An Edible Front Yard

After my Earth Day rant I’m sure no one would expect to hear me talking about this, but it just makes since, an edible front lawn.  I’m not apposed to living healthy and making the world a better place to live, I was just tired of hearing all the “green” talk and yes some of it seems to be nonsense.  But, then I stumbled across this article on Edible Estates and it just makes sense.  The concept is to replace the manicured front lawn with a vegetable garden.  If your going to waste water on the front lawn to look pretty why not have it grow vegetables to feed your family and friends.  Vegetable gardens can be pretty and productive.

In Las Vegas I love having a yard where my kids can play barefoot and not burn their feet on the hot concrete.  I love to be able to have a spontaneous picnic whenever I please on our lawn.  I do however see the kids spending less and less time on the grass as they get older. 

In Las Vegas it takes a lot of water to have a front lawn.  I am aware that I live in a desert and I should conserve water. I do try, I have a toilet that has two flush options, half or whole flush.  There is always a conversation about the toilet whenever we have company over and our son likes to tell us if he is going to have to use the whole flush before is goes to the bathroom.  We have the low flow showerheads and I would love to have a new water saving washing machine but our old one still works.  The lawn is one thing I thought I couldn’t give up until I heard about the edible front lawn.  I’m not saying I’m digging up my lawn tomorrow, but it does make a lot of sense.  Maybe one of these days whenever I figure out gardening in Las Vegas I’ll be more serious about it.  In the meantime I’ve been browsing some cool layouts.  Here is my favorite, it’s called the pizza garden:

Wake Up Already!

Last night I was watching TV in bed.  Ronnie had been up since 2:30am and was fast asleep.  As I was channel surfing I stumbled upon this show called Cupid.  It had music and  mole sauce in it so of course it grabbed my attention. 

Then a funny thing happened.  The show mentioned one of my favorite bands…Uncle Tupelo!  I was shocked to hear Uncle Tupelo mentioned on TV!  I had to tell someone, but my someone that totally gets me was asleep and I didn’t want to wake him.  So I waited, and turned the volume up on the TV and pulled the covers off him and made the bed move, but all my subtle little ways to wake him up weren’t working.  So I had to bring out the elbow.  I did think twice before I jabbed my elbow in his side since he had been up since 2:30.  He woke up and I started to tell him what I just saw on TV and then he started snoring.  I had to wake him up again and decided to get straight to the point of my story without any background and then when I was finished he said OK and went back to sleep.  Then today when I asked him about it he didn’t have a clue what I was talking about.  Lesson learned…never tell Ronnie anything important past 9:00pm. 

A similar thing happened to my friend a while back.  She was at a Britney Spears concert. Let me just stop right there and explain…she was at the concert for her little brother who is 22 and autistic and just loves Britney, she was not at the concert because she really wanted to be there.  Anyway here she was and she looks over and sees Pauly Shore in the audience and immediately wants to call me.  There was no one else she could think of that would share in her excitement about seeing Pauly Shore, but she didn’t want to call because it was kind of late.  She had more restraint then me.  Yes, I know I’m a big nerd, but I was sure I was gonna marry Pauly Shore when I was younger.  There I said it, and I even wanted customized license plates that said WEEZEL and I may have wrote Shawna Shore a few hundred times.  Could you imagine our kids hair…that is a crime itself. 

 

Both instances left me thinking,  who do you call when you just have to share something with someone?  You husband, sister, brother, good friend?  And what do you do when you can’t reach them? 

Nothing in Particular

 

Well it getting harder and harder to blog lately.  For some reason I feel like I have to blog about holidays and major family events and anytime you feel like you have to do something it just sucks the fun out of it.  So instead of blogging about Easter, I’m gonna throw caution to the wind and blog about nothing.  Well not nothing, but nothing really significant. 

So yesterday Ronnie had to go out of town for work and he was supposed to be picked up by a coworker.  The coworker picked Ronnie up at around 10am and then I get a call from Ronnie at 10:10AM saying they had almost had an accident, but instead they were able to swerve out of the way and ran up onto the median and now have two flat tires.  I didn’t even have time to really freakout and they were back at our house pilling all their stuff into Ronnie’s truck and I was left standing with the coworkers keys in my hand.  I got to wait around for the tow truck.

Yesterday afternoon was defiantly all about Kyle as I picked him up from school and dropped him off at lacrosse and then picked up up from scouts.  I had been warned a few day ago that he was going on a campout this weekend for scouts but it hadn’t really sunk in yet, so when I picked him up and he told me, mom I have to bring cheese, I kind of flip out at his scout leader guy.  Poor guy, he kind of got the brunt of my day, luckily he has thick skin. 

I was glad to go to bed early last night, although I was expecting to be woke up by a a good night phone call from Ronnie, but I wasn’t.

So this morning I awoke to the sound of a jackhammer right outside my window.   After I sent Kyle out of get a picture, we had to wait for them to move their truck so we could back out our driveway.  I dropped Kyle off at school and then I drove to Lana’s school.  We have a few extra minutes before Lana’s school starts so we read books.  Then I went to open the door for her to get out and I saw Kyle’s lunch, the sac lunch he had to have today since he is going on a field trip.  So I RAN her up to her class and took off back to Kyle’s school.  They were supposed to leave at 9am and it was 8:55.  Luckily there were no police on Oakey today so I made it on time. 

Now Lana is home from school and telling me all about Earth Day.  I’m trying to go along with it and act happy, but really I’m not amused by Earth Day this year.  Maybe because of all the hype I’ve had to listen to on the radio and TV.   I even rebelled this year and didn’t wear green, I’m wearing brown.  Still a very earthy color, but not the ever so popular green.  Why?  Why be rebellious about Earth Day?   I don’t know, I’ve just heard enough from the whole “Green” movement.  Why does being green cost so much?  When the hippies were all into loving the earth and well pretty much loving everything, they didn’t have loads of money to buy “earth friendly” products.  They just did what they could.  That’s my approach, do what I can.  I’m leery of  “earth friendly” products until I investigate them, sometimes recycling things produce more waste and use more energy and blah blah blah, sorry I’ll get off my soapbox.  Happy Earth Day.

Did You Get Fooled?

This year Lana actually “got” what April Fool’s Day was all about.  All the way home she kept saying look at that donkey out the window…April Fool’s, I have a bug on my nose…April Fool’s, There is a cow on the road…April Fool’s.  I’ll spare you the whole ride home and just leave you with the first 2 minutes after we picked her up from school.  Kyle was not into April Fool’s Day this year.  he didn’t come up with any pranks for us or at school, which I’m kind of glad about.  The older they get the smarter they get, you know what I mean. 

This year I made the meatloaf cupcakes I thought about making last year.  I told Lana that for April Fool’s Day we were going to have dessert first to play a trick on Kyle.  She was so excited.  After both kids were home from school Ronnie took them to the park to I could prepare dinner.  I made meatloaf and baked it in cupcake wrappers.  Then I made mashed potatoes and colored them different colors with food coloring.  I iced the meatloaf cakes with the colored mashed potatoes and then moved on to dessert.

I made chicken not pie which my friend Elizabeth had told me about last year.  It’s a bit more complicated to explain, just go to the link above if you want to know more.

So the kids reactions?  Well Lana was very excited to eat cupcakes before dinner so excited she was jumping around while Kyle was tasting some of the frosting with his finger.  I think he was on to me and decided to examine his cupcake further.

He clued Lana in after he figured it out and Lana was not happy at all…

After our cupcake dinner I brought out the potpies but it was no surprise to them that they were actually dessert.

  

The potpie made Lana’s smile come back

And we all say goodbye to April Fool’s Day with a smile on our faces.

Am I Irish?

 

I’m a little late getting around to my St. Patrick’s Day post, better late than never, I guess. 

See this man pictured above?  This is my father in 1972.  I am told by my mom that these clothes were really in style.  She said that my dad was quite the dresser back in the day.  Unfortunately, all that fashion sense was lost on me,  thank goodness style is not hereditary.  One thing I did inherit was his red hair, green eyes, and freckles.  All three of which we seem to think are Irish traits.  But a quick Google search and I discover that some of those traits are not Irish after all.  Only 10% of Irish people have red hair.  Most Irish people have blue eyes, 42%.  As for the freckles however, 40% of Irish folks have them. 

We have worked on our family tree, trying to see if we have Irish heritage in our past, but it’s difficult.  You see my father was adopted when he was an infant and considers the parents that raised him to be his parents.  Our family tree is full of all the people we consider family but none of them have my dad’s genes.  So we can only guess where his physical traits came from. 

Some other things to consider are:

• He has an uncanny love of potatoes
• A weird fascination with plaid
• He gobbles up any and all green vegetables including cabbage
• He really knew how to pinch pennies, but now that he is older he like to spend his pot of gold

 

Are you thinking what I’m thinking…

 

 

 

 

Forget being Irish I think my dad is a leprechaun!

Ronnie the Plumber

Last Monday our family was just finishing up dinner and Kyle was clearing off the table so we could have FHE.  Kyle was rinsing the dishes when all of a sudden Ronnie looked up to see a stream of water coming toward him.  Unfortunately he used is cat like reflexes and dodged it.  It might have made it more fun if it actually hit him.  Anyway, we were all stunned and still processing what just happened when Kyle turn the water on again and again a stream of water came rushing towards the kitchen table.  The kitchen faucet broke.  After shopping at two different stores we found a replacement faucet and returned home where the real fun began.   I tried to stay far away form the faucet changing process but I ended up getting sucked in.  When it was my turn under the sink all I could think of was this spider leg I had found under there last summer.  It was probably an inch and a half long and even though I sprayed bug spray under there I knew that most bug sprays don’t kill spiders.  I just knew that spider leg was there because a bigger spider ate the rest of him ( I know spiders don’t eat, they suck the blood, I never said I was a rational person) and the bigger spider had babies that were just waiting to hatch at any moment.  Yeah, I kind of have a thing about spiders.  Anyway, I was able to help minimally in the changing of the faucet that took over 3 hours and flooded our kitchen at least 3 times. 

I guess a good thing did come out of the faucet experience…Ronnie gained some plumbing skills.  On Wednesday he thought he would tackle the sprinkler system from H_LL.  It really is the sprinkler system from H_LL, because every year we have some major issue with it and it costs a lot to fix it because the company that all the parts are from went commercial and now charges 4 times the normal amount.  I think it’s about as old as I am too, which isn’t that bad if you’re me but really bad if you’re a bunch of PVC held together by glue and exposed to harsh desert heat.  Just look at, it’s looking old and it was a decroded piece of crap:

I had an idea to take a picture of it and take it to Plant World and see if they could help us.  I just love Plant World, they are always so nice and will take the time to try to help you out.  I’ve gotten to know the guy in the sprinkler part pretty well since they are the only ones on our side of town that carry our sprinkler parts.  So Ronnie went to talk to sprinkler man and Lana and I went to visit the birds…they have really cool talking birds among the plants, it’s better than our Zoo and it’s free.  The sprinkler guy hooked Ronnie up and sent us on our way.  A few hours later Ronnie had done this:

Much prettier!  Turns out we didn’t even need one of those value thingies.  Unfortunately, Ronnie’s favorite cell phone died in the process, a moment of silence please…

 

 

Our sprinkler box is right next to the car port so Ronnie set his phone down on the hood of the Jeep while he was working.  I had to leave to pick kids up from school so I just hopped in the car and went on my marry little way.  Picked up the kids from school and was heading home when I saw something fly right across my hood and smash on the street.  I knew what it was, but I still called Ronnie anyway to see if by chance I was wrong.  I wasn’t.  I pulled over by Bonanza High School where some boys were playing lacrosse and hopped I didn’t get hit in the head by a stray ball.  Then I saw pieces of his phone scattered on the street.   I gathered what I could and went home to tell Ronnie the bad news.  It was no surprise to him, because he needed to make a call and realized where he put his phone down at, but it did surprise him that I made it that far with phone still on the hood.  What gets me is no one said hey lady, you have a phone on your hood.  Oh well, he had two replacement phones he can mess around with so it’s not a horrible tragedy. 

Daylight Savings Time

I really hate the Monday after Daylight Savings Time!

I was curious what this song was really about so I Googled it.  Sad.

Brenda Ann Spencer (born April 3, 1962) is a convicted American murderer who carried out a shooting spree at Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego, California on January 29, 1979. Principal Burton Wragg and head custodian Mike Suchar were killed in the attack, while eight children and a police officer sustained wounds. One of the children, who was hit in the hand, talked about the incident on a local radio station to San Diego County.

The school was across the street from Spencer's house, from which she fired the shots. She used a rifle that she had recently been given for her sixteenth birthday by her father. When the six-hour incident ended and she was asked whom she wanted to shoot, she said, "I like red and blue jackets". When asked why, she shrugged and replied, "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."^[1] She also said, "I had no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun"; "It was just like shooting ducks in a pond"' and "[The children] looked like a herd of cows standing around; it was really easy pickings." At the time of the shootings, Brenda Ann Spencer was 16 years old.

She pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and was sentenced to prison for 25 years to life, currently being served at The California Institution for Women in Chino.^[1] She has been eligible for parole four times and has been turned down each time, most recently in 2005. She will be eligible for parole again in 2009.

In 2005, she claimed that she was drunk and under the influence of PCP, and that her father, Wallace Spencer, had sexually abused her as a child and that the state and her attorney conspired to hide her drug test results.

Spencer's crime, her perceived lack of remorse, and lack of a serious explanation for her actions when she was captured, inspired the song "I Don't Like Mondays" by The Boomtown Rats, written by Bob Geldof.

Her quote, "I Don't Like Mondays," also appears written on a wall in the 1985 movie The Breakfast Club.