Back Woods Wife

Riley: “Look Mommy! Muscles. Strong!”

Already. It always comes so quickly. Time for decorating and baking and all those good things!

Hendrik: “What’s today Mommy?”
Mommy: “Today is Tuesday.”
Hendrik: “No, it’s not. It’s joy tidy day!”

There you have it. Tidying is also one of those December things! We are tackling the kitchen today. It is in desperate need of reorganization and I finally have a plan that I think may work!

Where to begin?  There are a few things we NEED to do today.  For example: wash the floor!  I have been letting Abby drink out of the same cups as the older two and it has resulted in at least major juice or milk spills a day.  Sticky floors I cannot stand!  I decided last night to switch her back to the Klean Kanteen sippy so at least it should reduce the number of messes.  Then there are only 2 open cups on table instead of 3!

We’re also out of play dough so I think I will attempt to make my own from this recipe.  If it works well, I think we’ll just keep going with it.

I started reorganizing our upstairs.  Again.  I moved a couple of dressers and moved some clothing out of the closet area.  I’m really paring my wardrobe down.  There are a lot of things I don’t wear even though I like them.  I think I like them on the hanger but not on me!   My sister and I, and a few friends/acquaintances of ours, are planning on having a clothing swap after Christmas.  Everyone can bring the things they don’t wear or need and hopefully swap for something that they like or need.  We thought after Christmas would be best as people might be getting clothing as gifts and it might affect their wardrobe down-sizing choices.

Then there is my kitchen storage.  It isn’t working for me.  I don’t have a proper place to store all of my pots and pans and so I’m constantly shuffling them from inside the oven or on top of the stove to the table, etc.  I need to rework things a bit.

There is obviously a lot I COULD do today.  I’m just not sure where I want to start!

There is a meteor shower occurring tonight.  The Leonid shower is putting on its annual show tonight.  I stepped out onto our back step and took a peek.   I saw 4 in as many minutes or less even though it was nearly 3 hours from peak viewing time.  I don’t know if I’ll stay up that late or not but if you happen to be awake, it’s definitely worth watching the sky for a few moments.  The meteors I saw had quite long tails so they were easily distinguished from satellites and stars.  Happy watching!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33891078/ns/technology_and_science-space/?GT1=43001

Hendrik said to me this afternoon, “You’re my little hippopotamus Mommy.”   I love that boy!

Last week we had our photos taken by the talented Karl Johnston.  He is trying to gain more portrait experience, and our kids were the youngest he taken portraits of before.  Definitely a challenge!   We didn’t end up with a photo of the entire family that worked but here are some smaller groupings and individual shots.

This morning I drove our old 4Runner into church.  I had not got much sleep last night due to there being 2 adults and 2 kids in the bed for most of the night, so Dwayne offered to take the kids in with him so I could have a bit more time to rest and get ready for church.  The iffy part of this plan was my driving the 4Runner.  It’s a standard.  I haven’t driven standard in a coon’s age.  I did have a practice run a few weeks ago on a long dirt road, but I didn’t have to deal with traffic or much stopping and starting.  I managed to get to church and park without stalling.  I was so excited!  I then made it from church to Mom and Dad’s with no problems.  I was getting the hang of it.  WAS being the operative word.  I went to the grocery store for milk.  I lurched out of Mom and Dad’s driveway in reverse, causing me to start laughing and also Dad who was watching from the driveway.  I made it to the store without further incident.  Coming back was another story.  I managed to stall 4 TIMES IN A ROW at the 4-way stop in the middle of town.  With at least 2 vehicles waiting behind me.  I coudn’t figure it out.  I had been doing so well, not popping the clutch or over-revving.  After the fourth, and by now slightly embarassing, stall I realized that I was still in 2nd gear.  Back to 1st and all was fine again.  Oh well.

it could have happened to me!”  At least that’s what Pop used to say.

Only this time it DID happen to me.  Dwayne is away moose hunting for a few days so I’m holding down the fort.  Usually Dwayne being gone forces me to do things I don’t normally volunteer to do.  For example: going outside late at night to turn off the generator or anything else in the pitch dark while the wolves are howling.  (Not exaggerating about the wolves by the way.)  This time I got to deal with toilet issues.  Not my idea of fun.  Ask Dwayne how freaked out I get when HE unclogs the toilet.  I go cleaning crazy.

The toilet super-clogged today.  Good thing we are well versed in using the great outdoors when necessary and that we have a large wooded property on which to practice such skills.  Makes for ultra quick “bathroom” trips especially now that it is officially freezing out there. (Yes, there is frost!  And snow in the forcast for Saturday.)  I spent well over an hour trying to plunge the blockage away.  My palms hurt.  I couldn’t locate a snake either at our house (running around outside in the dark with Hendrik’s flashlight) or from our neighbour, or at Mom and Dad’s (driving in at 10p.m and looking in and around their house and garage with Hendrik’s flashlight).  I came home and put the kids in their beds as they had fallen asleep on the drive.  (Riley had actually been asleep before we left the house and remained so the whole time.)

In the end I googled.  I had nothing to lose and I was running out of options.

I tried making a homemade snake from a metal coat hanger.  It took me 45 minutes to unwrap the thing first.  I got rid of all of our plain metal hangers a few years back and replaced them with plastic ones with the exception of a few that had been macramaed with some sort of fabric.  After almost getting finger cramps from dismantling the hanger and having the hook part snap off in my hands, I finally got the wire untwisted with my itty bitty Swiss army knife pliers and tried it out.  It did nothing.

There was a suggestion for leaving an enzyme based product in the toilet overnight but alas! we’re out of Septo-Bac.  This actually works.  I’ve tried it before.

My last resort was hot hot water and dish soap.  I squirted a bunch of my mandarin non-toxic, ecofriendly soap in the toilet and filled up the kettle.  I dumped the almost boiling water in and waited.  A few air bubbles.  Better results than anything else so far.  Nothing doing half an hour later so I plunged again.  I think it worked.  I have to wait for the suds to subside before I can be sure.

Fun, fun, fun!  It’s only 1:55a.m.

Oh yes, in case the toilet incident wasn’t enough, we had another related incident.  Whilst I was disinfecting the bathroom after my plunging attempts earlier this evening the kids were watching TV in the living room.  On one of my trips to take dirty laundry outside I noticed an unmistakable smell.  I found this a little bit weird as the bathroom smelled clean and there was a faint aroma of bleach in the air.  I thought maybe the former odor had migrated or something.  I walked past a few moments later and figured there had to be something causing the smell.  I found it.  Fortunately, and unfortunately.  We had a dirty diaper incident in which the diaper failed to contain what it should have contained.  Ugh.  More cleaning and disinfecting and grossness.  Followed by bathing of child responsible for diaper incident and another child completely covered in chocolate pudding.

Not the sort of eventful day I dream about but I’m less squeamish about the dark and about dealing with the toilet.  I suppose that is good.

I anticipate needing coffee tomorrow.  Maybe a vat of it.  Too many short nights in a row.  The event’s leading up to last night’s late night seem incredibly mundane now.  I won’t bore you.  I’m wishing for that sort of boredom myself though!

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!  The suds have subsided.  One happily flushing toilet!  I’m off to finish cleaning the bathroom, shower, and go sleep.  Good night!

P.S. Please forgive any errors of grammar, spelling, or cohesion of regular thought.  My proof reading skills have been fumed away by the bleach!

As my self-professed “nerdy” sister has pointed out, I had used the wrong form of it’s/its twice during my last post.  I went back to correct this and noticed that not only had I made grammatical errors, I had given two posts in a row with the same title.  Both are remedied now.  Yikes!  No more late blogging.  Especially when one has a head cold.

Thanks Lindsey!  (I always asked Lindsey for grammar help if I was in doubt.  She is the grammar queen!  Did I mention that I am 2 years older and should have 2 more years of practice? )

Here is the rule for those of you who were wondering:

Might I be so bold as to point out the incorrect usage of “it’s” on your recent blog post… “it’s” (with an apostrophe) is only EVER used as a contraction of “it” and “is”, such as, “it’s going to be a lovely day.” When you want to indicate a possessive pronoun, the proper form is “its,” which on its own indicates possession, hence you don’t need an apostrophe.
“the sun and it’s summer warmth” should be “its summer warmth”
“Spousal sabotage at it’s finest!” should be “at its finest.”