It's like this...

Once upon a time, in a land not so very far from here, but many years back, a young mother stood in the bright moonlight crying. You see her four year old son had thrown up in the back of the car on the way home from an extended family dinner out. As she was driving home on the freeway, she heard the unmistakable sound of vomiting. Her six year old daughter was grossed out but laughed at her sibling, because that's what siblings do. The woman's husband was working swing shift, and thus was not with them. She continued to drive on home, even though home was about a half an hour away. She didn't know what else to do. She stopped at her sister's house, thankfully just a block or so from her own home. You see, this woman had no running water at her house because it was the middle of winter and her pipes had frozen then burst. She had no means to clean up her child, or her car. But once she got to her sister's house, she was able to pass her son over to his au...

I'm sure that will get the Internet Gods to load my page first on a search. :) Or not. I am actually watching the Convention. Ok, my back is to the screen, so technically I'm listening to the Convention. It's interesting. I plan on watching and/or listening to the DNC. See how fair and balanced I am? Yep. That's me. Plus, it's amusing watching the talking heads try to spin things their way. Actually, it's not amusing at all. It's tiresome and annoying, but everyone has an agenda. Even me. Not sure what mine is at the moment. First up, finish up this lovely Mexican meal I created, as I work on my blog. Second, keep shushing my dog as she continues to bark each time the neighbor dog barks. And that neighbor's dog barks a lot. All the time. A leaf falls, it barks. A cloud sails by, bark. The barometric pressure changes a degree.....BARK. Lance is in bed, resting and elevating his poor leg. I want him to sleep and if that dog doesn...

I sit here..staring at my screen. Not sure what I should write about, there is so much going on. Overwhelming things. Underwhelming things. Some painful, some not. It's blackberry season. We've already had two pies with vanilla ice cream. It's a serious event each August---on par with the pumpkin pies consumed at Thanksgiving. Lance took a bad fall. A ladder was involved. Second story of our house in Puyallup, paint, pain, splash.....pain. He refused to go to the ER until the following day. He is, after all, a man. Men are invincible. So it hurts? Big deal. Watch this! I can STILL WORK! Um, no. You can't, man-who-is-hobbling-around-like-Frankenstein. So off to the ER, where they know us by name. He was given lovely pain medications (I could have used some) and diagnosed with having fractured his talus bone and ruptured his achilles tendon. Off to Harborview trauma center. An appointment that stretched 9 hours, ended with a cast on his left leg...

I gots it. Big time. Le sigh I've been working on a book---well, two books if you must know, and I assume you must as you're still reading, right? Right. I've had time aplenty to write, but cannot. I have had a few lovely days sans offspring due to it being summer camp time here in our area. This is when children are taken from their homes in the cities and forced to embrace things like dirt, bugs, more bugs, out door sleeping and learning silly songs around a campfire. Scratch the campfire. There's a burn ban on because everything over on that side of the mountains is tinder dry. So they sing silly camp songs, put on skits and allow their parents (That would be me) time alone to ponder how quiet the house is and how their grocery bill for the week has suddenly plummeted. Kids are expensive little hobbies, but I'm expecting a HUGE return on my investment. If I live long enough. Which I won't. But that's another post entirely. During my ...

I've decided that working for the school district is a wonderful, wonderful job. I get the summer off (mostly) with my kids and hubby. We've done some thrilling things lately. We took a cruise up to Alaska with the kids, saw amazing whales and other wildlife. We were the life of the party EVERY night and hardly slept. Despite eating every thing on every buffet, not a pound was gained and we even lost some weight. Then we took a back packing tour through Europe, climbed the Swiss Alps, had some Swiss Miss Hot chocolate, made friends with not one but TWO Yetis and then we flew over to Egypt to see the pyramids and talk to the world leaders about how to create a lasting peace in the Middle East. They seemed to like our ideas and they LOVED the blueberry scones I served. And then the drugs wore off. The summer reality is that we have been to the Beach cabin twice, Over to Eastern Washington a couple of times, spent time caring for Ashley after surgery, and been cleaning ...