The Adventures of Lil Mouse

Peaches for me! I told my husband (after the first container went in the freezer), that he couldn’t have any pie unless he helped. He ambled in, and cheerfully washed his hands and started peeling. Two containers later, we have peaches in the freezer to make pie with later on. If we can resist…mmm pie!

Have you ever stayed at a vacation rental ? Last summer we stayed at one near Murphy, NC to visit my aunt and her family. We took a boat ride on the lake, my husband did rafting down the river through the National Forest, and we split the cost of the cabin with my parents, as most of these cabins have more than one bedroom, and often have a pull out bed in the living room. The one we stayed in had a full kitchen, games to ease boredom at night, a pond and stream, and was as reasonably priced as a hotel room but with a lot more amenities. Next time you travel, check one out. It will be worth it.

No, this is not a commentary on gender, but on those ‘blank’ forms you fill in to say, participate in a survey or get a coupon. Twice recently I have filled one out, hit ‘F’ for female on my keyboard, only to be denied. (You know if you just hit TAB on those forms, you go from one blank to another without having to use your mouse, then you can also use your keyboard, for instance if you live in IL, most of the time if you hit ‘I’ twice, Illinois will pop up on your screen and you can tab to the next blank)…Anyway, why no ‘F’??

Idiots were using ‘guy’ and ‘girl’, WHAT?!? Since when is ‘guy’ and ‘girl’ a GENDER? The next time I run across one, I WILL be sending a nasty email to their computer-illiterate computer people to explain to THEM about filling out forms, and how gender is male and female and not guy/girl.. cripes. What next? ‘I’m not sure’, ‘I’m thinking of changing my mind’ –while those might be valid options for some, they don’t belong on a standardized form. I REFUSE for the next generation of slackers to screw up something as simple as GENDER on a form.

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How do you eat the bottom half of a peach? Hmm, apparently the peaches had ripened from the bottom up (makes sense as they were on the tree until that morning).. anyway, some of the fruit was salvageable, but not enough for anything ‘big’, so we fed some to all 3 of us, and put the rest out in the trash. Does it suck, yes, am I going to complain about it ever again, no… but the part that was ripe was pretty tasty!

At freezing peaches. My husband had me convinced, even though the peaches didn’t look or smell ripe like the ones in the grocery store, he went and LOOKED IT UP! Of course he did. The ones we have are fine for making into pie. I scalded half of them. It didnt work so I tried again. It still didn’t work, and I have an idea why, I cut into one and they’re white on the inside, make that white and green. Aren’t peaches supposed to be, I don’t know, PEACH.

What a waste of time and money. And of course it leaves me feeling like a big, fat, hairy jackass because I didn’t trust my own instincts. So now Keeley will be up in probably about 2 minutes, I have a sinkful of green, scalded peaches that are good for absolutely nothing, and I, the only one who did NOT sleep all night, did not get a nap either.

Sometimes I wonder why I even try. Nothing ever seems to turn out. Anyone want some waterlogged, half scalded green peaches?

to really want to hurt someone so bad? Like, really, Ms. Landlady, PLEASE, oh do PLEASE come and mow our grass between 1 and 3 p.m. EVERY Saturday, so you have every single opportunity to wake our baby up from her nap.

Oh and don’t forget to stop by and ring the door bell to make some kind of smart remark, thus ensuring really, that the baby will wake up. I guess maybe due to her advanced age (or stupidity), she’s forgotten that babies sleep during the day. Or that door bells in teeny, tiny, apartments are REALLY FRIGGIN LOUD!

I’m sitting here holding my breath, hoping that everyone stays asleep, that is, but me. Me, that is, who woke up at 4 am and did NOT get back to sleep, whereas everyone who slept until 7 am is now asleep.

Oh and I suck at freezing peaches. I tried to do the whole scald/cold water thing. Nothing happened, so skin coming off, nothing. So I’m sitting here trying to figure out what to do next….

Because of the Fun Monday post, I neglected to talk about our movie outing! It involved an hour and a half drive (had to go get the playpen from mom and dad’s), a short visit with them, a short visit (with pizza included) with the in-laws, coaxing the baby into half sleep into the playpen, and sneaking out with Matthew and the lil sis-in-law to Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. This is the sixth movie, about the sixth book (Book 7 reportedly will be broken up into 2 movies, premiering in 2010 and 2011) in the series.

I will try and be good, but if you haven’t seen it yet and plan to, please stop reading.. NOW! Okay.. good, scroll down to keep reading..

The movie was good, theatrically, very good. Quite a few things in there (the house burning scene, the Harry being pulled under scene,  the whole chase through the cornfield scene, Lav lav and Won won) seemed pointless and verbose (if a film can be verbose), whereas items that SHOULD have happened, such as important items about the memories, the fight at Hogwarts, the whole POINT of the horcruxes being talismans for Moldy Voldy, Snape being an evil git to Harry, nonverbal spells,  were just avoided altogether. It also appeared more than once that Hermy was doing spellwork without a wand. Shame shame. Anyway, we had a good time from the time we were in the parking lot – zooming around and pissing off the SJville cop, laughing at the dude in the theater reading his book waiting for the show to start, to the end where we had to change a poopy baby and ride home with that in the car. Phew! Anyway, that was the FIRST time I had been away from Keeley for more than an hour. It was great. Did I miss her, well, maybe a teeny bit. Not enough to call and check on her, mind you. Do people really do that anyway? She was in good hands, and sleeping…only on the 5 minute drive home did we wonder if maybe she had woken up and been screaming the whole time??? She was a good baby for them, though…Special thanks to all the grandparents for their part in making this a nice night.

No shots, no longer needs vitamins, continue table food.

19 lbs 13 1/2 oz

28 in

44 cm head circ.

All is well.

The rest of this week and onto the next will be super busy. Thursday is Keeley’s 9 month appointment. It is with just a regular MD, but hopefully since he ’sees’ children he is somewhat familiar with babies. Sigh. The only thing I found out about the 9 month appointment is that they are to catch up on any shots they missed. 99% positive that she has not missed any shots, in fact some of them seem to be doubled up because they give 4 shots at once, even if they only need the 3, it is a combo shot. Oh well. Doesn’t make me happy, but they say it’s cheaper to do it in the combo. For who, exactly, I don’t know.

On the area of dr’s appts, Matthew is still hitting the chiropractor, therapist, and so on to try and make his back feel better. The new car has helped some as well, it’s not quite as stiff a ride for him, and let’s face it, we needed the car. As much as I hated to admit it. Also, on Tuesday I ‘get’ to have a root canal. Yippee. At least the dentist was willing to forgo antibiotics for now, hopefully I won’t need them at all. It will be nice not to have the pain. To that end, did anyone have any scar tissue after a c-section that moved around, felt like a knot, and hurt when you laughed or ate too much? Anyone have any idea what that might be besides scar tissue? Then I have to have a crown put on after the root canal. Not surprised.

We are donating whatever is leftover on the vacation bible school list from our home church, we just asked the secretary to take the list down and we would buy all that was left. We are also planning on paying for a new flower arrangement (or at least part of one), it’s about time we start doing things, even if we only get there once a month, it is still our church. So we will go to church on Sunday, after picking up the VBS supplies and peaches, lots and lots of peaches from the orchard down the highway, so mom can do what she does with them, and we can have some as well.

Then in the afternoon we will take our buddy Pascal back to the airport.  He’s more of my husband’s friend, but he’s the only real mutual friend we have from back in high school times. Half of his childhood was spent in Switzerland, and he still has a thick accent that I have to really listen to break into these days.  Once I’ve been in his presence a while I pick it up more easily. His sister, who is a few years younger, lost hers after she moved back to the States. Anyway, there is a family reunion for them, and we said we’d take him back to the airport to save them a trip. We’ll be going more than halfway back to home anyway, and either we can continue on, or I will be dropped off with the baby, depending on how she is doing I guess. Either way, we love seeing Pascal and wish he’d move back from Boston. I imagine if he was closer, I’d lose my husband a bit, but more likely we’d end up with a guest more than not. They are tinkerers and could find plenty to do with just the stuff Matthew has collected over the years and not found time to work on.

That’s our update for now. Tune in next time for…more baby pictures!