It's Mainly Textual

When I was ready to retire to my pull-out sofabed in the living room late last night, something electronic was losing its battery power and blasted two jarring rings every 5 minutes. I was stymied by what was making that noise. I suspected it was on the high kitchen counter near my laptop, but I couldn't find the offending electronic medium. I didn't know if I would ever get to sleep. I would start to doze, then "BA-BOING" would split the silence. I finally managed to fall asleep between electronic blasts, only to awaken an hour later to the 5 minute interval sound bursts. Then I managed to sleep until 5 AM and awakened to quietness. The thing was dead! OK... I will open this up to guesses as to what the offending object was! I'll post the answer tomorrow in the comments for today.

The backyard neighbors have allowed a woody weed vine with large leaves to encase their fence and cascade profusely over Greg & Cathi's side of the fence. This morning, I rose before Kien awakened, to go out in the cool of the morning to chop it back out of our sight (for a week or two). Then I started to work on weeding a planting bed Cathi established, but she has been too sick with the pregnancy all this year to do anything with it. Within a couple of digs, I knew that this job was beyond my brawn, but I stuck at it to see what I could do when fire ant bites began burning my wrists and legs. Pesky things! They aren't called fire ants for nothin'! I told Cathi that she needs to pull out the brick edging she put in and mow between the shrubs. Forget the planting bed!!!

However, the front foundation bed, which I weeded my first week here, is looking good now. The Monkey Grass and Stella D'Oro lilies are blooming! Unfortunately, Greg chopped back the mum left over from their wedding flowers two years ago, so it will not be blooming this year.

Kien was a bit out of sorts this morning. He has had considerable potty success since I have been here (nothing to do with me!). So Mommy bought M&Ms for rewards. However, now he asks, "poopy toilet," ALL the time!!! And he will sit there forever hoping for success (and candy) which has not been forthcoming recently. That was the routine again this morning, but no one wants to spend their day sitting in the bathroom with him. Mommy suggested that he might need a nap. With the next burst of tears, he said, "nap."

I had planned to take him grocery shopping with me, but I went alone. After lunch, I hoped for a nap to make up for lost sleep last night. But you know the life of motherhood: as soon as you lie down, you begin to think of all that needs to be done. My major chore was to repaint what I had touched up yesterday with the wrong paint! A couple of years ago, we worked out graduated tints of grays from dark to very light for the various rooms and to highlight the Spanish style archways. As a result, it is very difficult to figure out which paint goes where. It seems to fall to me to be Ms. Touchup when I come to visit.

I am still dealing with the insurance companies over the fender bender while stopped for a train on Aug. 18 in Greg's Odyssey. It appears that the retired Marine who hit the guy behind me and pushed him into my (Greg's) bumper made up a story for his insurance company after we all agreed on what happened and jovially pointed fingers at him for causing the accident. He now says the sandwiched guy hit me, which caused Semper Fi to hit Mr. Subway. One flaw here: Brandy and I felt only one big jolt. I can't get the officer to return my call, so I marched to the police department to get a copy of his report only to learn that he didn't write it up since the damage was minimal. Now I need to track him down when he returns after some days off.

I am into simple cooking. I planned out several easy recipes before coming as I knew I would be chief cook during Cathi's recovery. One meal which I expected would not be a favorite was Chicken Pot Pie. I made it anyway on my waning week. Surprisingly, everyone was excited about it. Shock! Plus I made a big fruit salad to go with it. Kienie Bean LOVES fruit. So after his share of pot pie was devoured and everyone else had left the table, he continued with lots of fruit -- especially the watermelon!

I love the way he pushes his little feet against the bottom of the tray!