Watchin' My Corn Pop Up In Rows...

Someone convinced our landlord we should have a community garden. So now we do.





I hated gardening while I was growing up. Something about Dad making us weed rows and rows of what I thought was HIS garden. I avoid fresh green beans strictly because we ate so many of them from the garden. And it was always, "go pick one row". Or worse, weed it.





We started with a square of grass and weeds. We had to dig out the entire thing, put in top soil, and then plant. Here is our garden as of this morning:

There's peas, cucumbers, bell peppers, 2 cherry tomatoes, and a large tomato plant called Mr. Stripey. We've all gotten really excited about Mr. Stripey because of the promise of what the tomatoes will look like.

So, it doesn't look like much, especially compared to the gardens around us where people have planted older bushes. But it's ours. And someday we'll be picking and eating what we have worked so hard to grow.

We also painted rocks to mark our plants. We stole this idea from our neighbor who has really cute ones. I did NOT take pictures of hers since mine look cool-ish if you don't see hers.

In addition to the above mentioned plants, we have planted another entire plot of just corn.

They are the most impressive plants we've got. And they look a whole lot cooler in person. I promise.

So here's what our little back corner of the lot looks like now. There's just 2 plots left that people have not yet dug out. I think we're going to take the one between our two plots and plant flowers if it doesn't get used soon.

And now for the snarky: While Aiden and I were out digging up our second plot some people came walking by (across the street from us is a WSU walking path that many people use. A lot). They came across the street to our side and looked as us with the shovel and many grids marked out with string and stakes. "Y'all plantin' a garden?" was the question.

Uh, no. We're just digging up the grass in these little plots to piss off my landlord.

June 30, 2009

...A day marked in infamy.

Or just really big celebrations!

Our favorite neighbors are finally moving. I'm not at liberty to say the why or what for they are moving but I can assure you, I am doing the giddy happy dance!

And they know it.

And I don't care.

Short of offering to let them use our dolly to haul their crap out of the building faster and easier, I have been the kindest neighbor I could be in the last 2 days weeks.

I had considered throwing a BBQ in the front yard today as they packed their UHaul. But I am not. (budget concerns)

I saw their friends coming to help them move crap out over the last week and moved my van across the parking lot strip so they could have easier access to moving out. (and so they didn't scratch my van. accidental or not.)

So, in short, I am excited to no end that they are moving out today and heading all the way to Virginia. Let them be someone else's problem!!

Also of good report today, another family who drives me nuts is moving out. So the top three most annoying kids in this complex will all be but a memory this time tomorrow.

Duck! Well, several...

There's a few super cool parks in this town. One of them has a duck pond which is home to several families of ducks. There's turtles and koi also but that's another post.

There are families with varying ages of ducklings so when we go we keep watching for the different groups of ducks by ages. It's so much fun to just sit and watch them follow their mamas around the pond. And some of them are light enough that they run across the top of the water to catch back up when they have strayed too far. So much fun.

On W day

Annie's kindergarten class had a letter of the day for each of the last 26 days of school. On W day they were supposed to Walk to the park. Her teacher, though, is 9 million weeks pregnant and was not allowed to walk to the park. So they had western day.

She's on her way to becoming a rodeo princess! Now she just has to learn to ride.

Alex Turned 9!!

Alex had his birthday this Tuesday. The kid has made it to be a nine year-old. I'm impressed. He is maturing faster than I can keep up with.

He's got this girl he is crushing on that plays with him basically every day. Annie wants to be just like them but she doesn't understand why it is okay for Brooklyn to pull his hair and tackle him but not so okay for her to do the same things. Especially since Brooklyn spends a lot of her time playing with Annie and Ashley, too.

Luckily, Alex is just so dang awesome he tolerates her trying to figure this out while she beats up on him. A year ago he was hitting back and hurting her. This year, he understands that he is bigger than her and so he just takes it until he feels the need to say something to the grown ups. It reminds me of an older lion being beat up on by the baby lion. Just taking it until he's not any more.

We had his party early so his friend who was moving could attend. I was a little unsure what we should do with his gang of 8-10 year old boys but we made it work. It was a little bit awesome, I'm afraid. Starting with the weather: We were due for nice weather but the day before his party the forecast changed to thunderstorms.

We ended up doing a lot of his party outside anyway as the weather held up perfectly until an hour after everyone left.

We played a ton of games. The first one was a game where you make a mound of flour with a bowl, put a whopper on top of it and take turns making cuts with a butter knife. Whoever makes the cut that makes it fall in has to retrieve it with their mouth.

This was a fun game until one kid inhaled so much flour he threw up a bit.

Ashley was adamant about getting a turn to fish for the whopper but once she did, she made the same mistake and took in half the powder. Oops!

Then we played upset the fruit basket. Or some modified version of it, for those of you who know this game. We had 3 kinds of fruit and a caller. The caller would yell out 1 or 2 types of fruit and those had to get up and change chairs. Whoever is left standing is the new caller. Or you can yell "Upset the fruit basket" and EVERYONE moves. It was awesome until the kid with the broken arm got bumped into a little to rough.

We put a blanket over Alex and told him to take off the last thing he put on today. He took off his socks. Wrong! So he took off his shirt. Wrong! Before it got graphic, we let another kid try it. He totally got it and whipped the blanket off as soon as we said "go". But it's a fun game. The other kids wanted a turn, too. But since the joke was already told, I don't know if they wanted anything more than to be undressing under a blanket in front of a bunch of people.

9 year old boys are strange.

We took them outside and let the kids feed Alex the leftover whipped cream from his cake "frosting".

And then Alex chased them to exact revenge.

We played murder which some of the kids were really good at and some of them couldn't understand if you paid them.

Then there was cake and always the last thing is the Silly String fight in the backyard.

All in all, it was a good party.

And we are proud of our boy who is so smart and so funny and so snarky.

We love you, Alex!

Taylor Swift is the same as Godsmack. Huh.

The kids went to Brandon's house last weekend. His birthday present to Alex was a Transformers 2 book (like reading the movie) and tickets to some fest or another. This one features Godsmack and some other equally great bands.

Aiden already posted about that, and how great the lyrics are, but I then talked to Brandon about my reservations on him taking Alex to this concert. I acknowledged that while I cannot tell him he CAN'T take him, I do have the right and responsibility to voice my concerns with the lyrics, type of people who will be there, and overall appropriateness of the show. Some of these concerts feature things that are SO far beyond what my 9 year old needs to be exposed to.

His reply was that Alex got in the car to go to Brandon's house last weekend asking to listen to Taylor Swift.

And that Taylor Swift also has objectionable lyrics.

Uh...?

I was confused. His answer was something like this: "she wears high heels, I wear sneakers, pick me, love me, I'm so cute, I live for you..."

Yeah, that's totally the same as saying I wasted my entire life and I should go get stoned again. Or shoot more whiskey.

Dear God, let my kids grow up to be normal in spite of their father!

Appropriate for Kids?

Brandon wants to take our son to a Godsmack concert. He's certain none of the following is inappropriate for kids.

From Whisky Hangover:

"One sip ain't gunna do shit

on the 2nd sip i begin to admit

that the 3rd one down is what makes me feel alright

and number 4 i slam down to the floorby 5 im ready to fight all night

an then 6, 7, 8 to make me break your face sometimes"

From Changes:

"I just can't stand another day when you're in my way

A long time brewing

It's time you kiss your ass goodbye"

And there's a song called I Fuckin' Hate You which I don't think needs the lyrics included for you get the inappropriateness level.

This doesn't include all of the inferred content about alcohol, sex, drug abuse, etc. But Brandon doesn't care. He probably won't even have a conversation with him about it before he takes him to the concert.

I can't believe that some people on this planet are actually friends with this man and think he's a good parent. Sure, he's gotten better, but he has a long way to go.

OK, done venting now.