This n That

Eden started school in late August and I'm such a wimpy mom. I just hate going to bed at night and I hate waking up in the morning. I roll around in the bed moaning and finally drag myself away from my little heaven and then go inflict the same torture on Eden. Who picked this life schedule and why does everyone have to participate? If they had a school that ran from 10-5 Eden would go and we would love staying up late and sleeping in like the sluggards that the Bible calls people like us. Anyway, here's a pic of her on the first day. Doesn't she look bright eyed and bushy tailed? She won't say she loves school and she won't say she hates it but I think she's really distracted by the other kids. She comes home telling me she had to take school work out on recess because she didn't finish in class and hasn't eaten a quarter of her lunch. Already all of this friend drama on the playground... ugh and we haven't even started homework. She's also started riding horses this year. I got a 1/4 lease of a 19 year old pony and she can go out to this farm nearby and ride her twice a week. She loves it!
So Kaity and I are homeschooling again this year. She's always pushing me and I'm horribly distracted by my little furniture business but we do try. Here's a picture of her standing by the self portrait we made this week. She also learned how to read the word "the." A new word she is using for everything is "concentrating." It's her explanation for everything she forgets. "Well, I was concentrating on yadda yadda yadda, so I FORGOT yadda yadda yadda. LOL! She's also starting violin. I don't even want to go into the details of the violins that have run through our house on the hunt for the perfect one, which I believe we now have. She's excited and Eden can't wait to hear her play "twinkle twinkle litle star."
Nick is just the darling of my life and he gets away with MURDER. He bites Kaitlyn, gets out of bed and comes downstairs after I put him to bed at night, he refuses to eat meals, begs for trix and is just basically spoiled rotten. I really hope he doesn't get rotten. I feel powerless to even try to parent him with the same discipline I've given the girls. He's my baby and now I get it. Every mother that I've seen carting her four year old around on her hip and getting a cup of milk for, now has my empathy. I officially get it. If he smiles and turns his head to the side like Bolt, I melt... I know the situation is dire, because the girls have started telling me "he's NOT a baby anymore, he shouldn't get to do that!" Oh and he won't talk even though he can. It's just pathetically adorable and irresistable.


Here's a couple

The Auction House

It was a cool dark night. I walked into the seedy auction house and every sage eye in the place gave me the once over. I knew I looked out of place but something from my childhood calls me to places like this. The antique theater seating was reminiscent of the salebarn where I spent thousands of hours of my childhood watching the cow punchers push the animals through the auction ring. I settled in a seat in about the 6th row. The man next to me said hi which I recpirocated. I could feel my pulse pick up as I watched the auctioneer run through item after item, selling it before I could decide whether to bid or not. The old auction hounds stood at the front, eyeing everything over closely but I wasn't so brave. Suddenly, the handler was holding an old stenograph machine, they couldn't get a bid so they threw in a roadside emergency kit. They were asking $10 and nobody was biting. To my covetous eyes, what should appear but a shoeshine kit. He threw it in to the lot and every wise soul sat there impassively. I went back in time to my early childhood. My older brother Louis sat proudly with his shoeshine kit, polishing his shoes to an impossible shine. First he applied the polish, then he rubbed it into every crevice, then he let it sit, then he got out the brush, he brushed it seemingly forever, finally he set aside the brush and took out a softer brush, after that it was the super soft cloth being buffed across the toe of the shoe feverishly, finally to be lifted as if it were a magicians cloth to reveal a shoe that looked more beautiful than a new one. Perhaps not all of these images rushed through my mind, but the sight of that shoeshine kit evoked a general feeling of nostalgia as I stared at it. From seemingly nowhere, two antique prosthetic legs appeared and the whole crowd guffawed. If anything was going to kill the mood to bid, I think it was those creepy buff colored fake legs with scratches all over them. I stared incredulously, trying to imagine Jody's face if I walked in the door with such a spectacle. In a split second I decided they could always be discarded and I just could not resist the shoe shine kit. The auctioneer was about to give up. The price was dropping and finally it went to $2 and it seemed my arm flew up with a will of it's own. The auctioneer collapsed onto his desk and lift his head in a dramatic gesture and said with great feeling "THANK YOU FOR YOUR MERCY BID." Everyone in the room burst into laughter and the handler came toward me with those legs... then another handler came with the roadside emergency kit, then another handler arrived with the shoeshine kit and the stenograph machine. It was my first auction and I was already the laughingstock of the auction house. As I walked by, people would say "oh so you're the 'leg' lady!" "Ha ha ha, I can't believe you wound up with those legs!" " What in the world are you going to do with those things?" I gave a sheepish grin and made several trips to the car with my $2 loot, justifying it in my mind the whole time as a necessary means to a vague end.
Ahh well, I think I got the last laugh on all of those old auction hounds. I have a nice shoe shine kit and roadside emergency kit for my car.
The stenograph machine sold on Ebay for over $70. I gave a leg to a friend to use as a gag gift and sold the other for $10 on Ebay which I absent mindedly sent to the stenograph machine buyer and accidentally sent the stenograph machine to the very nice Dr. who wanted the leg but that's a whole nother story.

A fun little family visit

Jody's Aunt Sharon and Uncle Bob breezed in last night and had a little visit with us. They even took us all out for a night out on the town and treated us to a yummy dinner at Johnny Carino's. I can't help but think how brave anyone is to take my crew out. It was alot of fun and even today Eden and Kait were bemoaning the fact that they weren't here longer. Bob's hilarious and Sharon's the epitome of kindness and attentiveness to the kids. I had to take a pic of Sharon and Kait together because they were matchey. LOL! Here's the fun evening. Unfortunately I was so consumed with taking the picture that I don't know what Jody was doing to make Bob and Sharon laugh so hard.