How'd Halloween Go For You?

No. 1 came with Ekans tonight to "charm" the trick-or-treaters.

She did a "pet the snake and get a piece of candy" hawk. lol.

Angelina Jolie as a child showed up at my doorstep so cute that I took 2 photos of her.


I'd say we had 100 kids this year; could have had more adolescent interlopers had we left the light on longer, but we were down to the last bag and a half of three musketeers (which are always saved for last because Em and No. 1 love them), so shut down the operation at 8:51. Em got home from work about 10 minutes after we shut down. He still hurts some, but hasn't had repeats of those spasms. That means life is good.

Your Mama Said There'd be Days Like This; There'll be Days Like This, Your Mama Said.

Forgot all about the wheat berries I've had soaking in the pantry for several days. The bushes are still sitting outside on the patio in their pots (which is okay for maybe up to 7 more days), and I have ALMOST 2 holes dug. 2 more holes plus soil amendments and we can plant those puppies.

It seemed kinda strange that Em had really bad cold symptoms last Sunday that went away by Monday morning (I'd thought) through the shotgun approach I took supplying remedies. He was fine the whole week up until Friday when his back started to bother him. Big day at the Racetrack on Saturday, working 9-9. His back was still bothering him in the morning, but he thought he could do the shift. Simply put, he couldn't. They drove him home about 2:30pm with spasms in his back. They'd wanted to take him to a hospital, but we're not hospital people.

We've been attacking the back problem probably as much as we can (or should) while it's still in the spasm phase. I have some familiarity with back problems having suffered from them over 20 years ago. We figure he'll be okay, but I'll be wondering for a while why he got this at this time and did it have something to do with the cold that he lost within a day that's lingered on in me for a full week now. Who Knows, right?

No. 1 came today to work on a paper for school. She has a plethora of papers due in the next few weeks, all in APA format. The one due this week is for her most anal-retentive professor, so it was kindof the test case and one that really required the services of anal-retentive mama. Who knew THAT feature of my personality would come in handy some day? APA format and Microsoft Word mix like oil and water. Her prof warned her, and we saw first-hand today. Frustrating doesn't quite describe the experience, but after a whole day we thought the product "good enough" and actually managed to save a copy without Word modifying the format. If she wants to (if she's anal-retentive enough), No. 1 will hunt down where the tab is 3 spaces instead of 5 and where the reference source is font 10 instead of 12). She's the one who needs to keep the 3.5 GPA to sustain her scholarship. Or, she can hope her anal-retentive prof is too busy or unforgiving to notice/care. Feeling lucky?

She stopped at the store for a few things for us on her way over and had the realization (fantasy?) that she's become part of the sandwiched generation without the bottom half of her sandwich. Now she's totally worried about us and talking about getting us on her cell phone plan. Of course, Em looked to be about 140 years old with his bad back and I had to ask her to help him out of the chair to come to the phone when his grandson called. The boy suggested he could call back. I had to tell him, "You don't want to get your grandfather out of the chair and then hang up." lol. Good times;good times.

Em's son mentioned coming to town next weekend. Might need to get the guestroom bed made up in case he spends the night here.

In the puzzle/game department, I've found online jigsaws. Right now I'm limiting myself to puzzles within the 50-70 piece category because they take less than 30 minutes to solve. That works for me. I like to mix my more obvious productive time with short sessions of non-obvious productivity and it's really kewl how online puzzles don't require any space in the home.

Wheatgrass and Other Stuff.

Em teases me because I think it's important for us to eat from all the colors in a crayon box. Not the BIG 64 crayon box, but the small one with the 8 colors. The 8th color is green "other". Seriously; I read this. So, as mentioned previously, I decided to get "into" wheat grass juicing.

It takes a while to get the wheat berries "going", and it doesn't help when you soak 1/2 cup of wheat berries and put them into a container that will only accommodate 1/4 cup, then decide (2 days later) that there are too many wheat berries and rip the poor things out and put them into a second container. We live and learn, though. The roots on those things went through the drainage holes on the bottom after only a few days.

So, the process goes something like: soak the wheat berries for 24 hours (or 3 days if you're too lazy to move on to the next step). Drain them and lay them onto soil with good drainage. Cover. I drained and resoaked them every 8 or so hours using an old instant coffee jar with a knee-high nylon stocking and rubber band.



In just a day or two the sprouting grasses started forcing their way through the small holes atop the containers. I waited until they got really forceful to open the lids permanently, but I still rinse them every 8 or so hours. I put the green grass outside if the weather is clear. Developmentally, here's the process from front to back:



In other news, there's absolutely NO TRUTH to the rumor being spread about how I panicked when the fanbelt broke off the car on the way to Oklahoma last Monday. I heard Em say that he couldn't stop or steer the car and didn't scream ONCE. I spent the whole time (while miracle man drove to the car repair place) looking out the passenger window at the lovely Texas scenery. I was even so calm that we continued to Oklahoma once the fanbelt was replaced. We forgot to turn off the hazard lights when we got there, so killed the battery while we were there, but Casinos are good about fixing things like that.

Lots of things are going on this month and next if you look to the right of the blog for information. Em's job precludes us from attending most of these things, but maybe you can attend things in your area.

I've ordered a number of fruit plants to help us maintain our crayola diet. Ordered mostly 2 of stuff so they could pollinate each other a little... 2 peach trees, 2 blueberry bushes, 2 blackberry bushes, 2 raspberry bushes, 6 strawberry plants. Some repetition isn't necessary; for instance, the peach trees are self-pollinating, but we've been looking to put some trees in our backyard for a while now and one at each end worked for us. We'll receive the stuff when it's time to plant them.

Tomorrow or the next day we'll begin "harvesting" the wheatgrass for juice. I'll let you know how it tastes (plain, mixed with other juices, etc.) I'll also let you know if we can leap tall fences in a single bound after drinking a shot of the stuff.

Don't forget Halloween is this month. Lots of kids look forward to the community afforded by neighbors oohing and aahing over their costumes while stuffing their bags with treats.