Don't "Poor Little Mace" Me!

New Year's Resolution or no New Year's Resolution, I've decided that Saturday nights are my blogging night off. Saturdays are our Sundays anyway, what with all the church stuff we have going on that day, so Saturdays are my official blogging days off from now on. So there. Not that you're all hung up on how often I blog (well, my Mom kind of is, but she's learned how to text, so she won't really miss anything at Casa Flamingo). So the four of you who read this blog don't have to check for a post on Saturdays -- give yourself a break, watch a movie, or Glee reruns on the DVR.

You will be saddened to know that Mace is sick with whatever Dez had, but for some reason, instead of making him sluggish and weak, his illness has given him an extreme case of ADHD and Tourette's Syndrome. I hate to punish the kids when they're sick, but Mace has been brutal today with Casey, poking him in the eye, smacking him on the head and chasing him around the house with kitchen implements while screaming at the top of his lungs with a trail of slime running out of his nose. It has take all of Casey's self-discipline not to throw Mace off the porch. Mace has been in timeout at least three times today, but should have been in timeout at least ten times today with a few spankings in between.

I don't care if he does look like Harry Potter in that picture, he was definitely not the wonder of the wizarding world today.

Project Filtration: Step One

I'm not sure if you remember, but our water stinks. In its unfiltered state, it stinks like rotten eggs. In its current filtered state, it stinks like rotten eggs a little less. We've already spent plenty of money on two different chlorination systems that don't really work. Flamingo Joe has determined that the problem is the distance between the well pump and the chlorination system, which is, to be specific, something like a gazillion feet apart. So, as is his way, Flamingo Joe has a plan to fix the water problem without spending another $5000 on something that doesn't work. Step 1 of his plan involved the delivery of 6 yards of crushed shell this morning:

(Note that in the photo above it is no longer morning, it is 8:15 p.m. because that is when Flamingo Joe was able to start working on the project.) The idea was to move the big pile of crushed shell across the driveway to the well pump area. Flamingo Joe's specific intructions to both me and Grandma this morning before the shell was delivered was for us to tell the driver to dump the shell on the driveway. When I repeated Joe's instructions back to him to make sure I understood him correctly, I said, "So dump the shell beside the driveway by the oak tree?" And Flamingo Joe probably said, "On the driveway" but I was already distracted by a squirrel or something because when the driver got there, I had him dump the shell beside the driveway by the big oak tree, which was about 10 or so feet further away than Flamingo Joe had envisioned. So when we pulled up into the driveway after a trip to Lowe's at 7:45 and FJ asked if I was going to help move the shell, I kind of felt obligated.

As you know, it would not be a project at Casa Flamingo unless a necessary tool had to be fixed before actual work on the project could begin, so Flamingo Joe had to fix the wheelbarrow:

Once the wheelbarrow was fixed, it was time to get to work. We had the boys' help for about three minutes:

And then they decided to play King of the Mountain. King of the Mountain on a hill of crushed shells is painful, which is why Mace kept crying for someone to get him down and once lifted off the hill, he would climb back up.

Here's a glimpse of Step 1, all done:

After we were finished with Step 1, Flamingo Joe tried to describe Steps 2 through 72 to me and I got lost around Step 4 (something about a U-shaped pipe) because I thought I saw a bat, but I assume he knows what he's doing and that soon we will have sweet-smelling water that doesn't eat up the insides of the toilet. Woo-hoo!

New Phone

Well, the verdict is in . . . definitely a hypochondriac. Either that, or a victim of chronic allergies with symptoms (scratchy throat, sinus headache) that arise at about 4:30 every afternoon and are gone by morning. I've decided the cure for this ailment is to just take a Sudafed at about 4:30 every day.

I went to the Verizon store this afternoon to get the family new phones (me, Flamingo Joe, Grandma, Grandpa) and get our contract adjusted downward. Of the 1400 minutes we were allotted under our old contract, we were using 500, so it seemed like there was room to adjust. And we did. But I only had 40 minutes to complete the purchase of 4 new phones and re-do the contract. I swept in there, said here are the four phones I want, here's the plan I want, and I need it all done by 3:30. So three sales reps and forty minutes later I ran out of the store and still didn't make it to Casey's school in time to chat with my friend, which was why I imposed the deadline in the first place. I also left without having any clue how to operate the new phone (I've never had a touch screen before). I needed to call Heidi, but it took me six stop lights to figure out how to unlock the screen. And then tonight, someone called me and I couldn't figure out how to answer the phone -- I kept tapping the green phone symbol, but it wouldn't pick up.

And because I bought Joe a new phone and activated it at the store, Joe's old phone stopped working. At about 7:00 this evening I was getting ready to send out a search party for him because he hadn't gotten home yet and he hadn't called (because he couldn't).

Back when cell phones were just becoming commonplace, my parents both got phones immediately and I never understood that. The live in a small town -- what did they need cell phones for? If mom needed to find dad, she could just call the record room at the courthouse, his office, or Ann (the lady who cut his hair) -- if he wasn't at one of those places, he probably had just left and they would know where he was going. It seemed really silly to me that they would buy cell phones in a town where you could almost stand on the front porch and, if you yelled loud enough, either the other person would answer you or someone else who knew where the other person was would yell back.

Now, however, I understand. I can't just not know where Joe is anymore -- I have to be able to pick up the phone and be certain he will pick up or see that I called and call me right back. It's a level of codependency I never thought I'd see in my lifetime in my own marriage, but here it is staring me in the face. It's not even a trust issue -- it's just a security issue, I guess. And if I can't reach him, like I couldn't tonight, I get a knot in the pit of my stomach and break out in a cold sweat. What if his car broke down and he's standing on the Howard Frankland Bridge and no one will stop and lend him their phone? What if he passed out from caffeeine deprivation at work and his co-workers think he's just taking a nap when he slumps over his laptop?

But most importantly, if I can't reach Joe, how will Grandma know when to get dinner on the table? It's the most important call I make all day and it starts like this: at 5:15, Grandma asks, "Have you talked to Joe today?" She doesn't really want to know if we've engaged in mildly inappropriate banter via Instant Message that day (which we have, or he's accidently engaged [so he claims] in such banter with my assistant who sometimes uses my laptop). What she really wants to know is whether or not I have called Joe yet to ask him what time he'll be home for dinner. So then I make the call, Flamingo Joe gives us his ETA and the dinner preparations begin. It's a good system, but one that doesn't work if Joe doesn't have his cell phone. I wanted to use the small town system for finding your husband, but it doesn't work if you know your husband is either at work (sitting at a desk with a phone that you don't have the number to) or on the Howard Frankland Bridge. And when I stood out on the front porch and yelled, "JOOOOOOE!" I realized I wasn't feeling so good and went in to take a Sudafed.

Grandma's Home!

Yay! Her flight came in 12 minutes early and she was waiting at the curb wondering if we were really going to come pick her up when we drove up. Lucky for me, none of the four people who read my blog were at the airport and spotted her first, because they would have hustled her into their car, knowing what a find she is! She's so nice she'd probably just stay with that strange family because they obviously need help since they went to all the trouble to kidnap her.

You're going to be disappointed in this post tonight because I have a sore-ish throat and a headache so I'm headed to bed. Hopefully I haven't hugged you or licked the doorknobs at your house in the last few days, cause I'm afraid I'm getting what Dez has. Or maybe I'm a hypochondriac. We'll know tomorrow morning.

Please Un-One Bill Yourself

I awarded a motorcycle and a Hot Wheels car today for Mace's first potty-training successes (he took care of #1 in the potty once last night and once tonight). Right after dinner, though, I looked over and saw him kneeling down with "the look" on his face and asked him, "Mace? Don't you want to do that on the potty so you can get another toy?" He declined. Still not worth it to him, I guess. What is it about little boys and poop?

In other Casa Flamingo news, Casey ran down the driveway again today while I chased him in the car (Mace laughing hysterically in his car seat), and I spent 45 minutes on the phone with Verizon this morning trying to un-One Bill our house phone/internet/cable bill from our wireless phone bill. In case you have not figured this out yet, let me enlighten you on Verizon's latest tactic to stick it to you. Whenever a phone/internet/cable company offers you the "convenience" of putting all the services they offer to you on one bill, say "no." Do you remember the good old days when you got your cable from Company A, your home phone service from Company B, and your cell phone service from Company C? And if you had to cut back on your expenses, what's the first thing you cut? The cable, of course. You could just cancel it for a few months until things got better and then turn it back on. Well now, in the name of "convenience" and "bundling," these telecommunications giants like to sell you on a package deal that you cannot unravel (internet/cable/phone) without incurring a termination fee until your contract is finished. And then to "make your life even easier," they'll take your cell phone bill and combine it with your internet/cable/phone bill. Well guess what? If you can't pay the full bill -- meaning every single service that's on the ultra convenient One Bill, the company can cut everything off. All of it. All at once. To get news from the outside world, you'd have to drive to the sports bar and ask them to turn on Fox News. And good luck finding a pay phone.

A while back, when Flamingo Joe told me he had signed us up for One Bill and that we'd only be getting it online, I thought back then that I needed to undo it, but didn't want him to think I didn't trust him to make decisions. So when I was on the phone today trying to get the cable cancelled altogether (no luck -- stuck with it until August), I decided to tackle the silly One Bill problem. Do you know that they had to transfer me to no less than 6 people to accomplish it? I'm pretty sure they were hoping that I'd get sick of waiting and give up -- at one point, person #5 on the other end of the line went silent for several loooong seconds and I was convinced she'd hung up on me. I said, "Oh my goodness!!! Did you just hang up on me??" When she said, "no, I'm still here" I was really glad I had not said something awful during the long silence when I thought she had hung up and was on her way to the soda machine.

The last lady I talked to, who was the one who finally un-One Billed me, asked me why I was un-One Billing. I explained to her that should I have to make difficult choices in the future about what I was and was not going to pay, I wanted to have the option. She said yes, that was probably smart. Finally -- validation.

School Shopping

I went school shopping for Casey today. Not for clothes or pencils, but for an actual new school. For the past two years we've had Casey at a wonderful private school with wonderful teachers, wonderful curriculum, and wonderful friends. But the tuition has hiked up both years to the point where now there's just absolutely no way we can do it anymore. We shouldn't have done it this year, but I thought we'd struggle through the year, maybe the economy would improve and we'd be okay. But it was not to be. So now we are cutting everything from cable TV to, you know, regular meals. But losing Casey's school is the hardest thing. I'm very depressed about it.

Resigning yourself to pull out of one school is one thing -- actually finding a new school and trying to decide if it's the right fit for your kid, is another. So I've looked at two schools so far. The first one that I visited I rejected within about 5 minutes of asking, "So where do your seniors get into college?" and the answer included the phrase, "end up at" as in, "They usually end up at [insert list of local community colleges here]." If Casey wants to go to a local community college, that's fine (not really), but I'd like to know his education has at least prepared him to shoot a little higher.

Today, I visited the second one. The school's only been in existence for two years -- the school's founders converted a summer camp into a private Christian school that retained all the natural beauty of the camp and added all the latest classroom technology. The cabins have been converted into classrooms and the campus is full of massive oak trees. I snapped a few photos for you while I was there (forgive the quality, I was using my cell phone's puny camera). Here is the main walkway through campus:

Gorgeous, yes? And here is one of the classroom cabins:

Here is the lunchroom/chapel/lots of other uses building:

And here is one half of the playground -- the other half includes swings and a firepit. Yes, that's a lake you see back there -- the older kids kayak on it during P.E.:

And here is one of the goats. Yes, you heard me. Goats:

The school has three goats and an assortment of chickens that the children care for, as well as a garden where they grow vegetables.

It's a lovely school. And it will probably be where we send Casey next fall. Casey is quite agreeable to changing schools, which I don't understand at all. He loves his current school and is doing very well there. When I showed him the pictures above and asked him how he would like going to a school like that, he just shrugged and said, "Sure, okay." I said, "But won't you miss your school and your friends?" He thought about it for a moment and then said, "Umm, I guess. But that school (pointing to one of the pictures) looks good, too." He's clearly taking it much better than me.

The new lovely school does have its drawbacks -- they are still doing Saxon Math and I like the Singapore Method better. They do not have a band program and I am committed to raising my children to be band geeks like their parents, so it looks like I'd have to start the program myself, which could be problematic since I only know how to play the oboe -- and trust me, a band full of 4th grade oboists wouldn't be anyone's idea of music. They also don't have any after-school sports intramurals for the younger grades, so I'd have to exercise the boy myself and I couldn't teach soccer or basketball if my life depended on it. Though I could have all the children participate in the game Casey invented just today:

It's called, "Run Down The Driveway While Mom Chases You With The Car." You have to be very careful not to text and drive while you play, though.

Coffeehouse Without Grandma

I wish I had some pictures to show you from last night's Coffeehouse, but we were so busy trying to make sure we didn't forget anything that I forgot to take my camera. Grandma takes care of getting the fellowship hall at church ready for coffeehouse -- it normally looks something like this:



And it looked like that last night except that the centerpieces were a little bit different because that picture was taken at one of our first coffeehouses and also, thanks to Flamingo Joe's efforts and the generosity of the people who show up for Coffeehouse, we have light bars and a new sound board and new lights that make us all look like rock stars. He's got some other ideas to enhance the space, but he'll probably have to hold off on some of those. So far, the church has been very supportive of this ministry, but I think they'll draw the line at a fog machine.

Grandma Elsie normally takes care of setting the tables just so and setting up the coffee and cookies, sugars, creamers, etc. on the long table over there on the left. So with her being out of town this week, it was up to Dez and I to get things done. We had planned on doing all the baking on Thursday and Friday nights, but I think Grandma was afraid we'd just plain forget to do it, so she baked all the cookies and froze them before she left. Then she was worried that she had offended me by doing the baking for me. Silly Grandma.

We managed to get the room set up on Friday night with some help from a couple of other people on the women's ministry planning team and only had to call Grandma once to ask her which coffee pots we were supposed to use. The long table, after we'd set it all up, did not look nearly as nice as when Grandma does it, but everything was there. On Saturday, we remembered to bring the cookies over and we even remembered to turn the coffee pots on half an hour before Coffeehouse started. At the last minute, we remembered to heat the hot water, so Dez had to put it in the pump carafe about two mintes before we were supposed to start. She left out the spout, though, so someone trying to get hot water for tea figured that one out pretty quick.

I announced during Coffeehouse that we were missing Grandma, so people stayed to help clean up and we got it done lickety split, but I'm pretty sure there are things put back in bags or boxes that don't go there and poor Grandma will spend hours looking for what she needs next weekend when she's trying to set up.

We have not yet even attempted to take care of that little problem we were going to take care of while Grandma was away. If you can't remember what I'm talking about, maybe this picture will jog your memory:



We have not attempted to take the BoBo away. He wears the headphones around the house, by the way, so that he can ask you, "Can hear me?" For some reason he thinks his wearing the headphones means the rest of us can't hear. Though I am making progress on the potty-training front. Today marked Step 1 of potty training: Set Up The Bribe. This step entails enticing your child to take advantage of a golden opportunity to enhance his Hot Wheels Car and Truck Collection if he will go to the bathroom in the toilet. The key to this step is the set up -- for one or two days, every time you change the child's diaper, you say, "You know, if you will go tee-tee in the potty, mommy will buy you a new Hot Wheels car at the store . . ." or, if the diaper is of the dirty variety, you say, "You know, if you will go poopy in the potty next time, mommy will buy you a new truck at the store." Your child's eyes will get very bright and wide and he will ask to go to the store that very minute to get his new car or truck, so you will say to him again, "Not now -- only after you go tee-tee or poopy in the potty." This may go on for several days before the lure of the new car or truck wins out over his innate desire to sit in his own poo for hours. So the good news is that he might be potty-trained by the time he goes to kindergarten. The bad news, though, is that he'll still have his BoBo.