Tomato Jungle

There is a day in May when planting 6 tomato plants in a really small space seems like an excellent idea. They don't look too close to each other when you plant them. They are so small and cute. You water them and take care of them and give them each a little tag with names like "Sun Glow," and "Beef Steak," and "Brandy Wine."

You can't fathom that the day might possibly come (sometime in August, for your future reference) when those little tags will disappear in a cascade of viney green and your little babies will be huge, gangly monsters. (But they are my monsters!) Robert suggests I cut back my precious plants, but I can't. At the same time, I don't know if I can harvest the tomatoes when the time finally comes. It's not wading through a dense jungle of tomato that seems daunting. I don't mind wading in tomato plants at all. In fact, I love wading through tomato plants. They smell so good.

The thing that makes me hesitate to get right in there and search the plants for red ripe, juicy tomatoes is a little something with eight legs, eight eyes and a web that I usually don't see until it's in my hair. (Did I mention there are lots of spiders on my tomatoes this year?)

Moving Along

I know there must be loads of people out there wondering what is going on with our backyard landscape project. So, to satisfy your curiosity, I'd like to announce that things are moving along nicely. (Remember what it's like to have a microscopic yard Emily?)

Here is a picture of what our yard looked like "before" our project started. In this picture, a section of the fence has been removed to make way for a little excavator which was about to come through and grade the slope of the yard. This picture was taken in May, 2008. And here we are today, August 2008. Obviously we are not finished yet. In fact, we have a list of about 20 things to do before we can consider our backyard complete. But, some of those to-do items include purchasing a patio table and chairs and due to budget constraints, that will most likely not happen until July 2009. (Unless anyone knows of an awesome used patio table and chairs for sale--cheap!)

Right now we are growing weeds. We are watering that little patch of dirt in the middle of the yard so that the latent weed seed will germinate and emerge. Then we will kill the weeds and plant the grass seed. The idea is that this will give us a gorgeous, weed-free lawn.

Of course once the weed seeds blow into our yard from the open space behind our house, our weed free lawn will most likely be compromised. But it will be completely awesome for a while anyway.

Tomorrow our patio will get a nice pressure washing with muriatic acid. Then Robert will seal the patio. Later next week a landscape designer will come and give us suggestions for plants to put in our beds.

Things are definitely moving along!

Mean Mom

I'm having one of those days.

I'm being a mean mom and it's hard to tell whether I'm helping my kids learn valuable life lessons or just consistently forcing myself to follow through with poorly thought-out threats.

Mean Mom Episode #1 occurred this morning at breakfast. I had to get Jonah out the door and on his way to summer reading camp and was trying to get him to eat a super nutritious breakfast of Eggo freezer waffles in 10 minutes or less. Isaac was also being served a plate of waffles.

As I was plating the waffles, there was some debate about who would get which plate. The individual waffles, although absolutely identical, were also being anxiously claimed. I spent 20 seconds switching plates and waffles, waffles and plates, until I was sure I had the combination right.

I set the waffles in front of the boys. Isaac was appeased but Jonah was not. "I don't want this plate." Jonah said. "I want the pumpkin plate."

I explained to Jonah that he could eat with his eyes closed and pretend he had the plate he wanted. I told him the waffles would taste the same on the plate he had. I reasoned to his sense of urgency and told him that we only had a short amount of time before we had to leave. (Mental note: Jonah has no sense of urgency.)

None of these logical methods worked and Jonah was becoming more and more vocal about his displeasure.

I then suggested that maybe NO plate would be better than the one he had. I said he had until the count of three to start eating off the plate he had or he could eat his waffles off the floor.

"1......2.................come on Jonah, I'm gonna say 3...here it comes..........3!"

I took the plate, dumped the waffles on the floor, and put the plate in the dish washer. I put the fork next to the pile of waffles so he would have something to eat with.

I expected, and got, a big reaction from Jonah, but completely unexpected was the equally big reaction from my sweet Isaac. He sobbed and sobbed like I'd just dumped his own plate of waffles on the floor. It broke my heart.

Surprisingly, Jonah calmed down after a minute and ate a few waffles off the floor before we left for reading camp.

Mean Mom Episode #2 occurred when I entered Ethan's room. To make a long story short, a room that was supposed to be cleaned this weekend and looked clean on Saturday was in actuality a room with a closet jam packed with junk.

In addition, there was hamster food spilled on the floor and a wide variety of other things, which if you have boys, or kids, or even destructive dogs, you can just use your imagination to figure out what kinds of things I'm talking about.

Finally, I smelled, among other things, the hamster cage which had not been cleaned for a while. In fact, the last few times it has been cleaned, it's been done by me.

I think this is called "reaching critical mass."

I immediately called a friend and asked if she would mind keeping the hamster for a few days while Ethan learned a lesson. Since the simple requirements for Ethan to have a hamster were that he keep his room clean and that he take care of the hamster by cleaning the cage, I figured this was a logical consequence.

I picked up the hamster cage and walked right over to my friend's house and, even as I type (about 1 hour after the hamster hand-off), Ethan has no clue that his little friend is gone. I have no doubt he will be devastated.

And to be honest, I have a bit of a pit in my stomach too. I'm kind of sad to loose the little guy, even though it's hopefully temporary. However, I really need to be prepared to go all the way with this and list the thing on Craig's List if Ethan can't keep his end of the bargain.

Why do I feel so crappy? Did I do the right thing?

About one thing I am sure: I'm having the last piece of blueberry pie for lunch--I deserve it!

Look at Me!

I have to toot my own horn and say, "Yay for me!"

I have an article in August's edition of Vancouver Family Magazine. It's my first time in real, black and white print, on paper. Not that there is anything wrong with cyber print...it's just a little more satisfying to be on paper.

If you live in or around Vancouver, pick up your own copy at any of these places. Or you can view the article on line here. (As of this afternoon, the July issue was still listed at the current issue, so be sure to check back to see August's issue.)

The article is called "Bubble Science."

Speaking Up

I was at the local shopping center today to get a few things for dinner. I had my heart set on grilled salmon.

My heart was set so that even the price of QFC's wild caught King Salmon did not deter me. It made me pause and consider that I could serve Hamburger Helper every night for two weeks for the same price, but it ultimately did not deter me.

I swallowed, gathered my courage and asked for two pounds of King Salmon. Luckily, the slab that was in front, that I thought would probably feed our family, was 1.73 pounds and I quickly told the meat and seafood guy it would be just perfect.

I noticed the read-out on the scale said the salmon was $6.99 a pound. Was there some extra sale I was not aware of? At this point, I might as well tell you that the salmon was on sale at $14.99 a pound. The original price...$22.99 a pound!

He handed me my wrapped up slab of king salmon and I checked the sticker and it said I'd bought just over $12 worth of salmon. Well, I was thrilled, but a bit curious.

"I have a question," I said. "Is there a special sale going on that isn't advertised, because I thought the salmon was $14.99 a pound?"

The meat and seafood guy checked the sticker, then checked the little price thing under the glass and said, "Oh, wow! You are right."

At this point I was feeling honest, but incredibly stupid. In fact, "stupid" had just beat "honest" in a horribly mismatched arm-wrestling contest.

You would think this guy could have cut me a break for speaking up and given me the salmon for the lower price. It was his mistake after all. Maybe he could have offered to split the difference? At the very least he could have praised my honesty and acted like he'd never met anyone who would do such a noble thing. It would have made me feel a little better.

All he said was, "You probably would have felt guilty after you left here if you didn't say anything."

(Jerk!)

On the way back to the car, I passed the tanning salon. (Why those places are still in business I do not know. Do the people who walk in and out of there not ever read or watch the news?)

There was a sign in front of the tanning salon that read, "Please bare with us during our renovation. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you, but hope that the upgrades we are making will help us serve you better."

"Bare?" As in "take your clothes off?"

It had to be a mistake, even though it was kind of a funny one, for a tanning salon. The rest of the message was so serious that I was sure they meant "bear" instead of "bare."

I was still stewing over the $25.63 worth of salmon I was carrying that I felt just snotty enough to go in and give them a vocabulary lesson. This was some "speaking-up" I could get right.

I told myself I deserved to feel a little smug. I realized that the tanning employees would probably make fun of me after I left and say I was a geek for pointing out their vocabulary gaffe (but they wouldn't know what the word "gaffe" meant.)

I was so close to going in. I peered inside the front window and saw 2 people standing at the front desk chatting and laughing with the receptionist.

I chickened out.

The moral of the story is: Just have Hamburger Helper.

(This better be the best salmon dinner ever!)

Am I Too Old For This?

I had such a fun time last night with my fellow Twilight Fans at Borders Bookstore in Portland at the Breaking Dawn release party. I arrived just after 10pm and found other fans engaged in a trivia contest and shortly afterward, a Jacob vs. Edward debate.

It became clear that most of the crowd had probably been dropped off by their parents, and we started to feel a little out of place when the screaming for Edward and Jacob rose to a fever pitch. Were we the only grown up fans there?

We took a walk over to a nearby restaurant and hung out chatting while a few of us had something to eat.

We made it back to Borders in plenty of time to line up to get our books, and by 12:30am we were ready to be happily on our way. I have to admit, I was yawning and a couple of the moms in our group considered going home early because they were getting up at 5am to run 11 miles.
With the book in my hands, I was pretty sure I was going right home to hit the sack. In the 10 minutes it took to get home, however, I thought that maybe just reading one chapter would not be so bad.

At 3am I finally stopped reading, only because I knew that I had to clean the garage out this morning, take the kids to a rock museum (actual stones, not Rolling Stones) and somehow be awake for the fancy garden party we were going to be attending later in the day.

I would have slept in a bit, but around 7:30 I woke to the non-soothing sounds of "rototiller." Who in their right mind would wake people up at 7:30 on a Saturday with the loud sound of a...

(...oh, the sound is coming from our back yard. Serenity Now!)

Ewww!

Did I ever mention that I hate balloons? I found this little nasty on the living room floor this morning. I saw it floating around the neighborhood yesterday and I guess my kids brought it inside.

Is it not the most disgusting thing you've ever seen? And it's dirty!