Adventures in Living!

Been a long time...

Okay, I have been a slacker. I have failed to post now for ....many....days. It's not like there's nothing going on around here; hell, *something's* always going on around here! I guess I could just blame my recent attack of Life. Good excuse as any, I guess.

Let's see....the kids are all back in school. First day was successful for Kira at middle school, and the little guys are loving being back in preschool. Honestly, Mom loves them being back in school a little bit, too. I like having structure and some semblance of order to my day, and the little bit of free time and peace and quiet doesn't hurt, either. ;)

Travis and I continue our quest to obtain motorcycle licenses and scooters. I cannot wait. We got a little piece of junk Chinese import scooter the other day, and Travis ahs been working on it and we have both been riding it around the neighborhood. It's really fun, and it totally solidifies my desire to have a bigger 'real' scooter SOON. It's only 50cc, so top speed is 40mph if we're lucky, but it's prefect for practicing riding around and stopping and turning and such. I feel so much more confident now, especially with turning, since I have been riding it.

This is not our 50cc scooter. This is Kira's Razor scooter, which is battery-powered and attains a top speed of 10mph. Noah loved riding up and down the driveway on it with me. Poor Wren is dying for her own scooter.

We went to the Children's Museum with my brother and his two kids and my mom. It was great fun, especially since we just about had the place to ourselves!

Noah has the worst case of strep I have ever seen in one of my kids, so he is down for the count, but rallying back with some antibiotics. We were so sure it was the H1N1 flu -- super-high fever, lethargy, vomiting -- but thankfully, he "only" has strep. Yay for bacterial infections.

Today my mission includes ridding the house of all the outgrown kid clothes, putting things in the attic and taking things out of the attic, and planning an assault on the bedroom of my pre-teen, who seems to be incapable of throwing anything out. This weekend looks to be full, with a trip to the farmer's market, the Richmond Folk Festival, and other enjoying-the-fall weekend fun.

Pumpkins must be obtained, and costumes decided upon, as Halloween is coming! I need to develop the pre-trick or treating weird and wonderful dinner menu. Last year's supper included such delicacies as Worms On A Bun and Dirt Dessert, so I want to find something equally startling to eat this year. I love Halloween!

I also have a rant going on in my head about the people who continue to refuse vaccination for their children and place all of us at risk for resurgence of crap like smallpox, polio, diphtheria and widespread measles because of their uninformed opinion that vaccines cause autism.

Additionally, I have something to say about awarding the Nobel Peace prize to someone based on the things they *might* do, rather than the things that HAVE been done to further world peace, but hey, then I'd be branded a hater, and I don't have time for refuting that kind of nonsense today.

And the proposed names for the Richmond minor league baseball team? Seriously, the Richmond Rockhoppers? Flatheads? Flying Squirrels? HAMBONES!? What. The. Hell? If I cared more about baseball, I'd probably be more upset, but since I don't have a dog in this fight, all I can do is shake my head incredulously at the dorks who are potentially making my beloved city a laughingstock.

The tourism people should be having a cow about now.

Ah, well. Lots to do. Guess I'd better get to it.

Bastards

This is what Travis pulled out of the mailbox in the pre-dawn hours of the morning today:

Nice. Hate mail. In my suburban paradise.

It would have been at least a little tolerable if the douchebag who put this in our box would have had the balls to, you know, actually own up to it and stand face-to-face with myself and/or my husband.

Of course, their little tree-hugging, uber-environmentalist diatribe leaves out the part about how most of the trees we took were infested with pine borers and/or carpenter ants, providing a fantastic home for the termites that were living in our yard fence. And said infested trees are all over 60 feet tall, and would have done some serious economic and environmental damage should they give up the ghost and oh, FALL onto my HOUSE! I'm sure those anonymous jerks would have loved to have their power cut out for days after the next storm took out one of the twelve trees that grew next to our power lines. Dominion Power isn't always speedy about replacing lines in my neighborhood.

And if anon letter-writers were worried about people doing things to their own property that they didn't like, or thought unsightly, then those folks have the option to live in a neighborhood that has restrictive covenants. Ours doesn't, and we bought our house here because it doesn't.

So, fuck you, anonymous "neighbors". It's our yard, and our (dead, dying, infested, dangerous) trees. Don't like it? Tough shit.

Grrrr.

Of course, Travis finds this whole thing amusing.