April into May

A month and a few days until our road trip.  Time to conquer my fears and learn to back up the trailer.  My goal is to get out there each day and work at it a few times.  I've got the hooking up and taking off part down now but backing up, well, if I can do it in a space as big as our driveway, I'll be fine.  Unfortunately, I don't think I'll have that much room in a campground.  William is ever helpful as he calls to me from his carseat, "You're backing into something", "You've lost the trailer".  Isaac was my guide today and it didn't install a lot of confidence to look in my mirror and see him playing with a basketball and letting me know I was doing fine when he could only see one side of the van.  I hope I'll get better and be able to introduce some more difficulty by sticking cones out and trying to do a reverse slalom through them.

See how small the van and trailer look in our driveway?

I try going around again and again

Dode has the inverter for the cargo trailer up and running.  The first thing we cooked with it was a slice of pizza for my lunch.  It looks like it will give us a little over an hour of microwave time on a fully charged battery. That's a lot of pancakes and chicken nuggets.  I'm too cheap to buy fast food for lunch too many times and don't want to take the time to prepare lunch using my camp stove when we could be enjoying our vacation.  (Because the children are home schooled, they're used to getting a hot lunch and a sandwich just doesn't cut it.)   I can buy an entire bag of nuggets from Costco for less than one trip through the drive through.  It's always bothered me that when we're camping, there's no way to heat and eat leftovers at another meal.  We often end up throwing away food after dinner, something my mother taught me to abhor.  With the inverter, that will no longer be a problem.  Now that the inverter is installed, we have just a few more shelves to go and our trailer will be ready for business.

The produce co-op took longer than normal today.  We'd gotten the carport cleaned off as usual, blew off all the debris that accumulated over the week, and had the stack of baskets at the ready.  My 1st helpers showed up at 8:45.  At 9:20 (the truck an hour overdue), with seven other people standing around waiting for the truck, I decided to go inside and call the delivery company.  It's my routine to check my email when I sit down to use the phone and I noticed one that had gone out from the bountiful basket leaders in Arizona letting me know the driver hurt his back earlier in the route and the produce company had to send a replacement up from Seattle.  They didn't have any details or know when the truck would be arriving.  I sent my helpers home, put a sign out to turn away all the people who started showing up at 10 (74 baskets worth) and went inside to wait.  The truck got here two hours late which meant pick up was two hours later as well.  Luckily, my helpers came back to sort the produce and that great feeling of being a community was there.  The participants were all very understanding and concerned about the driver.   We got:  Red Spuds, Cucumbers, Turnips, Romaine, Romas, Cantaloupe, Braeburn Apples. D'Anjou Pears, oranges, honey mangos, kiwi, and bananas.

Both big girls had birthday parties to go to and Anastaya wanted to make a skirt for her gift.  What generally takes me 30 minutes took up 4 1/2 hours of our Friday but she got it done and it looked cute.  Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture.  Her friend was thrilled.  I also managed to sew up a quick skirt for myself.  It's a good thing I get 15% off everything I buy at Jo-Ann Fabrics for being a teacher because I've been spending way too much money there lately.

Here are Anastaya and I in our matching skirts. 

I've spent hours on the internet looking for cute mother/daughter clothes because she absolutely LOVES to match me.  I couldn't find anything I liked in my price range and unfortunately, they don't have a mother/daughter section at Value Village.  I don't know why I didn't think of sewing some up myself before now.  Well actually I do, have I ever mentioned that I hate sewing?  Something about needing to use the seam ripper every 10 minutes, having the thread keep coming out of the needle, kids tripping over the power cord, balky garage sale sewing machines that hate having the thread changed and are likely to object by breaking the thread and or needle when such happens.  I also have a terrible time imagining how things fit together in my head and often sew the wrong sides of things together.  I've made Dode help me more than once.  It was very traumatizing for me to attend high school home economics and have someone measure my seam allowances.  I've never gotten over it.  And thus, the beginning of my dislike for sewing and feeling that I am not good at it.  But, I seem to have caught the bug for now so I'm taking advantage of it while it lasts.  I'm sure our skirts will be the first of many matching outfits.  I've already purchased 4th of July material myself and the three girls.

Miriam was not to be left off with the picture taking.

We went to a "by donation" garage sale Saturday and I scored a bunch of big people clothes that I want to turn into little girl clothes by cutting up and using the material they're made out of.  We'll see how they turn out.  It will feel like free clothes!

And, here is the skirt that began all this sewing. 

 I saw these on Ruffles and Stuff, a cute blog written by a talented lady named Disney.  She had a "Ruffle your Stuff" contest and I entered a few aprons.  There were way cuter things that won.  These can can skirts were a runner up and I fell in love with them.    I had to buy way more non fray chiffon than I needed so I could get free shipping but I've found another use for it as ruffles peeking out from the bottom of several skirts I've made.  It looks so cute.  I knew the girls were going to feel bad if I just made one for Miriam so I decided to make simple skirts for them first.  Miriam loves her new skirt.

Last night (Saturday), at 8:00pm, Dode decided he wanted to watch Avatar on our ClearPlay.   (We  made a decision when Jacob was three years old to not watch any PG-13 movies.  For years we just skipped all PG-13 movies.  Now we  have a ClearPlay DVD player which takes out the "bad" stuff.  As new movies come out on DVD, we are able to load filters off the internet.)  While he watched the movie, I busied myself finishing up my skirt, straightening up the house, and finding church shoes/tights for Sunday.  At 10:50, the movie still on, I asked Dode just when he was planning on going to bed.  It was the children's  third or fourth time watching the movie but they were right there with him.  He ended up deciding to call it a night, right as things were heating up for the final battle.  I worried we'd all be paying the price of the late night on Sunday.

Saturday night skirt

So, today dawned with grumpy children.  They thought sacrament meeting would be a perfect time for catching a nap by laying down on the bench.  I wasn't so keen on that idea.  I was going it solo because Dode had gone up to Mt. Vernon to be there when his brother Randy was set apart as the new Stake President.   Dode reports that Randy was looking shell shocked in a way he'd never seen before.  We always sit in the same place at church and it surprises me that a couple who are just coming back to church sit behind us week after week.  We aren't the most reverant pews in the chapel.  (We choose to sit in two short pews instead of one long one to give keep all the children within reach).

After church, the children tried to play a game together but they were so out of sorts, it just turned into a big fight.  Anastaya spent a lot of time in tears because everyone was hurting her feelings and apparently her dad hates her for letting her know it's not appropriate to shove her sister out of her way while she storms upstairs.  "Why do you hate me so much?!" she wailed repeatedly.  Then, "She should know to get out of my way when I'm mad."  What do you say to that kind of ridiculousness?  There really is nothing.  Of course, 10 minutes later she's happy and ready to be friends with everyone while Dode and I try to stuff down our irritation and be pleasant back to her.  We sent the children to bed at 8:00 in hopes of a better tomorrow.  I sure hope that movie was worth it!

I've given up on watching most movies.    The only time/place I watch media is while I'm exercising.  I don't have a ClearPlay in my exercise area so I'm limited to PG/G movies.  When I try to watch a movie downstairs: the kids fight over who sits by me,  use me like a jungle gym, ask a bunch of questions about what's going on, have to pause the movie over and over for potty stops, they fight, spill popcorn everywhere, rub their greasy fingers on the couch, get in front of the TV, etc.  I am so irritated by the time we're done with a movie that I don't feel like a very good mom.  So, for the benefit of the family, I have pretty much stopped watching movies. 

Dode is having a complication from his wisdom tooth removal.  As the swelling has gone down,  a bony ridge has worked its way out through his gums.  The surrounding tissue is very tender and his tongue doesn't appreciate the sharp bone either.  It looks like there'll be another trip to the oral surgeon.  Hopefully this time he won't need general anesthesia. 

We're planning a last minute Cinco de Mayo party and invited a bunch of people from church and family in the area for a Mexican potluck.  So far, quite a few people have responded in the affirmative (a lot of families let us know that their children are asking when they can go to the Dickson's again so here's a perfect opportunity). We're crossing our fingers for good weather.  If not, the kids won't care and the adults will be nice and cozy.  I LOVE having a house full of people who are having a good time.