Brain Dump - It's the Month of May-hem

1.  Nuts.

We're going a little nuts this week.  No surprise there, right?  Especially given that the boys will be IN DISNEYLAND a week from today, (as Gunnar has reminded me about 47 times since breakfast).  I'm holding out a vain hope that perhaps, with a few days free of their exuberance and activities, my brain will clear up.  But then again, maybe not.


2.  Mother's Day

My sister and I took our mom out for Mothers' Day yesterday.  And - yes - I do realize that Mothers' Day is actually Sunday.  Turns out my sister had an idea, back before Christmas, that we buy tickets to take my mom to see Beauty and the Beast (live, Broadway show).  Turns out that my mom, being the generous mom that she is, (and knowing how broke I am) offered to take us out to dinner, before the show.  Which we all enjoyed.  (The dinner AND the show.)  Of course, there were lots of kids at the show, especially little girls, and double-especially little girls dressed up like princesses.  Which reminded me how thankful I am to be a mother to three BOYS, because while all the little princesses were very cute, I'm very aware that "girly-girl" is not my native language.  And the show itself was fun.  Gaston was perfect.  What an over-cooked ham!

And for the ACTUAL Mother's Day, we'll be hosting the family here for lunch, and celebrating a birthday as well.


3.  Mowing, mowing, and more mowing.

The boys are up to FOUR lawns now, and very thankful for that.  It's quite a juggling act, between homeschooling, CAP, Wyatt's job at the motocross, and whatever else.  Things will lighten up considerably when we wrap up school for the summer, but in the meantime...

We needed a weed-whacker, since the one we had was pathetic and powerless.  Rechargeable battery?  Yah, right.  That thing never worked for more than a few minutes before it would poop out, at its best.  And lately?  More like a few seconds.  One of the neighbors has a nice electric one, but it took three adults, two teen-age boys, and two clothes-pins to reload the string on the spool.  So when we went to buy a new one (a GAS one - woo-hoo!) I told the guy at the shop that he had to show all of us (the three boys and me) how the string worked, and we all had to be able to do it before we left.

"Oh, ma'am, this is the easiest thing there is," he grinned.

Yah, charm will get you nowhere.  Prove it.

And he was right.  Easy squeezy.

Minutes later we were off to the church to mow, when teenage hormones came into play.  (Lord have mercy if you have teenage boys, because you can't tell them anything.)

The lawn at the church has not been mowed yet, so it is long, thick, and wet underneath.  Wyatt started weed-whacking around the fence and Tate fired up the mower.  I suggested he raise it up as high as it goes for the first mow, but I am obviously an idiot.  Why on earth would he want to do that?

After the mower died about thirty times in the first ten minutes (and he had not even gone once around), he grudgingly consented to let Wyatt help him raise it up.

When it died again, he brought it over on the concrete to restart it, but he couldn't get it going.  I suggested he check the gas, but - again - I obviously have the IQ of algae, there's plenty of gas in there.

After he nearly jerked the rip cord right out of the engine I banished him to the car, filled it up with gas, and continued mowing where he'd left off.

But then when I had to restart it (after talking to Gunnar about kicking out the mole hills) the little plastic bracket that holds the cord broke, and that was the end of mowing for the day.  Of course, when I suggested to Tate that if he hadn't yanked it so hard in frustration it might not have broken, I was informed that it broke because it is old and a piece of junk.


4.  The Chicken.

My friend Ann had a great description of stress that I'm borrowing.  It's like a giant chicken, sitting on your head, and pecking at you all the time.  Ugh!  Too true.  It's the Mother Load gone bad!

Maybe while the boys are gone I can kill the chicken ;D


5.  Bible Study tonight.

We are studying Proverbs and it couldn't be more timely.  Especially this week's lesson on Wealth and Poverty.  Debt is bondage, my friends, bondage.  Ugh.


6.  The pink dogwood.

It is glorious, right now, and I must go take a picture before I forget.  And, yes, I am saying the PINK dogwood is glorious, even though pink (along with brown) is my least favorite color.  And I don't HATE pink.  It's fine, out in nature, where God put it.  Just not in my house.  And the tree?  Really, it's not too pink, but kind of coral.  At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.


7.  And lastly, about standard of living and quality of life.

Don't confuse the two.

Yah, I get it that there is definitely some overlap, but the two are not the same.  And maybe, just maybe, if your pursuit of a higher standard of living is MAKING YOUR FAMILY SICK, it might be time to think about the quality of life you're actually achieving.

Rant over.

And how is YOUR Wednesday going?