The Post My Husband Wants Me to Write

Here is the post my husband wants me to write.

I, for the record, do not want to.

You will then know how hillbilly we are.

It all started with a phone conversation.

I texted my husband to let him know I would be taking the boys into the huge cement city (that's what we call it) to load up on groceries.  We have reached that point where we are out of everything.  My boys are growing by leaps and bounds and leaps some more, this means they never stop eating.

I wasn't sure if we could get into Costco and shop for a trial run (sounds like we can't) and so I am headed to Sam's Club, where we do have a membership because they sell bags for our farm stand and that's when my husband says, "Make sure S1 looks for containers for his worms."

Worms.  Our entrepreneurial S1 has been collecting night crawlers at, well, night.  He has them stored in an old camper tub behind his shop.  He did this last year and did quite well.  He started with the warm weather we had last month and has quite a few hundred.  He collects them in coffee cans and then shows them to me as I am lying in bed.  I then scream and he then laughs and takes them to the tub he keeps them in.

So THEN my husband says, "Yah, then we will move the fridge onto the porch."

"Wait, what?" I asked, nearly choking on my coffee.

"Yah", he says, "Didn't I tell you? We are going to move that fridge from the shed to the front porch so you can just sell the worms from the house."

My dear blog readers...that means a fridge, on my porch, along with my bunnies living there.  And while I have worked hard to keep the view from the window I look out of most often flowery and cute, I see that ending quickly.  Cuteness will be replaced with hillbilly.

The fridge will have a bright orange extension cord going from porch and into the window to keep it running.

"Great," I say, "that means I will go from night crawler season to asparagus season to strawberry season with a fridge on my porch."

"You'll clean it, of course but, I know, it's going to work great."

I just drank more coffee and we moved onto the subject that DirecTv has dropped my beloved Fox 17 from its line up so we can't watch anything on Fox now.  

"You can in the bathroom," my husband suggested.

Forever ago, my husband lamented the fact that we did not have a tv in the bathroom and how cool it would be.  Yes, bathROOM.  We have one bathroom.  He lamented so much that I put a tv in the bathroom, we hooked up the box so it could get just local channels and my husband rejoiced.

I won wife of the day for that one.

It is rather handy to have the news on in the morning as you get ready to head out, I will admit.

But it's not like I super broadcast the fact that it's there, you know?  It just seems wrong somehow to have a tv in your bathroom.

My husband wants me to call DirecTv and get some awesome deal hammered out for us since they dropped our station.  I am more the "I'll be super sweet and blog about it" person and my husband is the "you WILL work out a deal with us RIGHT NOW" sort of guy.

"You know what you should do?' (I inwardly braced myself as he continued.) "You should set up a bunch of chairs in the bathroom and get a picture of you all watching Fox 17 in the bathroom.  That would be a great blog post!"

"Uh, no," I said.

"Oh come on!" he laughed, but was very serious, "It'd be great!"

"Because, husband," I explained, "It's bad enough that soon I will be the hillbilly house with a fridge on my porch.  A fridge with worms! And then we'll have a picture of us all in the bathroom...."

"One of them could use the toilet as a chair!" he interrupted.

"Yah, might as well put up the picture of all the boys shooting their guns off the porch too," I added.

"We could be the town's welcoming committee then!" he laughed.

Oh. We so could.

This is why people think we should have our own reality show, I swear.

Anyhow, here is the post that my husband wanted me to write (minus any bathroom pictures) because no doubt this will all happen.  Heck, the boys target practicing off the porch on a rainy day already has.

I am just holding my shaking head in my hands as I finish this.  Can NOT believe I will push publish.

Good grief.

What hillbillies we really are.

Well, we are off to Sam's Club to drop a small fortune to keep the boys fed so they can continue to hunt worms that I'll sell from the front porch.

More spring break stories later.....

Embarrassing Moments

Because I know these things would not ever happen to you, I thought you might enjoy laughing at me.

Since I am sure I will be hearing about them over and over again I might as well share them with you all.

In an effort to be friendly and talk to people more (not really my thing, you recall), I got myself in trouble.

Sigh.

I was chatting with the teacher who loves S4 ever so much and keeps a good eye on him for me.  I would truly be lost without Mrs. W.  S4 loves her to pieces.  Anyhow, I was telling her how S4 had been sick but seemed fine and if he seemed sickly at all to call me and I would be there right away to get him.

As I was chatting with her outside the school, a truck pulled in.

The truck looked just like S2's friend ( and near twin ) Jakob's dad's truck.  I did think through that it was odd he would be dropping Jakob off at school.

Then I remembered I was going to be friendlier like the old lady at the library.

So I grinned a friendly hello and waved to him.  I could tell from his tinted window that he seemed surprised but did wave back.

Sheesh, I need to be friendlier, I thought.

And then I seen the boy leave the truck.

The boy was not Jakob.

I have no idea what man I grinned and waved happily too.

"Oh, Crap!" I muttered in my head.

I called my husband.  "Hey, hon, I was trying to be friendly and just waved at some random guy.  Have no idea who he is.  If you happen to hear your wife is a flirt, it's because of this."

This story only makes the next one even better.

On the SAME DAY, I was working on making plans for our family to get together with one of our favorite family's we haven't seen in forever.  We haven't gotten together at eachother's houses in may be years - all of us, that is.

Anyhow.

Her husband has this incredible zip line he made for himself their three boys.  An mentioned that the zip line was broken and she would be sure that Jeff had it fixed before our boys were there.  So I tweeted Jeff to tell him we had the date planned and to have the zip line ready.  But that isn't what I thumb typed on twitter.  Oh no.

This is what I tweeted...

@DeGraafJeff texting with An planning the --th at your place. Have the zipper ready :)

Oh, yes, I did.

And he, being him, wondered WHAT ON EARTH I MEANT.

I saw what I had tweeted and wanted to die.

So I tried to shake it off, but then I texted An (who is not on twitter) and told her what I did.

She laughed hysterically (via text).

Then I called my husband.

"Hey, hon, guess what I did now? Um, you wouldn't be able to guess so...."

He then about died laughing.

Ugh.

So, I am thinking I may go back to being a guarded shy person and I will be double checking what my auto correct changes my words to.

You all my now laugh at my expense.

Because Hubs Said I Would....

My husband informed me that I would share this with all my blogging friends.

I said I would not.

And now I am.

Once again, he is correct.

     (And now he is framing this post.)

Sunday we went to church.  We haven't been there in forever because the boys have been sick and I refuse to leave the house if my husband has to plow.  I figure if he has to plow, we need to stay home.

Anyhow.

We have junior church duty.  We had all boys aged 7 to 5.  When I asked them what they could ask God to help them with, something they were having a tough time with, one little boys squeaked out, "I fart a lot.  Like, a whole lot.  I think God needs to help me not fart so much."

The boys agreed solemnly in unison.

It was a struggle they all had.

My supportive husband left the area laughing, I had to agree this was definitely something to ask prayer for.

We will be discussing this further next week.

Ya'll may need to pray for me on that one.

Apparently it was a great church service to miss because the congregation was feeling all convicted.  Husband felt we should get the cd from the service but ignorance seemed the perfect bliss to me.  I was okay to not feel convicted on my sunny Sunday.

I think we'll get the cd on Wednesday.

Apparently my husband is correct AGAIN and it's always good to grow.

     (He is for sure to frame this post now.  Two times I say he is right!)

I told you all that to tell you this....

Some of you may be shocked to know that at times....my boys can embarrass me.

And Sunday was one of those days.

Jake and I left the church to head for the suburban and round up some boys - any that wanted to go home with us, basically - and S4 seen us and began to wail.

Loudly.

And hold himself.

From clear across the parking lot, he began to yell in pain.

"I have to go number one and I can't hooooooooooold it!"

So what does my husband say?

"Here!  Just lean against the tire and pee here."

I, mortified, got in the suburban and sat down.

My now happy son climbed cheerfully into the vehicle.

My practical husband said, "Oh, you know you'll blog about this."

"Oh no", I said, "I don't think they need to know what redneck hillbillies we are.  Or rather, YOU are."

"You married me," Jake grinned.

This whole blog post makes me feel the need to shop for shoes.  High heeled girly ones.  

(And...all the labels were already in my list of blog post labels...pee, church, fart and embarrassing. Sigh. Welcome to my life.)

'Everyday, I am inspired by this boy'

There is a little boy in our school that was born with half a heart.

Over the years, S2 has mentioned him as they are in the same grade.  And being in a small school you sorta get to know people even if you don't know people.

At the beginning of the school year, when the boys were decked out in football gear, we took a field trip.  S2, Jakob and Jonathan were all in the same seat - as usual - and I sat across from them with the little boy with half a heart.

The ride was long and I dug around in my huge purse for crayons, paper and pens and passed them out among the four boys to help them kill the time.  "I wish I could play football," little Owen admitted to me.

I wanted to say, "That you are playing and at school and ALIVE is more than any old football game!". But I didnt' say that.  I just said, "There is so much you CAN do."

"Just soccer," he muttered.

And that was the end of the conversation.

Shortly thereafter, we heard about a contest Owen's mom had entered him in.  American Eagle was giving a scholarship to a deserving kid.  I voted on facebook for him daily and encouraged everyone else too.

I checked with his Dad - who I see nearly every single morning but still don't know his name nor hardly ever talk to - nearly every day to see how the contest was coming.

When he won, HE WON, S2 and his buddies figured Owen got all the luck.

When Owen's Dad told me that Owen had won, I was so thrilled I did a leap in the middle

of the elementary school hallway.  And then I hugged him.  The dad. So overjoyed, 

I hugged Owen's Dad.

Seriously.

And when I got back in my vehicle that morning, I called my husband.

"I hugged Owen's Dad this morning and I figured you should know.

It being a small town and all."

To this day, weeks later, I cannot hardly look at Owen's Dad for hugging him.

But you all should expect this of me.

American Eagle 77 Kids came out to see Owen and present him with the 10,000 dollar scholarship.  It was a huge deal and I made it to school just in time to see it.

The school also received a 2,000 dollar gift, which Owen decided the school should use for new indoor  recess games (you should have heard the cheer) and a snow cone machine...most kids didn't know what that was, soon they will be cheering that too.

 Owen being presented with the scholarship at school.

 I love Owen's big grin here.  The Check is WAY bigger than him!

 Owen standing with the PTO.

High Five'ing with American Eagle 77.

It was such a great story, Owen, in and of itself.  That he won an award out of all the kids with amazing stories across the nation - complete strangers all over voting for him - is just another amazing part of the that story.

And American Eagle 77 Kids did an amazing job and I wanted to personally thank them.

If you would like to "meet" little Owen and his family....here's a video clip from a newscast.

I apologize for taking so long to post this great story! 

And I hope Owen's Dad knows I was just thrilled that Owen won and that's why I hugged him.

I had to set that record straight! ;)

My Boys Asked Santa if He Drinks Beer

Today, I get to go to work and work with SANTA....I really know him!

It's bound to be a memorable day...because last year when the boys met Santa, they asked him if he drank beer.

I wasn't sure if Santa would come back...or ever take the boys off the naughty list...but he did take them off in time for Christmas last year and he is coming back.  And my boys will be there ready to chat with him again.

But all day, I'll be waiting for it to happen all over again.

Here is last years incident........

Sunday, December 19, 2010

My Boys Asked Santa if He Drinks Beer

On Saturday, our awesome little library received a call from Santa Claus asking if he could stop in and say hello to all the good little boys and girls in our town. Our librarian sweetly told him that cookies and good boys and girls would await him. On Saturday morning, Santa flew his reindeer into town, bedded them down at one of the farms and hitched a ride with a farmer just to say hello to all the good boys and girls at the library.

Then he met my boys.

Our boys have never sat on Santa's lap. They are not sure about the whole Santa thing and the last two years we have just sort of gone along with the fun, not really mentioning Santa but not saying Santa isn't real either.

Well, S4 is convinced. Santa is real. He knows this because

A. Santa has a real beard (Not like the one on Elf who has a fake beard).

B. He has Santa's signature. Really, he does.

It was fun to see Santa walk in, watch all the boys and girls eyes get huge and run up to him to hug him and just be in awe that Santa was THERE, in the SAME ROOM as them...in the library they visit EVERY Saturday for story hour!

Because shyness soon swept over the kids, Santa began to flip through a book that was laying out on one of the study tables. My youngest two (only three of them came along, S1 was busy helping Daddy with wood) were sneaking alongside Santa, not saying a whole lot.

Yet.

This was the book Santa looked at....

Santa mentioned he remembered drinking Coke out of a glass bottle but he supposed that these little boys next to him didn't remember that.

S3 chirped right up. "No, but you can drink beer out of a bottle."

I.

Nearly.

Died.

"Yah!" S4 agreed, "You can! WE can't drink beer but sometimes our Daddy can."

"Yah, but not so much anymore." S3 added. "Do YOU drink beer, Santa?"

They.

Did.

Although I wanted to haul them out and....wait, no, I wanted to NOT claim them.

Do you drink beer, Santa?

Santa realized he probably needed to find a seat and sit down and try to leave this conversation. But the boys kept up with him, continuing to chatter away at Santa. He finally told them that, "No, Santa does not drink beer. It would be a crazy ride with the reindeer if he did and that just would not be good."

I hurriedly tried to get the boys to color pictures and let the other kids get some time with Santa. It took some doing. But I think I might have seen a look of relief in Santa's eyes. And maybe even a "I'll be sure to bring a little something special for you dealing with these boys all the time" wink. (well, I can hope!)

Then S3 asked for a BB gun. I hoped Santa said no...he didn't say yes so that is good. Santa did tell him he seemed young, he couldn't be shooting helpless animals or brothers. S3 informed him you CAN shoot birds. Santa told him he couldn't. S3 disagreed. I am pretty sure it won't be under the tree from Santa.

And then S4 asked for a "Piddow Pet" and if he can't find one, they are at Target. Lots and lot of them. Then S4 let him know there would be cookies and chocolate milk and white milk waiting for him and special sparkly oatmeal for his reindeer he arrived.

If he gets here.

And there won't be beer.

Embarrassing Moments

Ever have those super embarrassing moments that are so horrific you simply must share them with someone?

Becca looooooves THIS horrifying moment I experienced and will forever be scarred from. I believe Becca may be slightly evil. (not really, she's just thankful it didn't happen to her.) Yes, this really happened to me. Yes, I still take S4 camping with me.

The other day I was at work and wore one of my favorite twirly skirts. The one thing I love about the library is I have to dress up and I find that fun. And this skirt is one of my most favoritest, PLUS my Dad picked it out so I love it even more.

After my hours are fulfilled at the library, I drive across the road and pick the boys up from school. Because it never fails that just before three is when the library is busy, I am nearly almost always the last parent to arrive at school.

While the sun had been shining all day long, I had not realized just how windy it had become.

And I had on a twirly skirt.

The principal had to chat with me for a moment and we stood outside the front doors of the my boys elementary school - large, floor to ceiling huge glass doors - and a gust of wind came down the roof, one came from around the corner and I swear that one gust of wind came right from below me and .....

..... POOF ....

I seen my panties reflected in the glass doors.

There is really no graceful way to recover from this. Just like there was no way to gracefully recover from being caught naked in a public campground shower, (oh, NOW you want to go read Becca's FAVORITE BLOG POST, don't you?). I simply looked at the principal whom I was chatting with, told her I am so sorry but the wind just blew my skirt up (she was nice and nonchalant about it - cuz it hadn't happened to her). I then held my skirt down all the way to farthest corner of the parking lot where we were parked - refusing to even take any of the boys hands to cross the school drive as I normally would, slid behind the wheel of the suburban and ......

........prayed to God no one else had seen me.

But it is such a horrifically wonderful embarrassing story I just had to share it all with you.

You're welcome.

My Boys Asked Santa if He Drinks Beer

On Saturday, our awesome little library received a call from Santa Claus asking if he could stop in and say hello to all the good little boys and girls in our town. Our librarian sweetly told him that cookies and good boys and girls would await him. On Saturday morning, Santa flew his reindeer into town, bedded them down at one of the farms and hitched a ride with a farmer just to say hello to all the good boys and girls at the library.

Then he met my boys.

Our boys have never sat on Santa's lap. They are not sure about the whole Santa thing and the last two years we have just sort of gone along with the fun, not really mentioning Santa but not saying Santa isn't real either.

Well, S4 is convinced. Santa is real. He knows this because

A. Santa has a real beard (Not like the one on Elf who has a fake beard).

B. He has Santa's signature. Really, he does.

It was fun to see Santa walk in, watch all the boys and girls eyes get huge and run up to him to hug him and just be in awe that Santa was THERE, in the SAME ROOM as them...in the library they visit EVERY Saturday for story hour!

Because shyness soon swept over the kids, Santa began to flip through a book that was laying out on one of the study tables. My youngest two (only three of them came along, S1 was busy helping Daddy with wood) were sneaking alongside Santa, not saying a whole lot.

Yet.

This was the book Santa looked at....

Santa mentioned he remembered drinking Coke out of a glass bottle but he supposed that these little boys next to him didn't remember that.

S3 chirped right up. "No, but you can drink beer out of a bottle."

I.

Nearly.

Died.

"Yah!" S4 agreed, "You can! WE can't drink beer but sometimes our Daddy can."

"Yah, but not so much anymore." S3 added. "Do YOU drink beer, Santa?"

They.

Did.

Although I wanted to haul them out and....wait, no, I wanted to NOT claim them.

Do you drink beer, Santa?

Santa realized he probably needed to find a seat and sit down and try to leave this conversation. But the boys kept up with him, continuing to chatter away at Santa. He finally told them that, "No, Santa does not drink beer. It would be a crazy ride with the reindeer if he did and that just would not be good."

I hurriedly tried to get the boys to color pictures and let the other kids get some time with Santa. It took some doing. But I think I might have seen a look of relief in Santa's eyes. And maybe even a "I'll be sure to bring a little something special for you dealing with these boys all the time" wink. (well, I can hope!)

Then S3 asked for a BB gun. I hoped Santa said no...he didn't say yes so that is good. Santa did tell him he seemed young, he couldn't be shooting helpless animals or brothers. S3 informed him you CAN shoot birds. Santa told him he couldn't. S3 disagreed. I am pretty sure it won't be under the tree from Santa.

And then S4 asked for a "Piddow Pet" and if he can't find one, they are at Target. Lots and lot of them. Then S4 let him know there would be cookies and chocolate milk and white milk waiting for him and special sparkly oatmeal for his reindeer he arrived.

If he gets here.

And there won't be beer.

I NEED a Fashionista

Really.

A live in full time fashionista. And a barista. And a housekeepira. And a chefista.

That'd be grand.

Anyway, today was dress up day. Sure, I could have been sensible and worn warm clothes on this 22 degree day but I wanted to wear a dress. A summer dress. Because I like summer thankyouverymuch.

But I needed some warmth with the dress so I figured I would wear my slip under the blue dress with a pink henley shirt under it and big wool socks with boots. Cute?

I wasn't sure.

And since I don't have a full length mirror so it's a scary stand on a chair and scrunch your body down tricky move....

....I asked S1 how it looked. He thought it was a trick question and answered first with "Yah, it's fine" in a I-have-no-idea-why-she-asked-me-this tone then in a sicky sweet voice, "Sure...you look nice all the time, Moma."

I knew that was a lie so I may have rolled my eyes, put on my super warm coat I got for FIVE dollars at a garage sale and decided I'd ask the first grade teacher at school.

S3's teacher is super sweet and I think she has gotten used to my...well, oddities.

She's probably questioning my sanity today.

When I got out of the suburban at school and the awful coldness of the morning hit me, I wrapped my long mid calf length coat around me and trudged up the sidewalk to the school. The wind was blowing at my coat and I thought in passing that I didn't recall my dress being so short.

Of course, it wouldn't seem short in summer, I reasoned.

And I continued on until I realized that, GASP, my SLIP was showing...not my cute knee length dress!

Picture this horror for a brief moment.

I am walking up the sidewalk in front of my boys school, surrounded by my boys, in full view of every parent in the drop off line.

And I look like I have neglige on under my coat and that I am not dressed in the least.

And there is no where to hide.

I desperately tried to pull my coat tighter and still hold on to the youngest boys hands...um, that doesn't work.

I whispered to S1 "My slip is showing!"

He did not get it. And wondered when the coffee would finally hit me so I acted somewhat sane again, I think.

We got into school and I considered hopping into the office to "adjust" myself but the office was teeming busy. So I darted in the little girls bathroom two forever long busy hallways away and yanked my dress that had gotten stuck on the back of my coat somehow and was literally as high as my panties.

I am sure there are parents out there who dropped their young children off at school thinking what a floozy I was.

Cuz I totally looked like it.

Totally.

I got into the cozy warm and friendly first grade room where I asked KJ if the outfit looked all right and she totally liked the dress and shirt and thought I may want to change the boots for my taller ones....

And then I spilled how awful the dress riding up incident had been.

And she may have laughed at me. A little.

I made it down the halls without flashing anyone else to get the boys settled in their classes and return home where I was sure I should just change my whole outfit so no one could say "Hey, didn't I see you this morning...um, oh, nevermind."

But if I DID totally change my outfit, it would look like I had gone to school wearing nothing but a sexy little black neglige to run on home in.

So I wore the dress and the boots KJ suggested and it did look cute.

But I don't think I'll be wearing it again for a very long time.