NaNoWriMo: The Box...

I am going to write.

(join me at NaNoWriMo!)

Crochet Dudes

D and I went to Wal-mart last night to pick up a free redbox DVD (for redbox' 10th birthday), and decided to meander back to the check-out. On the way, I spotted a guy our age in the crochet aisle, looking at crochet-y things. I ran back to D, begging him to come look at the guy with me (in a slightly haha, there's a guy in the crochet aisle way). Yes, he was still there as we tried to sneak past him with our pretty-much-empty cart.

But then, he stopped me.
"Do you know anything about knitting?" He asked, holding up a package of crochet hooks.
"I can crochet," I told him.

Turns out he wanted to learn how to crochet, and not just anything. He wanted to learn how to make an afghan. I gave him some suggestions over the meager book selections Walmart had available, highly suggested Jo-Ann's or Michael's, and showed him how to read yarn labels. It helped having D there too, since he can crochet a little as well.

What fun to be a boy, braving into the world of "the old lady I asked wasn't much help," and wanting to build an afghan :D
What fun, also, to have been brave / silly enough to stop and talk with someone that I wanted to slightly gawk at. Because, let's face it, for whatever reason, men think that crochet is too girly for them. . .

Think again, boys!   If "he" isn't too scared to show up in the yarn-and-hook aisle, why are you?

I am a mermaid

During silent reading time, some time in May, 2012...

(Felix) "Miss Johnson, are you a mermaid?"
(me)"Felix, are you sleeping?"
(Felix)"No"
(Amanda)"Then I'm not a mermaid. Why would you think I'm a mermaid?"
(Felix)"Because you have red hair."
(Amanda)"That's because I'm part Irish."
(Javier)  "Irrrrrrrish")



Oh, the joys of being with preteenagers (9-11 years of age, of course) day in and day out...

Fiesta fiesta!

These are [some of] our new, happy Fiesta dishes.   ... We currently have almost all of the warm colors - red, paprika, flamingo (their newest, a peppy Floridian pink), orange, "plum," (i think) and yellow... Still hoping to find the rest of the colors for a rainbow set. . .  They are often on sale at Kohl's for less than $30 a set.  They are heavy duty, super sturdy, and best of all.. colorful!   Click the picture for more information, and let me know your opinions on Fiestaware!  (I've been converted ... hehe).

~amanda

raccoons, skunk, and Sally.

The very first toy we bought Sally (our cat dachsund/chihuaha? mix puppy was a raccoon that was stuffed with a water bottle. She got rid of the water bottle and just carried the raccoon around until she figured out how to rip off parts of its head.  David and I figured out that she liked the raccoon because of the contrasting stripes, ... we bought her a squeaker mat (looks like a tic tac toe board) raccoon at Walgreens, which she liked almost as the first "Raccoon."  We wanted to find her another squeaker mat for when she chewed out the squeakers (she's made good progress so far!), but all we could find was a Skunk. ... skunks have stripes, raccoons have stripes, so  possibly this would work as well.

We let her have both the old raccoon, the new raccoon (we called both of these creatures "raccoon" to make things [potentially] easier for Sally, and now "skunk."    She loved them hard, and every time she came inside she had to dash to her pet taxi and take out raccoon, raccoon, and skunk. She would then either kill them or make them "mind" with a vigorous shaking-down.

We were at a store and saw another raccon, not preflattened or squished like the two prior raccoons but a more realistic one, so we bought it to supplement her diet...

...she likes to leave that one to fend for itself  ...still... and would much rather chew holes in her tic-tac-toed, squeakable, mostly dead friends Raccoon and Skunk.   The most realistic toy she has, therefore, is still alive. 

and she has an aversion to the pet cologne we bought so she would smell good, but we discovered that if we hose her down while she is outside (it's not torture if it's over 80 degrees everyday, is it?) she can forego the cologne... for a little while. 

a raccoon at Bill Baggs Park ... pre-Sally... 

us at Bill Baggs, also pre-Sally
(August 2011)

Waffle House Virgins

On the way back from our honeymoon, we decided to drive as far as we could before it got too hot, because the Carolinas (we hung out in the mountains for our moon) decided to ramp up the heat to triple digits.
We made it from our campsite to a rest stop, to Clinton, SC just a few miles down the road. (We don't have air conditioning in the van, so we were trying our hardest to keep cool using chilled antibacterial wipes (left over from Memorial Day's trip to Burley Park last year, coincidentally). It wasn't really working.  We suffered through the miles, and came across the hotel coupon book at the rest area. We picked a good-looking hotel, and decided to aim for it.   We decided - after a few miles - that the hotel we had picked was still too far away. Thankfully, there was another hotel in the coupon book. We pulled off the highway, drove past the hotel in the book because it looked rather sketchy, drove past another sketchy hotel, and came upon the Oasis of Comfortsuites.  We arrived before check-in time, but the concierge (or desk lady) let us watch NCIS on some super comfy couches while the room was getting ready, there was a fountain in the breakfast area (it was decently fooded the next day)  and (still one-and-a-half hours early) we got to check in to a beautifully frigid room that had been freshly cleaned. !!

After anti-thawing for a bit and doing two loads of laundry, we decided to get Waffle House for dinner "just to say we've been there."

It was maybe half a mile down the road, so we changed our clothes and drove to the restaurant - because outside still felt like the surface of Venus.

We walked in and seated ourselves in the corner at the far end of the place, and not just because 2/3 of the customers were breathing out CO from their noxious sticks, but because the corner is where all good policemen / government agents / spies like to sit [because you can see the whole restaurant!] to wait for our server, who was just on the other side of the wall from us.  She leaned over and asked us what we wanted to drink - chocolate milk for me!   Mountain Happiness for David!    Then we ordered our food (after looking at the menu.  I ordered (I thought) hash browns, sausage gravy, a pecan waffle, and a scrambled egg.   The waitress ordered that for me - along with some meat and toast. I was trying to ask her if they had a meal with the items I wanted... Oh, well. I was able to make sure David ate some of my food so he wouldn't go hungry later.

Overall, our experience at the Waffle House was less than it could have been. The food was edible, but we could smell the smoke from other customers, and frankly (no pun intended, ... well,  sorta not intended) it reminded me a lot of Red Hot Inn.

Conclusion?   IHOP> Waffle House.   I don't do well driving/riding in the heat. And any hotel with a fountain is worth a stay - even with repairs going on in almost every other room in the building!

fireworks and life

Currently looking for jobs in a mountain town on the ocean in a place with cooler (than Miami) weather, a yellow Jeep, a house with a yard / room to play, a neighborhood safe enough to run in, and a church where we can hear the Word of God and see His body loving on each other and their community...

but we'll take whatever else God has for us.

Waiting for fireworks to start at the Homestead Miami Speedway 

the speedway is "behind" us

the explosions ... 

I do not vow to post blog posts in any logical order whatsoever. It's more fun that way!   The above pictures are from July 4th, 2012. We looked around for a place to watch fireworks, and saw an adVER-tiss-ment on the window at Publix for the Speedway... we drove over in the midst of a miniature downpour, but it stopped by the time we arrived. Other than wiping off our seats, it was a carefree evening :)   The entire bleacher-full of people (or close) stomped in time to the music that was playing to the tune of the fireworks ;)

It was something else altogether amusing to watch fireworks, hear fireworks, and feel fireworks' echos via peoplefeet. :)   

we live in a barn

my husband has been making barnyard noises at Sally all morning.  ... which makes for an interesting start to the day when reading blogs and hearing chickens behing me.

Puff the Magic Dragon

My husband has never seen  "Puff the Magic Dragon."   We shall have to remedy that right quick ... 

(as it plays on the radio of "Frog Quarters," the little coffee shop we are mooching interwebs from) ... 

By the way, it's really hot outside, but don't worry, we are taking advantage of all the AC we can find, and the campground where we are staying for a few days has a pool, so we can stay cool. 

invention ideas ...

From our invention diary:

Day one: come up with a problem.
--For Junior (his younger brother) to stop bothering me.


Day two: list all possible solutions to that problem.
--loock my door, lie, and bother him, tie him up lock him in his house. 


Day three: tell three people about your solutions...  see what they would suggest.
(talked with mom, dad, and brother): they chose "bother him." 


Day four: after talking with those three people, rethink any possible solutions that might not work, and pick ONE to start working on:
Love him and take good care of him :)   :)   :)   




His invention: a cardboard facsimile of the church building with a door opening big enough for a hamster. I'm not quite sure of it's intended purpose, but his dad came to the invention fair, so that was cool :)

sign of the beaver (pt 1??)

from Sign of the Beaver:
(use the word in bold in a sentence):

I reckon it'll rain tonight.

I love johnny cakes.

It is not safe to venture into the woods at night.

The squirle was quavering when I shouted at him.

The quick-witted nerd hit me and ran.




I predict that in the next chapter Matt will meet an indian and become friends with it.