Mid Week Musings

Lately, I’ve been much too busy living life (read: doing other stuff) to blog regularly about it. Here are a few things I’ve been up to:

*A weekend in Kansas City with my ENTIRE family, oh except for my dear husband and daughter, who didn’t join us until Sunday because they were TURKEY HUNTING. Have I mentioned I dislike turkey hunting? Yes, I think I have but what can you do? I have my New Kids, he has his hunting. J Even without them there for the majority of the weekend, we had a blast. We went to Worlds of Fun, which was well, WORLDS of fun, celebrated my nephew Micah’s 3rd birthday, and celebrated the dedication of my newest nephew Jonah. It was a wonderful weekend with lots of picture taking, laughs, food, and playing. I may be slightly biased but my family is pretty awesome except for…just kidding!

*Disproving the age old myth that chickens are glamorous. Oh you hadn’t heard that myth? Hmmm..weird I had. When we got these chicks, I had lofty visions of chickens fluttering about, providing my family with a plethora of farm fresh eggs, but somehow that dream never quite captured the grossness that is chickens. Not sure if you knew this or not, but chickens, namely baby chicks, poop, like A LOT. That’s all fine and good when they are free roaming around the barnyard but when you have them contained in a shed to protect them from predators, emus, elements, etc. It makes for one fine mess. For a split second as we were cleaning out the “brooder house” the other night I vowed that I was done with hot wings forever. Lucky for Buffalo Wild Wings I have a very short term memory, which also explains why I had 2 more children after my first drug free delivery.

*Speaking of poop, which we seem to be doing a lot on this blog lately, my wonderful backwoods boys and I, worked ourselves into stiff oblivion by raking and shoveling all of the manure out of the barnyard last night. I’m typing this with a pencil in my mouth because the rest of my body is too sore to move. We then loaded our “bounty” up and spread it all over the garden. I was explaining to the boys how this “natural fertilizer” will make our garden grow (if I don’t kill it first…remember last year?) and how our fruits and vegetables would be so juicy and delicious because of it. Ryder looked at me with a grimace on his face and said, “I don’t think I’ll be eating any cantelope (his very favorite) this year, that’s GROSS.” “Organic” may be overrated. J

*Hanging out in the Twilight Zone. In this special place, my extremely tomboyish daughter who typically enjoys hunting over shopping, getting dirty over doing her hair, and playing with bugs rather than painting her nails, was reading a book titled “A Girls Guide to Glamour: How to be a Goddess”(which surprisingly I did NOT write) AND wanting to experiment with the different beauty regimens suggested in the book. First up, a softening, silkening shampoo made of honey, vinegar, and milk. Followed by a facial mask of mashed strawberries, painting her nails 7 different times because she couldn’t decide on a color, and a softening foot treatment before bed. IT.WAS.BIZARRE. I rather enjoyed this momentary glimpse of a girly daughter but the entire night I kept asking her questions to verify her identity and looking for the candid camera. Could this be a glimpse of teenage Dakota? Hard to say. All I know is that she better keep her mitts off my special lip gloss.

*Doing a little singing gig. Yeah, that’s right a singing gig. In case you didn’t know, I sing, but not on demand. Scheduled performances only. Seems like the first thing people do when they find out I can sing is ask me to sing right then and there for them. Ummm no not gonna happen. Typically, I do wedding gigs, church gigs, national anthem gigs, but Saturday was a special kind of gig. I like using the word gig, makes me feel like a professional. Saturday’s gig was at the most hopping club in town….the nursing home!!! I had those peeps dancing on their chairs, waving their hands in the air like they just don’t care. Or not. The good news is that the pressure factor was very low, I wasn’t nervous about messing up. The bad news is that approximately 5 of them fell asleep while I was singing. I’m sure that happens all the time to Carrie Underwood too.

*Going to see the movie “Date Night” with my 3 dates and a bottle of brandy. I realize that makes me sound like a real class act but I’m just keeping it real here. One of my parting gifts from our weekend in KC was a nasty cold virus that my sister Hilary shared. Sweet of her right? As you know, when I get a cold I medicate with brandy. I’m telling you nothing clears the throat and sinuses like brandy. DayQuil doesn’t hold a candle to brandy. GI Joe and I had been planning for weeks to go see the movie “Date Night” with our friends. Plans changed and it ended up just being McDreamy and Doug who joined us. So there we were, me with a bottle of brandy in my purse, sneaking sips throughout the movie, with 3 dates surrounding me. Sometimes being me is not so bad. By the way, the movie was HILARIOUS and that’s not just the brandy talking. Sadly, that was the last of my brandy and I had to further medicate with real cold medicine…blech. Not near as effective.

*Driving like a speed demon through our small town as our one and only cop is currently wearing orange and spending some quality time in the slammer. But that’s neither here nor there, the important things are 1) our town made the news!!! and 2) we don’t have a cop right now!!! I have to admit, Mike the cop was always very forgiving of my occasional lead footness, which I’m sure stems from my days in high school working at Casey’s and I’d see him pull in and I’d go get his coffee ready (hey, I’m no dummy) but I was always worried that the next time he pulled me over he might not remember my gracious hospitality from 14 years ago. I’m going to enjoy this brief stint of freedom before a new, probably stricter, cop is hired. Life is a highway people, I want to drive it all night long.

Until next time my friends……