why PBS has been on for three hours this morning, plus bonus footage of jillian

So...

We've had a stomach bug going through our family. Phoebe and I have formed an alliance and have avoided getting any of the major sicknesses that have threatened our well-being since mid-October.

Last week my Facebook status described a phenomenal five minutes, in which a glass jar of marinara exploded in our kitchen. It didn't fail to splatter our white walls or land in shoes and briefcases. It was amazing. Ninety seconds into cleaning that up, I heard a cough behind me. Mind you, it was 10:30 p.m. Our oldest had thrown up IN HIS SLEEP. He was covered in the puke version of tomato bisque. (The bisque has been taken off the rotation until next winter, I can assure you.) This meant that there was a twin-sized mattress amount of vomit waiting for us in his room. Thanks to my sacrificial husband, I was able to stay focused on the marinara and kid care while he dealt with the real mess.

About a week later, it was Jillian's turn. Because of my volunteer commitments at school, I missed most of her puking spells. (Thank you, Jesus.)

Yesterday, I called Brent at work and it went straight to voicemail. Hm. "...I am ill and will be out indefinitely..." Oh. He stumbled through the door and headed for bed only to eek out in a whisper, "pajamas."

A few hours later, the boys came home from school. Avery announced that Miles was sick. Miles insisted, "I'm not sick. I don't have a temperature." To which I asked, "Do you feel achy?" "yes." "Does your stomach hurt?" "yes." hm. "You're sick, Miles." He didn't say much, but I won that argument when I found him hurling on the carpet an hour later. Good thing we STILL haven't replaced the orange, commercial-grade carpet from 1962 in the family room. I just had to ask, "Did you eat your carrots at lunch." Clueless of the irony, he answered, "yes."

"I know," I said as I cleaned up the puke version of carrots.

One of the perks of puking in our family, is the refreshment of Gatorade. We had one 32 ounce bottle. Liquid gold, you could call it. Jillian found it and poured half onto the floor. (You can pick her up at the pound.)

i'm kidding.

Avery thought this was a good time to ask, "Can I have some Gatorade?" "No." "But, I didn't get any when I was sick." "That's because we didn't have any."

rummage, rummage, rummage.

His search paid off. He found a who-knows-how-old package of MIXADE (that's right. the generic of Kool-aid...because real Kool-aid is so expensive, right?) "Can you make this?" "Fine." So Mixade became the backpay for lack of Gatorade. Jillian found that this morning and poured half of the Mixade on the floor.

It was PBS or the pound for Jillian. I chose PBS. I guess Jesus DOES love her...

he wrote another post...for another blog

Recently Brent bicycled into work downtown with his buddy, James. I guarantee you will enjoy this quick read on James' blog about his experience. Maybe you'll even be inspired to start cycling to work....or maybe not.

Jo-Ann Fabrics: This is not your granny's sewing shop

I was at Jo-Ann Fabrics today. (surprised?) And, I just want you non-Jo-Ann shoppers to know what it's really like in there. I've always thought that it was filled to the brim with 75 year old ladies buying quilting fabrics and maybe some little girls who aspired to be crafters...for a day.

But, no.

One time...I was sitting looking at patterns in the Butterick pattern book and started asking a stranger questions like she was some expert. (I'm convinced everyone there has a doctorate in sewing.) She was older, heavier, had a deep raspy voice. Anyways, she gets to telling me how S.R. Harris was a WONDERFUL place to get fabrics for her belly dancing costumes. No kidding. Of course, I immediately pictured her all beaded and bare-bellied dancing on the Butterick patterns table. That's how everyone's brains work, right? no? hm.

One time...as the lady was cutting for me at the table, she told me how she used boning for her corsets (obviously.) for the annual Renaissance festival...and how the boning doesn't really hold it's shape when you're working with steam (oh. helpful to know for all the times I'll be wearing a corset while I am in a steam room??). I made a mental note, oh...so this is where Renaissance junkies hide the other 360 days of the year...at Jo-Ann. hm. Oh, and just so you know, she looked like this guy from The Princess Bride:

...in a corset. hot. i know.

One time...I asked this lady how she was going to use the yards upon yards of metallic fabric (aka lame, pronounced lam-ay) she was having cut. I should have guessed. No. I wouldn't have guessed that she was making metallic prayer shawls for some rites-of-passage ritual for some cultish sect of the Catholic church. (I double checked with my Catholic neighbor. These sistas is not legit!)

One time...today...This tall blond was looking at vinyl and offered to help me with this huge bolt of curtain lining. I'm always curious what other people are working on. So, making an assumption I asked, "What are you going to cover?". Because she had bolts of vinyl. She answered "models". "That'll be toasty for them," I replied. "Well, not really. They won't be wearing much else...just some fur. It's for this post-apocalyptic punk-rock lingerie show. I design lingerie." I'm thinking, LINGERIE DESIGNERS SHOP AT JO-ANN FABRIC??? She went on to complain that NO ONE sells stretchy black lace. I thought, dude. the internet??? But, instead I acted like that was a real bummer and went on my merry way.

This gets me thinking...Wouldn't these little reality vignettes make a great ad campaign for Jo-Ann???

Anyway, just make sure to break the silence next time you're in line at the fabric store (or wherever), and ask, "So...whatchya workin' on?" You'll likely be very surprised.

Why am I chewing on a towel like Jerry Tarkanian?

A guest post by the man who rubs my shoulders, blesses the children every night and who is not playing softball this season, a.k.a Brent.



It all started as a freak softball injury last June. Not the one where I blew my knee out rounding third base or the time I hurt my back in the outfield. No. It was more random and dorkier than those.

Apparently, my baseball shoes are designed for looking cool and a little light jogging. Certainly not for running home from third base like Usain Bolt. That's the kind of misuse that will cause you to eventually end up chewing on a towel like it's a pacifier. Somehow, I managed to crush the big toe on my left foot as I raced across home plate. Shouldn't athletic footwear help prevent injuries instead of cause them?

I knew something was wrong immediately, but not yet completely aware of the seriousness. Maybe it was just stubbed or the nail got bent a little. It couldn't be that bad, right?

A week later I still couldn't put a sock on without wishing I could inject a vicodin/percocet/morphine combination super drug right into the toe. It felt like it was being squeezed by Andre the Giant.


*note redness, swelling and bluish tint under nail

I rarely go to the doctor so Jenna called the nurse hotline for me. (I rarely make phone calls either.) They told her pressure from under the nail was causing the pain and it needed to be released. I could either go to an urgent care center to handle it or we could pretend we live in a third-world country and the only doctor lives in the next village which is a three day journey... and our only camel just died.

Jenna likes to play doctor anyway (not in that way). She couldn't wait to begin the procedure.

How does one go about releasing the pressure under a toe nail? The nurse suggested using a paper clip. What!? She almost certainly works at a Denny's now. Here's how it went:

Step 1 - Find a sharp object. In our case, one of Jenna's trusty sewing pins (after realizing the paper clip clearly was not up for the challenge).


Step 2 - Heat the end of the object. Make sure it is hot enough to pierce solid keratin.


Step 3 - Twist the heated, sharp object into the toe nail repeatedly until blood or water oozes out.
=

Step 4 - Insert towel in mouth to manage pain.
look familiar???

In about 30 minutes, we struck gold and the thing was shooting up like a geyser.
okay...maybe not geyser-like, but wow.

And so concludes our very own home surgery success story!

mousecapades

So, this was a bad winter for mice apparently. We had some? one? a colony?

They were absolutely driving me mad. We tried the freakishly scary snap traps. Snap traps are just as scary as having to cut the blue (or was it RED???...no...maybe it's the YELLOW???) wire to dismantle a bomb. You hold your breath, say a prayer and slowly as possible release the lever. It either ends in a "phew" or a yelp.

We tried the sticky traps. They collected dust and the random food that Miles tossed on them to attract the mice.

Oh. And, by the way, we did put peanut butter on the snap traps. I did NOT put a wedge of swiss cheese on there. I know better.

I tried "spin traps". And also an "easier" snap trap that you pinch like a clothes pin, but it doesn't snap except when it catches a mouse (which is NEVER). I also used a "sure-fire" mouse attractant which supposedly works better than peanut butter. It didn't.

But, despite all these traps around the house, the deposits of mouse poop kept coming.

So, I got out my trusty laptop and Googled "homemade mouse traps". One site suggested this homemade trap which included a bucket of water and a plank-like tipping thing. If only I had a five gallon bucket and 15 hours to make it.

But, it probably wouldn't have caught a mouse anyway.

We even saw that mouse on several occasions.

Probably the most memorable mouse moment was when our dear Makoto still lived with us.
I remember it like it was yesterday....

She was in the dining room studying quietly. The children were long in bed. And I finally found my way to my room, snuggled in, turned off the lamp and--DANG IT--I heard something maneuvering its way through the register! CREEPED. ME. OUT.

I whispered frantically, "BRENT! It's in our room! The MOUSE. I heard it!"

Faster than you can say "squeak", I jumped up, turned on the lamp, threw a pillow to block the crack under the door. Brent covered both vents with Calvin's Institutes (they have been used more as props than anything over the years). Oh, we were making a ruckus. I was squealing and shouting "Brent! Over there!" We were jumping on our bed to scare the mouse out from under it. The bed is on casters, so I started pushing off the wall to move it. We made some unusual noises.

oh. Did I mention that all Makoto knew was that we just went to bed? She had to be a little unnerved wondering...

Finally, I eked out, "Makoto!" "Makoto!"

no response.

Again, but just above a whisper calmly, "Makoto?"

"Yes?" she answered timidly.

"The mouse is in our room. We need something to trap it." I had resumed my frantic whisper.

Now, this got confusing, because even though she'd lived in our home for two months, she couldn't quite figure out where we kept a plastic bowl. So, I had to exit to fetch something to trap it with while Brent stayed on guard.

Now, I know you can't really trap a mouse with your bare hands and a bowl. But, how were we going to sleep that night knowing it was there. (And WHY? What was in there to attract it???)
Anyway, friends. We got tired. I got to the point where I could imagine the mouse crawling on our bed without feeling an adrenaline rush. Eventually I fell asleep.

But one day, I set this up (like a 9-yr-old).




I know. You're jealous of my engineering skills. Drool on.




The next morning, I caught this:




I know. Good thing I didn't mix any D-CON in with those Cheerios.



Epilogue:
About a month later, I went upstairs and found a dying mouse shivering on the carpet. Even though it was barely moving in place, I was pretty freaked out and shaky. Brent transported it outdoors and that was the short and happy life of that mouse. So, it died of old age or D-CON. Not sure which. Doesn't matter. It's gone. But, I'm sure I'll see its cousins next winter.