Enamored with Growth

Things are actually growing in my garden!

I'll say it again since this is pretty much a first in my horticulturally-frustrated life:

THINGS ARE ACTUALLY GROWING IN MY GARDEN!

Look at this plot. It's positively over-run by fruit-bearing foliage:


(That's Bruiser's orange tail, in case you were wondering.)

See the dark swath just to the right of the center in the photo below? That's the "walkway" between the westerly snow pea plants and the easterly everything else. I think I'll need a machete to retrieve the tomatoes once they're ripe.


We've been enjoying the pea pods for a few weeks now. They start out as these pretty little white flowers:


And grow into these green iciclish looking things:


(I must confess that I was a little disappointed when I ate my first pea pod. The name of the kind we planted was "Melting Sugar", but I guess I was kind of dumb for expecting it to taste like some confection. It's definitely a veggie. :) )

This little alien look alike is swelling with culinary potential.


Watch your back, Buddy.

I'm genuinely in awe of God's creativeness in my back yard.

Check out this massive cuke:


Here's one of its baby siblings:


Isn't it cute? The yellow flower at the end will dry up and fall off and the bumpy column above will continue to grow and grow until I snap its umbilicus. I sound like some sort of a monster, don't I?

And just because it was here when I sat down at the computer desk to download the garden pics, here's one of Delaney's many doodles:


It's hard to be irritated with the multiple paper scraps she leaves around the house when they're decorated with her adorable handiwork.

It's the little things...

:)

A Plea for Help

Can someone please convince my teenage son that although the existence of hair bristling out of his neck does announce to the world that his physique is coursing with newly brewed testosterone, it's also quite...

...disgusting?

After reading the above sentence to Tobias (I always run potentially embarrassing things past my family before they get posted on the blog), he informed me that he already knows it's disgusting, but he wants to see how long it can get.

So I guess his throat is festering with a biological experiment of sorts.

I fear there may be social ramifications.

Post O' Gripes

Aarrgh...

Various branches of the government and a drug store have irked me lately, so if you don't feel like reading a whining rant, this is not the site for you.

I got a letter from the State Department today saying that Delaney's passport photos are overexposed and therefore can't be used. I need to have more pics taken, acceptable ones, and send them back in. How delayed is her passport's arrival going to be now?

Within moments of receiving the slightly distressing letter, Delaney and I were in the car and on our way to the drug store where the unacceptable photos were taken. I cheerfully asked to see the manager and was told that I was speaking with the acting manager (who also happened to be the lady who took the lousy photos a couple of weeks ago.

"Yeah, this is really going to go somewhere..." I thought.)

I calmly explained the situation and asked for a refund on the photos. I then asked if there was something they could do to the camera to keep this from happening again.

"No, it's because of the white background. They're so picky at the passport department."

Another worker leaned in to glance at they crappy photo they'd taken.

"Yeah, they're so picky," she said.

I somehow managed not to roll my eyes.

You know, they really oughtn't advertise the service of passport-photo-taking if the resulting pics are useless for passports. If you know the State Department is picky and likely to reject the photos you produce then do us all a favor and stop offering the service. I didn't stick around to explain that their incompetent camera might be jeopardizing my family's summer vacation; I had some proper photos to obtain.

Off we went to CostInc and voila!


I'm so thankful I was able to get it all taken care of today, but it won't be in the mail until Monday. Good thing I started this whole process as early as I did.

But this...this is the truly exacerbating tale. Read on:

So, a couple of weeks ago I received a check in the mail, a very large check that declared itself to be a tax refund.

I was thrilled for about three seconds before reality set in and I realized that a very unfortunate mistake had been made. There was no way that money belonged to us and I certainly didn't want to get a bill several months later when they figured out that their accounting totally sucks.

I dreaded calling the accompanying phone number, but knew it had to be done. After being on hold for a combined total of about 45 minutes, Naomi informed me that what I had already informed her about was true: They had made a mathematical error which resulted in the cruel tease of a ginormous check. She told me to watch my mailbox for instructions on what to do next.

They arrived a few days later in the form of a letter.

There was no "Thank you for your honesty, attentiveness and good citizenship", just a threat that if I didn't pay them back in 30 days they'd start charging me interest on the money they incorrectly sent to me. I laughed out loud at that. Do you think they'll reimburse me for the postage?

Yeah, me neither.

Lovin' the Lite Stuff

(No, Jeff's portion was not laced with anything.)

And She's Twelve

It's official. I'm no longer the mother of small children. This month, my youngest turned 12 and 'graduated' from elementary school. Is there a support group for this kind of thing?

Actually, I'm pretty okay with it. I know a lot of moms mourn the advancements of their children because it means their babies aren't the same adorable little people that they once were. However, I've never been that way. I'm just glad to see that they are growing and developing into the adults that God intends for them to be.

So...I'm not sad, but I do confess that it's all a little weird 'cause time is flying!

We started Delaney's special day with one of her favorite treats:


Look, she really loves Oro Blanco grapefruits, okay? She will seriously eat three or more a day if we let her.

She did eventually get a cake:


(It didn't turn out quite as cute as I had hoped, but it's alright. That's a fruit roll-up tongue, in case you're wondering.)

We played a game at her party that I absolutely love. It's sort of like a game of Telephone but with drawings instead of whisperings.

It's called Mixed Messages and it works like this: You make little booklets of blank paper and hand one to each partier. Sitting in a large circle, everyone writes a sentence or phrase on the front page and then they all pass their booklets one person to the right.


The next person silently reads the sentence or phrase, turns the page and draws out what they just read.


Now, everyone passes the booklets one person to the right again. The third person to hold the booklet does NOT turn back the pages to read the original sentence/phrase, but only looks at the second person's drawing and tries to determine what is taking place in it. Then they write out what they think that is. (Is this confusing enough for you? So terribly sorry. It really is a FUN game.)


The booklets are again passed one person to the right and the fourth person does NOT look at the original sentence nor at the first drawing, but creates their own drawing based on the third person's sentence.


(Obviously, some people are going to draw better pictures than others. We had three amazing artists at Delaney's party: Delaney, Jeff and this fabulous girl named McKenna. Of course, good artists make this game more fun, but even weak links such as myself enjoy themselves.)

So on and so forth, the booklets keep getting passed one to the right and added to with only the previous addition as each person's guide. This booklet continued like so:


(The spelling of some entries can get you giggling, too.)


(This artist mistook the misspelled "geyser" for a "guitar".)


(Consequently, the hippo was mistaken for a beaver so the next artist drew that.)


(I love the worried look on the beaver's face.)

Once all the pages are filled, you get to read through the whole booklet and then pass it around for others to guffaw over.

So you see, the "hippo in the tree" morphed into "a beaver who is lamenting the presence of a guitar in his rectum". (Sorry, if you're offended by that. Some of us base creatures think this kind of stuff is hilarious. :))

Okay, here's another complete example without my annoying commentary running through the whole thing.













Anyway, some booklets end up way more funny than others. I hope at least some of you will benefit from this convoluted explanation of one of the most amusing games I've ever played.

More Sneakery Afoot

I'm glad you guys enjoyed my 'syrup'titious post in which I 'came out of the pantry'. Your response was so positive that I wondered if I should end on a high note by hanging up my keyboard and retiring my blog. :)

By the way, when Tobias finally read it, he said, "What!?!?! Now I have to try the real stuff to see what I've been missing out on all these years!"

Anyway, I've been up to yet more clandestine behavior. Many of you know that each year I plan a surprise vacation for Jeff, Tobias and Delaney, meaning that they have no idea where we're going, who we're going to see nor what we're going to do. This year is no exception.

Oh, before you ask me to let you in on the secret, don't bother 'cause I won't tell you. I don't mean to sound snotty, but last year a well-meaning person almost asked Jeff "How was Oregon?" before Oregon was. She stopped herself at the last second and told me about it later. That incident and a couple of other near cat-out-of-the-bag moments convinced me that loose lips sink surprise vacations, so now the info is on a need to know basis. Sorry. Keep tuning in and you'll know soon enough.

Back to the stealthy stuff...as I'm going through the process of planning the vacation, I do things to cover my tracks. For example, I will intentionally leave open windows on the computer with info on places we are not going so that if a family member happens upon it, they think, "Ahhh...maybe we're going to such-and-such-a-place this year." It seems that each year, Tobias is convinced that he has figured things out, but he's always been wrong. *giggle*

Last week, I took the kids to the drug store and had some passport photos taken. Here are the results:


Delaney looks rather skeptical. Tobias's is a nice change from his last passport photo which you will laugh at below:


Yes, we've gotten quite a few giggles out of that one over the years. You tell a ten year old kid to make sure he keeps his eyes open and that's what you get.

Yesterday, we all piled in the car and went to the post office. As soon as Jeff found out that we were there to apply for the kids' passports, he started flipping out.

"You mean we're leaving the country for vacation this year?"

My lips remained sealed.

So the question is: Will we soon be traveling internationally?

OR

Was I just getting the kids passports to have on hand for future mission trips?

OR

Was our outing yesterday just an elaborate hoax that I cooked up with some gal at the post office?

Only time will tell...

'cause I sure ain't gonna!