There's A Fox, A Chicken, and a Bag of Grain...

Know how to solve that riddle? Well you would need to if you were checking into a hotel with Jack and Lucy in the rain, parked in a mud puddle, with a car full of food. I'll spare you the details until later, when it's hilarious. For now, the picture will have to do.

Hendricks

I had the most delicious Gin and Tonic of my life last weekend when we were camping. I enjoyed it so much, I had to take this picture. Turns out, it was made with Hendrick's gin. Slightly above my normal price point. I went to Liquor Mart and asked, "If I normally think gin is yucky, but I loved this, what can I get that is almost as good?" The answer was, "Just look for this on sale. You are going to be disappointed with everything else."

But since it was mere hours before the season premiere of Mad Men, I didn't have time to wait for a sale. And it was a special occasion...

I made my gin and tonic and then realize the upstairs TV no longer had AMC. So I tried to switch out the cable box from the basement with unfortunate results. Long story short, I poured my G&T into a jelly jar, screwed on the lid and biked to a friends house to watch Mad Men.

I felt like my Grandma, who always brought a pre-mixed martini to our house in a Lawry's spice jar. Turning into my Grandma is a good thing. Totally worth the price of that bottle of gin.

Buffalo Creek

Last weekend we camped at Buffalo Creek, in the group site, with a ton of other people. You can't tell from this view though, can you?


Close up of nap time:

And here is Jack with his twin from daycare. The school sends pictures of the kids each week, and sometimes it is hard to tell who is who.

Girl's Night(s)

Everyone has been asking what I plan to do with my free time with the boys gone. I wasn't really sure, but as soon as I was along in the house, I went to the bathroom without anyone coming in to talk to me, or asking if they could sit on my lap. After that all my dreams for my alone time were fulfilled and I wasn't sure what to do next.

So I figured... pedis! I dropped Lucy off at Laund R Mutt for a bath and a nail trim and I went to Poshe for a pedicure of my own. Then Lucy and I unpacked all the camping gear and cleaned out the van. As a reward for my hard work, I went to get a massage. Ahhh. Girls's weekend.

Today, the two of us are having a great time cleaning out a bunch of toys from the boys rooms. Won't they be so excited to come home and have so much more space? I decided it was time to call it quits when I found myself putting more than 2 seconds of thought into, "How many bouncy balls should I keep and how many should I give to charity?" (But really, how many?)

Actually, the real reason I just flew up the stairs in a frenzy, and then needed to decompress by writing a blog post was this: Skunk. I was in the basement, and I started to smell a bad smell, that was sort of like cigarette smoke. Then it got a little stronger and it smelled faintly skunky. By the time I started to notice Lucy whining, and I wondered if I had closed the back door, the smell had grown to a presence. I could see it, and feel it and I was scared. I booked up the stairs and headed for the door, which was open. Lucy was just standing in the middle of the room looking worried. I shut the door and decided I needed to face that smell. I walked right up to her and stuck my nose in her freshly bathed fur and breathed in. Sweet, sweet dog shampoo smell. Sweet relief. I think the problem was that I had the fan sucking in air from the backyard, and a skunk definitely sprayed something nearby. But thank GOD it wasn't Lucy. And I certainly don't keep a score in my head about who is a better dog in certain categories, (because that would be crazy) but if I did, I would have to give the point to Lucy over Bean in Avoiding Being Sprayed By A Skunk.

Now that I have had my spa day, and my getting rid of massive amounts of toys day, what could possibly be next for tomorrow? Not even I know.

Colorado Trail

We dropped Dave off at Waterton Canyon on Friday afternoon so he could start the Colorado trail. He met us at Buffalo Creek on Friday night and we camped Friday and Saturday. Dave took Saturday to rehydrate and rest because Friday was brutally hot. That was good news for me because it meant I had all day to mountain bike with the ladies. I had more fun biking than I can ever remember. I can't really remember what it was like to mountain bike before I had kids, so maybe that was fun too - but since then I have always like the idea of biking, and I have done it, but I always felt like it was something I sort of had to do, and had to be back by a certain time, and I always sort of suffered through it. I don't know if was the lack of a deadline for my return so Dave could have his turn, or the weather, or the awesomeness of the trail, or the good company, or the fact that maybe the Wii Active 30 day challenge got my legs in shape, or a combination of all of the above, but it was awesome.

Sunday, I met Grandmom and Grandad on I-70 and dropped the kids off with them and they headed to Breckenridge to meet Dave for Sunday night dinner.

Lucy and I headed home for some girl time. More on that tomorrow!

Follow Dave's progress here.

Speaking of Sewing Projects: Revisited

There were some great suggestions that I just sew the zebra blanket onto the new bed, and I have to say that's a great idea! (Thanks Molly and FoW!) Of course, we had already implemented a MetaMegan style version of that idea.

Busted chewing on a shoe! It's come to the point that we wander the yard aimlessly searching for lost items before we bother looking in the house. Then we finally ask Jack where stuff is and he tells us.

In other news, today is the start of the big bike ride!!!! Once we finish working, packing, cleaning out the car, packing the car and whatever else, we are going to drop Dave off at the start of the Colorado trail. Good luck Dave!

Quotes

Jack: Bye Mommy
Me: Bye Jack
Jack: Love you.
Me: Love you too.
Jack: Thanks for coming over to visit.
Me: I live here.

I think Jack got stuck in his "saying goodbye to Grandmom and Grandad" loop.

***

We met Luke, Grandmom and Grandad at Dave's softball double header last night. Apparently, on the way there, Luke said to Grandmom, "Grandmom, just so you know, some of my friends will be there, so I will be playing with them." I guess the phase before you pretend you don't know your relatives is the phase where you give your relatives a heads up that you'll be ditching them for your friends.

***

And one more quote from a softball fan in the stands after Dave struck somebody out, "Woohoo! Nolan Ryan! Bringing the heat!"

Speaking of Sewing Projects

I haven't quit gotten around to making a dog bed, since all my energy for 2 days was focused on making a sleeping bag. Here is Lucy on the fabric and pillow that I purchased in January:

Long story short, she mostly ate that bed because I had never sewn it up. Or because she's a puppy. Thus began my long quest to find a cute dog bed. The thing is... most of the beds I had seen at Petco, Petsmart, Target, Costco, and the vast internet were, well, ugly. And even if I could convince myself to spend a lot of money on an expensive, but fabulous and modern dog bed, yeah, I'm not gonna do that. And those weren't exactly the cutest things ever. THEN I read that Martha Stewart is designing dog accessories for Petsmart. The cupcake was hard to resist. The robe, even harder. But the beds... Ugh. I mean, it was a beautiful color, and it looked delux. But I don't want to spend $45 on something that is going to get covered in dog hair. Don't get me wrong, if it came in Martha's minty green color, it would have been a different story.

Then I found an adorable bed for $14.99. Lucy loves it. See?

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

So, Spring baseball was sometimes a bit much. With Dave coaching, and Luke playing, and Jack needing someone to watch him closely, and a new puppy, well, we didn't eat a lot of well planned, nutritious meals at the dinner table. Let's just say, books were flying off the top of the car more often than not.

Summer ball though... I heard a lot about how it was so much more low key. Oh! They only place once a week? No, twice. Oh, there are no practices before the games? Well, actually, there are. I couldn't figure out how it could be more low key. But I suppose being out of school, and long days, warm weather, and general baseballness in the air has made it pretty fun. In fact, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" has replaced "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" as Jack's lullaby of choice.

I heard Aunt Suzy was requesting a baseball video, and I took one, but Luke didn't hit the ball until his fifth or so pitch, so I wanted a better one. I walked over to find a good spot to video tape and I wondered... Start and stop between every pitch? Do 3 pitches at a time? Zoom in or stay zoomed out? So many things to think about, that before I knew it, Luke had hit the first pitch and was running to first base and I missed it. I was more prepared for his second at bat.



And here is the first one I shot:

Happy 19th of July

ABC, 123, etc.

I Made a Sleeping Bag

Where in the world is MetaMegan in this heat wave?

Sure has been hot lately, hasn't it? What has everyone been doing? Going to the pool? Staying inside in the air conditioning? Water world? The Beach? Seeing a movie?

Me, I've been sitting under a blanket, sewing. Yup! I made Dave a sleeping bag. Have I mentioned that we don't have air conditioning? I know, I know. I am a very dedicated, supportive, awesome, and crafty wife. My fatal flaw, is procrastination. Dave came up with this idea around 6 months ago. He bought the fabric (ultralight nylon with a primaloft), he sent me a link to a website that showed something similar to what he wanted. Months passed, and 12 days before Dave was scheduled to leave, I started the project!


Tuesday night I needed to work late, so in between steps in my project, I sewed. Next thing I knew, it was 1:30 am. I finished up on Wednesday night while we watched Whip It.

Dave tested the sleeping bag out on two occasions. First he wore it to watch the end of Whip It. He said, "Wow this is warm!" No kidding, it's been on my lap for 2 days!

Then Dave took the sleeping bag and all his gear for his bike ride and slept in the woods on Friday night. The low temperature was 43 degrees, and the sleeping bag did the trick. I know, Dave has been training for 6 months, and planning for a year for his 500 mile bike ride. It's all very impressive. The point of everything here is that I sewed a sleeping bag! I am awesome.


Order your slanket now, and I'll start it on December 20th and have it to you in time for Christmas!

Rootin' And Tootin'

As promised (by Dave), I took Jack to Chuck E Cheese this morning to celebrate his lone poop on the potty. While we were out, we made visits to the bathrooms at both Chuck E Cheese and Costco. He peed and CEC, but just sat there at Costco. Well, he sat there cheering. Loudly. Jack was wearing a retro Broncos tee-shirt (with the old school blue and orange colors), which he happened to notice while he was sitting on the pot gazing downwards. This caused him to cheer, "Go BRONCOS!" And once he gets in a cheering mood, there is no stopping him.

"BUFFALO! BUFFALO! GO C!U! "
"BUFFALO! BUFFALO! GO C!U! "

AND so on.

Props to Grandad for the title of this post, which evolved over dinner as I shared the story.

In Retrospect, This Could Have Been Avoided

Have you ever had one of those days, where everything went from totally perfect to perfectly horrible all of a sudden, and you thought, "Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?????" And you shook your fist at the heavens and cursed and moaned and whined and cried? For example, if your house was beautifully, sparklingly clean (Thanks Rosa!) and then before you knew it, your white couch was covered in mud?

Why oh why oh why? The horror, etc.

Faced with the muddy couch and the muddy footprints, and the muddy dog, I decided to hose off the dog and then take her on a walk around the block to air dry. While we were walking, I had the following thoughts.

1.) A muddy couch is the worst thing in my life right now. I am very lucky.
2.) In retrospect, there are things I could have done to avoid this.

Read, learn, and avoid this same fate.

1.) When your 2 year old wants to water your garden, consider supervising.
This one is pretty self explanatory, but somewhat hard to follow advice. I mean, what if you are trying to cook dinner? It seemed like letting Jack water the strawberries would keep him out of my hair and out of trouble for 5 minutes. I was half right.
2.) When your 2 year old shows up at the back door, drenched, saying, "MOMMA! I got wet", consider investigating the cause.
If your first instinct is to get them out of wet clothes and into pajamas because dinner is almost ready, make a mental note to go back soon and figure out what happened. Or at least turn off the hose. In our case, Jack had partially unscrewed the nozzle from the hose. He got soaked, and dropped the hose on the ground and ran to the door. I just figured he squirted himself in the face, and didn't investigate any further.
3.) When you are eating your dinner on the patio, and you hear the puppy whine in a certain way that makes you think, "I should see what is going on" then, really, see what is going on.
Really, I can't emphasize this one enough. The hose was just creating a lake in the yard, that Lucy was turning into a mud puddle by digging and digging. And then she was running into the house, getting on the couch and running back out. And so on. I definitely thought something was going on, but I didn't look into it. Although it probably would have just ruined my dinner.

Blog Bidness

Subscribers, did you notice that you didn't get an email from me for weeks and months? Well, someone mentioned that to me, and I tried to fix it, but I made it worse. Then I tried to fix that problem, and I accidentally deleted everything. Now I am down from 1000 (ok, 13) email subscribers to 0. And I was going to do a big post about it, and how you can now resubscribe, but guess what? You won't know that because you aren't getting the emails!

Then I got sad, boo hoo hoo. For two and a half years, I have slaved away, a few days a month, building my readership to almost 20 people a day and now this. It's back to just me. I googled, "feedburner sucks" and that didn't solve my problem. I just found a blog that lost 1000 subscribers for real and then she gave away diamonds to get her readership back. I mean, it is comment month, but everyone knows the winner is just going to get a shot glass or something.

So, I think you can now resubscribe, or re-follow or whatevs. Let me know if you don't see this post. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha sob.



** Wondering about the subtitle, "Kids, Puppy, Food, Bikes, Work"? I threw that in there because I thought maybe having that section blank was causing my feedburner woes. I don't think it was, but I haven't tried taking it out. Or making it better. I don't really like it because, well, where's the Dave? But Kids, Puppy, Food, Bikes, Work, Dave? Or Dave, Kids, Puppy, Food, Bikes, Work? Kids, Dave, Puppy, Food, Bikes, Work? Argh. I need a new subtitle. Version 2.0, Coming Soon! Or something.

Must Be Bath Night Because Some Ears Need to be Cleaned Out!

Luke: I am rooting for The Netherlands.
Me: Don't be offended, but I think I am going to root for Spain.
Dave: Oooh - in house rivalry. Do you to want to place bets?
Luke: NO! I took a bath last night!

???

Me: Jack, can you finish your yogurt or is that now impossible?
Jack: I can't. It's a popsicle.

???

In other news, we went to The Library today, and because it only takes 100 times for me to learn my lesson, I took Jack into the bathroom as soon as we got there. No dice. He just slowly backed out, somberly shaking his head "no". It paid off though, because after dinner, I brought a big stack of reading material into the bathroom with Jack and... He POOPED on the POTTY! Big news. We now owe him a trip to Chuck E Cheese. Or Chuckie Cheese, as Luke would say.

Then, I heard Dave scheming with Luke and they planned a trip to Casa Bonita to celebrate a full week of pooping on the potty, when and if that ever happens. Not sure how I feel about it, because that place sounds like it could scare the poop out of anyone. Luke went there on a camp field trip, and in my research, I found this description, "it's like Disney had sex with Tijuana and left the goofy-looking bastard to fend for itself in a random strip mall on Colfax. "

In other poop related news, my new favorite line from a book is, "Mr. B is making it happen."

July Is Commenting Month at MetaMegan

Happy Half Birthday to me! And welcome to July, also known as comment month. Each comment during the month of July is one entry into the comment contest. The prize is always to be determined, but it will probably be something I pick up on my summer vacation.

This year I am celebrating my half birthday (today), the 19th of July! (tm) and I am also thinking of a Christmas in July theme. I'll keep you posted.

In TV news, we just finished the season finale of Lost, so maybe I will have time to blog now. Here is the only question that is unanswered for me. How did we start watching 1.5 hours of TV at 10:00 and finish at 1:00 am? How did that happen? We may never know.