I forgot the part about the crickets. Sometimes when I am blogging, after the kids get on the bus, I get rather carried away, and forgot one subject.  I have CRS disease..a terrible thing that slowly eats away as you grow older.  CRS, of course, stands for Can’t Remember Stuff.

 

We live, as anyone who viewed the picture with the kids on the first day of school, in a modular home.  Out here, lot’s of people are going modular, since the square foot cost of new construction is roughly $150.  Modulars are complete and less expensive.

 

It sits on a brick foundation.  There is one vent on the front left corner, and a gaping space on the rear of the house, covered by a weathered and seen better days piece of exterior plywood.  It is very wet under there, as we have had lots and lots of rain this year.

 

Crickets, as a species, apparently really like wet.  We have enough crickets to feed an army of whatever it is that eats crickets.  They are little black things, about ½ inch long.  I do not want them to grow bigger.

 

They are getting into the house.  Does anyone know what kills crickets?  I have looked in the insecticide aisle at Wal Mart, and there is nothing called cricket spray. 

 

I am thinking maybe chickens eat crickets.  I worked on a chicken farm when I was a kid.  It stank to high heaven with chicken guano.  I do know that chickens eat just about anything in the world, including their own guano.  It took me years to be able to eat chicken again after that little experience.  It should be an episode on Dirty Jobs. But, I don’t want to run out and buy some chickens if they don’t eat crickets. I also don’t want to build a chicken house.

 

I want to, and need to build a shed to house the tractor.  The old metal shed, which was brand new, not old, blew into the cow field two weeks ago.

 

We looked at the old budget last night.  No room for building supplies.  Damn.

 

The baby came home yesterday with her “VERY FIRST PHONE NUMBER”  it is 1100. She doesn’t know the name of the little girl who gave it to her, and she doesn’t know the area code or prefix, but she knows the 1100 !  She is very excited.  Maybe today, she will find out who the phone number belongs to LOL.

 

Nightmares struck again.  Both kids again.  Into our bed. Incredibly crowded conditions.  I took the baby and went into the older kids room, and we both crawled into the lower bunk.  I slept there until about 5ish, then went back to my bed, where there was a wee little section of my side of the bed unoccupied.  I slid into the 8 or 10 inch space, turned on my side, retrieved my pillow from the floor where it had fallen, and tried to get another hour or two of sleep.

 

I cannot remember when I last slept the whole night through.  If its not the kids, it’s my bladder.  I know, TMI.  But, about every 3 hours, regular as clockwork, I have to get up and pee.

 

Today, we have to pick up the other grand from school ½ hour away.  She gets picked up at 2:30.  The other two get off the bus at 3:40.  Then we have to leave for karate at um….4:30.  Then leave at 6 for home, arrive at 6:35 and cook dinner, then bath kids, then Pappy has to leave at 8 to take the other back to her house and wait for her Dad to get home at 10:30.

 

That will be at least ¾ tank of gas. Whee.  What is that.  One, two, three, four complete round trips into town.  And, there is no way to avoid it. None.  Well, maybe if I took the other two out of school at 2 o’clock, then went to pick up the other grand, then went to my daughter’s house until Karate, then went back there, made dinner and waited till 10:30, but that would put us home at 11 or just after, IF he is on time, and that is too late for the kids to get to bed.

 

:::sigh:::

 

I have been sighing a lot lately. 

 

Today is the day where I can no longer safely put off doing laundry.  When the kids were first born, 30 years ago, I used to enjoy putting their little, adorable outfits away.

 

No longer.  Did you know when you have girls, the normal sorting of laundry includes one extra load?  It does. Trust me.   You have darks, lights, bleachable whites, non bleachable whites, towels and PINK/REDS.

 

You cannot do the pink/reds with anything else.  And, we have lots of pink/reds.

 

It’s not just the washing and drying that irritate me.  I really hate the putting away.  As well as the matching up.  Girls have lots of clothes.  Even little girls.  It’s all my fault.  You know, doing shopping at Wal Mart, and hey, “how cute is that??”  And, it’s on clearance !!

 

Grrrrrr. 

 

Even though I stopped doing that, I am doing so well at not doing that, that I didn’t even go school shopping, per se.  I did inventory of their closets and decided that they didn’t need school clothes.  Which is weird, figuring the oldest went to a catholic school and wore uniforms for the past three years.  She should have had NO clothes.  Not true however.  She has lost a lot of weight.  She is now wearing the size she wore in kindergarten, and she just started third grade.  Oh, I bought them each two new outfits, because you have to have at least one or two new things for school.  It’s an American tradition.

 

I figured out about 12 years ago that it’s better to do the school shopping at the clearance section.  See, when school starts up, it is still really hot.  And, the school clothes are all winter things.  So, if you buy the clothing in the school clothes section, you are buying jeans and sweaters for winter.  When it’s gonna be 85% outside on the first day of school. What is wrong with that picture??

 

So, I shop the summer clearance for school clothes.  Then, about Octoberish, the school clothes go on clearance, and I buy their winter clothes, and it works that in our area, it is just starting to get too cold to wear summer stuff.  Saves me about $500 a year or better.

 

I am good at squeezing a buck.  I have to be.  We live on DH’s pension.  Although the federal government is pretty good to disabled vets, we could do with a bit more money.  It sounds really great, you know, high 30’s per year, tax free.

 

Trust me, it doesn’t go far.  Not when it’s actually just above the federal poverty level.  When we were kids, 38 thousand a year was GOOD money.

 

Milk is $4.25 a gallon. 

 

I am watching the news this morning as I blog.  There is a kid, looks to be about 16ish.  He drew a picture in class cause he was bored.  It is of a gun, and one person shooting another.  He and his mother (she works in a prison) don’t understand why he was suspended for three days.  So Fox News puts them on the air in an interview.  The claim to just not understand.

 

Hello.

 

Are you at all aware of the world you are living in?  He didn’t draw a picture of a cool pistol.  He put people getting shot in the picture.

 

I do not feel that the school overreacted.  How are they to know?  They have a duty to protect all the other kids.

The world just gets weirder and weirder every day.

 

Now, I have to go research how to kill lots and lots of crickets.

 

Have a great day everyone.  Sorry, not too humorous today.  I must be off my feed.