Summer Sunday Bench And Inspiration For The Day
That header is kind of wordy, but oh well. It’s kind of early. I’m gonna stop typing now and let the pictures do their thing.
Sunset Sunday
Random picture. Not time traveling or living in another time zone. Cleaning the files out. Purging. I don’t like that word. Sorry for using it if it makes you feel yucky too. And yet I’m going to type it again. Purge. Blech. Later.
Random Sunday Butterfly
I’m going to go babysit my brother’s new baby for the first time today! Although technically since he’s 6 months old now, he’s not all that new. So expect the random pictures, I promised, plus new and updated baby pictures, throughout the day as I add this new thing into my Sunday of football, work, and posting. Our dinner was very nice except we forgot that they had the lighting/parade/Christmas thing downtown (in Chicago–in case you want to look it up) and we got caught in a million people’s attendance and traffic. No joke. I heard the news last night, they said one million people were estimated to have attended. If I research and confirm this factoid, I will let you know. But I probably won’t. I won’t research. I won’t confirm. Or refute. Heck, I probably won’t even ever speak of it again. If you want to keep it real, feel free to comment with the correct number and facts, otherwise, let’s just all agree we were downtown with a million other people last night and leave it at that! I will post pictures of anything food/fun related the kids took as soon as they send it to me. I am also planning on a lot less words to go with the rest of the posts I put up here today. Consider this all the reading you need to do for the day! I have to shower and gather my things. Time is a ticking. The kids are going to their dad’s and I think the BF is staying home. It’s individual Sunday. That can totally be our new thing! Later.
Post Tornado. Skeleton Trees.
Lots of noise. A strange, continuous roaring sound to the north of our location. Sirens everywhere. No actual sighting in my town. Confirmed visuals in Coal City to the South and Frankfort to the west. And as everyone knows by now, Washington, IL, out in the middle there. It is VERY windy now. If you turn on the TV to the Bears game in Chicago, you can see that our wind is extra windy. In case we forgot that our weather patterns here in the Midwest don’t just stroll in all leisurely-like, changing over the course of a few days or even hours; but prefer to burst out of the atmosphere like fireworks in the sky. Boom, flash, done. It’s dark. It’s light. It’s dark again. One minute you are outside just milling around and taking pictures, marveling at nature in all its raw beauty, and the next minute a powerful gust of wind crackles through the high branches of your fragile, breaking trees, pushing you, the garbage cans, and one of the plastic chairs you are standing next to, across the patio, almost giving you a heart attack. I literally covered my head because I thought a limb was coming down. I know the sound. So you decide you should probably go inside and close all the windows because it was 65 degrees mere minutes ago and now its 50 with all your blinds blowing inside the windows trying to come off the hinges. I have work to start and finish because I wasted my day on all this weather and I may slip in a drink or two to count my blessings tonight with my family. Say a quick prayer, send a thought, or help if you can, for our neighbors to the south. It’s getting dark now and the weather looks like it’s staying. Good luck. Stay safe. Winter is pretty much here. Only four or five more months until it’s spring. Cold hands, warm hearts. I think we say something like that. Later.
I blame the booze
And messed up cosmic bowling. And a million people all driving towards the mall. And a long line at the liquor store. And that first, delicious, vodka martini with garlic stuffed olives (pretty good, not as over powering or breath killing as you might think). And the movie Elf. And the bottle of wine that I bought the other day. And the other bottle of wine that I bought today. And the sore muscles that prevented me from getting up and moving in a timely fashion. And the Wizard of Oz, with commercials, so that I could struggle to my feet and exercise my way to the kitchen for more drinks in between.
But not actually exercise. Or not eat. The moment I said I would just drink and not eat, all I could think about was food. So we ate pretty much all the leftovers in the house. And then some other stuff too. Sorry Mason, we ate the cheese sticks. I’ll buy more this week.
And then it was so late. I could stand and walk enough but I was not doing, like, a workout. And now it’s morning. For the record I slept like crap. And I had a headache all night long. And I was really thirsty. And I had strange, weird dreams about working in a hospital. A giant, multi-level, spread out hospital that doesn’t exist in real life. I had to put eye drops in a long list of patients scattered everywhere, and measure their pupil dilation. But I couldn’t find the rooms. And the patients were listed categorically by disorder and it seemed most were psychiatric. It took me 15 minutes just to get near the hospital rooms. There was a huge, 2 level, narrow, oddly stepped staircase I had to go down (and back up) and my kids were following me and I was wearing my school uniform. AND I was drinking in my dream too! IN the hospital. All the other nurses and doctors were too. I don’t know what that means but it’s probably not good. In the end I could only find one person on the list and he refused.
Thank god I woke up. I’m drinking coffee now without anything in it, although I bought something for that yesterday too. I’m going to wait until later. During football, to start drinking again. And I must try to exercise even though just trying to cough hurts at this point. That’s the problem with irregular exercise. Those muscles hate stretching out after you let them sit for awhile. Then they punish you big time by not letting you move faster than sitting and not lifting more than a fork or a glass. Thank goodness I can type, right Amanda??
I suppose I better get up now and do something. In celebration of school being over I got myself some fake nails. But I am not skilled on managing alot of personal hygiene things yet. Takes practice and some different moves. Like, for instance, it took me half an hour to put in my contact lenses. It’s stupid. I don’t know how the fancy girls do it 24/7. But in a week or so, I’ll have naturalized myself to the whole concept and I’ll be fine. I let my daughter get some too, but her’s are probably all broken and chipped by now. 2 days would be a record. She likes to tap them on everything and pull at them all the time. Anyway…my point was that it takes longer to do less.
And I have a crazy fish to deal with. My son’s Oscar has taken to swimming around the tank in circles. Not like around the outer edges, literally swimming in fast circles like he’s a dog chasing his tail. We can’t figure out what the problem is. One site said water issues, one says nutrition, one said maybe he broke the heater and he’s getting electrocuted continuously. Well, there’s another fish in the tank and he seems fine so I doubt it’s that, but we unplugged the heater anyway. Still spinning. He also likes to attack the surface and throw water out. He just did it again. The other things are not easily fixable so I say just move him out. I think he’s too large for where he’s at and needs to be moved to the big tank. There are a variety of fish in it already and one giant Oscar. He used to be really aggressive, but he seems to be tamer now. I think it might be ok. It’s a pity though, because Mason’s fish is nice and smooth with no scars or damage and he’s probably going to get beat up a little bit if we switch him.
Anyway, these are the problems of a Sunday morning stall. Type long enough and something else will come up to do other than exercise. Like your mom calling you and asking when you planned on coming over. Hi mom! Thanks! Did you read all this? It’s funny huh?? So, since I didn’t make it clear when I called her earlier, and she won’t drive her scroungy butt to me, I guess I better really go get dressed and haul it out there! See? No exercise! Yay fat me!
I am posting a picture of the big Oscar that Mason took as companion to this fine piece of writing, except that its at the top, so you’ve already seen it. And I still have lots of Christmas pics I took from around my house when I was goofing around with the camera. And hopefully, I’ll have really old pics to post from when my dad was alive later too. Pretty exciting stuff. You do want to see those, I promise. In the meantime though, here’s a picture of Mason’s crazy fish:
He’s not as clear as he could be, but you get the idea. He’s about 8 inches long and 5 inches top fin to bottom. In a 36 gallon bow tank and looking mean, but we’ll see.
Street Money Update!
I’ll dispense with the usual, long chatter and get to the point.
10¢ on the floor of Hooter’s–(delicious)–Mason almost had his eye poked out and a tray of crab legs and steaming wings dumped on him trying to pick it up, but hey, we work hard for the money…haha
1¢ on the ground at the arcade/mini-golf/driving range/batting cage/go-kart fun center!
We were kind of busy this weekend, having fun and spending too much money.
One day we will break even. Ha. Check here for the year count.
We have BUTTERFLY!!
Sorry, this is Tuesday. My education obligations and medical appointments had me running. No time for the computer. Until now!
We had our first butterfly on Sunday!
Just one little guy…well…he was big…bigger than I thought. But he was all alone. And Stevie (my daughter) was not home! She was with her dad. I tried to get hold of her all day, but no luck. Sunday went into Monday. Our butterfly dried and fluttered and flew around in his small home. He was hanging upside down on the netting on top of the container. We tried to let him go at dusk, Sunday night…no luck. He just stayed stuck. So we tucked him in for the night and waited until Monday morning. Less than 45 seconds with the net back and off he went. I tried to catch as much on video…but you know how these young butterflies can be! Off to find a mate! Not even a Disney pause to say thanks!
Oh well. The rest were still hanging all chyrsalis-style. Not moving. That was 10 am. Monday. These pics and video are from that point.
I also checked the internet for any care tips or general butterfly info. A few things I learned:
1. The warmer the temperature outside/inside/wherever they are hanging, determines the speed of metamorphosis. Broad time frame, 10-15 days. We had our first at Day 12.
2. The new butterflies only need to dry for a few hours. Our first guy took many hours. But….
3. They need heat to fly! Their wings, and bodies, need to be warm in order to lift off the ground and stay lifted. Once they get flying the energy it takes to keep flying generates the heat they need! That’s why…
4. Alot of butterflies have darker exterior wing colors. To absorb the heat of the sun. That’s also why…
5. They flutter their wings! It creates more surface area and warms up their bodies. Who knew?
6. Butterfly caterpillars make a chrysalis. Moth caterpillars make cocoons. (The guy on the internet was kind of picky about this distinction)
7. Once the butterfly flies away, they look for mates, start a family, lay their eggs, and die.
8. It is kind of sad, but these particular type, Mourning Cloak, can live up to 10 months! Pretty long for a butterfly. We are nothing, if not sturdy out here in the Midwest!
9. One extra fyi–The Mourning Cloak is so named because its wings resemble the type of cloak that was worn in the 1800’s for mourning the dead.
And now YOU know too! Go out and impress your friends. First take a look at these though:
He was a milk jug caterpillar. After busting out of the chrysalis, he clung to the side for awhile.
Opening the wings.
Creating a home at the bottom of the plastic tub.
We noticed purple flowers were the favorite.
Just not ready to go yet...
In case you were curious. This is their very temporary home. Exterior.
Interior. With non-emerged chrysalis. There are 6 hanging. (Hard to see) And 4 more inside the milk jug. We had a total of 11.
Sunday Morning
After re-reading that questionable Friday/Saturday ranting post, I feel as if I may have been drunk and crazy while typing.
It’s weird because it doesn’t make alot of sense, and it looks all scattery. I wasn’t even a little intoxicated. In fact, I didn’t drink anything alcoholic all day. Just coffee and water.
Let’s just say that I was, and never go back.
The party for my nephew was rocking. Not at all lame or boring. (Here’s to you J and A!) The presents were a hit of course, and the food was good. My sissy had cupcakes and mini-eclairs as birthday cake. ALWAYS an excellent choice. You can never go wrong with desserts you can put into your mouth whole. We stayed too late, and then stayed up a little later after we got home. Had to do something to work that pastry out of the system…
The only thing I didn’t get to do was play my music. Boo Hoo. I really don’t mind, I can always use it at my nieces graduation party we will be hosting in 2 weeks (8th grade–so it’s perfectly aged)
I will post it later for the masses. It’s really a good combo, and this is the season for it. I’ll even throw in the Mud Bug Boil play list, another one for the same family that I slaved on and never got played, but it’s good for the older mixed crowd. I had yesterday’s list named Birthday Party, but I guess I’ll just trim it up to Party or Popular Party or something that indicates a “younger” type party, but not baby, or kegger…don’t you love when I type the exact thing I’m thinking? I know Amanda does. That’s what makes this so interesting and exciting that people would want to read it over and over, and then post a comment about how very cool and interesting it is, because I’m just SO exciting and NOT stupid. Ha.
Take a look at the picture below. It is a helicopter that you control on an arm and try to pick up a cargo box with. My brother, the engineer, got it for my 4-year old nephew as his birthday present. Two hours later and one battery change in, he (my brother) finally figured out how to make it pick up the box. The pick-up hook attached to the underbelly of the helicopter actually EXTENDS. One more time around, and…hooked! Up it went. I took photo proof so all those years of schooling wouldn’t be a complete waste…Next time, Tom, just buy the kid a talking firetruck.
Here’s to you my brother:
just shy of pretty 