Taming the junk monster

JC is away at camp this week, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to get in there and give his room a good cleaning. I knew his room was a disaster but didn't realize it was in close running with the houses featured on Clean House. Yes I watch that show and that's what inspired me to tackle JC's room.

I'm not kidding. His room was wall to wall junk and he refuses to let anything go. I found empty Happy Meal boxes, the packaging 2 of his Transformers came in, papers from school that he never showed me, clothes that he's outgrown but won't give up, clothes that I bought last fall for school that he never wore, boxes and boxes of... who knows what. The list goes on. I threw out 3 garbage bags and I'm still not done. I still have to go...(dramatic pause) UNDER THE BED (SCREAM).

I made a joke before I started that I hope I don't get eaten by the junk monster. It's been a tough fight but under the bed is the scariest; because that's where it lives.

I'm goin' in. Wish me luck.

Sometimes rocks are not just rocks

The 4th of July is one of the few days Hubby has off all summer, we saw it as an opportunity to take a day trip up to Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior. It was a beautiful day for a 3 1/2 hour drive. We got there and took a tour of the lighthouse, the fog horn house and the keeper's home. I got some really great pictures. After our tour we decided to take a hike down to the lake. The lighthouse sits on top of a 189 foot cliff and the hiking trail is pretty much straight down. Luckily there's steps and hand rails.

As we got closer to the lake I could see someone had stacked rocks to make a several towers. From where we stood they weren't that impressive until we got down to the lake and could see them up close. They ranged in size from 4 1/2 to 5 feet tall and were so well balanced that they weren't going to fall over to easily. They were actually really beautiful. Somebody had really put a lot of work in to stacking them and left them for other people to enjoy.

To my surprise nobody touched them. I don't know if the other people there saw the beauty in them that I did, but everybody appreciated them for what they were and left them alone. That is until this one family showed up.

Hubby and I were sitting on a rock with a tower just a couple feet behind us. I heard this family behind us talking about the towers and then heard the Dad say he was going to knock one over. He pushed over the tower that sat directly behind us. I turned and gave him a dirty look. He could of hit one of us with a rock and he knocked it over for no other reason than to be an ass. Shortly after that the mom started to knock over other ones. Not being a very confrontational person, I said nothing although I really wish I would have. But somebody else did speak up.

This guy who was there with a couple of his friends saw her pushing over a tower and said, "Hey, Lady! Don't do that!"

She stopped for a moment and said, "Why? It's not natural."

I don't care if it it's not natural, it was beautiful. The lighthouse that she was there visiting wasn't natural either, should that be destroyed. The steps she walked down to get to the lake shore aren't natural, but she seemed to have no problem with them being there. There was a nasty exchange between her husband and the other guy, which I won't go into, but while they were going at each other; she proceeded to knock the rest of them over arguing that they weren't natural, they shouldn't be there.

The fight was broke up by the other guy's friends after he shoved the husband to the ground. The guys left, but the family that started it stayed. Their two kids were there and watched the whole exchange between their dad and the the other guy and had all kinds of questions.

What exactly are they teaching their kids? That it's ok to destroy something that doesn't please them? That only their opinion maters and it's ok to get into a heated exchange of words and force when others don't agree? Do they go to the beach and encourage their kids to stomp on other kid's sand castles because they're not natural? How would it be any different if I went to their house and started to pull flowers out of their garden because those plants don't grow there naturally?

After the whole thing was over some friends of theirs (the family's friends) who were coming down the hiking trail and heard the commotion, caught up with them and asked what was going on. They told their friends what happened and talked about the other guy like he was some kind of nut job for not wanting them to push the rocks over. They justified pushing the towers over by saying "it was just kids playing, and they're rocks they're going to fall over anyway." That maybe so, but why not let the wind and waves knock them over? Why did they feel it was their responsibly to take care of something Mother Nature could have done? I'm just glad I got some pictures of the towers before they destroyed them all.

Why can't Johnny tie his shoes?

OMG! How did I let this motherly duty slip by unnoticed? I bought the kids new shoes yesterday and came to the realization that JC (who's 9 yrs old, starting 4th grade in the fall) doesn't know how to tie his shoes. Come on, this is something he should've learned in kindergarten. This last year he had shoes with Velcro, but I know he's had laces before and I thought he knew how to tie them. This morning as we were getting ready to run to the store, I had to demonstrate how to tie shoes and then made him do it. It took a couple tries but he did eventually get his shoes tied. He's a smart kid, he has a lot going on in that head of his, but some how the simple act of tying his shoes confuses him. I guess that's something we're going to have to practice this summer.

Surprise on her report card

I got the kid's report cards last weekend. JC did well, as expected. I was surprised by Funky Princess's though. I thought for sure her final math grade would be a D or worse, but somehow she managed to pull off a C-. Still not a grade I'm very happy to see, but not as bad as I was expecting. Everything else looked good with A's & B's. She's going to Sylvan 3 days a week all summer so hopefully we can boost that C- up to at least a B next year.

Close encounter with a monster

We were on our way to drop JC off for a play date when up on the side of the road there looked like a piece of rubber or garbage We got closer and I realized it wasn't garbage, it was a monster turtle. This thing was huge, at least a foot wide and a very crabby look in it's eye. We stopped the car to look at it from the windows because nobody wanted to get close to it. Then went on our way. When we came back almost an hour later, it was still there. So I ran home and grabbed the camera.

I know it's kind of hard to tell how big this thing is from the pictures but trust me I wasn't getting close enough to it to measure it. As I walked up to take the pic, it started to turn towards me and gave me a chilling stare. I stood about 6 feet from it and used the zoom to get in close. Funky Princess stood a few feet behind me and was nervous the whole time we stood there taking pics, she didn't want to get any closer. As we were walking back to the car I told her the turtle was chasing us and she took off running, scared that this giant turtle was going to catch up to her.

I've seen turtles like this around here every now and then but this is the first time I've been able to photograph one and I don't know what kind it is. Considering the hole it dug, I think it was laying eggs.

Very annoying

With in the last week we've been getting these strange phone calls that when you pick up there's a computer listing numbers. The first couple times I had no idea what it was so I just hung up. Then last night we got one of those calls at 11 pm. Hubby checked the caller id and all of these calls are coming from the same number. This morning when I got back from the gym I checked the messages and there was another call like this. Since it was on the voice mail I listened to it and learned somebody was trying to text to our landline. After farther investigation I learned the number belonged to one of Funky Princess's friends. I told Funky Princess to ask her friend to stop trying to text our home number, if she wants to talk then just call.

Ms. Thompson?

Funky Princess's teacher has called me Ms. Thompson on more than one occasion. I haven't been Ms. Thompson for 12 years. Her teacher has never known me as Ms. Thompson, and the weird thing is I still answer to it.