Can ya? Can ya do it? I dare ya!

Click here to see this poster better.

The challenge is on folks. Will you take it? Just who is this teachinfourth guy? Well he just happens to be a fifth grade teacher that one of The Natives gets to associate with EVERY DAY! And thinks is theeee coolest teacher EVER! "Mr. Z totally rocks the planet mom"!

So, since Mr.Z is da bomb we're taking on this challenge and we wanna see if you're up to it too. Can ya? Huh? Can ya? I dare ya! We wanna see what kind of stuffin' your made of! Beings as it is the month of giving thanks and stuffing ourselves and all........You do stuff yourselves right....I'm not the only one........never mind. Don't answer that. Just take the challenge if you're "tuff e nuff"!

For a friend......

The sun will come up....



There's always tomorrow.

Hoppin' to it.

When I told my baby girl to practice her piano and to "hop to it"....




I should have been more specific.........

You can be anything/anyone in your imagination.

When I was a young little snot nosed whippersnapper growing up in the boonies with out a television, my siblings and I would have to come up with our own entertainment. Sundays were the hardest. Lots of things that we would normally do through out the week were deemed not appropriate for Sunday activities.

That is until I became a teenager. The rule was, anything we couldn't do in a dress we shouldn't do on Sunday. I figured out that one could do pretty much anything in a dress. Especially if ones mum wasn't watching and you got rid of the evidence before entering the house. (Mud clear up to your knees from sloshing around in the pond...etc.)

Before I became an even bigger snot nosed whippersnapper as a teenager Sunday afternoons were spent in the house for the most part and the imaginations rolled. One of my favorite games to play was make believe church. Why after sitting for three hours in church I'd want to come home and play church some more is beyond me but play church we did!

I would set up my mothers ironing board as my "podium" and cover it in all of the church books and magazines I could find along with our "Children's Songbook". I would then proceed in my most nasally voice welcoming all to primary. I had a broken antenna from an old radio that worked great as a wand for leading the music. Many a speech or song of mine would be interrupted as I would rap that wand against the ironing board disciplining some way ward child. Sometimes that child was really naughty and I would take them by the ear whisking them out into the hall where I would ask them if I needed to go and get their parents!

Then I would calmly walk back behind the ironing board and once again in my nasally voice, "nooooow childreeeen".......continue on with my sermon.



I suppose that is why when I caught these two little whippersnappers in a world of make believe I was delighted as memories of my own child hood came flooding back and I had to grab my camera.

I'm dun!

Photo from mudranch.com

Why is it as I am laying in bed trying to go to sleep that I do my most creative thinking? Stories to tell on my blog and I always think I'll remember them the next day to post but morning comes.......and I don't remember a single word.

I know, put a notebook by my bed.....record my thoughts.......I'm too tired.

Last night was no different. As I was on the edge of slipping off into the abyss where dreams become real my mind started to write a story. I told myself that I should probably write it down but it was already late and when it comes to beauty sleep I need more and more as my face continues to slip further south along with everything else attached to me. It's hard wearing an anklet when your knees are now where your ankles used to be and waxing my mustache is actually waxing my eyebrows that have become a uni brow on my upper lip.

Is there such a thing as growing old gracefully? Truly? Because the older I get the less grace I have.

I have this ongoing fight with myself. Grey hair. I started going grey when I was in high school. Ya, I know. Totally not fair. Back then I didn't really think it was that big of a deal. I'd see one, or my "friends" would point one out two seconds after feeling the needle sharp pain of having a hair snatched from your scalp and dangled in front of your eyes as proof that what they'd just done to you was justified. I continued yanking out the grey hairs as they'd come but eventually it got to the point where a decision had to be made. To be bald or dye the hair....THAT my friends is the ultimate question. One of the questions anyway that plagues me once a month.


Photo from mudranch.com

The ultimate question now, as I am in need of a major hair dye again is I am once again sporting a dun stripe down the middle of my head. When am I allowed to say, "You know what? I've had a gargantuan amount of kids, I'm no longer in my twenties, I am a mum of teenagers, when have I earned my rightful place to stop worrying about dying my hair"? The problem with letting the hair go grey and this is just strictly my opinion by the way......is that long grey hair on most women doesn't work. The hair would have to be whacked off. If I'm gonna do it....I'm gonna do it good. Short spiky grey hair!

This is the ultimate question I am plagued with these days.....that and did I leave my memory in the bathroom, at the knitting store I went to yesterday, or the fridge along with my car keys..........

Crackpot Tuesdays

Photo by Taste of Home


Here it is folks. Crackpot Tuesday and the verdict is in but first.......the recipe. Mr. C chose: Saucy Italian Roast. Another meal I was more than thrilled to make as it is only 9 ingredients. Less if your family is like mine and mushrooms are a fungus that remain outside growing on cool moss covered stumps deep within enchanted forests.

The family gave this four and a half stars. Not surprised as the gal who submitted this recipe to Taste of Home is from Montana. I need not say anything more.....

I had several epiphanies this past weekend and have come to the conclusion that I am

A) a donkey and
B) a donkey on crack





I can explain. Have you ever worked with horses? Let's start in the round pen. When you have a young colt and are starting to work with it you start in the round pen if you have one. It's a controlled environment but if you have a horse that decides to push the boundaries like I did.....then you have to get resourceful and put electric fencing around the top of the round pen to keep the "mustang" from thinking it can jump over the top! Now take that same "mustang" and watch how every time you bring it into the round pen it has to check to see if that electrical fencing is still juiced up. Once it gets reacquainted with the "hot" fence it respects it and keeps it distance but danged if it doesn't have to check each and every time it comes into the round pen!



Now, take me.....the donkey on crack. I have a few good days. I'm feeling my oats and wowza I feel good! Du na na na na na na na, like the way that I shouuu-uuuld. Hey! Maybe that electrical fencing (we'll call West Nile) is not in place! Maybe, just maybe I'll test the boundaries and go flying over that fence that has been keeping me penned in. I run round and round and round and then.......I take a flying leap! Only to find myself sitting on my hiney in the mud wondering how in the heck I got there cuz I WAS FEELING GOOD! And dang.....that fence is still there.



Which brings me to my next ah HA moment. The Master. The Trainer. He keeps yanking me back! Let's go from the round pen to the trail. You don't want to keep a young colt in the round pen. They get bored so you give them a little change in scenery. You let them go out and about a bit but you never just give them their head. You are always giving them a task. You want them to think..not react. Any horse if you don't give them a task on the trail, their mind will start to wander and they stop using the thinking side of their brain and decide that everything looks like it is a lion ready to attack and so they spook easier or they see greener pastures and want to go and munch. To keep them focused on you, the master or trainer, you give them a task to do and then you let them walk for a bit "on their own" down the trail and then you call their attention back to you and you give them another task.



So, back to The Master. He lets me walk along the trail for a bit but then my mind starts to wander and I see some grass off in the distance that looks a lot like chocolate which I'm addicted to and I take off crashing through the bushes and trees and once again.......The Master has to yank me back to the trail. If I'd just learn to put blinders on and look straight forward I wouldn't stumble so much....but alas.......I'm a donkey.......on crack!

As if having me for their mum isn't repulsive enough......

I had to go and make food inspired from "Great Expectations".



The older Natives being oh so mature and beyond the childish tradition of walking up to someones house and begging for candy decided they'd rather invite their friends over and spend the evening playing foosball and watching a history movie. "Monty Python and the Holy Grail".........



Earlier in the day as I was trying to get ready and doing a lousy job of frosting this rats tail and feet my neighbor Kathy VanWagoner stopped by and I shoved the spatula in her hand and told her to fix it for me. Me and frosting a cake go hand in hand about as well as a donkey trying to learn ballet. Too many feet....or thumbs.....it doesn't work.



The SM took over after the pink was done and created this masterpiece. Actually, he formed the rat for me too cuz..ya know......donkey/ballet.



He also frosted this mummy for me cuz....ya........



My favorite master piece was this lovely specimen and watching The Natives and their friends peel the meat off the skull to put on their sandwiches. VILE!

Oh, and by the way.......just so you know. If you make red jello brains like I did......wait until you serve it to add the gummy worms. Apparently, gummy worms dissolve into a rubbery non chewable mess on the bottom of your bowl if you don't....



While the older Natives were being "mature" The SM took the little Natives out Trick or Treating while I stayed and chaperoned being the by far more responsible and mature adult.

My baby girls friend went with. She is Ginny Weasley, my baby girl is a COMMANDER. I was told specifically she was not a tough fighting dude, she was a COMMANDER, Levi was Charmander (Poke'mon), and my baby was a dragon.



This Native took the absolute longest and time coming up with his costume and it had to be just so! He was a Jawa.

When The Natives came home with their loot, Mr. T (the second oldest) decided being mature and staying home isn't worth it and has declared next year that he will in the kindness and goodness of his heart take his younger siblings out Trick or Treating.......