The princess inside

Prince William and Kate were married today. The event has intrigued me. I feel compelled to watch the coverage, to find out information. Kate is now a princess.

I think that there is a small part inside each woman that wants to be a princess. It's inside girls as well, but is much more obvious and they are less inhibited to let others know.

I also think that the part of me that wants to be a princess is the reason for the fascination with the Royal Wedding. And even looking up other royal stuff.

I am a princess. I may not have a title, but I have a family and friends that make me feel like a princess.

It's back

The CRV is back where it belongs. Parked out front. Gary drove it home to see how it shifted. When I got behind the wheel, I told the car that I missed it. It is much nicer to drive than the Subaru.

We like our mechanic. He's a nice guy. His shop is conveniently located on the way to Gary's work. He does have one issue. Beware if you have a partially full wiper fluid tank. At least three times he's charged us to fill the tank. We've never requested this service. Gary mentioned it to him, and he said that he's required to make sure it's full when he does inspections.

I went looking through our bills (which I have neatly filed.) On the three that I found with washer fluid charges, only one was an inspection. When Gary dropped the car off, he made sure that the tank was full and he stuck the washer fluid bottle on the front passenger seat. We weren't charged.

He is however allowing us to pay half the bill now, and the rest in two payments.

Cassette tape and a transmission

I was just wondering what I would play my Billy Joel cassette tape on if I did happen to dig it out of storage, since I don't have a cassette player that isn't in storage. Well, I could play it in the car, I guess. If I had the car.

We will hopefully be getting the CRV back tomorrow. Two Saturdays ago, the malfunction light came on. I already knew something was wrong with the transmission, since it wasn't shifting right, but that light confirmed it.

We'll be without two cars for 11 days. Which is hard up here where everything is not close.

Picnicking

With a high of around 89 degrees (which seems unbelievable, but that's what the digital thermometer says) the kids asked to have dinner outside tonight.

[Please ignore my laundry hanging in the background.]

I figured we would just set up the card table on the front porch.

Ellie had other ideas. She started clearing off the picnic table on the side porch. She came in to get a cloth and a cleaner to wipe off the layer of dirt from over the winter. She set the table, and Josh helped us cook.

It was nice to eat outside on a beautiful day, and since cooking raises the temperature inside too many degrees.

Time to get rid of . . .

the candy in this house, or at least stash it where the kids won't see it. The kids have gone way overboard with wanting candy. And other sweet stuff. I need to do something about it.

Also, I am at my wits end with feeding my girl lunches. She likes it, then she doesn't. She eats it, then she won't. Packing her lunch is a frustrating processes. And I really don't like when it comes back home.

The kids like to have a snack after Ellie gets home from school. They want fishies or pretzels. I'd like them to eat something more nutritious. But I can't think of anything, or we don't have anything, or they don't want it, or I don't feel like preparing it.

So my goal from now on with this next shopping trip is to buy more nutritious items, stop my lazy streak and make stuff more appealing to the kids.

Before I search online, any suggestions?

We finally did it

We joined a CSA. We will be getting our produce this summer from The Ant Hill Farm. I believe we will have an adventure with it, because even with a half share, I think it will be more produce than we usually buy, and definitely a larger variety.

I know we need to eat more vegetables, and a larger variety will be welcomed.

Billy Joel

In an attempt to drown out the calls of the kids for one more thing before they go to sleep, even though they were fine and didn't really need anything, and last night I told them that I wasn't going to respond to their "Mommy, I want . . . " (I guess they think they need to work on their procrastination skills) I brought up YouTube on the ole' computer.

I looked for the loudest most obnoxious song I could think of, but came up with Piano Man by Billy Joel. It was on my mind from an episode of Bones that I recently saw, where a bar singer sings it the night his competitor is murdered.

Gary was surprised I knew the song, let alone liked it and can sing it.



And from there we've been listening to Billy Joel song after Billy Joel song. I think we have actually agreed on a singer that we both like! But of course we have our favorites that aren't the same. Good bedtime music for the kids, eh?

I'll have to go dig out my Greatest Hits cassette tape from storage. On second thought, maybe I'll just buy it from iTunes.

Stupid cold . . . again

Back in the beginning of March, I had a cold, that included a fever and such. It turned into a sinus infection. Really, I've been having colds all winter. We all have. More than usual.

So, surprise when I say I have another cold. This one is not nearly as bad. I have no infection, the um, nose stuff is clear, and my nose is not completely blocked. I do, however, have a nasty cough.

Around dinner time I started with the shivers. After taking my temperature with the electronic thermometer and only getting a temperature of 98.6, I pulled out the mercury-but-not-mercury thermometer, which registered my temperature at 100.2.

I am currently on the couch blogging, while the children play make believe with laundry baskets, and Gary makes brownies. I firmly believe brownies will make me feel better. If not help my cold, at least make my mouth happy.

Here you see the kids in their cages, which started out as cars, complete with tires and steering wheels.

At some point the baskets became cages for these loudly meowing cats. In their play, they requested that someone buy them. I paid 1 million dollars each for them.

I got me some priceless cats.

P.S. Gary's brownies are delicious. I feel better already.

T-ball

It's t-ball time. The kids finally made it to a t-ball practice tonight. They had fun throwing, catching and hitting.

And they were excited about their uniform. Really, a uniform? For t-ball? Yes, they received a shirt, complete with their name on it, pants, socks, and a hat. They both wanted to get into their uniform as soon as they got it. We let them put their shirts and hats on at the field, their socks on in the car, and the pants on at home.

Aren't they cute? And pay no mind to Josh's sad face. He likes the uniform, he just doesn't like his picture taken. As soon as I clicked the photo, he came to look at it all smiles.

A warm day

Today starts hanging-laundry-out season. We just love the smell of fresh hung laundry.

It got up to 78 degrees today. I had about five shirt changes as it warmed up today. It wasn't just warm, but humid too.

We walked to pick up Ellie. It's nice to get out and walk.

Gussied up

Ellie took charge of my hair and did it up nice. She had me put on a necklace and bracelet too. She wanted me to look pretty for Daddy.

Rummaging

We took a trip to the storage unit today. We were looking for Gary's suit and accessories. We took our lunch and set up the little table that came with the CRV. The kids thought that lunch on this table was a great idea.

The kids were great and entertained themselves nicely. After an hour and a half we accomplished our goal and found some other things to take back with us. The kids eventually made their potty declaration, we looked at each other and said time to go. We put everything back that we had to pull out to get in the unit, plus the stuff we moved to get to the boxes we needed to open.

Christ be praised the wardrobe boxes were right near the front, although I had to go up, over and down to get to them. If you saw the 30' storage unit and all that's in it, and know we had no idea where the wardrobe boxes were, and that they could have been anywhere, it is a miracle I found them at all. They were only marked on the top, and they were the bottom boxes of stacks four boxes high, and they were behind items I couldn't move.

Here I am standing on the dining room buffet table. Not the best step stool, but there it is. Behind me is 20' of space full of stuff, floor to ceiling. The first 10' of space is the stuff we know, that we kept track of, the rest is . . . . . who knows.

A happy boy

I bought a package of C batteries. And Josh is a happy boy.

You see, most of his trucks run on C batteries. And three have been silent for a few weeks. Until today. Today they got new batteries and my boy is almost as happy as when he first got the trucks.

The house is shrouded in as much darkness as the curtains allow and the trucks are making their noises and Josh is driving about with Thomas the Train, his Hess firetruck and his Sunoco racecar carrying tractor trailer.

He also has every other truck, car and vehicle he owns spilled out on the living room floor.

Again, with the snow

Although it snowed last night and is still snowing, Ellie sits in her classroom today. There was no delayed opening either. The ground was not cold enough for the snow to stick enough to make road travel too dangerous.

Two days ago we were to get 5-10" of snow. We were in a winter storm watch that was to last 24 hours. But the storm went more east than expected and there is to be not much accumulation.

I was looking forward to sleeping in. That will have to wait until tomorrow.

A long hike

Note to selves: When taking children on a hike, it is best to check the length and terrain of said hike.


Although is was in the 30s today, it was bright and sunny. So we decided to take a hike. We chose the trail on Shuman Point on Lake Wallenpaupack.


There were no trail maps at the trail head to take with us, but there was one stapled to the info board. We took a look and started the hike uphill. The children didn't care for the uphill portion. We encouraged them and arrived at the top.

The trail went along the lake shore for most of the hike, and there is a point where a side trail leads to the water. I wanted to go to the lake's edge as much as the kids.

I thought the bushes in the water with ice blobs on them were pretty nifty.

Gary showed Ellie the fine art of rock skipping. She tried skipping a few rocks.


At this part of the hike we thought we were about half way. That was not the case.

And soon after we started on the main trail again, the children were wanting to be back at the car. They had enough of the great outdoors.

But on we all hiked. We came to another hill, and at the top, the trail went back into the woods a bit.

As we came to another turn and saw the lake again, we knew we had a much longer hike than we thought.

But on and on we hiked.

We finally made it back to the parking lot and drove on home.

I looked up the trail for writing this post and read that the trail we took is 3 miles long. The kids do not care for three mile long hikes with two hills.

The last snow day?

Another day off. A Saturday of sorts. All four of us stayed home. Slept in. Well, no the kids didn't sleep in. They were up early. When they have to get up, that's when they try to sleep in.

We had a fire all day. The kids and I were out in the snow.

Josh and I sledded. On the one run Ellie and I did, we went over a rock and cracked the sled.

Ellie and I made a fort out of the tree branches from a fallen tree. Ellie called it fairyland. She also made a fire using leaves and branches and she wanted to hang a pot over it. Quite creative. I was able to find sticks to make a spit.

Laughing at Spring

Winter is laughing at Spring. It is not done with us yet. The kids have another snow day. And if Gary had left 15 minutes later for work, he could have stayed home too.

Ellie seemed upset that we had snow. She said that it's Spring and we are not suppose to have snow.

But she's quickly warmed to the idea of no school today.

Josh saw the "tow" and started stripping off pajamas to put clothes on for going out to play. But when Ellie asked to watch TV, he thought that was a better idea and going outside could wait for later.












And I was obviously mistaken about my previous thought that there wouldn't be a need to plow the roads again.



We did go out later, and the kids ran around a bit and we went sledding. We tried a new section of hill across the street. I was lamenting yesterday that I didn't see it sooner when we had snow.

I got a second chance today. Here are the kids going down. They are quite tickled about Ellie saying a word we tell them not to use. They watch the video and crack up when she says "butt."

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Through the woods

We took a walk through the woods around the cabin today.














The high today was 52 degrees.

Josh still felt the need to wear a scarf, hat and snow mittens.

Tumbling stones

More of the stone wall along the driveway fell. Since we probably won't have anymore snow, I can stop using the driveway, park in the street, and Gary can fill the driveway with the stones to rebuild the wall.

Numbers

13 days, 13 hours, and 33 minutes until the Phillies home opener.

I thought it was interesting the difference in population between here and Lansdale. Here are some numbers.

Over 20,000 people live in Lansdale borough; about 2,000 people live in Salem Township.

Lansdale Borough is 3.1 square miles; Salem Township is 31.5 square miles.

13 elementary schools in North Penn School District; Essentially 2 elementary schools in Western Wayne School District.