOLDFISH for a driver!

And...they're OFF!

Rick Heitke was our announcer again this year. He always makes a point of interviewing the racecar drivers...he asks them about the designs and if they did anything special to make their car faster. He sometimes gets some pretty hilarious responses from the kids.
Here, he was not only interviewing the "driver", but also the "team owner".

Design Trophy Winners: 3rd place Joel O.; 2nd place Ryan W. (with the goldfish) and 1st place Abbie J., with her "pronto pup" car.

Speed Trophy Winners: 3rd place, Hayden W.; 2nd place, Jacob O. ; 1st place Morgan Z.

Yay, Abbie and Morgan! Anything boys can do...girls can do better!

Wordless Wednesday #23 ~ Cool as a Cucumber!

A Fishy Tail Tale

A couple of weeks ago I posted about my daughter Jessica buying two betta fish for her son, CJ and her sister, Molly. Remember "One Fish, Two Fish...Red Fish, Blue Fish"?Anyway, CJ's blue fish, "Cody" lasted less than a week, and was found belly-up one morning. Okay...now we are down to just one fish; red fish. So, we remove the divider between the apartments, to give Ozzy a much more spacious home. But after a few more days, the plastic tank he is in, (which has a plug on the bottom of it that is not sealed properly), begins to slowly seep water out of it. I walk into the room and see a tank that looks completely dry, (and water running across the top of the shelf that it's sitting on), so I investigate a little further. Poor Ozzy is lying with his nose in the corner of the bottom of the tank, ...and another one bites the dust...or so I thought.

I walk out of the room, and it occurs to me maybe, just maybe, the thing is still alive. After all, stranger things have happened around here lately. So I walk back in, assess the situation...and Ozzy the fish, "pulls a Bart" on me! Well okay... he didn't roll over, but I swear he turned his little head and looked up at me! He had his nose stuck in about an 1/8 of an inch of water in the corner of the tank, and was still alive...so I rescued him and put him in the container that he came in from the store. Yes, my husband saves a dog after it suffers a near death experience, and now I get to be the hero and save a little fishy from one!

For some reason though, we can't seem to get the stupid tank to hold water anymore. So Jess goes back to the store and buys a new pinkish-colored fish for CJ, (which he names Cody II), and two new tanks for the two fish. This time they get their own separate cubicles...instead of living in a duplex. Well, that was all fine and dandy for a few days, until Molly came in the room the other night, and discovered BOTH fish belly up. So long Ozzy...so long Cody II! I never even got a picture of Cody II.

Fast forward to last Thursday night... Jessica takes the kids to Walmart to get them each ANOTHER new fish. Molly picks out an orange and black one this time and dubs him "Tiger". Christian's new fish is kind of blue with red fins, and of course he wants to name this one, (you guessed it), Cody as well. Four year olds are so original at times. But then I tell him that his fish reminds me of Spiderman, because it's red and blue. CJ agrees with me and decides to name him that, which may have been a mistake. "Spiderman", apparently decided that with his new-found "super spidey powers", he should have no problem jumping from his tank into Tiger's....alas, he was wrong.

Friday morning, Ray finds his cold, dead fish body lying on the floor...poor Spidey. And then there was ONE...again. Jess is going to buy ONE MORE fish for Christian. That's it. If he doesn't survive more than a week or so...we were just not meant to have fish.

Say A Little Prayer for Bart, Please?

I can't believe I'm asking this, not being much of a "dog person", but Bart is my 4 year old grandson, CJ's dog. That's not the reason he needs prayer, even though in this picture, he looks like he might be being hugged to death. My daughter Jessica, her son CJ and their dog Bart have been staying with us, ever since the first part of December, when Jess was discharged from the Air Force. Bart is a Welsh Corgi.

Bart and our dog, Jake had been doing fine just being let out in the yard without being tied up, since we moved out in the country where we live on about 20 acres. However, Bart has recently decided that he owns the road too, and has started chasing cars when he goes outside. I think you can figure out where this story is going now.

Yes, he got hit by a car last night. A lady came to the door crying, saying she'd hit our dog. We assumed the dog was dead, and I think the lady did too. Ray went outside to check it out, and saw the little dog lying on his back with his feet straight up in the air, but then he got a little closer...and Bart rolled over and looked up at him. Ray said it kinda freaked him out! The thing is, that's what Bart does when he's scared or just doesn't want to come when he's called. The little stinker rolls over and plays dead.

So Ray brings him in the house, he's not dead...he's not even bleeding, but he's not really moving or making any noise at all. And it's a Sunday night. We called around to some pet hospitals and all of them needed money up front to even take a look at him. Unfortunately, money is something pretty scarce around here at the moment. We decided to monitor him overnight and take him in to the vet in the morning...if he made it through the night.

He has made it through the night. In fact, at about 5am, our dog Jake was barking from upstairs in Molly's room. He needed to go outside, so I went upstairs, which woke Jessica up. She had Bart's bed in their room overnight. I asked her if he was still alive, she looked down in his box asked, "Where is he?" He'd somehow made it across the hall to the TV room and was lying in a corner with his head behind the futon. He had also gone to the bathroom on the floor...but I guess that wasn't his fault. At least it's a bare floor, and not carpet up there. And we now know that he is able to get around. We just don't know if he actually walked or dragged himself there.

As of nine o'clock this morning, Jessica, CJ and Bart are all still asleep. We plan on taking him in this morning, but if his injuries are extensive, we'll have to have him put to sleep. Molly wants us to come and pick her up from school if it comes down to that. She's taking this whole thing harder than anyone else. I don't think CJ really understands it. He thinks that if the dog dies, we can just go to the "Bart store" and get a new Bart. I hate this, myself. I've never especially cared for Bart, but don't really like to watch an animal suffer either. Not to mention, the expense for Jessica in taking him to the vet, possibly to find out that he needs to be put down anyway.

I guess I'd better go wake them up and see what the situation is, I'll update later.

Update: We decided to take Bart outside, just to see what would happen. Jess carried him out and gently set him down. He not ony stood up, but did his business and then trotted around after Jake a little bit. He's walking a little crookedly, but he's walking. We stil plan on taking him to the vet, but right now Jessica's car won't start...and mine hasn't worked in a couple of weeks. She does have roadside assistance, so right now we're waiting for them to come and give her a jump.

And now, as I type this, Bart just got out of his bed, (which he's been lying in all morning), and came in to visit me, walking around my feet under the computer desk. He does look like he's walking straighter. Ray thinks maybe the blow caused shock to his spinal cord or something, and it's just taking awhile for him to get everything back in working order. Hopefully, that's all it is. And Jess just came in now, after her car was jumped. It's running, so as soon as it warms up a bit, we're off to the vet.

One Fish, Two Fish... Red Fish, Blue Fish

Jessica and Christian went shopping today, and this is what they came home with:

Two Betta fighting fish. Christian wanted to name them both "Cody", (I'm not sure exactly why), but his mother convinced him that the fish would be confused and would both come when called by name that way. Anyhow, they had bought the red one for Molly, and she decided to name her new pet"Ozzy" after Ozzy Osborne, of course.

Their small aqarium has separate "apartments", with a solid center divider, that can be removed so that only the transparent one remains. In the picture above, they are looking at each other, (which is supposed to get them all mad and try to fight each other), however, they seem to be quite bored with each other already. Maybe they're just tired from the trip? I don't know. I'll check in with them tomorrow, their new deluxe water-filled condos sit right behind me here in the computer room, so I'll be able to keep an eye on them easy enough.

The Slumber Party's Over ~ Well Almost

It's 7:45 AM and there are three girls in my kitchen eating ICE CREAM, because it's NOT just for breakfast anymore! We ended up with just 2 of Molly's friends here last night. The third girl that was invited was not at school yesterday, so we're assuming she was sick. So we had a total of 3 girls, 2 dogs and one 4 year old boy. After finding out how much noise 3 twelve year old girls can make, I was glad we hadn't invited anymore.

They were all pretty good though, and actually DID slumber last night! I went upstairs at 1:15am and they were all fast asleep. The DVD was still playing, so I shut it off. I had my suspicions that they were only feigning slumber, but I never heard another peep out of them. Unfortunately, I had to wake them up early this morning, because one of the guests is exactly one day younger than Molly, and has her own party to get ready for today. That's why I didn't protest when I found them helping themselves to ice cream for breakfast. I drew the line at putting 12 candles in Nevynn's ice cream though.

Here's Molly's birthday cake. Molly had picked this one out quite a while ago, but I couldn't find the flip-flop cake set anywhere. Finally, last weekend , I won one on ebay. The auction wasn't over until Saturday, and I was afraid we wouldn't get it in time. Luckily, it arrived yesterday, just about the time I was going to decorate the cake.

My back-up plan was to use these little Hawiian figurines and palm trees. Since we didn't nee them for the cake, Jessica used them to garnish this lovely fruit tray that she'd created.

Here's Christian, modeling his new Hawiian shirt, and trying to snitch fruit off of the tray.

Jess also decorated the upstairs family room for her, and bought this scary-looking lovely balloon boquet and banner, along with some pineapple-scented candles, to set the tropical island atmosphere up there.

Molly had a special lei to wear, that had a "happy birthday" sign hanging from it. She wore it to school, just to make sure everyone there knew that it was her birthday.

Here are the three girls and CJ enjoying their strawberry daiquiris (NA of course), complete with umbrella straws, also provided by Jessica. They each had a name tag with their Hawaiian name on it, and received a lei and a new pair of flip-flops as party favors.

For some reason, "Mana'olana-Ana" was avoiding the camera all night. Perhaps she's practicing to be a famous rock star some day???

Or maybe it's just because her mom, Lisa is a blogger too, so she's used to covering her face every time she sees a camera lens pointed in her direction. We did catch her here, but the picture is a bit blurry.

"Moli", "Newine" and "the future rock star" eating cake and ice cream last night

And last but not least, Jake or "Iake" had to get in on the act too, complete with Hawaiian name tag and lei. Jessica's dog Bart, "Palaka" had one on too, but I caught him sneaking a cold drink of water out of the bathroom, and then noticed he'd left his calling card. His name tag was floating around in the toilet. All in all, it was a pretty good party.