It Will Happen To You

When we got home from church today, it went something like this:

Me: I need to run to the store for a couple of things I forgot.

Ed: When you go, would you pick up some hand soap refill? You know...it's on the hand soap aisle.

Me: REEEAALLLYYY? WOW! They keep the hand soap on a hand soap aisle? Gee, someone is really thinking.

Ed: (now sheepishly grinning) Yeah, isn't it amazing how they do that?

After the trip to the store and at lunch time, I prepared a sandwich for his mother and asked him if he wanted one. He said maybe half. I said ok, if his mother only wants half (which she usually does) he could have the other half. I made the sandwich, delivered her half, and told him his half was ready. He came to sit down and there was more conversation.

Ed: (lifting up the top piece of bread) What's on this sandwich?

Me: (perplexed..I mean look at it) Well, it has lettuce, tomato, mayo, cheese....(I stopped to look at him lifting the bread)...oh...I forgot the meat. Your mother just ate a cheese sandwich not a turkey and cheese sandwich (and the turkey was still sitting on the kitchen counter...I just had forgotten to put it on). She must not have noticed or I would have heard about it.

Ed: Uh, now you might be able to understand why I was explaining to you where you could find the hand soap.

Me: Ok, you got me...this time.

Halloween '09

He'll kill me. Well, he doesn't blog and he doesn't read blogs, unless I put it in front of his face and say "Read this" and then only when he gets around to it. That said, here we are in our Halloween costumes, which we haven't done in years. We are fire and ice. I guess you can probably figure out which is which. He started it all.

On Friday night he set his agenda and expected Erin and me to follow it. As he was leaving to go and work at the local Halloween haunted hayride, he mentioned that Erin and I should make zombies for the front porch. He did bring in some old jeans and shirts of his, and left it to us. We both stood looking at each other, a little frustrated. Our expressions said it all. Here he goes again...giving us a job to do and then removing himself from having to be involved. Not that we had to do it (and I mostly did it myself), I started stuffing the clothes to make bodies.

When he finally returned, he had brought some masks from the hayride which weren't being used, and we added those for the heads. He even got an old stuffed bear out of the attic and put a mask on it. We ended up with two male zombies, a female zombie which sort of resembled Mrs. Bates from Psycho, and a zombie faced stuffed bear. So that started it all.

The next morning when I stopped at Wal-Green for a couple of things and noticed a ton of Halloween stuff on sale. I ended up buying a spider, a spider web, two large plastic images of skeletons you could hang in the windows, and some tombstones for the yard. I also started looking at the hair sprays and things. I hadn't decided to dress up, but got a little inspired. Ed actually went out on his own later and found the red stuff to be the opposite of me. If we were going to be at home alone I guess we might not have done so much, but we had two couples over for a light dinner and to help pass out treats. I was also expecting some of my students as well.

It turned out to be a lot of fun. I guess we are now reverting back to childhood..kind of scary. Scarier than the yard and porch decorations we are. The fun thing is that it reminds me of when we were first dating. We went to a number of Halloween parties over the year. For our first I was a basket of dirty laundry. We cut holes in the bottom of a laundry basket so I could step inside, I stuffed the basket with clothes, laundry soap, etc. He went as Mr. Clean, all in white, and wore a skull cap. For another party we were The Blues Brothers.

One year a friend had a Victor, Victoria party. That's definitely another post! Here are some more pics.

Anticipating the Holidays

This scene is no longer. I took this photo at my school's autumn gathering...our Chili Off. It took place at our kindergarten teacher's place, which is a beautiful area. She has a wonderful old farm house surrounding by fields. While we were eating great chili and playing games of Corn Hole and Croquet, I snuck over to get this shot.

These fields are empty now. Only stubble remains, and I'm thinking holidays. How could I help it? I've already seen Christmas displays up in department stores when I was in Chicago over last weekend. I'll admit that I love the holidays...from Halloween on, but Thanksgiving and Christmas more so than Halloween. But that doesn't mean I'm game for such early decorating. I don't watch a lot of television but I'm sure the Christmas advertisements are there. I know some holiday movie trailers are out. The new release of A Christmas Carol with Jim Carey is soon to be out. Early November is just too early for a movie like that. I find that when all the hype starts so early, I get burned out around the time I should be in the throes of shopping and cooking and crafting.

I have to admit though, I'm looking forward to this holiday season more so than I have for years. Why? If you read (and I really don't have a lot of readers..I'm basically just talking to myself here), I'm pretty much an empty nester. While I do have one daughter still at home, it's different. I have no high school children. I am free from all of the commitment it takes to be an involved parent. I loved every minute of it, but....

I won't be planning a Madrigal dinner (although I plan on attending and enjoying it). So, I can cook, craft, shop and wrap to my heart's content. Another interesting change, my adult daughters are encouraging me not to do so much shopping, and I'm game...at least if I can still do a little. We'll still have a family exchange on both mine and Ed's sides, but we will try to cut down on what we are doing for each other and instead adopt a family to assist.

We are having the big Thanksgiving meal (which I actually love because it is about food and not presents), but for Christmas we are planning on a more simple meal of soup/chowder, munchies, and desserts. We can have a lot less stress in the way of food preparation (Ed asked me..."When did this happen? Was I consulted?...he should know better), and more time for fun and games and holiday movies.

I am going to enjoy this...for years I've gotten caught up in making sure my girls were happy, that they had enough, that I was fair with what I did for each of them, etc....I'm a bit like my mother that way, although I'll never do what she still does...buys for each and every one of her children, their spouses, and her grandchildren. It's just too much and I wish I could get her to stop, but it makes her happy. I've finally gotten her to buy gift cards. I've finally convinced her that is what the girls prefer, but beyond that I doubt that her insistence on buying for everyone will ever end as long as her health allows her to do it.

I'm a Christmas fiend, so I'm sure I'll have a lot of posts about what I'm doing approaching the holidays. I've been away a lot due to a crazy schedule at home and school, so I hope to get back into the swing of things. And hopefully they won't be so all over the place as this one is (trying to catch up I guess).

Stress<----->Computer

This is where I have been spending a lot of time lately. When people first started having PC's in the home they sort of became addictive. It was just such an awesome thing. The kids who have been born in the past ten years won't understand what a novelty it was for some of us.

I was an addictee when we first got one in the home, then I got away from that thankfully. Now a bit of me has become like that again. I've started this blog and another, I'm typing instead of writing out my lesson plans, I'm on Facebook, and there are always emails to check and websites to investigate (usually teacher websites I like exploring).

Lately my computer has been really slow...I mean sssllllloooooooowww. I'm a patient person. Unlike my husband, who will walk away if it doesn't do what he wants it to immediately, I stick it out. I wait...and wait...and wait...for something I need to load. It's funny, but lately I've sensed a lot more tension in my body than usual. The back of my neck has been aching and burning, and I've had a number of headaches.

Just yesterday the man who helps me with computer issues came over and installed some memory on my computer, updated our virus software, and removed some of the things that come with computers that you never use.

After he left (I didn't have much time because we had evening plans) I came in and clicked explorer only to have my home page almost instantly appear. I felt this huge weight lift from me. I'm starting to wonder if my stress, the tension I felt and headaches I've had are somehow related to the amount of time I've spent sitting here waiting and waiting and waiting, bound and determined to get that picture loaded, that blog written, and those lesson plans done.

I hope so. I am trying to simplify my life in a lot of ways. One is that I really do not want to live on the computer. Life is too short. Technology is a tool, not a way to spend hours and hours of my life. I hope this means the end of the extra tension and headaches.

Saturday Morning Excursion

Although it would have been easy for me to lounge in bed a bit longer this morning (the first Saturday following the beginning of school) I didn't. Instead I invited my husband to go with me to the Zionsville Farmers Market (thanks to my friend Janet who wrote about this in one of her blog entries). Ed isn't one to stroll and just enjoy the moment sometimes, but it was good for us to do something together and to get out of the house.

We did a walk through of the market first and went around a couple of more times to buy what we thought was the most and best for the money. We picked up a cantaloupe (which is called in Indiana a muskmelon and is somewhat different looking and better tasting than a plain cantaloupe), tomatoes, green peppers, hot peppers, peaches, chili sauce, sausage (his pick), rosemary/olive oil bread, and lastly (with all the cash we had left) this beautiful bouquet of flowers.

He seemed to enjoy it, although I did have to encourage him to relax and stroll, and not become his "efficiency expert" self. We should have brought the dogs. There were dogs everywhere...next time.

I think we have to learn to do these sorts of things together more frequently and rediscover ourselves. When you are raising children you are going every which way and are so busy all the time. It is hard to learn to spend one-on-one time together again. We are entering a new phase.

Of course on the way home, he fell into one of his favorite things to do...explore...go a different way...get lost sort of (but not admit it). He's never really had a hobby other than that he reads a lot....maybe something to do with cartography, not that there are any places in the world left unexplored. I know...he could be the person who creates better directions for online services, since they never give you the most efficient route.

I Stand Corrected

After posting the previous and "gifting" it to my parents, my mother told me I had just a couple of things mixed up. The first and not all that important is that my father had just been discharged from the Navy, but he was in uniform. Secondly, and more important, my mother did not turn 18 on her wedding day, she turned 17.

My mother was an only child, living in a small town in southern Indiana, getting married on her 17th birthday. Oh, she was also already expecting her first child. If it was scandalous at the time, which maybe it was, does it really matter after 62 years? I don't think it was a shotgun wedding. My grandfather might not have been very happy about it but it wasn't that. They wanted to be married. Look at what happened...four children, nine grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. The most important thing is a marriage that has lasted for 62 years.

They didn't get married in a church. It was a civil service. On their 50th we four children put together the celebration they never had...the whole shebang...a big reception, the cake, a slide show video with music, a limo, dinner and a hotel, and lots of family and friends.

I just figured out I would have to live to be 91 to be married for 62 years....not so sure about that.

Seasons Change

I have very mixed emotions about starting school again and thinking of the end of summer.

I'm not complaining. It has been a good summer and I know a lot of that is because of NOT having a foot surgery (I've done that two out of the last four or five summers), because of HAVING a vacation, and because I have really LOVED the weather this summer.

I don't know why I've heard grumbling about cooler weather and a little rain. Most often Indiana in August consists of dead, brown grass and high heat and humidity. I don't think anyone can complain about some rain. We haven't had so much rain that we've had flooding. We've had the kind of rain farmers appreciate and need.

The cooler weather and low humidity have been great. There is nothing better than having windows open, especially at night when you can hear the crickets or cicadas, and can drift away feeling a cool breeze against your skin.

I look forward to a new bunch of students to experience, leaves falling, pumpkins, fresh apple cider, trick or treaters, bonfires and such.

Seasons change and I enjoy change. Being a teacher and experiencing the end of a school year, and then getting excited about starting again, is something people in other careers don't get to enjoy. I'd argue with anyone who says teachers don't work hard. Most of us take classes, read professionally and/or make plans for the coming year during the summer, but these little transitions that go along with the holidays and seasons are refreshing to the spirit.

When I am buying new things and making plans for a new school year, I always sense some wistfulness in my husband who just has to keep plugging along with not so many breaks.

Teaching through the seasons in Indiana is great. It won't be long before we are praying for a snow day though.

The Importance and Power of Punctuation

Someone forwarded this to my husband today, and he forwarded it to me.

An English professor wrote the words:

"A woman without her man is nothing."

...on the chalkboard and asked his students to punctuate it correctly.

All the males in the class wrote:

"A woman, without her man, is nothing."

All the females in the class wrote:

"A woman: without her, man is nothing."

SKUNKED!

After not having slept well at all on Saturday night, I decided I would try my best on Sunday. I soaked in a nice bath for around an hour, reading my book, toweled off, put on my p.j.'s and climbed in. I ignored taking the dogs out, I ignored our guests, I just climbed in and continued reading. I was hooked on the book so did read for awhile until it became the normal bedtime, somewhere between 10 and 11 p.m.

Suddenly my husband bursts into the room with the dogs in tow (we have two...a mini-Schnauzer and a Goldendoodle) and asks me to smell Roxie (our Goldendoodle). Well, first of all he knows my smeller doesn't work well because he always smells odors I don't smell, so I sort of rely on him to decide if something in the pantry or refrigerator has gone bad. Initially I didn't smell a thing (of course), and then it hit me in the face. Roxie had been skunked.

My husband likes to let Roxie run off of her leash. We live on about an acre in a small town. We are in a neighborhood but there is a fair amount of wildlife around us. A railroad track runs along the back of our property and there is nothing but a field on the other side. We have quite a number of species of birds, I've seen deer, ground hogs, bunnies of course, and where those animals live, of course there will be raccoons, fox, possum, and (naturally) skunks around even if we don't see them.

So when he took them out one last time before bed, Roxie got skunked somewhere in the back of the yard. To be fair to him, Roxie doesn't run off when you let her run; at least not far. She has run a couple of houses away but is a bit of a wimp and doesn't stray far. She'll go further if the mini-Schnauzer (Captain) is also left off his leash to run (typically we don't do this). I will let Roxie and Captain (sometimes) both off their leashes and they chase each other around the yard, around the house, and Roxie is pretty good about staying around. If I can get her back on her leash, Captain will follow where she is. And with practice and training, they will get even better at not running off. Our neighborhood covenants don't allow us to have fences, so if we wanted to rein them in we'd have to get an invisible fence.

However, I NEVER let Roxie run off her leash in the dark. First, as mentioned she is a bit wimpy and shies easily. I wouldn't..ahem...want her to get into any trouble or see something (which may only come out at night...ahem) and take off after it. Second, why of all times would my husband assume I needed to be the one to determine whether Roxie smelled of something since he knows my smeller doesn't work well? That's what he said when he came upstairs to our bedroom..."Smell Roxie...does she smell?" Third, if he SUSPECTED she smelled of anything, why in the world would he bring her in, trailing skunk spray everywhere in the house?!?

So OF COURSE, just like he used to not want to clean up children who were throwing up, I basically sighed loudly, tossed my book aside, got up and threw on some old clothes and headed downstairs with Roxie. She was upset, maybe smelling herself, and by that time had not only gone in her crate and laid down on her cushion in there, but also came back out of her crate onto her doggie bed, so the smell was on those things as well. Through all of this of course, he's overreacting (what he usually does when in reality he is mad at himself, not me), and I'm overreacting to his overreacting.

I took Roxie downstairs, put her out on the porch and went to the computer to look up what to do about skunk spray, it never having happened to me before. Our guests were still up, probably from all the chaos going on upstairs. So much for their sleep. My sister-in-law first said tomato juice. I've heard that but wanted to be sure. (I did eventually find out tomato juice is not the answer). We googled it and my computer was being slow, so she actually called a friend in Taos where she is from to get her recipe.

What it took was a quart of hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 cup of baking soda, and a teaspoon of dish soap (the kind that says it removes grease). We had no hydrogen peroxide that I could find, and if we had any it wouldn't have been a quart, so I sent my daughter off to the store. In the meantime Roxie is upset on the porch, barking to get in, and probably still keeping our house guests awake. I had my daughter get 2 quarts of hydrogen peroxide.

After mixing up a batch of this recipe, I started scrubbing Roxie down head to toes. They say it can bleach the dog's fur, but Roxie is blond anyway and who cares. The poor thing was shivering since the night air was cool. I applied two batches to her, followed by a regular shampooing and rinsing, toweled her off, and my daughter (who was by that time helping me) took Roxie to sleep in her room. I then had to go upstairs and grab all her bedding and get it in the wash. Fortunately the daughter who had gone to the store for me also picked up another solution which is also supposed to remove skunk odor, so as the directions indicated I added a capful of that to my laundry detergent to wash Roxie's bedding.

You know how "they" say to never let the sun set on your anger? I don't think that's realistic and if you try to live by it, there is too much pressure on you to pretend you aren't angry when you really are. So if you can picture our king sized bed, my husband and I slept far apart and back-to-back. Sometimes it is better NOT to figure it out right then. Sometimes it IS better to just stay quiet and wait until morning. I don't know what time it was when I got to bed, and I don't want to know, but I did get what I wanted...I did sleep well once I got there.

Oh, and we slept with both the air conditioning running and the windows open. I've decided the only way to know for sure the smell isn't in the bedroom or elsewhere in the house is to remove myself and come back in later. Especially since.....my smeller doesn't work! By the way, we were both fine and laughing this morning, and my husband was being his sheepish self, the way he is when he knows he messed up! If he blogged, I'm sure his version would be very different from mine, but this is MY blog. Not only does he not do puke and not do skunk, he also doesn't read or write blogs, so I can say whatever I want..heh heh heh.

Sleep and Other Things

What is it? What is it about that when you get a little older sleep doesn't come as easily, or even if you do get it, you still feel as if you hadn't any. For the last two or three days I have been so lacking of energy, felt like a zombie, and have wanted to do nothing but sit in a chair. Even when I do move, on top of feeling tired, my body hurts, my feet hurt...blah, blah, blah, whine, whine, whine.

Yesterday I talked to an acquaintance of mine and happened to ask...have you felt different the last couple of days, and I got a resounding yes as a response; so maybe it is the lack of sun, a change in the air pressure or something like that.

All I know is that I hate it, because summer just is so short and it is already July. I have a ton of house projects I want to get finished. I have house guests coming in just a few days, so that will motivate me to at least have things neat and cleaning looking (even if I know there are drawers and closets stuffed full). Following that we are heading to Florida for a week. After that I'll have to start getting ready to go back to school. Unbelievable. And I say this every year. It's just the way it is, and I have no control over the way it feels. Wish I did.

So I guess I'll go take a vitamin or something and stop whining. At least Ed took the dogs out this morning and the sun is shining. He's playing golf, so I can work on the things on my agenda, not his (and that's another story).

Husbands and Common Sense

Those two things don't always go hand in hand. For the most part, I just let my spousal unit believe he is in charge, wise, and oozing with common sense. I've learned that it really accomplishes little to do other than let him go on applying his lawyerly logic to human relationships. I have occasionally tried to point out lawyerly logic doesn't work when it comes to human relationships (nor does any form of logic for that matter). Any success I achieve at convincing him I'm right and he is wrong rarely happens in the moment, but only after he has had time to process.

When it comes to his reaction to any potentially heated issue, I have learned two things. First, he will always react opposite to my expectations. Second, I have learned to "introduce" the topic to him, let him react to it in whatever way is his path of least resistance, and then let it smoulder for a couple of days before moving him along to my way of thinking (which he knows is inevitable anyway).

A perfect example is the issue of his sister staying at our home and caring for our two dogs while we are on vacation. I had this arranged with the daughter of a friend who loves animals and house sits. Those plans changed when his sister called to say that she and her son would be flying in from out of state for the purpose of having our nephew's ACL surgically repaired. Could they stay at our home for recuperation? Absolutely, and even better my sister-in-law will be here while we are on vacation so she and her son will have the place to themselves. She'd be more than willing to take care of our pets, flowers, etc.

Coincidentally, I've been allowing our two dogs to sleep outside of their crates since they are housebroken. One of the dogs has been doing fine. In fact, Roxie willingly goes into her crate to sleep, even though I have provided her with a bed outside of the crate. It's her den and she clearly prefers it. The other dog does not particularly like his crate. He has relished in having a soft doggie bed (next to me on the floor) to curl upon at bedtime. However, he also has been getting me up either in the middle of the night to go out, or rather early in the morning (earlier than I want to get up as a teacher on summer break). I've heard my husband say on a couple of occasions that "You are going to have to get him trained not to do this while my sister is here." He has also mentioned moving their crates out of our bedroom and into our basement (as far away from our bedroom as is possible) while my sister-in-law is here (and using our bedroom) so as not to inconvenience her.

Well, I have let it go for a few days, and then when walking the dogs together at the park yesterday, finally brought it up. "....uh, about this issue of Captain getting up....." I reminded him that Captain was being a good boy by letting me KNOW he NEEDS to go out; better than the alternative. Then I reminded him that we are talking about dogs, not children (who by the way I couldn't suddenly potty train in anticipation of going on vacation either), and that his sister did agree willingly to take care of our pets (I doubt she realizes what she is getting into).

Finally, I let him know that I would be more than willing to go ahead and have our dogs boarded at an excellent kennel where they would have a suite, lots of room to run, people playing with them, their area cleaned daily, and so forth....at a price. That last bit I think made all the difference. His response was to be very agreeable and say "Oh I know...she agreed to take care of them and so will have to deal with them as they are." I was hoping he would actually tell me to have them boarded, where I know they would get attention and be loved, not just tolerated. I'm not sure my "logic" worked this time.