When you shop from Craigslist....

I’ve been searching Craigslist for different things since we started our kitchen project the first of the year. Mostly I’ve been searching for new kitchen chairs. We bought our chairs and table on our 1st Anniversary and they are antiques…which sounds a little more glamorous then they actually are. They started out wonderful – but 13 years of wear and tear on something that was already old had worn them down. The table is still in great shape, just needs to be refinished, but a colorful tablecloth solved that issue. But the chairs were another problem. Jay had Gorilla Glued them until they could be glued no longer. Lately I’ve noticed when I’m dusting them that they whole chair will shift when I simply swipe the seat of it. And the legs are coming loose. When we have anyone else over I always have in the back of mind a prayer that no one’s chair will break.


I don’t search it everyday – maybe once a week. But Monday something struck me and I found the perfect set with 6 chairs for a great price. I contacted the lady in Fair Grove about them. Basically we had to go Monday night if we wanted them. So that is the lead in to my story…..

Going to get this set was a rush operation. I had an appointment that evening in Springfield so I had to meet Jay and the kids there. Jay was in a hurry to get the kids and a trailer out the door. Camryn had been at daycare all day, etc. You know you don’t send your kids (or at least I don’t) in their very best outfits. This time of year I will start putting some of their better things on them since we are almost done with the season – but Monday wasn’t one of those days. But it wouldn’t have mattered because Camryn destroyed her shirt so Stacy put another one on her. Her pants and shirt were mismatched. I had put her hair in a ponytail that morning and I could tell Stacy and redone it during the day. Jay said it looked fine until he put her in the truck….

So I walk into Culvers and the first thing I see is Camryn in mismatched clothes, with a stain on her shirt and hair that looked like she had stuck her finger in a socket. She tends to have pretty wild hair, but this went beyond anything I had ever seen. She tried to pull her pony tail out but she didn’t fully succeed. Instead it was still wrapped around the very end of a wad of hair which made it stick straight out to the side. What hair wasn’t caught up in the rubber band was hanging with a classic pony tail wave in it. She was a mess. Jay and Cade looked fine and I was still in my work clothes so we were passable. I didn’t have a comb so I tried smoothing Camryn’s hair with my fingers. That was like classic phrase “peeing in the ocean.”

We get to the couple’s house, which they were extremely nice, and as we are getting Camryn out of the truck she screams (and I’m not exaggerating that) “I farted, I farted!” Jay told her to shush which only made her scream I farted a couple more times. This couple was middle aged with no kids at home and they had their house on the market – so it was spotless. They are moving the end of the month so they had already started packing, but they still had their furniture around. It was very nice, but it didn’t look much different than anyone else’s house I’ve been to (remember that point). They had furniture and a bookshelf, etc. We looked the table over and decided we would buy it so Jay and the husband started loading it. Something snapped in Camryn and she went a little crazy. She was running around and at one point I saw her lick the doorframe of their dining room. The lady honestly seemed fine with it, she even commented that Camryn was in a new place so she was checking it out. Between worrying about Camryn hurting something or accidently flinging herself down the set of stairs nearby I was a wreck. Then Cade made the classic kid comment that makes all parents wish their kids wore shock collars. “Wow, you have a fragile looking house.” Remember I said it wasn’t all that different than most houses. I don’t know what he was thinking. The lady laughed and said she trained her kids to the house not the house to the kids. I don’t think she meant anything by that at all – but I wonder what she thought our house looked like. She probably thought if we didn’t have it stripped to bare padded walls we needed to! There was a clearly dirty and disheveled little girl running amuck through her home.

I was so glad when the table and chairs were loaded and we could leave. Again, they were extremely nice people. They even asked if we wanted a drink or needed to use the restroom. Once we left I told Jay about Cade’s comment. He was glad he didn’t hear it in person. I told Jay that she told me she was a biochemist. He said “that’s why they had booties hanging on their front door.” Actually I’m wondering if that was for the people looking at the house? Anyway, we figured they were probably fumigating as we spoke. I guess that confirms the Craigslist unwritten rules…..not only do you have to be careful about where you go, you also have to be careful about who you let into your home.

And it happened again....

I had to share only because this week is so out of control it is almost funny.  The school nurse called.  Yup - Cade was in her office.  The odds are not in Jay's favor at all at this point. 

March struck again...

I don't know what it is about March. It is a sick month around our house. Camryn and I have had the stomach flu this week and she has had another bronchitis flare up. It is all my fault! This past weekend I had a brief thought roll through my head...it was the 17th of March and so far everyone was healthy. I didn't dwell on the thought because I was afraid I would jinx it. Later that night it hit Camryn.

So poor Cade had a not so great birthday yesterday. Jay had a FFA thing and I had to work late for our customer appreciation. Jim and Sharon were going to take him out to eat but
when Sharon picked up Camryn she had gotten sick again. By the time I left work that
Night I knew I wasn't quite right. Now because of the snow and the sickies we are postponing Cade's party to next weekend. Hopefully this Saturday we will be well enough and the weather will be clear enough we can make all this up to him a little.

Last night I told him that he was experiencing his first adult like birthday- sometimes things happen. He said " yeah, this day has stunk." Poor kid! I told him we had all tried. Hopefully we can make it up to him.

An Exciting Weekend

Friday night Cade ran in the house and screamed "MOM". For a split second I was afraid something bad had happened. Then he quickly went on to say that Jay had to help our neighbor pull a 2 headed calf. He wanted to know if he could go to. I knew Cade was excited because normally he would never ask if he could go with Jay. He usually always goes if Jay is doing something. Cade was just out
of his head with excitement. Jay was just as bad. He blew in the house trying to change clothes and asking if Cade told me about it. His phone battery was almost dead so I let him take mine. I knew he didn't want to miss a single photo opportunity.

Our neighbor has seen thousands of new baby calves and he had never seen a 2 headed calf. Either had our other neighbor who is a large animal vet. So at almost 11 Cade saw something most people have only heard about. The pictures creep me out so don't look if you have a weak stomach.

Saturday Sharon and I went to Branson to birthday shop for Cade. Camryn is definitely a girl!!! Every time we saw shoes she would pull hers off and try them on. It was so cute. I'm not sure the shoe people quite thought that - but we did pick up her trail of destruction. At Dress Barn she put on heels and then a bunch of bracelets. She kept saying things like "I like this" and "it is beautiful". You can tell she spends her day with a couple I other girly girls. She was really good considering what we put her through. She learned the meaning of shop 'til you drop!



She knows how to check price tags.  The foot and finger pointing you can see in the picture is a stranger who thought Camryn was the funniest thing. 



First Trip to Sally's

Jay had to get some contest stuff in Springfield last night so we went along for the ride.  I needed some hairspray so Camryn and I went to Sally's while Jay and Cade got started at Wal-Mart.  I didn't think about how a store full of hairspray and lotion would be like Camryn's version of heaven.  I could not keep her from picking stuff up off of the shelves.  At one point she had two small bottles of hair stuff in her arms and she was saying "baby wotion" over and over. 

While we were there I decided to get some mother/daughter new nail polish for spring.  I thought it would be fun for her to help me pick out a color.  I looked away for a second and turned around to see her with the lid off of a bright orange color and she had it all over her hands.  I grabbed her hands to keep her from getting it on her clothes and she yelled owie over and over.  Owie is her go to word when someone does something she doesn't like.  By the time I wrestled the bottle out of her hands and got a wipe out the polish was dry.  Oh well.  I just put it back on the shelf.  Some poor soul will buy a bottle of bright orange polish someday and not get their full money's worth. 

Then I tried to check out and she was all over one of the displays with squeeze bottles of hair stuff and tubs of hair pomade.  I was running back and forth from the counter where my purse and wallet were all over the place to Camryn unscrewing lids as fast as she could.  I would take one from her to screw back while she was grabbing another to unscrew.  We went through that routine several times.  Finally she got some of the pomade and I barely saved it from a massive Camryn handprint.  Since the sales lady was watching Camryn do this I would've felt compelled to buy it.  The lady though didn't seem to mind.  She just kept saying "I can't believe she can open that stuff."  Stacy had told me she could - I just hadn't seen it happen yet. 

And don't let the picture fool you.  She was not at all sorry for what she did at Sally's.  She was extremely irritated with me because I unfairly insisted that she ride in the cart while we looked for Dad and Bubba in Wal-Mart.  Yes, I am so mean!!  When we finally found Jay and I just said "look who can unscrew lids."

See....she just wants out of the cart!

Miller's Contest

Miller's FFA contest was this past Saturday. Thank goodness that is over. I know I didn't contribute as much leading up to the event as most- but I did live with Jay during that time. I definitely did my part :) Poor Jania actually helped a lot AND lived with Lyle. She will have a special place in heaven. Most would think I'm joking when I tell Jania that one of these years the boys will move into one house and the girls will live in another house from January 15th until the night of the banquet in May. Those women married to an Ag teacher (Janella) know I'm really not joking.

But as usual when Jay, Lyle and the Miller FFA Alumni set out to do something they make it a success. This year was no exception. When the final test sheet was ran through the scantron it totaled 1070 kids. Then when you consider there were around 47 schools each with 1-4 advisors and at least 100 people from our community helping....Miller's population probably tripled on Saturday.

Since we have Camryn Jay didn't want to rely on me to actually have an important role Saturday in case Sharon couldn't keep Camryn. My role was a floater. I ended up helping at the Ag Mechanics contest because they were short. I was a little nervous until I learned I would only be watching them take the written test part of the contest. Everything was fine until I had to read a test to a kid with a Learning Disabiltity. I might as well have been reading something written in Spanish. I had no idea how to pronounce some of the words, no clue what any of it meant AND I was reading it at a weird angle so he could still see it. The kid had to tell me how to pronounce some stuff. He probably would've been better off on his own. I know I had to have hindered him more than I helped. Jay loves it because the fact I can't measure anything has been a big topic around our house since we did all that work(and Jay did all the measuring). One of the things I was saying was one-fourth instead of a quarter on a measurement. That was one of the things the boy corrected me on.

After I got through that stress Julie and I got to sort papers. The Ag Mech contest is the only one not entirely on a scantron sheet. They took the written part on a scantron and then 6 other individual tests on paper that had to be graded. Julie and I got to sort about 30 different teams with 4 kids per team with 7 pieces of paper per kid into stacks. It sounds bad...now imagine some of them with no names on their papers and instead of writing their school name they used their school
number. Fun times. Then once those were sorted we had to bubble in the scores on the scantron from the other 6 tests.
I've already figured out how we will sort them next year- and it will not be like we did this year. Jay opened up the front door of the building I was in and a gust of wind came in with him. I told him to not use that door again. I think I would've cried at that point if the papers had blown away.

But we all survived. I think the FFA has only heard good things about the day so that is great. There were so many people who gave up part of their Saturday and that was so appreciated....but I'm still glad it is over!!

And a side story (Janella you will understand this). There is an Ag teacher couple who has two toddlers. Jay told me that this couple brought their toddlers with them to the contest the first weekend in March. They also had them with them this Saturday. If my ovaries weren't already non -functioning seeing those toddlers on Saturday would've shriveled them. There are several Ag teachers married to each other (Jay's brother and his wife are one). I don't know how those couples do it with kids. Maybe I'm not as much of a woman but if Jay and I were both Ag Teachers somebody would be quitting their job!!! Can you imagine taking toddlers and a bus full of HS kids into this mess every Saturday in March....

And I found another spot...

When we got home last night I found another spot I powder hidden by our curtains. That girl is fast!!! I did a lot of vacuuming last night.

What can happen when you load your car....

I haven't had any posts lately.  I've been dealing with a leaky toilet and a toothache.  That has kind of wiped out any sort of creative thoughts I've had.  Our tile people have been back twice to fix the toilet.  It started leaking again last night.  I told Jay I was done with it and he needed to call.  I had already gave the person at the store a piece of my mind when I noticed air bubble holes in the grout on Saturday.  The guys that put it down originally where not the quality of workers that I'd want working for me.  The kitchen tile got fixed Monday - but I don't know what is wrong with the toilet!! 

My tooth has been another irritation the past week.  I went to the dentist earlier in the month and he said I had a filling that had cracked and a small cavity had formed so I needed it fixed.  I was having no pain with it at all.  I had it filled last Wednesday and I've had nothing but aching since.  So frustrating.  I finally went back yesterday and we are trying an antibiotic for 10 days.  If that doesn't work it looks like I will get a root canal for my 36th Birthday.  Just what I always wanted!!! 

So this morning I went out to load my car.  I wasn't gone but a few seconds and this is what I found when I returned.....

And this.....

And then I followed the trail and found this....

I'm not sure if this girl is going to keep us young or give us double the gray hairs....

She seemed to be very satisfied with herself

A hard morning of destruction will make a person hungry....

I think this is what caused her to have a few seconds of a head start on me with the powder.  When I put my stuff in the car I noticed I forgot to take her bottle in from yesterday.  Then I noticed the nipple....that was what she worked on going to Stacy's yesterday morning....

If you can't tell - that is a nipple that the top has been completely chewed off.  At least maybe that will be a good way to break her of her bottle habit.  Sorry - you chewed your nipples up like a puppy with a pair of shoes.