Wednesday, May 28, 2003

I am way tired, after painting three bedrooms, the hallway, and the large livingroom (with 10' walls)and we never really had spring, but have gone straight to summer with temps in the 80's and 90's with a week of transition in the 70's.

My ankles balloon ankles -- usually indicative of my diabetes going straight to hell are deflated. While my sugars were bad, my doctor told me to take some time off and loaf a little. So I laid off the painting and am working on my gardens. I've got the front flower bed nearly half weeded and got the garden tilled and weeded. I've put in my perimeter of marigolds, as well as have already purchased peppers and tomatoes. I'm going to have to start corn separately to keep the birds out of the seedlings and wait a bit to transplant. The really good news is that my sugars have come down and I'm feeling better, and the swelling is down, too. The only bitch about gardening instead of painting is that my pale white freckly Irish skin is now red and heavily freckled and there's just not enough aloe vera with lidocaine for me.

I think Rupert the hen is actually possibly a rooster because the animal looks a lot more red and jowly and bigger-combed than the other birds. That may be a function of her species, but it may also be gender. Only time will tell. She looks lots better these days and is getting feathers. The other birds are getting huge and the little puffballs are now about the size that their older counterparts were when I got them with the feathers coming in. Last night, I smelled our neighborhood skunk go down and check out the henhouse, but thankfully, nothing startled it into spraying again last night.

For his birthday, I got Mike these little grown up walkie talkies and he just loves them. Last night, because my husband is insane, he was crawling around under the house trying to install cable in our bedroom and we were flirting over the walkie talkies. He finally got it all installed and now, I'm here writing because my computer is on the net again.

Monday, May 19, 2003

Well, the room is painted and moved into. I just got the hallway done and I've got sizeable wall portions done in the livingroom.

My diabetes has been a pain in the ass lately. Actually, it's been kicking my ass. I thought I had been doing okay, but Saturday I got a little low without realizing it and when I went to open a bar to eat something, my hands were shaking like a leaf. And I've been so tired. Lord, bone tired. So I finally found a blood kit and discovered that my sugars have been a little high, as well as low -- this morning was 123, which is high for me. And I have been waking up all puffy...hands swollen, face swollen, and elephant ankles. This morning I took a half hour walk and ate fruit and cottage cheese and while I don't feel great, I feel better.

I am working on a corner of the livingroom, so I have to tape and paint accordingly. The only bitch about pretty open beams is that you have to tape to avoid painting the danged things.

Rupert is in her own cage with a little bit of antibiotic in her water, so she feels better, because when I picked her up out of the coop, she not only is rather featherless, but she also had a bright red butt, like she'd been suffering from some kind of poultry malady. Her feathers are already starting to come back, her butt is no longer aglow, and generally she seems happy. She's hanging out with the puffball baby chickens through the screen. They are sharing the warming lamp and cuddling next to each other at night, so it's all good.

The older chickens are getting huge. I need to put together nesting boxes for them to lay in, but I also have to rototill the yard and finish the painting. The fun never ends, I tell ya.

Thursday, May 15, 2003

Well, this is the story of Rupert the Runt. Rupert is a sad little hen-to-be who has literally been henpecked a lot. Her shoulders and mid-back are all bare and her sister hens are the apparent culprits. I took Rupert out of the general population and gave her her own place to live for a while, until she gets a lot bigger and feathered.

I had watched the other chickens picking on her and kicking her out of the food and water dishes with a well placed nudge or wing flip. She runs faster than all get out, but the reasons why are kind of sad. I picked her up and she was squawking a bit at first, and then I was gently petting her and she became quiet, kind of settled into my hand, and if pullets could purr, she'd have been purring.

Last night, the coyotes found the henhouse and were whooping it up at 2AM. I was worried about the chicks, so I asked Mike if he'd come out with me and just check on them. I was wearing my flannel nightgown and he put on his robe and we wandered out there and they were fine. While we didn't hear from the coyotes again, I had a hard time getting back to sleep. I got up with the kids and once Russell was off to school, I went back to bed and slept until 10. It was lovely and beautiful and wickedly delicious.

Today, my penance was that I got most of our bedroom painted. I mixed a dark goldenrod and a light yellow, which made a beautiful butterscotch. I only missed a small place and that's because the mirror doors are too heavy to lift by myself. Mike's going to help me move those tonight, and we'll finish it. The only thing that will be left is the red trim in the room, which I'll finish tomorrow. Then I'm going to start moving stuff in. I'm not worrying heavily about the bathrooms because they'll be fast, so I'm going to rip down the hall and into the livingroom, so we can get stuff moving. The hall will be quicker than spit, but the livingroom is going to take a lot of time to tape around everything. I'm hoping that we can get the livingroom taped this weekend, but I'm not holding my breath. Mike's birthday is this weekend, so I'm not sure how much we'll get done in light of him hitting yet another year in that decade that many of us no longer know: the twenties. Lucky bastard!

Wednesday, May 14, 2003

Done. Totally and completely done. Final-ly DONE.

Last night, I put the adolescent chickens out in the chicken coop. To some degree it was because SPRING has finally show up here in the mountains. Spring had spent a little too much time humping Old Man Winter, but apparently, the old guy's getting tired, so Spring ditched him to turn on the heat, plant the flowers, and make it green. It was around 80 here yesterday -- absolutely wonderful. Last night, we had the window open and I was still hot. I think compared to winter, it is hot, not that it actually was hot.

Anyway, the chickens.

They were so funny. At first, of course, they all had a spazz peepfest out in the coop. *peep*Oh, my gosh *peep* you moved *peep* us. Then they started to really enjoy their new digs. They started scratching the dirt and pecking rather fervently at whatever attracts chickens, but one of them even got into the chicken scratch bowl and was scratching in there, happy as a...well, chicken. They would find pieces of hay and start to run from the other chickens thinking they had the best prize. Then they started flying around a little. Kind of spreading their wings and dashing at the air. (Stand not there, fair Rooster, for I shall joust at thee.) And then a couple just started to fluff out their feathers and hunker down. Very very sweet.

I was really worried the coyotes would come down whoop it up and scare them half to death, but not yet. I'm going to have to finish barricading them in there and I need to find a damned saw to saw the wood with to make a door and door frame. I know we have a saw, but it's really old, so I'm not sure of the quality thereof, but Mike can't find it, regardless. I personally think he's lobbying for power tools. Wait! This is MIKE! My bad.

And Mike and I both just kind of started realizing last night that if we don't put our room together soon, we're both going to start ripping all our hair out. The moral of the story is: don't screw with earth signs' home space.

Monday, May 12, 2003

Two down and one to go.

I talked to the learning disabilities prof and told her I was sending the final via email sometime this evening because I had to format the references correctly, but that I was willing to send it as is to show that it was done. I also told her that I wasn't sure I was thrilled with it.

She said it was okay to take a little time and just to call her when it's done.

I think I'm going to sleep and then tackle reference formatting tomorrow.

I started to reread this today and realized it's actually in really good shape and I was pleased. It also made me realize that I should not proof or evaluate my work at 2AM.

I'm way bummed about Genny's dresser, though. I asked Mike and Russell to paint it yesterday and I'm going to have to scrape every ounce of paint off the thing and redo it because it looks like shit. Big gobs of paint just sort of dolloped on there with little attention to omitting brush lines or following wood grains. I am tired enough to be significantly pissed off about it.

And with as little sleep as I'm working on, I am angrier than hell at my husband. Remember that yesterday was Mother's Day? Mother's Day to me means I get a day off and that the minions in cooperation with Daddy avoid thrashing my house. Yeah, right! I am scraping things off the kitchen floor that I am not sure I can identify. The dishes in the sink have a weird odor, and what really pisses me off about all this is that Daddy sat on his ass for three hours doing nothing last night, except yelling at the kids.

As I scrubbed the filthy kitchen, I told him tonight if this is the kind of support I can expect in grad school that I won't go to grad school. Then I would resent him forever and eventually divorce him in disgust. I may be so tired as to be over the top, but I am soooo not confessing to it.

Sunday, May 11, 2003

Tomorrow is the deadline of two finals. One of which I have halfway done and the other I've been thinking about and have half an outline to in my head.

When asked what I wanted for mother's day, I said I wanted them all to leave the house, so I can do my work. I've been doing it, but to no avail. I am feeling lost about the one topic.

I'm supposed to synthesize some reading and do it with a zinger at the end. My problem is that I want to save the world and I know exactly where I'd start and how I might do it, but that I don't have all the words for it. Well, that and someone else in the book wrote my damned essay, so now I have to reinvent the essay in my own words. I'm pitiful, I tell you.

I am of a mind that all children should be in the same classroom, regardless of abilities and that an adequate educational program should be inclusive of all those abilities. I am of a mind that instead of spending money on specialists if we spent money paying more than one teacher to manage a 30 pupil classroom that project-based classes could be developed in team situations with teachers and parents and children that would incorporate all skill levels and allow all students to experience a successful educational experience.

Call me crazy. Call me insane. That is just what I think. I think if we spent less money on specialists and more money on basic classroom strategies that allowed for things like "the instructional conversation" or an "educational dialog" that you could have all students be successful with little or no ostracism of people with learning or language differences.

Me and Thomas More...we're like peas in a pod. Utopia, baby, all the way!

Tuesday, May 06, 2003

I am one week away from being free from school til fall. I got a graduate assistantship, so I can actually pay for next year's schooling. I'm so excited! It seems like things are finally coming around for me.

I realized that I kind of set myself up...one of the profs I did a web page for hit me up for doing another one. I told him I wouldn't be free until next week, but I asked him if there was any money in it for me. He said he'd ask. The worst they could say is no, and I would still do the page. I just wouldn't do as MUCH of a page for them.

Over the weekend, I bought chicks. I have 18 adolescents that still have down on their heads, but feathers on their bodies and 12 little puffballs with the slightest bit of wing feather on them. I have them caged out in the garage with lamps. They stink to high heavens, but I think the adolescents are just about old enough to be moved to a chicken coop and roost which I don't have built yet. I'll have to finish all my schoolwork, but then I will be painting and cooping.

We had a thing with one of our neighbors. The guy renting the house across the street approached Mike about using our corral space to put his horse in. I guess originally he wanted to "borrow" our corral fencing. I told Mike no. That stuff is $50 a panel and there'd be no guarantee that we'd get it back, much less in one piece, and if he's just renting, he can rent panels cheaply. Then he wanted to know if he could board his horses here for "at least a month." I checked around and was told that $50/month per horse was more than reasonable. At first, we were considering it, but then the guy wanted to put them in the front area where my garden will be going in next week and the only way to the back corral is through the garden or over a step that I don't think would be good for a horse to attempt. And while at first I was willing, when he said "at least a month" I was afraid it would drag on. I guess he wants to corral them in an area that is near the owner's big shed and that area is currently full of big heavy construction piping and structural and that combined with his commentary and the total inconvenience just made it less palatable. It was inconvenient because we wouldn't be able to let Genny into the corral to play in the dirt because she'd be tempted to check out the horses. We wouldn't be able to put the kids' brand new swing set out in the corral either because it would be in the path of where the horse would be going back and forth. We talked and we both felt that if we had put the money together to own our own place that we ought to be able to do with it whatever we wanted.

So Mike and I went and told them that we really didn't want to do it. We explained that this was our first house and that we had plans for several of the places that he would have to use, if we were to board his horse. We offered to care for the horses in the summer when they were gone, which is something else he had asked about. His wife had a hissy and stammered something about how she didn't understand the problem because were were going charge them. Before I had gone and checked around to see if there were places listed on various community bulletin board for boarding horses and the lowest charge I found was $150/month per horse for what we were offering. All I could think is "yeah, and we weren't going to charge you MUCH!" I held my tongue, however. Then she rather abruptly shooed us out of the house.

WhatEver. It is our land, we should be able to do with it whatever we want. It's not like we're putting up a brothel in lieu of stables. I was pretty disgusted with her attitude because she was definitely of the opinion that we owed them something. In light of her attitude, I'm really happy we didn't because I think we would have been "owing" them a lot over time.

I feel like God showed me what I needed to see in this situation, certainly.

Thursday, May 01, 2003

You know you're a redneck when...

Mother's day comes around and you don't want flowers, candy, candles, or a spa day, you want a garden tiller.

I would also like a spa day, but that would be after I use my new tiller. ;)

I am so far from unpacked, I'm feel like I'm moving backwards.

I am busy doing school work and I'd much rather be painting my room. It's sick and wrong I realize to prefer to paint one's room over the enthralling joy of writing lesson plans and synthesis papers, but what's a girl to do?