Hanging Clothes is a Trip

We hang clothes on the line.

Oftentimes, I get busy doing this that and the other thing (imagine that) and don't get the clothes on the line in a timely fashion - like as soon as they get out of the washing machine.  By the second load getting done, I am lugging the heavy wet clothes outside.

But, if my husband is outside, he always helps me.

I would like to romantically think he helps me just because he enjoys spending time with me.

But I know better.

He helps me hang clothes on the line because it saves money since we are not using the dryer.

Sunday night he was helping me hang clothes on the line and S4 comes strolling up.  "Ahhhhh, ain't that so cute? You and Mama, hanging clothes on the line. So sweet. So adorable," he crooned in his best romantic sing songy mocking voice.

Jake laughed.  "Careful.  That there will end up in a blog."

All the boys were migrating toward the clothes line and they began hanging things up.  I have long learned to just accept the way they hang things and not worry what it looks like or how it is hung.

out our kitchen door, looking toward our rental house

"Hey, Mama?" S4 asked.  S4 begins many conversations this way.  "Why do we use these clothes pins?"

"To keep the clothes on the line, silly!" responded his Daddy.

"Why can't we just use duct tape?" he asked.

"Yah! Duct tape would work!" S3 agreed.

Before I could even laugh, S1, calm and steady, patiently explained that duct tape would leave a sticky residue to the clothes and that was why we didn't use duct tape to hang them up.

It's as if he has thought about this before.

Daddy laughed. "Now it's for sure going to be a blog."

So he snapped the photos for me with his droid.

I've Turned Into Ma Kettle

Today, after I had drug the garden hose all over the yard giving all my looking like death dried up plants some more water, I hung clothes on the line.

I was standing there, clothes pin in hand, wearing the hanky skirt I had found for a dollar and the cami top with no support in it whatsoever (I had slept in it), my hair in a bun with it all falling over my face and the rooster crowing from the chicken coop when it dawned on me...

I had turned into Ma Kettle.

We grew up watching all the Ma and Pa Kettle movies. I had laughed at that silly Ma Kettle.

And had suddenly become her.

So, I hurried with the laundry, took a shower, downed another cup of coffee to look awake, wore my most supportive bra and while my hair is in a bun, it is at least sorta stylish.  I am in shorts and tank top.  I still look a bit unkempt...but not that unkempt.

How long have I been Ma Kettle and not known it???

And here is a video clip to make you laugh. Not of her feeding the kids or of laundry but funny just the same.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfq5kju627c

I'm Farming and I Grow It

Last night, as I was checking facebook while the boys where clearing the table of dishes, I read a lot of posts from my small town friends to watch this video.

Facebook was being wonky on me so I looked it up on youtube.

And I think we have watched it a zillion times since then.

Here it is.....

I am so proud of these boys I have never met! Their creativity and sense of humor is something I can totally get behind.  I followed Greg on twitter (@gregpeterson33) and hope that this video gets even bigger than it already is.

Our boys are working with the Community Garden in our little town for the library group and when I get out of work.  They love it.  To take something they know how to do - grow things - and get to help their friends out with their knowledge is something that makes them happier than I imagined it would.

S2 in front of the sweet corn row he donated and is growing.

Farming.  It's a great thing. 

Summer Insanity

Last night my honey took all four boys to go get some firewood for us.  He asked me if I wanted to go along.  And then he laughed.  I think he spotted the twitch in my eye and sensed the excitement that soundly coursed through me.  "Home? Alone? You would take all the boys and let me stay home? Alone?"

He loaded up all the boys and headed out.  I grinned like a wild woman.  I flitted from one room to the other not knowing where to spend my precious alone time.  Do I clean the kitchen?  Do I take a nap...oh how tired I am?  Do I read one of the books I have stacked by the bed and the computer desk? Do I watch the movie waiting for me to watch for two weeks now?

But I knew what I had to do...blog.  I have missed it more than I have missed about anything else this summer.  

Well, blogging and walking the track at school every morning when I dropped the boys off at school all those weeks ago.

So this is what we have been up to...

Cooking.

I have cooked so much lately to keep my boys fed - how much they can eat is insane - that my cupboard has given out on me, crashing down on itself.  This requires me to do some rearranging.  Because I can not - at all - give up one of those cookbooks or printed recipes.

Cooking so much means I have spent a lot of time at the grocery store.  Taking all four boys to the store is a trip.  Good grief, they want EVERY bit of food.  They ask me a million times, "Mama, can we get this?'  Recently, in the ice cream isle, S4 asked, 'Hey, Mama..." for the 1,000th time in a five minute span.

I felt myself slipping into that insane place mother's go.  They get there by their name being called too many times in a row.  It flips a switch in their brain that makes them cower in a corner crying for someone else to come take over.

"What? What? What? What do you want now??????" I  quietly wailed.  It was hardly a peep, more an escaped thought.  There in the ice cream isle I caught a glimpse of my reflection.  My hands were tangled in my hair, massaging the headache that doesn't go away.  My eyes were wild with craziness.

S4 looked at me oddly for a moment.  But only a moment.  "Can we get ice cream?" he asked.

To save myself from having a melt down in the ice cream isle, I said yes.

They are getting to me, these boys.

We have been spending a lot of time at the library as well.

Getting to work the same days the kids programs are is really grand because the boys never miss a single library event.  And all should know by now just how much I love the library.  If you look very very very closely, you can see S1 is holding something. 

A ground squirrel.

Now, when the boys go out to play at the library, Alicia and I find ourselves saying - oftentimes now in unison - "Stay together. Do not try to catch anything. Do not get bit. Do no catch anything.  Did you hear me?  Do not bring any animals into the library.  And stay together."

I don't think they hear us.

When we are home, the boys are catching "things".

This is One Eye Toad.  He is called this because he has one eye.  He lives on our front porch and I don't know how old frogs get but he is pretty old.  We look for him every year for a few years now, always relieved when we find him.  One Eye is never allowed to live anywhere but the porch.  The boys know, this is Mama's toad, it never can live in the sandbox or with the other things.

Other things?

Oh, you know, like five snakes.....

Originally, we purchased the large water tank for baby chicks.  The baby chicks grew up grandly in that water tank lined with sawdust.  And when we moved the tank out back for future chicks, the boys got to thinking how grand a place it would be to house some "critters".  

Like reptiles.

So it is currently the home to five snakes (there were six, but they made their favorite snake (how does one even get to have a FAVORITE snake?) a "home" in the sand box, where it slithered away.  Probably to live somewhere far far far away from boys.), a snapping turtle (a little one) and too many frogs to count.

Due to the drought we are experiencing here in this part of the state, the swamp where all these frogs were caught has dried up.  The boys now feel it is their duty to keep these frogs alive for future generations of frogs.

At least they don't live on the porch anymore.

And when the boys are playing in the sandbox making those beaver habitat's, they are in the woods building forts they would like to move into.

It is quite obviously a safe place to sleep the night in.  Mama just keeps saying no for some reason.  

Silly Mama.

So that, dear friends, is what we have been up to.  On our slow days.  

I forewent a nap to share this with you.  That's how much I have missed you all.  Hope your summer is going grandly too, and you are not insane yet.  Tell me what you have been up to! Link your favorite posts! I am so behind in reading up on posts right now as well. 

Special thanks to my hubby who gave me some free time and didn't complain when all i did was type away at a computer screen.  I love you!

Sunday Afternoon's

Sunday Afternoon's.

You look forward to them all week. That lazy part of the week where you can just rest.

Jake, the boys and I have had some insanely busy weeks.  As in, like every week since Memorial Day.  This weekend was no different.

And after an insanely busy week, I realized I had made dinner plans with a friend weeks ago before school was even out for the summer.

These friends have never been to our house before.

Our husbands have never met.

My house was a weeks worth of neglect.

And we still had them over.

We grilled my husband's big cheese stuffed burgers we always are raving about.

I made fried potatoes.

They brought this for dessert.

Tonight I shall have sweet dreams of this molten chocolate cake dessert.

I DID fold all the laundry, but other than that I spent my morning sipping coffee and chatting with my husband, not cleaning like a crazy woman.

We went to Sunday School for one of the best Sunday School classes, one we will always remember, I think.

We arrived home and while Jake and I worked on dinner, we leisurely chatted and joked and had fun.  I did not stress at all.

When the guests arrived, my floors were not swept.

The kitchen was a mess.

The boys laid around in the messy living room.

And we sat at our dining room table with these friends of ours who had never met our boys, who had never visited our home, and had the best time.

We laughed, we talked, we ate the amazing food, we drank pitcher after pitcher of lemon water.

It was the best Sunday afternoon in a long time.

I am so thankful that we didn't say we were too busy.  So thankful we have friends like this.  

So thankful for an afternoon of just being real.

And for that molten lava chocolate wonder cake.

Grilled Smashed Red Potatoes with Bacon and Onion

Sue Cramer told me about some amazing red potato recipe she found on Pinterest.

I tried it (you can HERE. They originally posted on the Pioneer Woman, you know they are good) and it was great.

Then one day I had a brilliant moment (I must have drunken enough coffee) and made a new recipe.

I had made a lunch of brunch for my hubby and little men.  I only had the bacon done and planned to do the eggs and toast when they arrived home.  They arrived home and had already eaten.  So what was I to do with a pound of wonderful cooked bacon?

That's when the brilliance set in.

I made the red potatoes as I had before, boiled whole in the pot until just done.

Then I took a piece of tinfoil, added a bit of olive oil and smashed the potato with my Great Grandma's potato masher just a bit.

Then I topped the potato with crumbled bacon, diced onion and slab of butter.

I wrapped each individual potato up in tinfoil teepees.

Then my husband grilled them with our steak.

Where he normally despises cooking potatoes on the grill, these were basically done when he put them out there so he didn't have to worry about them at all!

I should have taken a photo of the finished product, but we were too busy eating them all.

Yes, they were that good.

I topped mine with shredded cheese - because when doesn't cheese make things better?

Fourth of July is coming up.  I guarantee you will have a hit if you try these potatoes!

Beaver Habitat's, Snakes and So Forth

As I was about to write a blog to you all, S2 shouted he found a snake.

Right outside my window.

In my favorite spot to sit...the front porch.

You can see how I would find that distracting.

Especially when he did not catch it...but caught ANOTHER one across the driveway by the bunnies.

I have no words.  And I live here.

I wanted to just drop in to give you an update on our summer goings on.  We have been busy.  So busy.  It happens when you have boys who are building Beaver Habitat's (never mind that we have no beaver's in this area.  If, by chance, they decide to move here the boys will be ready for them), catching snakes and frogs and turtles, feeding them (oh. my. goodness.), planning Hubs and I first ever trip ALONE, planning a trip to see Becca's Crazy Boys (follow her on twitter here, be warned, we may get annoying in our excitement) and enjoying a very eventful visit with Rebecca Gates.  Believe me, that is a post you are NOT going to want to miss.

And working, farming, living....

But I miss blogging.

Tomorrow we are excited to be hosting Buck Howdy at our town library.  Thrilled we are!  And we are listening to all his music today. :)

I leave you with this.  Because really, my words would never do this justice.