Taxi Momma.

Told you I was gonna paint my van yellow!  It is official.  I am now a taxi van driver.  Just don't try calling for rides, because I am booked.  Tomorrow I have two trips to school and three baseball games in the evening.  And I have to go find ink for the printer and some stuff for a project too.

Seriously, I had been kidding about painting my van yellow just days before, and I pulled into Dale's office and there it was.  A YELLOW TAXI VAN!!

Anderson is a not so big town.  We don't see taxi cabs much - I've never seen a taxi Van in Anderson - and there it was.  In our parking lot.  Daring me to take its picture.  I dared alright.  Maybe I should call it and see how much he would charge to taxi my boys back and forth to school and to all their games and practices.  At least then I'd know what all my driving was worth.

Gardening Tips:

• Perennials are worth their investment - as long as you like them.
• Get the good hose.  And the long one.
• Don't plant further than your hose.
• Miracle Grow works.  Use the old fashioned type.
• Don't plant mint.
• Take time to teach your husband what your perennials look like.
• Round up kills weeds - and perennials.
• Round up does not kill mint.
• Wave petunias are great!
• New Gold Lantana is Great!
• Find a cool nursery - that is not Lowes or Home Depot - for real advise. 
• Believe them when they say, "this will grow pretty big."
• Zinnias grow easily from seed - not much else does.
• Atlas Gloves are wonderful! (amazon)
• Slugs are not.
• Worms are good.  Grubs are not.
• DON'T BUY THE JAPANESE BEETLE BAGS AND BAIT!!!  (They lure all the Japanese beetles in the neighborhood to your yard)
• If you do buy the Japanese Beetle bags, they will come to the bag, but also to your roses and your trees and your flowers - before they get to the bag.  They will eat your roses, your Crete Myrtles and Cherry Trees, more - and worse, they lay eggs in the ground that become grubs and will be back next year many more times than the first year.
• If you have done this, get the stuff to kill the grubs that are in the ground and Do Not fall for the Japanese Beetle Bags - again!! 
• Plants I can't kill - easily:  zinnias, daisies, purple coneflowers, lantana, salvia, blue daze, black eyed susans, and of course, mint.
• Don't fall for even Chocolate Mint.
• Don't step on bees.
• Plants need water.
• Mulch is good.
• Dogs, not so good.
• Can I say it just one more time?  Don't plant mint.

Don't stir the tea with the phone!

Yesterday I drove for my son's first grade class to Greenville Children's Museum for a field trip.  I have heard great things about this place, and they were all true.  This place was fabulous.  I'm gonna drag all three of my boys there - maybe as soon as next week.

Well, back to driving.  My friend, Elizabeth got to ride with me and her daughter and another little girl from the class as well as my son and another little boy from their class.  We were all talking at once, so the volume often rose to decibels a few to0 high for highway driving.  Elizabeth and I were able to tune most of it out and enjoy our time, but I almost fell out of the van laughing when Elizabeth jumped from our conversation to a little girl conversation going on behind us and she sweetly said, "No, let's not lick our feet.  Put your shoes back on.  Now what were you saying, Annette?" 

Oh the things we have said as mothers we never dreamed we would say.  I wish I had thought to write them all down.  I'm hoping God did that for me - I'm sure he's had a good chuckle over things He has overheard in my home.  But of course, I can't remember them.  The title of this is from a friend of mine in Charleston who said this to her own astonishment to her children one day 11 or so years ago.  Anyone have ones to add?

Coffee Table Art

In the aftermath of a family ski trip, a few extra days with the boys at home, a birthday party in the works and all the other normal stuff that goes on around here, I am trying to find my floor, my kitchen, my papers for a doctor's visit and the coffee table.  I found a few Southern Living magazines and thought, "That would be nice to have on the coffee table .  .  .  "

By my coffee table, you can tell who lives here, I have on my coffee table 3 remote control cars, 2 TV remotes, a 750 piece puzzle barely started (and two cookie sheets to divide up the edges), a baseball glove (don't know why - haven't started baseball season yet), 3 mismatched dirty socks (not mine), a lego R2D2  - minus his head, super glue, smiley face pajamas, a much read Harry Potter book, batteries, ear phones for an ipod - no ipod, another set of ear phones without ipod, a notebook with DVD's in it, a dog-chewed knife case (no knife), a torn open empty box for a Micro RC remote control car, and a big notebook on discipleship, and under the coffee table, dirty cleats.  That sums us up pretty well - (now if I could just get those Southern Living magazines to look good on this table, we'd be all well represented.  OK, so the coffee table itself can represent me.  It is good for looks alone - doesn't have any drawers or bins to toss stuff into, has a glass top and it is painted/stained white and distressed.)

That's just on the coffee table!  As I glance around the room, there are more legos, a toy bow and arrow set, a real bow and arrow set, a few dog bones, another remote control car, more socks on counters, and a football on the couch beside me, and that's just what I can see from where I am sitting.  I write all this with much joy.  I am appreciating the boy clutter (believe me, I make plenty and possibly more of my own clutter). 

Southern Living magazines??? What was I thinking?  I think I need to start a Boy Living magazine.  Life with boys doesn't fit into the "Southern Living" mold, but then again, life with me doesn't either.

Pictures from flying.

Got camera, battery, memory card. . . good friend and an

AIRPLANE - - - Ready for an adventure!!

What a sweet friend to make me go for the adventure . . .

we will never forget it, will we? 

Check out the cool accessories!

 

Amazing how our lives suddenly seem so small in perspective.

Those three squares on the right are for sale. . .  if you are interested.

That's why we are in the air - to take pictures of those 3 "small" squares. :)

This one turned out to be my favorite.  I like the horizon in it.

It shows how close the office sites are to Hwy 81 and the hospital.

The Forgetful Tooth Fairy

The Tooth Fairy visited our house again.  My youngest is trying to catch up.  He lost his first tooth on the first day of January - 2010 and now his second tooth on the first day of February. 

Unfortunately, the Tooth Fairy must have had an important hockey game or something, because he didn't make it to our house Monday night.  I tried to make amends by taking him to see the new movie that is out called . . . The Tooth Fairy.  Seemed a bit appropriate.

Tuesday night as he was headed to bed, he came up and said to me, "Mommy, I sure hope the Tooth Fairy comes tonight."  I quickly texted a reminder to TF to remember our house. 

I'm quite sure he doesn't really believe, but we are both having fun playing along.  At Christmas we haven't played the Santa game.  Last year we talked about the real St. Nicholas.  This year when I started kidding about all the work Santa (ie: me) had to do, my youngest piped up, "Maha-Meee, Santa's Dead!!"  Well, that's a little harsh, but I had to admit, it was true.  We had a little chat about not saying that to his classmates, but I don't know how well he listened.

Well, Santa may be dead at our house, but the Tooth Fairy (though not always on time) lives.  One night I got home from some errands to find a note written out across several sheets of notebook paper and taped to the back door.  It said in pencil with many misspellings, "Mommy, please remind the Tooth Fairy that I lost a tooth today." 

One of my favorite "Mommy tidbits" is:  go to the bank and get silver dollars, gold dollars and two dollar bills (for front teeth or especially brave extractions).  I usually tell my boys to keep their special coins and dollars and I will give them "regular" money to spend.

Anyone want to go Flying??

January 28, 2010  Part II

I am not big on flying for several reasons, but the main one being . . . that I have a tendency to "hurl" when the "ground" underneath me moves too much.  I once flew in a little plane when I was 5 as a reward for learning the most verses in VBS, and then, didn't get into a plane again until I was a freshman in college. 

I went to college in California, so it was usually a little bumpy flight from Greenville airport to Atlanta, then a very long 5 hour flight to Los Angeles.  Dramamine was my friend, unless my flight got canceled, (which it did several times), and then I would have to place myself in as safe a cubby as I could find, drape my legs over my luggage, prop my head up on whatever else I had, sleep off the effects of the Dramamine and pray that I woke up in time for the next flight. 

And, by the way, have you seen those upchuck bags they so kindly tuck behind the seats?  WHAT are those for - - mini breadsticks??  My advice, if you start to sweat on a flight - - start gathering those breadstick bags from everyone around you - 'cause they're not gonna hold much. 

Memorable flights (ie flights I'd rather forget):  Getting off the "little puddle jumper" from Atlanta to Greenville and greeting my mom who said, "You look a little green."  And I felt green. 

Another time (flying in a small plane) from Greenville to Atlanta, I did okay until I got off the plane and went by a store that had a small plane on a string flying in small circles at the front of a store - what were they thinking?? 

And of course, the lovely time when I was a young college student flying alone with my Elle magazine (I only bought them when I flew), I was surrounded by several men - a young dude, a business dude and some other dude.  We didn't talk or anything, but gave some glances to each other as the plane did a few bounces, then a drop, a lift, "The Captain has turned on the seatbelt sign", a few glances  - - (I'm okay!), a few more bounces (ugh), a lift, up, down, bounce, bounce (feeling green), drop, (please let this stop - where is that BAG?) - they looked nervous too - but more about me then about them, and they handed me their bags. . . enough said.  One even asked the stewardess to pick up the bags for me.  Mortified!!  So much for Elle.

January 28th already felt like a dramamine induced crazy dream (see previous blog), but a bit of this story actually happened the night before -
At 5pm (the night before), Dale had sent me a text asking if I wanted to go up in a plane to take an arial shot of the office and the other office sites that are still for sale in Cardinal Park. 

I am a mom of three school age boys.  My days are usually full of rushing kids out the door, dropping off kids, exercise, picking up kids, doing homework, more picking up kids, what's for dinner and more homework.  So the idea of hopping on a plane in the middle of the day didn't quite compute.  My initial answer was, "No, thank you."             And, did you read the intro?  That was a big factor too.

But, I was meeting my dear friend, Elizabeth for dinner at the neighborhood Mexican spot up the street.  Her husband had been out of town for two weeks, and since Dale had a meeting that night, I thought we could take the kids out and have a little bit of chit chat ourselves.  Well, when Elizabeth heard about the plane ride, she said, "Of course you are going!"  in a very chipper, excited voice.       (She hadn't read the intro. yet)

To which I replied, "Well, I'll go if you go." 

And she promptly retorted, "Well, then, I guess we are going on a plane ride tomorrow." 

[Insert previous blog about office break-in here]

And then I woke up. . . very wonky from all the wierdness that had happened the night before, plus, the strangest dreams that continued the drama into my dream world, and a little nervous anxiety that maybe I really was going to go flying this morning too.  I decided against "drama"-mine since even the "less drowsy" type that is now out can still make me a bit groggy and I had had enough drama from the night's events to last all month.

I was secretly hoping it would all fall through . . . but it didn't, so, I dressed warmly and at the last minute grabbed 3 plastic grocery bags . . . and then a gallon ziplock for good measure.

My flying friend didn't let me down, I picked her up  -  -  - and then our plane got delayed.

So we stopped by the office, got a YUMMY rasberry chocolate truffle coffee and heard Bethany's version of the break-in which helped me dismiss some of my anxiety with some good hard tear-producing laughter.

We drove across town, and as we were walking into the tee-niny terminal of Anderson Airport, Elizabeth confessed that she wished she had called Bebe to tell her it was OK if Ann Catherine (who is 6) got her ears pierced before she was twelve. . . and it didn't matter if John (8) didn't smile if he was on the front page of the newspaper. . .   OK, so I wasn't the only one who was nervous.

It was a six-seater.  Two seats facing forward with all the controls.  Two seats facing backwards behind the front two and then two seats facing forwards again.  I got the one in the far back - so I could take pictures - great for pictures, (but not for hurling.)

I wish I didn't have such a weak stomach.  I think I could really enjoy flying - and I did most of the trip. 

We were up and over the city within about 3 minutes!  We circled Dale's office and circled and circled and went up and then down and circled some more.  I was fine.  I clicked and clicked and clicked getting a whole bunch of great arial shots. 


Then we went on a little hunt for Elizabeth's house, we found our church, the hospital, the grounds for the new school, a swamp we didn't know existed right next to Elizabeth's neighborhood . . .  We went around her neighborhood looking down into the trees, trying to find our bearings, and then, trying to give our patient pilot directions.  Now she is sitting across from me and looking out the opposite window, so our directions were all confused. 

Needless to say,  I started to get hot.  I unbuckled, took off my cozy sweater and Elizabeth saw my face and realized what was happening.  She asked Tom (our patient pilot) if we could get some air.  Tom was trying to direct us to some air vents (we never found them) and by then it didn't matter anyways.  I sure am glad I grabbed those grocery bags - and the ziplock.  Remember that YUMMY raspberry chocolate truffle coffee?  Yeah. 

Well, after that I was fine, but Tom wasn't risking it - he was landing his beautiful plane (with its nice clean interior) as quickly as possible. 

Elizabeth was so sweet.  She grabbed the bag from me and told me she she had "never seen anyone throw up so lady-like!"  What a good friend.  And now we have another memory we will get to laugh about for years to come. 

(*Thanks to Kristin for the breadstick bag comment.)

(**Please no checking of grammar on this one - too many compound subjects, verbs, sentences and more.  Think Paul from the New Testament - he wrote some very loooong sentences!)