John would have been proud

This last weekend Middlest and Littlest Kidlets opened a lemonade stand.  It was entirely their own idea and I was very impressed at how they did their best to go about it in a business-like manner, such as paying Eldest Kidlet to track which flavor of drink was most popular and how much of the money they made was in tips.

John was always having entrepreneurial ideas and I'm very sure he would have been very supportive of the Kidlet's efforts.  I think he also would have been amused when, on the first day, Eldest Kidlet hired herself out to them as security for an equal share of the money saying she was sure I demanded she be there.  I have to admit that I was a little amused myself, but still made her give back some of the money as she'd attempted to use my authority without actually having it which is something I don't want to encourage at all.

Thank You

I want to extend  heartfelt thanks for those who gave their all, and those who continue knowing they may be called upon to do so, so that I have the liberty to go about my life in the way that I see fit.  I also want to thank all the Gold Star families who must continue to carry on after a loss. I am truly grateful that I and my children are free and safe.

Freedom of Speech post

Typically I keep my "political" blog stuff and "personal" blog stuff separate, although not very well if someone actually wanted to find me.  This is one of the rare times that I'm going to link to my other blog since being able to retain "internet anonymity" is the very issue that has brought a great deal of harassment and actual danger to several bloggers and journalists, not even just conservative ones, and the legal systems of their home states of CA and MD have refused to do anything to help.

There's this bird

And it keeps starting to sing after midnight.   It's a highly varied call and the tone is very clear and would probably be quite nice if  I weren't trying to get to sleep.  Eldest Kidlet swears it keeps waking her up as well and isn't amused at all.  I'd love to know what sort of bird it is, since we didn't have night-singing birds in CO.

Kitten Supposes...

Her toeses are roses?  No, Kitten supposes her roses are extracts (or at least getting close).  I traded out the older rose petals for a large number of fresh and topped of the vodka today.  Although the color is a very pretty pink, the scent is not nearly as strong as I'd hoped.  Part of this is that, although I've been putting in some fresh petals every day, the first big batch of petals went into the vodka in the late afternoon.  It turns out that there really is a big difference in scent strength between the morning and afternoon.

I'll try to get a picture posted later.

That wasn't so bad.

This weekend I received the replacement plants (fruit bushes and lilies mostly) for all the ones I managed to kill after last year's order.  I felt horrible sending the packing slips back to the nurseries, particularly the one where I had to write that all the plants from that order had died.  It wasn't really the nurserys' fault either, although a couple of the berry bushes do appear to have been dead on arrival.  The combination of alternating very wet and very dry weather combined with my own gardening ineptitude was just more than the plants could take.

I finally got up the nerve to plant the bushes this morning, that and I'd been soaking them since yesterday which didn't leave me a lot of choice.  I say I had to get up the nerve to do it because I vividly remember how much work it was last year getting the holes dug, after tearing out a bunch of gloomy insect-infested shrubs that the former owner had planted.  That hard work, much of it done by Son and Eldest Kidlet as well as myself, made the fact that so much died all the more disheartening and the thought of needing to repeat it was quite daunting.  Much to my surprise, and maybe if I had more gardening experience it wouldn't have been, planting was immensely easier this time.  I was very happy to be able to tell the kids that all their work last year meant that digging the holes this year was simple.  Now I have a lot more hope for planting the strawberries and lilies.

Bad Kitten

I'm a very bad daughter/daughter-in-law.  After mowing yesterday I completely forgot to call my mom and mother-in-law and wish them happy Mother's Day.  I tried to call them today but Mom was already in bed because she works nights and I keep getting Peggy's answering machine.  I left messages and hopefully will be able to get hold of them later today.


ETA: I was able to call both last evening.  It turns out that Peggy was in Blackhawk with John and one of her sisters who was visiting so she wasn't at all upset about not hearing from me.  This is good because Mother's Day has always meant a lot to her in the past.  Mom decided to assume that she would have been at work by the time I got moving again to get my phone so she was okay with having a nice chat one day late.

Mother's Day, when a mommy's heart turns to thoughts of...mowing?!

Actually, I'm glad to be able to (although I was more glad the first half-hour than the last), and Son did mow the front yard.  The only reason we were able to was that Dad did the mower maintenance and first mow of the lower yard while he was here on vacation. 

The truth is that the yard is bigger than I like, but I do really like the creek and trees at the bottom of the property for the kids to play in.  It's large enough that I'd like to find a way to turn some of it into an attractive form of food production and have started by buying a book called (I think) A Practical Eden.  When we go to Colorado this fall I want to sit down with my in-laws and try to draw up a plan for creating non-lawn areas that are still pretty but also supply something beyond cut flowers.  I'm not one of those that wants to get rid of all the grass, I really like having at least some, but cutting down on mowing while having more home produce seems like an all around winning combination.

My brain hurts, but less now

One of  the few things I did do every day while my parents were here was make my brain hurt by doing "brain training" on a site called Lumosity.  It's supposed to be helping neuroscientists who are studying how peoples' brain power improves through consistent exercises and is advertised on several of the blogs I read, most notably AoSHQ where another commenter said she'd been doing the free trial.

I decided to go ahead and give it a try since (as a single, home-schooling parent) I need my decision making and memory skills to be as sharp as possible.  The sensation I had after completing the first round of training was very strange.  I didn't have a headache, but it was very similar.  During the trial period I also played did many more than the standard five games a day (where as, now that I've paid, now I do it every day but only the regular amount which I think shows in the fact that I've plateaued as opposed to the quick increases of the first few days). 

Memberships came on sale a couple of days after the free trial expired and I decided to buy a year and see how it goes.  My real interest is in seeing what affect, if any, this training has on my real-world mental abilities since all the cool graphs in the world don't do me any good if there's no personal improvement. I am assuming that, rather like Head-start programs have shown, once training ends there will be a distinct drop in any increased abilities so I'm hoping to get as much out of this as possible right now.

Still here

Actually, I think this is the quickest I've ever returned to blogging after disappearing.  It's usually at least several months before I write again. 

My excuse for leaving is better as well.  First, I was trying to get the house clean enough to not be embarrassing when my parents got here.  Then, my parents were here and I had very little time for the computer as we were doing real house cleaning, and some minor repairs, at that point. And the last couple of days has been spent either trying to get my studio organized or on World of Warcraft (which I just started), but mostly on World of Warcraft.

The truth is that I'm pretty pleased that, when I sat down to day to Tweet the writings of my blog-roll, I decided to just go ahead and write a post first.