dinner conversation

Boo: Mommy how old is you?
Me: Twenty nine.
Boo: Mommy how old is Daddy?
Me: Forty.
Munchkin: Wow that's BIG!

Perhaps luckily, Daddy was not in the room.

hope we can put it back together....

So we noticed a few weeks ago the truck has a leak. Hubby identified it as the water pump. This is a bad thing (I'm told) because while the parts are not terribly expensive to replace it, it is a very labor-intensive task. (translation: he's semi-scared to do it, but it would cost a gazillion dollars in labor fees to have a shop do it.)
So, now that the puddle on the garage floor is larger each day, today he started tearing my precious truck apart. I dutifully helped [hold flashlight, read manual, hand him tools, occasionally suggest different method to get STUPID plastic hose clamps off, and oh yea the unspoken task: be ready to call 911 if he gets hurt].
My truck's engine is in many more pieces now than it was 3 hours ago... the radiator shroud is off (both pieces, not just upper as expected), the fan is off (now we need to find a 1 7/16" crowsfoot to put it back on), and since for some STUPID reason the radiator does not have a drain valve (seriously GMC, what the fuck???) he had to cuss a previously-mentioned plastic hose clamp off to drain the booger. Now he's out there flushing it [supposedly I am searching for stores that carry the crowsfoot since we really want to put this back together tomorrow so I can drive it to work Sunday].
All this fun.... and I've only barely gotten through grown-up laundry this weekend so far. I haven't started the girls' stuff. Ick.

AUGH!

After an oh-so-fun evening feeling like crap, I eventually chugged a glass of wine I'd nearly forgotten I had poured, laughed heartily at a Dirty Jobs shark week episode, and headed to bed. I was in the bathroom doing what I do, when CHIRP! the smoke detector announced the battery was low.
I was less than pleased.
I headed downstairs, rummaged in the junk drawer, found a 9volt battery, got the roughly 2ft stepstool from the garage, went back to my room (furiously texting hubby who is at work on overtime) and stretched as tall as I could- to discover I had NO IDEA how to change the battery in the damn thing. I finally found the battery compartment, but I was just a teeny bit too short to get the old battery out. Stupid 9ft (or is it 10ft?) ceilings.
So I took the stepstool back down to the garage and retrieved the ladder. Which hangs on the wall. In front of the truck (hubby took car to work). Above the lawnmower.
That sucked.
Almost as much as getting the ladder up the stairs without damaging myself or the walls.
By the time I was setting up the ladder, I had hubby on speakerphone going "what's happening? It's doing what?" and I managed to get the old battery out, put the new one in, and the damn thing STILL CHIRPED so I had to go back up the ladder (which hurts in bare feet, btw) and jiggle the battery some more.
I got it to stop chirping. I got the ladder back downstairs. I told hubby HE could put the darn thing back on the wall I was NOT climbing over the lawn mower again tonight.
Now I am all fired up, no longer sleepy at all, and it is very nearly 1am. If left alone, I get up at 9. Somehow, I was awake at 6:30 and off and on until getting up at 7:30 this morning. I am very tired, but still ALL TICKED OFF and thusly not ready to sleep.
bleah.
Why yes, I am willfully ignoring the load of whites in the dryer ready to be put away, thank you very much. I am also not going back in the garage in search of the small bucket to drain my washing machine, which yesterday developed a musty odor. Yes, the load of whites in the dryer is the last load of laundry in the house, I washed everything else over the last 2 days. (For the record, the washer smells LESS now than it did before I did laundry. I did run it through it's "Tub Clean" cycle, which took 1hour 9 minutes, holy crap.)
On the plus side, this morning before the children got up I watched the doe eat from my birdfeeder to the point I opened the back door and told her that wasn't her food. She didn't run as fast as I expected. She looked up when I undid the deadbolt, looked harder when I opened the door, but only backed off when I stepped outside and spoke. Didn't see the buck today.

not what we expected to be feeding...

How cool is this? I finally was home during daylight to refill the birdfeeders this morning, and this afternoon I glanced out the window and was shocked to see these two.
Explains a few things about our seed usage, and why the tube feeder was on the ground this morning...
I hope the buck doesn't wander in the wrong areas, it's currently hunting season here. He'd make a nice trophy for someone inclined to those things.

Once I got over my surprise (and got my pictures) I just kept thinking "I love where we live!"

if you feed them, they will come

How many do you see in this picture? I've spotted 4 on the tube feeder, 1 on the suet, 1 on the lamppost feeder, with 2 more enroute & 1 just watching from the background.
There were a good 2 dozen more in the background. It's ridiculous.
My bluebirds stopped by this morning, had me quite excited, as well as a few woodpeckers again- 1 we hadn't seen before with an excellent scarlet cap (according to my book, he'd be a Red-bellied). We have a pair of Downy woodpeckers, the female cracks me up because she comes up to the house much more often- I spotted her on a deck balustrade, and as I called the girls to come see, she hopped over to a handle of the grill, then to the deck rail and finally flew to the woods.
I haven't seen the male cardinal today, but the female has been out quite a bit.
I must remember to buy more food when we're out this afternoon- emptied the bag without totally filling the feeders this morning. Once I realized just how many birds are coming, I'm no longer surprised at the amount of food we go through.

watch the birdie!

Apologies for not having pictures of actual birds at our birdfeeder- It now gets dark as I arrive home, and I didn't think last weekend to sit with camera at the ready.



So the birdfeeder was erected in hopes of keeping the bluebirds around. Husband swears he saw them during his weekend, right after we put up the feeder, but I haven't seen them yet. I did enjoy lying in bed this morning, wishing I didn't have to get up, watching the birds come to the suet. I saw a bluejay, a woodpecker, and some other little things...

chirp cheep tweet!

Twice now I've seen blue birds (Eastern Bluebirds, specifically) sitting on the railing of our deck. Yesterday I sweettalked the hubby into putting up a birdfeeder. He surprised me by willing to put up a larger feeder than I had envisioned.
We set it up late yesterday evening, right about at sundown. It looked like this picture.
He texted me early this afternoon to say the tube feeder was empty and the top thingy was under half. By the time I was leaving work, he had refilled them, so I got to take what can pass as a 'before' picture. I did get to see a pair of cardinals already. Hubby reports there was a woodpecker, lots of my bluebirds, the cardinals, and he has no idea what else found the seed already but there were "A LOT OF BIRDS".
I'm pleased.