GoldFish or Go Fish!

So Raven and I are on line for sewing and sewing and more sewing. Yeah!
Last night there was no ladies of hack since the only two players to show up were the cleric and I. Which meant that since Hatwood had brought over some movies we ended up watching one of those. Waking Ned Devine was a funny movie and I enjoyed it. It was low key and not a riotous laugh your head off movie which thankfully was right for the mood I was in last night. Raven was also doggedly tired after having been on the go all this past week. (Spring Break means different things to different people). So I know that she appreciated just watching a movie instead of trying to GM a pack of zany ladies in a dungeon.

Other than that my life has been so so. I have been extremely tired lately and have to fight to get up in the mornings some days. Doesn't help when my cat(s) jump on my chest and then sit there. This morning Smiles came in while the black cat was lying on me and asked if the cat was hurting the baby. I had to smile when I said No. The cat doesn't weigh enough to hurt the baby and explained to Smiles that even she can still lie down on me and cuddle. It is when she jumps or knees me in the belly that makes me upset. So I think she is really getting enthused about being a big sister. She is playing mom with her dolls and stuffies and likes feeding them. Changing stinky bums is my job.

I have taught my kids Go Fish which the Bear keeps calling GoldFish like the snack and watched as we played memory at how accurate his recall is. Smiles has a little more difficulty but she is only four after all. They also discovered the Sorry game that had fallen in the computer room. Most of the pieces are missing but they still have fun playing it. Counting is such fun when it comes to my daughter's creative use of the numbers. Still they like the game and I might have to actually buy a new version of it to replace the one that is literally falling apart. It doesn't help that Bear likes to take it from room to room trying to convince people to play with him.

In Conclusion for today my goal is to try and make it down to a fabric store at some point in time and purchase more fabric for cloaks. Other than that I just want to play games. I know my kids will enjoy that. (Quietly ignoring the looming pile of dishes in the kitchen).

Spring is taunting me!!!

Dark gray skies clouded with white.
A yearning for the sun as day turns to night.
A feeling, a loss, a sense of injustice.
Who does this little thing,
That makes our lives miserable flings?
Last night I was hoping for a kiss.
Nature comes. Rains it brings.
And no more light, no more of anything.

Wow what a miserable poem. Both in sentiment and in writing. I think I need to work on things. It must be the lack of rain. Spring is taunting me!!!

Hopping on Lollybloggery

So lollybloggery all around. I probably should expand the list of things that I read but I really don't want to be spending all day reading people's blogs and stuff. Plus I guess I really am not adventurous enough to go exploring on the internet. I don't want to inadvertently down load some virus. Which by the way seems to have happened anyways. So enough of the boring stuff.

Oh wait my life is boring right now. I've gamed, I've cleaned my house and I've played with my kids. Hmm. Yeah boring.

No matter where I go
A little shadow follows.
I steal and beg and borrow
But my life is still hollow.
Where oh where will I find my peace
Not in my bed with a little show piece!

Whoa more bad poetry. I am really hopping on that these days.

Stupid Rocks

Blargh! SNort! Snerk! AAAAAgghh! Ugh! Bloorp! Eeeeuuuuhhh!

This can happen to me at any time. I forgot about the fact that pregnant women seem to have hypersensitive olfactory senses. Ugh! I can barely walk past the garbage in the kitchen anymore. Let alone go near the cat litter. Which thankfully Hubby has taken over doing. But still, I smell and I mean I smell. I smell things which I really don't want to smell like Bear's socks after he has run in puddles all day. Then there's my own body running riot going nyah nyah! on me. Sigh. Can someone fast forward the next 8 months for me? Please? Actually wait make that a year. Maybe then I can have some decent sleep. I guess it is the summer months when I know I am going to be over heating and absolutely miserable that I don't want to endure. The rest I think I can handle. Hubby and the kids might not be able to, but eh what I can do?! Um that's meant to be rhetorical.

So spring has sprung and I know this because the of the one constant fact that happens each and every spring. I could be walking around in knee high boots (heck make em thigh high) and I would still get a rock in them. Grrrrr! Since I walk the Bear to school every day I am rediscovering this annoying happenstance. As long as Smiles and Bear have fun in the puddles I think I will be able to endure my long time foe. Stupid rocks. Grumble grumble grumble!

Especially now that I have a working dryer again! Yeah! I tried to do laundry a couple of days ago and found to my vast annoyance that the dryer will spin and get hot but refused after three hours of tumbling(not all at once-three different hours) to dry my clothes. Since Bear is chronically running out of pants and socks - see puddles comment - I really need to be able to do laundry. Now the house we have moved into has a clothes line in the back and I did hang some up to dry. Which it did. But when I went to take a shower and pulled the pants out that I wanted to wear they smelled (yup that again) like fish. And not the good smelling kind of fish. They smelled like rancid fish. Ugh. Naturally I had to find another pair that did not smell like rancid fish. I think I may just rewash that basket of laundry from outside and use the new dryer! Yeah! It makes me happy.

Peas in a Pod

A tiny little smile creeps up my face.
I watch the sun as it rises into place.
Bad grammar and poetry are two peas in a pod.
Both I have done and now I need to mod....ify something....

Um Excuse me....

Insomnia

So last night I found myself lying awake in bed not able to sleep. Normally it lasts an hour or two and still I get enough sleep to get me through the next day. Since I had a doctor's appointment today it was imperative that I get enough sleep to be able to drive down to the office. I did not get enough sleep last night for this to happen. I tossed and turned and eventually got up and wandered the house a bit (Note I did not go on the computer because it would have made things worse) and ended up falling asleep roughly around Five O'clock this morning. Blah. On two hours of sleep I was not going to drive down to the doctor's. So Hubby was conscripted and we all headed down after dropping Bear off at school. Smiles was happy because not only did she get stickers from my Doctor but she also acquired three suckers from the nurses. One of them for her brother of course. We did go to the donut store but did not buy any donuts. Nor did we win anything from their Rim Roll up game.

Then after we got home my parents called and I told them yeah I should be home all day. I was at the school only to have the teacher ask me if I wanted to wait inside or outside of the school? Wait for what? The parent-teacher interview today! Oh! Thanks Bear for not giving me the envelope on Friday that told me when my interview was. Sigh! Thankfully my parents ended up not coming during the time I was missing in action and came later closer to supper time. So I am happy to report that Bear is doing really well in school and his teacher says he should be able to make the transition to second grade okay. His printing skills are limited but progressing and his reading skills are also coming along nicely. His math skills are phenomenal and both his teacher and I are happy with his progress there. The only problem was estimation, exampled by the guessing jar at the interview. There were some chocolate Easter eggs in a small jar and he was given a slip to write his guess on. So he wrote 100. Hmm, looking at it I guessed 34. Somehow I would say I was closer.

Blargh! I just looked out my window and saw some white things falling from the sky. I should have known not to predict another snowstorm before spring finally came. At least it makes things look clean again as opposed to the dirty yucky brown lately.

Cloaking Devices

Do you ever have one of those days where you want to post something and nothing recently has been exciting enough to talk about. Well, I mean like since Wednesday, other than my pregnancy what is there for me to discuss. Sheesh. My drains are running smoothly. Yeah (grumble grumble dishes... blah blah blah)! I have another child on the way and now am more paranoid about what I eat and don't eat. And I still have two kids, a husband and two cats. So BORING!

Other than Raven stopping by unexpectedly last night and chatting with me, I can't really say anything. I game, I look after the kids, I clean the house and play on the computer. Occasionally I talk to other adults and don't lose my mind. So other than Raven and I making plans on starting up our cloaking business again, what's to talk about?

Okay, I am excited about starting to sew again and wanting to get things made for Quad War. Quad War is an SCA event that happens in Saskatchewan and this year it apparently will be really big due to many factors. So, Raven and I really need to churn out a lot of cloaks to fill the store at Quad War. Our plan is to have so much stock that we can't display all of it at once. This would be wonderful. I also gave Raven some ideas on how to improve her cabin that had been built with two adults and not three children(two being special needs) in mind. Such as a fold down bunk bed that if it is table height can be used as a change table perhaps?

Plus, Hubby and I, if we go will be sleeping in the tent out behind the cabin. Which is fine by me! It's huge! All we need is to replace the queen sized air mattress that had been destroyed last year and we will be fine. Bear and Smiles will have fun running around and playing. So as long as Hubby keeps his promise to look after the kids I can concentrate on the store then. Whee! Now I am excited about cloaking again. Okay time to go look through my cloth......

Confirmation confirmed

In the bathroom.

"What's that?"

"A test."

"A test? For what?"

"It's a test to see if you are going to have a baby brother or sister!"

"Really? Which one. I want a sister!"

Um yeah. I am pregnant. Due probably in October sometime but I'll confirm that with my doctor next week. Alas it means my head will explode and I'll be going crazy trying to find the things I need for a new baby. And trying to find space in our very cramped house to put it all. You see I gave all my baby stuff to Goodwill when I purged in the move in November. After all we weren't planning on having any more children, Right! Hehehe oops. I figure that I was just getting belly envy from a friend of mine who's in her second trimester.

Oh one other cute thing was when I told Bear about the fact that he was going to be getting a new baby brother or sister he was excited. He wants a brother by the way. So one of the two is going to be disappointed. But then he got thoughtful and asked me an interesting question. "Is the baby going to be like the boys at Star's house?" Meaning will they be tube feed. Wow I didn't realize that had such an impact on him. I reassured him that a tube feed baby was unlikely for me. I did not go into unless something goes terribly wrong of course. But I am mostly healthy. I am over weight and do have diet restrictions but I have been eating healthy and following the urges of my body. Such as eating fish or dairy or leafy green vegetables. Abstaining from chips! And even though I had a half glass of alcohol a week or two after conception I think the baby will be fine. I will abstain from alcohol from now on and start my multivitamins that Hubby bought.

Blah! This is going to take awhile before I get used to the concept I am pregnant again. Baby Jail this is all your fault!

Yeah for big brothers!

After much grumbling my husband and I called my brother again to see what his advice should be on the drain problem. After listening to us he just grumbled back and said he would come over and snake the darn thing. Yeah!!! Apparently all he had to do was remove the toilet and down went the snake into the drain. I left to get some shopping done because as soon as the toilet was off I needed to use it. Sigh! But by the time I got back the deed was done and all that was left was mopping the floor with bleach and voila! Yeah! Yippie kiya! Done!

So we fed my brother some of the soup that Hubby made on Sunday and has been adding to all week. The best thing is my brother will send the bill to our landlady and its done. We have drains that work again. That makes me happy and means I have a working sink for doing stuff in - like dishes! So unless the problem occurs again soon it means we should have working drains for the next couple of years at least. So I am very happy my brother came and bailed us out. I was starting to get very bitchy and cranky. Not that this is a stretch for me lately. I have been very emotionally unstable and not exactly sure why. I have suspicions but until its confirmed I won't say anything more. If its not that then I have another doctors appointment next week and we'll discuss it then.

Drains! Drains! Drains!

Well, the landlady was called about the drains and she had even worse news for us. Apparently there have been tree root problems with the main sewer line before and she hopes that that is all it is and not that it actually collapsed. Um yeah. Things do still drain its just takes an hour for half an inch of water to drain from the sink in the kitchen. Which means I have trouble doing the dishes. I won't even go into what happens when I try to do laundry. None of this makes me happy and lends me even more substance to avoiding household tasks. Which I know is not a good thing. Still, I need to get things done and I really don't like have a messy house. Unfortunately I am also lazy.

On a further note (as of 1pm this afternoon) to our ongoing Drains problems apparently we need a two man team to lift a 200 pound snake machine down into our crawl space or have them cut open our stack and install a new clear valve(or something along those lines). Which means this problem won't be going away any time soon. Grrrrrrrr! I really hope that the sewer did not collapse. There is a good chance that the sewer was made from tar paper and not ceramic pipe which means that it most likely has collapsed. As hubby put it, good thing he knows people who can dig up sewers for us if need be. (meaning himself)

Aside from that my mom and dad are coming in today with eggs and have asked me to see if there is anybody I know who is willing to buy some free range chicken eggs. I called a whole bunch of friends and got two positive responses. One from my mother-in-law and another from a friend's mother. Sigh! I hope I don't end up with more than 5 dozen or I won't have any space left in my fridge.

The Ladies of Hack have Arrived

Okay I am posting about this about three days late but heck at least its being posted.

Raven ran her 3.0 D&D session on Friday and oh my was it a lot of fun. I was once again playing a Bard. Yeah a real stretch for those who know me. And it felt like all my character did was provide comic relief. That and I ended up being the rules lawyer for the group. Wow what a weird feeling that is. Anyways on to the Shenanigans of this very weird and fascinating group. Two barbarians, neither of which have anything in common. One a typical Barbarian, the other a librarian. Man it was funny listening to those two fight. Hehehe. Then we had a cleric, who had the only common sense in the group. Plus a ranger named Lost! Oh my! We most certainly won't be following her when it comes time for asking for directions.

All in all those poor skeletons didn't have a chance. If it wasn't for the falling blocks of stone traps we wouldn't have had any fun at all. Teehee. Still I am leaving out a lot of details because this isn't supposed to be a gaming blog, but I did have to mention last Friday's game. I just had a lot of fun playing teeter totter with the ranger over those skeletons. Only to have the cleric topple both of us off the broken door.

Anyways my weekend was fairly uneventful due to me being out of it both Saturday and Sunday. I went to bed early both nights and woke up the kids both mornings. Wow, Hubby owes me. Too bad he's sick and will probably be sleeping most of today. Which means he will want to go out tonight, despite the state of his stomach, to game over at Raven's. Which means tomorrow he will sleep in all day and not go to work because he stayed up late the night before. I detect a pattern here. Too bad he won't listen to me anymore. Ok, enough complaining about Hubby, time for something completely different.

Anyone know a good plumber who can come and look at our main sewer and snake it. All of our drains have been backing up and taking forever to drain. My brother who is a plumber is too busy to come over and look at them, but suspects we have a block somewhere down the main sewer line. You know this all started when the snow started melting. I wonder if they are related? Hmm, time to call the landlady.

Spring is here! Maybe?

The last three days have been fun and wet. My kids have been enjoying the really nice weather that has finally arrived. And I got to break out the rain boots today. Mainly because Bear's winter boots were still soaked this morning. And this was after I had placed the insoles on the heat register yesterday.

So Smiles has been really missing school lately. She has been getting her backpack ready every morning (even asking for a snack for when she's at school) and talking about what she will be doing that day. At school. She has also been working in her workbook that I got her last summer in preparation of playschool. Now she does her math homework! Which just makes me laugh and makes me proud because she has a very good grasp of things. Also I let her play with paints or playdough or drawing. She likes doing these things and it gives her almost the same experiences that she would have gotten in playschool. The only aspect missing is the social aspect and that is where I believe she would have gained so much. Just from interacting with other children. Everyday she is wanting to play with me and I will do so, but quite frankly I can only give her adult interpretations and not a kids perspective of things.

So I can only hope that Spring is truly here. I want the warmer weather so I can go for more walks with Smiles and Bear. Unfortunately I will be expecting another snowstorm before Winter has completely left us. As Contrary said Winter you have overstayed your welcome and it is time for you to find a new place to live. Bye bye!

Puddles and Pandas

So yesterday my daughter decided that she really likes puddles. I am sure all you parents can imagine what that means. Yup! And this was before I even left the house to pick Bear up from school. Totally soaked! Sigh! By the time we got home both of their winter outfits had to be thrown in the washing machine. Still it was fun watching them and I really can't say much being a puddle aficionado myself. So instead I merely laughed.

The other thing my daughter is really interested in watching this video of how a panda sneeze sounds like a squeaky toy.

Anything to make her laugh.

Oh and Star I am so glad you had a good time in Vancouver! I knew watching your kids would be worth it for both of us!

Nice and Easy Supper Recipes.

So doing half the dishes means that they end up multiplying before you get back to them. But I did do them yesterday and that means today they are down to a more reasonable level.

Now that I have gotten that flash of breaking domestic news out of the way lets see, bloggery to be done. My stalkers have been multiplying just like my dishes do. When I sat down to blog and scroll through others Smiles came up to me and saw that the black cat that usually frequents my lap was absent. So out came Unicornie(who had been throwing up today), Rainbow, Charmer, Rose and Fishie. All of whom wanted to cuddle on my lap. Sigh. Its beats a Barbie glaring at me from the side of the desk while I type.

So I need to make sure supper is ready for when Hubby gets home. He actually suggested a salad! Wow! Still he would like some chicken strips with it, but that just means the only cooking I need to do is fry up some chicken breasts. Nice and easy. That's what I like having for supper!

Surprising yet Inevitable

So the inevitable happened last night. Smiles threw up. I was expecting one of the kids to get sick and had it pegged on Bear since he has been complaining about his stomach the last few days. Alas I was wrong. I am not surprised mind you. Ever since we visited Star last Tuesday so she could show me how to tube feed a baby, I have been expecting this. See Bug was sick when we visited and of course Smiles was with me. And girls being girls have to play together. So yeah, it may be because of that or once again we have another flu bug going around the school or something.

Yesterday was nice I just sat like a bump on a log and did very little. I did do half of the dishes! I am also sick myself and had woke up with a horrible sore throat this morning.

I am rambling and probably ineffectively because my thoughts keep jumping around. I am having trouble focusing and am easily distracted. Yep, my cat keeps whapping me with her tail. One she wants me to pet her and two I am supposed to stop typing over her. Three she is getting annoyed at me unwinding the strings of beads that Smiles just handed me.

Sigh, at least I got groceries this morning and that means we now have milk in the house again. Yeah!

Ok enough ineffective rambling. Maybe I will post again later when I am more coherent.

Survival of the Fittest

I survived again today and so did all the kids I looked after.

I am not saying I did an excellent job or was as sympathetic or as compassionate as I could have been, but I don't think I horribly scarred any of the kids. As it was I woke up this morning feeling absolutely miserable. Sore throat, slight fever and a headache. So I called Star's husband (I think an appropiate name for him will be Cosmic-which is an in-joke. The people in the know will go ahh Cosmic Encounter's - Zap) and he was willing to let me stay home and get three more hours of sleep before being dropped off at noon. Which I desperately needed despite having gone to bed early the night before.

The babies were easy to deal with and probably should have gotten more attention then I gave them but by the time they were up and roaming the girls were up and up to no good. Okay, not no good, but were getting more difficult to handle. Miss A and Bug were having dominance issues and Bug was having tantrums over a picture hung on the wall. I was bad and did not give little S her medication after her nap. Oops she was a little more hyper and angrier than yesterday. Still all in all they were good kids and wanted to be good. They also knew that I was in charge and listened to me. Despite Miss A's tendencies for trying to take over even when I was right there.

My biggest accomplishment - I didn't yell today. Or at least I don't remember if I did. Still Star and Cosmic are superb parents and I have a great respect for them. Fostering is hard work and the home they have is very loving with the firmness needed to discpline should it be necessary. I know we don't always agree on things when it comes to parenting or gaming but you know what that is all right! As long as the kids know that the babysitter (me) has her own rules and that those rules don't go totally against the parents rules things should be alright. That and I made sure to try and give Cosmic a synopsis of the day so he would know what to expect that night. Which is when and where I figured out that Little S should have taken her medication. I blame my fuzzy sick head.

The girls laughed at me because I sometimes forgot to do things which I had started. Like get them milk at snack. That just led to a good discussion on how some people function differently when they are sick. When I have a headache I know I don't always think straight or loopy. I sometimes think across time and no I will not explain that! Other people can function perfectly normally while others need to curl up in bed and sleep. Still I had some good talks with the girls. Star I apologize if I mentioned anything which you might have disapproved of, cause I am sure the girls will mention it. I don't think any of our topics were bad, silly maybe, but mostly just me stating my opinions. Like how I dislike dishes but that my favorite household task is cleaning the bathroom. Probably because I don't have to do it more that once or twice a week. Usually.

So I found myself cleaning at Star's house, because you need to after five kids, and then came home to my messy house and went blah! I think I will do my dishes in the morning and so forth. That and it will be another early night for me. I can already tell. So Survival was eked by all. I was able to handle Star's brood and my two survived the day with Hubby. Good all around. Just don't ask me to do it again soon, okay Star.

I was right! I am crazy!

I am exhausted!

Seven kids with no other adults to steady me was a lot of work. I did it and survived. I do not envy Star her regular Five. Don't get me wrong they are great kids. Individually. By themselves. Together was a handful and with my two that was two more than I needed. Hubby has said since he will have a really light day(so he hopes/thinks) he is willing to take our two and do stuff with them tomorrow, while I deal with Star's brood. You know, he is not the type who can deal well little S's biting or Miss A's limit pushing. Add in Bug(Star's biological child in all of this) and wow what a stress. Oh I did mention this is a foster home so there are issues that need to be dealt with. Such as tube feed babies. And they weren't really a problem. Just messy(my fault! I forgot to stopper the tube).

So I think I can handle them with out Smiles and Bear to add to the excitement. It's not much but I know Hubby can handle our two. Still I will appreciate any help I get even if it means being left with only two less kids.

Oh and did I mention I am sick on top of all of this!

Crazy! Did I mention I was crazy!

I think my five positive reinforcements should be all five kids I babysat today are still alive! And I will leave it at that.