Little Things ~ Day 7

Little things like an awesome push-up.

Little things like balance.

Little things like hemming pants even when you don't wanna. (woops)

Little things like accepting your new belt.

Little things like outranking your entire family.

Little things like being a leader.

In the Leadership Club.

Little things like reading the paper. 

"Mom, I'm reading the paper. Now if you'll excuse me," he said. (Yes, that's Benjy, not me. Don't we look like twins?)

Any idea how much I love being a teacher where my sons go to school? Wow. It's the little things, ya know? 

Our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades visited a nearby pumpkin patch today. Of all the pumpkins picked by these kids, my Benjy was the only one to choose the warty one. I just loved him all over again. He chose the ugly duckling. He saw beauty on the inside.

I asked him on the way home from school why he picked this awesome pumpkin. "Because it was so ugly!" he told me. So much for inner beauty.

The kids ran through the mini corn maze, even pausing to find broken corn stalks to play light sabers with. Naughty children.

This was my favorite pumpkin head of them all.

The Little Things - Day 5

The Red Wheelbarrow 

by William Carlos Williams 

so much depends 

upon 

a red wheel 

barrow 

glazed with rain 

water 

beside the white 

chickens. 

It's about the little things,

which are really bigger than we know.

Today. 

Two years ago. 

Daddy died.

I was there.

So much depends on that last breath. 

glazed with tears,

beside the 

promise of God.

So much depends upon

the lives of those left behind,

gathered around the bed

weeping.

So much depends upon

where we will go,

back to our own lives, still weeping, but 

hoping.

So much depends upon hope,

the promise of a room 

promised to 

us.

So much depends upon the promise

that i will one day

have my own room

on a street near Daddy.

I miss you, Daddy.

Woops, I missed a day. Naturally. I could post a picture of the dinner plate sized pimple I popped this morning. But that's not one of the little things I especially delight in. Especially after two different kids asked me today about it. "What happened?!" they genuinely wanted to know. I thought I'd tell them the kindergarten teacher's tarantula bit me, but I decided to go the way of truth. "This is what happens when you squeeze a zit," I murmured. Wendi, educating the masses on acne since 2:15 today.

So, to make up for my lack of diligence yesterday, here's my Little Thing for Monday:

Aren't the crows just the most adorable creatures? I'm not a real Halloweeny kinda girl. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either. I tolerate it. When Curt and I were first married, we spent years hiding out from Trick or Treaters. We faked like we weren't home and instead hid out in an upstairs room watching TV. We'd laugh as the little cretins ran away wailing that they hadn't scored any candy at our homey abode. Bwahahahahahahaha! It wouldn't have occurred to us to, um, go out on the town. We were homey like that.

But now that I have children, and I love fall, I like to dress up the house for the season. Scary things freak me out, as well as gross me out, creep me out, and generally upset my delicate nature, so I stick to what I call Halloween Light. (Not to be confused with Halloween Lite, which is made in China.)

Halloween Light looks like silly crows and black cats, primitive pumpkins and lots of different colored beans all stacked in clear jars. And it looks like my vintage metal tree that stays on the mantel year round. Yes, I change it with the seasons. Bye bye summertime. 

I know y'all can't believe I took these pictures, what with my amazing photog skillz. I'm a mad woman with the camera. But you can clearly see, once you look past the amazing still-shotness of these shots, that I love my rice & beans, my lambs, my pumpkins, and my crows. I even needle felted my own dingdang crows because I wouldn't shell out for the uber fake ones at Dollar Tree. 

OK, and now for today's Little Thing:

I read this book, and the two others in the trilogy in record time. For me. And now I'm sad because it's over! I need a good book. I need a good SERIES that will suck me in and make me want to leave school promptly at 3:30 instead of 5:00 and come home, ignore my family, and read! What say you? Any good books I must read?

The Little Things 2

I was feeling fall-y today, so I rummaged through the boxes in the basement for my fall decorations and found them. Then I lugged them up stairs. No way I could ask Mr. to do it since he pulled his back out last week. That would just be wrong. I decided I could do it myself. Probably not happening come Christmas when those boxes have to be up here pronto. 

I took down all my beach deco and replaced it with a taste of autumn. Here's my favorite pic of fall on the inside of my house. (It's almost fall outside. The leaves are just on the edge of turning.)

And just because she's so dingdang wonderfully adorable, here's Emmalemmalimabean. 

Falling asleep till the flash went off. That's my girl.

It really is about the little things that grab me. Those blessed little moments in life that make me take pause, grab the camera, and snap the moment. And plus also too, my hubby reminding me that I have a  blog commitment.

I'm challenging myself to blog every. single. day. in October.

I'm aiming to find something simple, something little, something that blessed me every. single. day.

Here's day one:

A Glade candle in a warm fall scent. It smells good enough to eat. Or bathe in.

See that picture behind it? Glowing? That's Mom and Dad and me in circa 1960-something. I love old pictures.

  

 

Since I am among the least clever of bloggers these days, I'll give you a very randomy glimpse into my life tonight. 

Pistachio and I made brownies. 

I did not lick a majority of that batter. 

Just a few tablespoons.

Because my dishwasher looked like this:

I handwashed these.

Anything to avoid unloading the dishwasher.

Phineus and Ferb are still alive.

And well.

They are very good frogs.

Sometimes you just need a nice soak to chillax the stress of the day away. Calgon......

Enter - the bathtub. I got this baby for FREE on Craigslist. I just wrote an ad that I was a poor starving teacher who wanted a bathtub for my kiddos to sit in and read. No naked kids allowed. I scored THIS! I love my tub. Camden painted it. I applied the decals. :)

Friday was TENT FRIDAY.

It's becoming a tradition. I guess you can call it a tradition when you do it two years in a row, right???

I've been thinking of Michelle a lot lately. I miss her. I miss her calls. I miss when she didn't call. I miss how she used to ask about "Little Man and Benj". I just miss my sister.

School starts Tuesday for teachers. But I have to go in Monday at 10:00 for an entrance test for a new 6th grader. Drat. So much for sleeping till 10. ;) At least Camden will have a new kid in his class.



This bulletin board has been all over Pinterest. Have you Pinterested? Are you interested? You should be. Wow. Pinterest is a site where you can save all the cool images you find on the internet. Other people can see them if you want. And you can see theirs. It's cool. Soooo cool.

So, anyhow, I found this bulletin board on Pinterest, and I printed it out and totally copied it at school. Only my jump rope is green/blue. And I don't have any small stars, just big size stars. But I'm happy. It looks almost as awesome.


I have no idea where I saw this originally, but I've been singing RELAX since the day.





Here is a song I can't quit singing.
And yes, I own the book.
We'll be using it on Aug. 29. We'll probably write about our school shoes, too.

My mind is spinning so. So spinning. My entire brain is filled with visuals of school, learning, room arrangements. Sounds of CLASS/YES and TEACH/OK and laughter. Yes, laughter. Second grade is nearly here. One more week of freedom, which will be spent sleeping in followed by dragging my dear sweet darling sons to school with me so that I can finish bulletin boards and room arrangements and the stuff I never think of till I'm in the thick of it. Then I'll come home and take a nap just because I CAN.

In other news, we camped in Vermont with our Petki friends. The boys were up till after midnight so, naturally, they slept in till 10:00 a.m. today. Did I take a single pic? NO! Did Curt get up on time to help set up at church? YES! Did we join him? NO! Bad family. BAD!

With one week left of summer vaca, I finally finished my back to school newsletter. At least I THINK I finished it. How does it look? This is my first time using Google docs. I hope it works. :)

Tomorrow my mom has surgery on her foot. She's had foot issues for a while now, so I'd love any prayers you can offer up to God. I KNOW He'll take care of her. God is good that way.

We came home.
We didn't want to, but we did.
I mean, come on - leave this?

Come on, HE gets to stay!

Against our better judgment, we loaded up the truck and we drove to Beverly, er, Connecticut. It took two days. The lowest price for gas we saw was $3.57. We hit the high in the big CT $4.29. Now we just drive to Mass. for gas because it's 30 cents cheaper. Cheap is what we are. Wendi, saving cents since 2011. We came home to learn that the big CT raised taxes RETROACTIVE to January. There goes my raise this year. And then some. This state sucks.


But in Hatteras? On the island? When we checked into our beach house, we were informed that we'd be getting a $14 credit back because they LOWERED the lodging tax. Who knew states still did that?!



So now we've been home a week and that means we only have 50 more to go till our next trip south.

At least I have my pictures. I've uploaded them to Shutterfly, where I keep ALL of our family pix and school ones, too. Did you know they store them FOREVER? And, for FREE? Yeah! No taxes on storage! Wooooot!

I've also loaded a photobook into my cart. It's a bazillion pages because I have that many pictures, but it's gonna be so worth it. All I did was click this Custom Path button, just ONE button, and the magic computer dudes stuck all my photos on pages and made them all beautiful and even themed! I swear, I don't know if it was pure serendipity or intentional, but the pages seemed to flow - the kite flying pix together, the go karts together, the shells together. Wow. Magic, I tell ya.

I'm also gonna have a canvas made of my favorite picture from the trip. One stop shopping. Loooooove it!



If you have a blog, you can head over to register for your own FREE photo book. The Shutterfly folks are giving 1,000 away, so check it out! Sign up here. I did. Be sure to check out the Christmas cards, and thank you cards, too. Winter's right around the corner, you know!

I almost, nearly but not quite, marched the 248 steps (the equivalent of 12 stories) up Cape Hatteras Lighthouse today. In the end, the threat of humanity packed inside a dim and sticky-hot capsule of concrete and steel canceled out any real considerations. Sir Curt and the boys (not to be confused with the pop band that must surely go by that very hip name) did it in my stead. Here's what they saw.
Somebody who didn't die of humanityclaustrophobia on the way up the stairs took this photo of my boys. I chose the one that makes them all look their best most dashing selves. Curt says he looks like Tony Soprano. I'm sorta seein' it. I could be a mob wife if I put my mind to it. hehehe
This is the reason I wouldn't venture on this venture. Excepting if they'd allow only me to do it. No others. Just me. Just my breath. Just my body. Just my space. No others may intrude within this tunnel of light.

It's a very famous tunnel of light, as it goes. Did you know that in the 1930s the lighthouse turned off its glow? The beach was eroding so quickly that they thought the entire structure was ready to topple into the sea, so they built an ugly steel structure that resembles an electric power line tower and propped a light atop that. Then, lo and behold, by the 1950s, the beach had restored itself and the famous Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was useful again! So it was relit, but -- DRAT -- the famous Fresno lenses had suffered a pillage of souvenir hunters' 20-year reign. You see, the lighthouse was actually not locked up while on the dark side. Not locked up! Can you believe that?! They did not lock the door - literally, the Park Ranger told me. There must be pieces of the 1930s lighthouse all over the country.
Sir Curt snapped this shot today on his ascent. We neither of us know if this is the old latitude/longitude or the new one. No matter. They moved the dang thing 2900 feet in 1999 to get it away from the encroaching seas. Fascinating piece of history this tower is. I know. I paid $21.00 for the DVD recounting its tale. I should watch this every day for the rest of summer to commit it to memory.

Casa de OBX

This is a mishmash of stuff in no order other than how Blogger uploaded my photos.

Today was our first rainy day at Hatteras Island in three years of vacationing here. It started last night with a little lightning storm followed by a downpour, then tapered off to sporadic sprinkles this morning and afternoon. The overcast skies held the temp down to around 80 which was refreshing after the 106 we endured on the way down here Saturday.


Here is Sir Richert feeling all high and mighty as he psyches himself into grilling fresh tuna. As it turns out, he did it perfectly - seared on the outside, meaty and rare on the in. And thanks to Vicki at Harbor House Seafood for the best seafood every single night we are here. We never eat out when we're on vacation because Vicki's seafood is fresh from her husband and son's morning catch, and she tells us how to fix it. We'd rather pay her for the food and advice than a restaurant for overpriced service. (Even a dingdang corndog costs 6 bucks on this island! But gas is cheaper than in Connecticut. Go figure.)

Sir Richert has mastered steamed shrimp, and he knows how to make tuna salad with fresh basil the Harbor House Seafood way. Plus also, he's pretty good at heating up Vicki's hushpuppies.



We decided to spend the rainy afternoon shopping for souvenirs. This year I got it D-O-W-N. One stop at Life Is Good, which yielded a big fat ZERO. (Thanks, Dave Ramsey, for making me feel like $35 for pajama bottoms is excessive.) I opted for a few sparkly starfish since I never seem to stumble on those at the beach. The boys chose kites.



Camden's required a bit of surgery shortly after crashing.



They did battle it out for a bit and only got tangled once. I saved the day by untangling them because that's my forte.



This morning we headed out to the point for shells. Low tide was at 10, so we figured it might be a good time to find some. And we did. I was choosy, though, and didn't bring home all I found. These were my picks.



Benjy and Daddy flying their kites. Yes, all three of my boys have kites.



Rushing home for dinner. These boys aren't running for tuna, though. They're running for corndogs and chicken nuggets - freezer-to-oven-to-table. Nothing but the best for our offspring.



Benjy found a pet crab today. He played with him, talked to him, danced with him I think.



I'm thinking I need sea oats at my house.



I could use an ocean, too.