lovingly!

 Okay, this had me laughing right out loud today at the desk.

The spammers are LOVINGLY preparing my scam order or the scam bills for $590 or whatever.

What sweethearts they are, awwww.  

The little darlings, they're even sending it to Texas, (never been there) to a city that doesn't exist.

 Love, Val (still snickering)

guuurl

Julia's taking a drawing class at the university this semester.  She showed us her sketches and told us they had nude models, which was unexpected and kind of weird, not being used to things like this.

Her niece was there with us, taking it all in, perplexed frown on her face.  Julia said the model came into the room and parked herself in the chair and they had to sketch for three hours.  Plus the model had to sit there for three hours.  I wondered if the room was sufficiently warm. 

The whole thing, I'm sure, sounded beyond bizarre.   The child asked, "Did she come over there like that?"

We paused for a second imagining this lady driving over to the U, walking in from the ramp and all.

Julia shook her head and said, "Guuuurl."

We used to have conversations all the time that went off in their own directions, but hardly ever anymore.  We need more.

I love you girls,   Love, Grandma

 

dead mouse

After I finished all that, I moved on to the next project which was getting some things from the grocery store and also buying some damned fans.

One fan is broken has to be returned. Sell me a crappy broken fan?  No, thank you.

Anyway, fans set up because it is super hot in this house.  I'm getting going on the painting in Tim's old room and almost immediately after priming the plaster patches, find this dead mouse.

I teased my dad if he'd come deal with it.

He said he would.

Dad. Just kidding.  

I also texted James to tease him.

But I got this.  I took the long handled pliers and put it in a trash bag, and disinfected the pliers and the area.

Ugh.  WHY.

Anyway, it's tomorrow. 

Good night.

Love, Val

 

strange conversations: abraham lincoln

Okay, so last Thursday at lunch, we were talking about Abraham Lincoln.   

The kid is six, and she said, "Aber-HAM Lincoln. Aber-HAM, and now all I can think about is ham. That's such a weird name."

????

I do love kids, and wacky things they say is one of the best parts of being around them.

The little sister who is three, almost four said, "Yeah, somebody shot him in the head while he was watching a show."

This is true.

The six year old asked me is this true?   

It is, sadly.

"So was he a good guy or a bad guy?"

Well, history has definitely claimed him as a very good guy. But at the time, a lot of people were very upset with him.  Some people even hated his guts, thought he was the end of the world.

They both nodded.

Then we did the dishes and went outside.

Whee.

However, his name has never made me think about HAM before.  Oh my goodness.

Love, Grandma

 

memorial weekend, 2021

Here they are swimming.  It's 57 degrees.  Heidi is wrapped in an afghan and John is wearing a coat and hat as they supervise this mat situation.  

The mat situation is that the mat tends to slide over toward the dock constantly and they're running and so forth and we're all on edge because a little head could smack on the edge of the dock.  

John is a trusty attendant, keeps pushing the mat the other way.  Alicia's brother contemplated how we could tie the other end to an opposite dock and keep it in the middle.  

I like that idea.

Anyway, these are not the first kids to insist on swimming in ice cold Memorial Day water.

Kids are intrepid and fierce.

Love you all, MOM aka Grandma, aunt, cousin, friend

 

who is my twin?

Pam told me she thought she saw me in a photo on the local newspaper's website, in a picture of the crowd at the State Fair.  The date is August 24, 2017.

I do not believe I was at the fair that year.  That definitely looks like me-- the hair, the little squinty expression, the tilt of the chin.  But I don't recognize those clothes, pretty much never tie sweaters around my waist and don't remember that purse either.

Jay looked at it too and said the arms looked too toned to be mine.   Not disagreeing.

I don't know!  There's nobody else in the photo I recognize, and Lord knows I go almost nowhere alone, definitely not to the fair, and that was a busy month.  We definitely went in 2015, but 2017?  Don't think we did.

Anyway, a fun little mystery.  (Who is this lady who looks that similar??)

Good night.

Love, Val
 

of course

Today James and Kari were having a tea party with these two little girls, and was interesting, but also fun.

Then all at once?

Elin threw up.

Yes, on the rug, right beside the tea party.

And then, as if this isn't bad enough?

Maria's puppy ate it.

!!!!

I texted Maria just because I could picture her face when she read that text.

(I'm cracking up again now.)

Oh my goodness.

Another good day!   She drank 10 ml of milk today and is off oxygen.

Onward.   Tomorrow is Friday.

Love, Val

august

 It's been a fine August week, hotter than heck.  The pleasantly dull routine is comfortable.  Thursday James came over with the kids while the cleaning lady worked at Dan and Alicia's.

It was dark as evening in the house, kids played Legos in the basement.  Later on after lunch, the sun came out and we walked up to the park for a while.

 Here we are, a quiet Saturday night at the lake.  

When I asked p.j. on Friday if they were coming to the lake she said, "Yeah, I think my mom will.  She's been trying to avoid it, but I think we'll be there."

She notices everything.

During the day we went into town to the Craft Fair and looked for the Car Show, never found it.  We came home again and swam and Joe grilled a tenderloin and potatoes for supper.

 That little girl in the middle was up at 5 am, I understand.  She and her aunt, the one on the right, were stomping around upstairs looking for sweaters and switching beds because they were cold.

They told me all about how pretty the sunrise was. They could see it out the window over the lake.

Apparently there was also some sliding on the banister.

And this: She locked her parents in their bedroom.  She says she didn't realize she had.

 There's another door in that bedroom that opens to the outside, toward the front. They had to go out that door and walk around the house and come in the back.

Woo Hoo. 6 am.

They left her stay up until about 10:00 tonight and threats were made against people who get up to see the sunrise, slide on banisters at that hour of the morning and lock their parents in their own bedroom.

Onward.

August, you beautiful devil.

love, Val

found in my purse

Yes, this.  I have no idea who Derrick Moore is.   I'm aware of Jesus Christ.  (Himself, no less.)

And some bored-in-church child is contributing in the amount of 2 1/2 euro.

Interesting.

It also caused a great amount of laughter tonight while I was working.  I found it as I was looking for a pen, and showed it to my co-worker.  He's Muslim, and he read all this and then chuckling said, "Jesus Christ Himself, 2.5 euro. What does it mean?"

I said it means some kid was bored in church.

He threw his head back laughing.  I know. It makes no sense.

Other co-workers also cracked up.  Catholic and non-Denominational.

Thank you very much MISS LYDIA, and I recognize your handwriting.

You made a bunch of people you don't even know laugh a lot tonight.

Yes, I love you.

I have since you were bald and toothless, through all the crazy Kari antics, nothing but love.

Good night.

love, MOM

irrationally happy

My grandkids do this to me.    Last night I texted their parents and asked if they wanted to stop by in the morning and have lunch. 

I didn't hear back, but that's okay. If they're busy already, I'm bummed, but it was a short-notice idea.

So this morning I woke up at seven and saw still no answer, so sent Dan a text, and went back to sleep.

At 9:30 he called, "Mother are you sleeping?  Are you texting me in your sleep? What's going on?"

Anyway, they came over and Grandpa made pancakes and fried egg sandwiches, and sausage, and it was great.   Those kids actually ATE.

They were hungry for chocolate chip pancakes.

 A few minutes before I took his picture, the guy in the stripes was wrapped up in that old afghan and the other one had his arms around him on the floor.

 I said, "They're playing baby. He's hugging and loving his baby."

b.g. said, "Grandma. I'm Spiderman. It's a web."

Ohhhh.  Wow.  Well.

Here they are playing around with that hole in the living room floor.  A radiator used to be there, and the hole in the floor was left from the pipe that used to bring hot water to the radiator.

If they put their eye up against it, they can see Grandpa's desk in the office below.  Here they are putting the cord from the earphones for the electric organ down into the office.

 

 Kids love messing with this, running down to the office to check things out.  He's a little nervous to be downstairs alone now.   He's growing up.  A couple years ago, he'd head down there, even when the light in the stairway was off. He didn't care.

Now he does.

And this:   That's a fake hamster in a wheel next to the Dept. 56 church.

Well, yeah.   Nothing more to add.



And this picture?  No idea who took it or why, or if they even know they did.

While they were here, the younger one insisted on going outside to drive some matchbox cars in the snow.   That's great.  The dogs went out too, please go.

Then he was at the door, wanted to show me something, so I followed him over the patio to the snowbank and he showed me dog poop.

I said, "Why are you showing me dog poop?"  I thumped Sam on the back and said, "Dogs are always doing that. It's their favorite trick.  I'm going back inside."

In a few minutes, he was yelling for Alicia, had to show her something.  Just by the location and so forth, we knew.

I slid the screen down and called, "We don't want to look at poop!" and slipped it up again.

Then we laughed.  

Because kids are crazy and that's like probably the best thing about them.

There they are in a picture I stole from Alicia.

Thank you guys for making this a great day.   I love you so much my heart can hardly hold it.     love, Grandma  (and your cooking Grandpa too)

11-13-14

Heidi sent a big package of construction paper, so we took inspiration and made some goofy Thanksgiving turkeys--pj's has eyes with long eyelashes drawn with sparkly crayon.

And it's winter now, at least a month earlier than we expected.

Bah.

The kids are happy enough about it.

We had lunch with my parents and my sister, pizza and lots of laughing.

Tonight some of the big kids are at the Garth Brooks concert so Maria is watching John's kids, and we have pj overnight, and at some point earlier this week I mentioned maybe we'd go to the pool and they didn't forget.

 Man, I was not in the mood for this.   I'm tired!  It's like 18 degrees out!

And then we got to the pool and parked the car and realized we'd forgotten the towels at home.

"Dance around like idiots laughing, and don't even grab the damned towels.  Your behavior today is really not impressing me."

(They have been super squirrely and also argumentative with each other.  ANNOYING.)

Going home and returning was just so unamusing, but then I remembered Kohl's is just around the block, so we went to damn Kohl's and bought towels while they waited in the car.

When I got back in the car, in the dark, it seemed like things were wet on the console where the shifter is.  I turned on the light and it was full of my diet coke they'd somehow knocked over!

I yelled some more about what were they doing, and this can't get wet, and the compartment where I throw coins was full to the brim, so I stuffed a corner of a towel in there to mop up, all the while bitching.

Finally we made it into the water.

 It got better after that.

And then the lens was too fogged up from the steamy air to take any more pictures.

Sam is back on prednisone for her skin, blast all those problems into the past.  The vet put medicine in her ears again, and she's doing well.

But we didn't realize all her newfound energy and ridiculousness were medication side effects--her eating everything and begging at the table, raiding the wastebasket, having to go outside at 6 am, humping the kids, just generally being a lot busier dog was the medicine.

 Jay's taken it a few times for his back and he didn't seem to have any side effects.   We laughed about it, how Dad never acted like this.

Tim still talks a little bit like the Little Tim used to with the overly round vowels.    He laughed and said, "Oh yeah, first he ate garbage. THEN he humped the kids."

Oh my goodness.  There he is playing Subway Surfer.

And today is the end of a very wonderful Thursday, and Friday is next.

Onward.  We can do it.    love you all so, Val, aka MOM, aka Grandma

yes, indeed

Yes, indeed.  I captioned this, "naked niece invasion," because that's what happened, but then decided to change the title to avoid attracting strange visitors to the blog.

This morning Julia took a bath, and as soon as pj realized Jule was in the tub, she started badgering to go get in also.

She went from where I was in my room to the bathroom door, back and forth harassing us both.

I told her, "Julia does not have to have anyone else in her bath unless she wants to.  I'm not in there. Tim's not in there. Sidney is not.  She has the right to take a bath alone."

She threw back her head in a big howling sob.

"Sorry.  Nobody has to have other people in their bath."

Well, then Julia relented and pj jumped out of her clothes and slammed the bathroom door. There was splashing and screaming and more and more water was run.  More splashing and laughing continued until I told them it was over.

I told Heidi it was a naked niece invasion and she laughed, "She's lucky she's cute."

Yeah, they both are in their matching outfits and hair.

Happy Wednesday, love MOM aka GRANDMA

hyper time

 These pictures are from a couple days ago.

 This is a game where the little kids jump off the bed onto Uncle Tim and Aunt Julia.  Imagine the shrieking and screaming.

 This can only benefit our chiropractor.

Yeah, I was scolding and hollering intermittently about people getting hurt.

Nobody did, so it's all good.

This guy was pretty happy with that Moo Jr.   He took a bite, then looked at it in his hand like he'd never seen anything so amazing.

And that is the very hyper and happy end of that.  

love forever, Mom, aka Grandma, aka Val

yeah, well

More trouble with dog poop.

Today I was cleaning the kitchen--washing down cupboards and polishing the chrome on the chairs, doing the floor, and Tim and Julia announced they wanted to go outside and continue scooping dog poop.

"We want to earn some money."

(I pay $5 for half a paper grocery bag.  Do not fill them past half because they will rip. Get a new bag.)

Anyway, before they'd hardly been gone for two minutes, they were back.

And there was some insane story about how Julia had ended up getting hit in the head with dog poop Tim threw.

"Seriously?  What the hell is going on out there?!  We're throwing dog poop now?"

Well, Tim said he was trying to throw the bag over to Julia and he thought the turds inside would weight it down, and they did not.  It sort of flew up and part of the contents spilled out.

Oh, Good LOR-ed.

"So where is she now? I hope in the bathtub."

Yes.

I don't understand.

James later told me he encountered Tim sitting quietly on the couch in the living room and Tim told him about the dog poop accident and said, "Mom hasn't even yelled at me yet."

(As if that's the worst thing that could happen to a person: me yelling.  Pretty sure that's happened like a million times over the years and everybody is fine.)

I told James, "What would I even SAY?  I don't even know where to go with that."

James:  "Yeah, like don't throw bags of dog shit in the air, like that needs to be stated."

Oh, gawd.   Yes, exactly.

Sigh.

Julia, Sweetheart, I am so sorry this happened and you were an amazing good sport.

love you so, Mom