Not getting much done

I am here to proclaim that I am dragging my feet, being lazy, procrastinating, doing nothing. I've said before that my house is in shambles and people tend to think it is because I am too busy packing. No, not really. I truly am doing nothing. I tend to find that the day just disappears. There really isn't much time between when I put Joe on the bus at 8:25 and when I get him off again at 3:35. We usually have to run some sort of errand and we have to have lunch. That seems to take a really large chunk out of the day. I watch tv with Jay at night so I don't even work on anything then. I am doing the bare minimum. I don't really have a good reason, but I am certainly doing it. I worked all day Saturday at a crop and then was at my mom's all day on Sunday so that Jay could drop off a load at the storage building.
Well, today I am going to try to change. I really have no excuse today. The weather is nice and cool. The kids are having a good time playing. Let's go!

Jay is worried

Apparently, things are not going well in Australia at the moment. Things keep breaking and more people are needed. Jay is doing the best to fix the problems from here. He seems to think that the next week or two are fairly crucial. If he can't get things taken care of, he will be told to pack it up and get there. No clue if he would go to stay or go for a while and come back. I, meanwhile, seem to be in denial that I am ever going to move. I am having a very hard time getting motivated with packing and preparing to move. Perhaps I am just overwhelmed with the whole idea.

First day of school

Today is the first day of first grade. Joe seemed pretty excited this morning about riding the bus and everything. Hopefully all goes well today.
I am pretty excited simply because quiet has descended on our house once again. Tom plays quietly by himself and Sam hangs with me. All fairly calm and collected.
I had a doctor's appointment this morning and thankfully, Amber was able to watch the boys for me. She canceled some things she wanted to do in order to help me out. I am very grateful for friends like her. I had my carpal tunnel evaluation this morning and the doc said he could give me an injection that would relieve most of the pain for a few months or he could just fix the problem. So we are scheduled to fix it on Oct 2. I will have to find someone to watch the kids and someone to sit with me at the hospital as I will be unable to drive afterwards due to the drugs from the surgery. I have no clue how long the actual surgery will take. No one seemed able to give me that information. Of course, my mother-in-law will be either be in Italy or preparing for her Italy trip on that day. I am hoping that my dad can take me to the hospital and Jay will just have to watch the kids.
Sammy looks like he has the chicken pox or measles or something. He doesn't. It's just mosquito bites covering his entire face. Jay took him outside all day yesterday while I was gone and used zero bug spray. Poor kids.
Our tomato plants have turned very brown. They have huge beautiful green tomatoes on the plants, but the plants are now brown brown brown. We are hoping that they don't have late blight. This year the blight has hit tomato and potato crops in the East pretty hard. Hopefully, that's not our problem. I was really looking forward to some nice tomatoes. bummer.

Where's the reset button?

I really really need a reset button. My house is a mess, I am disorganized, the laundry is piled up, the dishes are piled up. Everything needs cleaned, straighten. organized. When I only had one kid, my house was sooo clean. And no, I am not just imagining it. It's hard for me to watch any of Joe's baby videos without thinking about how clean my house is. With two kids, there were things that fell by the wayside, but all in all, I did pretty well. Not so with three kids. I just get further and further behind. I keep feeling like I could stay caught up if I could just get caught up. Hence, the reset button. If everything got reset to zero, I could stay there. Problem is I just can't get there. Too many daily things in order to make any headway.
At the least, I would like an Easy button. That would make things, well, easier.

A gross morning and an apology out of the blue

Okay, the first part of this post is really gross, but I have to share. Feel free to skip it.
This morning at 3:30 am I awoke to the sound of a child throwing up. I ran to the big boys' room and opened the door to a horrible smell and Joe projectile vomitting off the top bunk of the bed. I tried to get him down, but I am too short to pick him up when he is above me head. I ran back to my room and grabbed Jay. Jay took Joe to the bathroom and cleaned him up (i.e. wiped his face since he had nothing on him). Jay then went back to bed and right to sleep. (more on that in a minute)
So, it's 3:30 in the morning, the room stinks, there is vomit everywhere...the rug, the wood floor, Tom's dresser, Tom's clean clothes on the dresser that he didn't get put away, the bed rail, the bottom bunk, everyway. Thursday's dinner was tacos, spanish rice, etc so you can just imagine the mess. I had to turn on the light to clean up and it took me about 25 minutes before I felt that it was cleaned up enough for the night. I handed Joe a large bowl and let him climb back into bed. I had just gotten settled back into my bed when I heard him throw up again. He missed the bowl so I had to change sheets this time. Thankfully the volume was pretty small compared to the first so it wasn't such a long clean up. Again, I had to turn on the light and this time I had to climb up onto his bed to unmake and make it. I got back to bed within about 15 minutes and had just drifted off to sleep when I heard him go again at 4:30. He made the bowl so it was just a rinse of the bowl, a swish of the mouth, and a wipe of the face. Same story at 5 am. I got back to sleep at about 5:30 and the alarm went off at 6:30. I kicked Jay so he would turn it off and I went back to sleep for about 45 minutes before I heard Joe jumping off the top bunk to make it to the potty. Poor Joe only got about 6 hours of sleep and I only had about 4. We had planned to go to the zoo today, but I don't want to take a tired sick kid. Tonight is Melissa's good bye night out and I won't be home until the wee hours. I am going to be soooo tired.
Okay, so last month when Joe threw up on the floor, I gave Jay the choice of kid or floor. He picked floor. I was done with Joe in about 5 minutes and went back to bed. Of course, I had the back karma to bring it up last night while scrapbooking and it came back to bite me in the ass big time!

Okay, now for the not gross. I checked my email this morning and had a note from facebook saying a friend had left me a message. This guy was my first serious boyfriend and we went through some real crap and he broke up with me for my good friend. He just didn't treat me the best. He and I have been facebook "friends" for a few months mostly because I am horribly nosy and wanted to know what he was up to. He was my "first" afterall and we never seem to let that go. Anyway, this message from him was a very long, heartfelt apology about how he treated me in high school. He congratulated me on my family and wished me the best. I replied with the truth, that I forgave him long ago. It was some real yucky stuff that we went through, and while I didn't really understand it all, I sorta did. He has a beautiful wife and two really cute kids and it all truly worked out for the best.

Humor

What kind of pet does the sun have? A hot dog

What kind of dog wins every contest? A wienner dog

What did the taco say to the burrito? Where have you bean?

What did Dollar name his kid? Buck

What did the whale do when he got mad? He blew his top

These are some jokes that we have gotten recently on our popsicle sticks. The older two kids are just starting to understand jokes and what is funny about them. Needless to say, they still really don't get these jokes. They (and I) laugh when we tell them, but they just don't grasp why they are funny. I know this because both Joe and Tom start changing the original joke but not the punch line. Then they start making their own jokes and punch lines. I laugh, simply because I think that a child's humor is one of my favorite things, but the jokes don't really make any sense.
Tom's joke: What kind of pet does a whale have? His answer: A shark. I tried to explain that catfish or dogfish or even seahorse would be a better answer, but he stuck by his answer.
Joe's joke: What did the Chair name his kid? His answer: Leg.
Too funny

The CDP

Previously, the chicken defense project (or CDP) was a ongoing project of trying to keep the chickens in the pen. After Monday's attack, it has changed into a project of keeping the hawks out.
First, we chose to put our chicken coop in the one fully fenced area in the yard, aka dog pen. Our dogs really couldn't use it anyway as Domino easily jumps the 4 ft fence. But the fence is pretty secure and is buried underground since before Domino could jump, she would dig her way out.
I did a lot of reading about hawks and the red tail hawk is most common during summers around here and is the only one large enough to be a problem for grown chickens. This type of hawk usually hunts in fields and meadows, etc. Even though it is a large hawk, it still needs to be able to swoop down onto something as large as a full grown chicken or rabbit. Our dog pen has two lilac bushes and one very large Rose of Sharon. Add the chicken coop itself and about half of the pen is covered.
The biggest fear we had was when the chickens were much littler and a hawk would have been able to get it without much swooping. But thankfully, we never had a problem.
We've been hearing the hawks calling several weeks. They live in the woods surrounding the park across the street and probably use the sports fields for hunting. Our chickens are fairly smart and would duck under the trees/bushes whenever a hawk would start calling.
Thankfully, on Monday the hawk was not able to kill any of the chickens outright. But we still have the task of protecting them. I read up on different ways of protecting them from the overhead predators. There were many suggestions, but the only one that would really work is running strings across the top of the pen and hanging shining stuff from the strings.
Well, one problem is that we need to be able to walk in this pen so we can't just hang the strings at the top of the fence. Jay instead dug two 2-3 ft holes and put up two 12 ft poles. So about 9-10 ft above ground. I am running strings from the tall posts down to the fence posts and it is looking a little like a circus tent. I'm sure our neighbors and friends will make fun of the whole set up. And I am sure that we will have to take it all down by the time the house goes on the market to sell, as it will hurt the first impression.
We let the chickens out yesterday evening (while I was out working) for the first time since the attack and 3 of them flat out refused to come out of the coop. Poor ladies.
Today's part of the CDP will be hanging the cd's. Let's hope this all works.

Close call!

As I was out on the deck this morning, I noticed the chickens were going crazy in the corner of their pen and were just making so much noise. Our chickens don't ever sound like this and as I looked towards them, I saw one make a break for it over the fence and through the string that is strung above our fence.
I headed out the front door in order to grab her and put her back in the pen. When they get out, they never go far. Once I reached the driveway, I noticed something the wrong color in the corner of the pen, (opposite where the chickens were trying to escape.). I rushed over there to discover a very large hawk pinning one of my Silverlaced Wyandotts down to the ground. I started screaming and waving my arms to no gain. I grabbed the closest thing to me which was the door to one of the door crates and ran to the corner of the pen. The hawk moved over a bit, which caused the chicken to move too. The hawk, of course, grabbed the chicken again. I am pretty sure that I was screaming like a banshee as I ran around the pen to get to the gate and get in there to help. Waving a metal dog crate door and screaming made the hawk move from the chicken and upto the top of the fence. I wouldn't let up and chased it until it was in a tree in the yard. The hawk, of course, wasn't going to leave because it thought it was getting an easy meal. I started gathering chickens and getting them into the coop, starting with the one the hawk had pinned. She was so scared, but thankfully, unhurt. All of the chickens were very shaken and allowed me to grab them quickly. They didn't even run away. Once I secured the 7 still in the yard, I went looking for the one that had run away. The hawk ended up having a friend in another tree! Both flew away empty handed. Joe and I scoured the yard for well over an hour in search of one scared New Hampshire Red. We couldn't find her. I went ahead and opened the gate to the chicken yard (since the coop is secure) and put out a little food and water in the back yard under the top half of the dog crate. I wanted to give her another place to hide and be safe. We had plans to go swimming today so we had to leave, but Joe really didn't want to leave. He didn't want us to give up. I was pretty sure she was still alive, just hiding.
We went swimming and had a pretty good time. Only one not great thing, but that's a different story.
Once we got home and out of the car, Joe said he heard the chicken. We looked a little and then he heard her again and I did too. And there she was, hiding under some bushes next to the house. She was not there earlier, but was there now. She didn't want to get caught, but we managed to get ahold of her and returned her to the coop. Ah, all of them are safe.
The feathers on the ground show that there were 3 attempts from the hawks. Both Buff Orpingtons and one Silver Wyandott are missing several feathers, but don't appear to have any major injuries.

As a side note, it was 87 degrees inside the house when I returned home. I turned on the air. Much better now.

Couldn't be easy, could it?

We decided to go get our passport photos today after VBS. I took the boys to lunch and then drove to the closest Walmart that has a photo studio. We have gotten good passport photos from there before so it shouldn't be a problem right? Wrong. The first Walmart's camera wasn't working. Well, I needed to go pick up my watch from Arundel Mills Mall, so we'll try that Walmart. She took the pictures and the older boys did really well and Sammy was slightly misbehaving. Okay, at least they're done. Oh wait. The printer is printing them way to light and we are all looking like Ghosts. The US government is pretty picky about the photos being exposed just right and I'm so light that my black shirt is a pale gray. I asked if she could fix them and she said no, that they have problems with the camera and printer from time to time and it's just hit or miss. Okay. No big deal, we'll just go somewhere else. The traffic lights were all out around the mall and so traffic was messed up. Between that and the photo snafu, I forgot to get my watch. We drove back towards Route 2 and stopped at a Walgreen's by Marley Station. Got all kids out and went inside. Nope, printer is not working, though should be back up this evening. Got directed towards the Walgreen's way up Route 2. So, off we went. We got there, got the photos taken and left. We went to Glen Burnie Mall for the 20 minutes that it would take for the pictures to get printed. Then we went back to Walgreens. I had requested 6 sets of pictures for the boys. I should have been more clear. Passport photos are always sold in sets of two so I figured that 6 sets would get me a dozen photos of each kid. Well, 6 sets got me only 6 photos of each kid. He had already deleted them from the camera and couldn't print any more. Oh, well. Let's just go. 93 dollars later, Sammy ran away from me while I was trying to get the photo packets and the receipt. Of course, the automatic doors on the front of the store opened for him and he ran straight into the parking lot, laughing all the way. I ran after him, but didn't catch him until he was well into the traffic lanes of the parking lot. Ugh. Got into the car and drove happily drove home. Opened pictures to see them for the first time in driveway of home. Too dark and we are all orange/yellow. We all look really ill. Jundice anyone? I got online to check the photo requirements again and I really don't think that they are going to accept these photos. So if I can get a refund, we have to go through all this again. I think that I am going to make Jay go with me so that there are two of us to chase the kids and besides, he needs so more photos too.

Feeling rushed

We are trying to get together all of the paperwork, passports, visas, and medical exams together in order to be able to move. Jay decided yesterday that he wanted this done asap. Okay. Step 1, fill out and print application for passports online. Done, except when I print it, the answers for everything is just random letter (for example, Name: TLWXRN when it is supposed to say JOSEPH). So Jay is going to have to figure that out. Step 2, birth certificates. I have Tom and Sam's in hand, but need to hunt down Joe's. I used it when we applied for school last year, but I was lax in putting it away and now it is lost in a pile of stuff somewhere. Step 3, passport photos. I need about a dozen copies per kid as I have to attach two copies to just about everything. We are doing that this afternoon. Step 4, make a passport appointment. Jay and I and all three boys have to apply in person at the Post Office for the Passport. We have to make an appointment for this. Step 5, once we get the passport, we have to get our medical exams. They are pretty detailed and I have to get a chest x-ray since I am over age 11. We will all need lots of blood tests. Oh fun. Step 6, once we have all of our current medical and dental records, plus passports, birth certificates, vaccantion records, marriage certificate and school records, we can apply for our temporary residential visa.
Now, if we are still moving in January, this should all be okay. However, Jay came home from work yesterday and said he may need to go to Seattle for a few weeks for training. Umm, okay. 15 minutes later, he says that there are lots of people at work telling him that he is scheduled to be in Australia in the 3rd quarter. It is the 3rd quarter now! The 3rd quarter ends at the end of September. Then an hour later, he makes a comment about us not moving until Jan. So which one is it, I ask. His reply "I dunno". Thanks, really helpful.
On Saturday we moved the Checker and the motorcycles to our storage building on the Eastern Shore. The drive was terrible. Traffic was horrible. It usually takes me 1 1/2 hours to get there. It took 3 hours this time. The Checker doesn't run the best and has lots of problems overheating. It is usually okay if the car is moving at a decent rate and the air moves over the engine and cools it a bit. Well, sitting in traffic doesn't let it cool much. Jay was really worried about it blowing its engine. Thankfully, we made it without incident.
Moving them freed up quite a bit of space in the garage so we can sort all the boxes we had previously packed. I spent 2 hours yesterday doing that while the kids played outside in the dirt with their trucks.
Joe and Tom have VBS again this week. They are at Pasadena United Methodist this time, for $6 each the whole week. Joe says it is much better than Galilee. They are having a water day tomorrow and have to wear swimsuits. Hopefully they will have fun.