2011 Poetry Contest!

Well, it's just around the corner: April—National Poetry Month—which means that it's time for Loralee's Fancy Poetry Contest! Aren't you so excited?

This year's contest is to write a limerick. I love limericks—they are so silly!

For those who may not remember this from high school English class, a limerick is a poem with five lines: lines one, two and five rhyme with each other; and lines three and four rhyme with each other, but not with lines one, two and five. Here is a classic example:

There was an old man of Blackheath
Who sat on his set of false teeth.
Said he, with a start,
"Oh, Lord, bless my heart!
I've bitten myself underneath!"

The meter (the way it sounds) is usually something like this:

Ta-TUM ta-ta-TUM ta-ta-TUM
Ta-TUM ta-ta-TUM ta-ta-TUM
De-DAH dee-dee-DAH
De-DAH dee-dee-DAH
Ta-TUM ta-ta-TUM ta-ta-TUM

(If you read a limerick out loud, you'll hear how it should sound.) Here's another example:

There was an old man of Ibreem
Who suddenly threatened to scream.
But they said, "If you do
We will thump you quite blue,
You disgusting old man of Ibreem."

As you can see, limericks are also rather ridiculous.

So here's the contest: Write a clever limerick.

The contest will run for two weeks, from today, March 30 to Saturday, April 16.

• You can post your poetic entries as comments to any of my posts between now and April 16.
• Participants may enter as many poems as they want to write—BUT children do read and participate on my blog—please keep this in mind, as you create!
• Poems will be judged on rhyme, meter, and overall silliness.
• There will be one winner in each of two categories: Children (up to 12 years old), and Everyone Else (older than 12)
• The winners will be posted on Sunday, April 17.
• The winner of the Children's Division will receive a Loralee's Fancy Poetry Contest certificate, their poem will be posted in the sidebar as the poem of the week, and they will receive their choice of a large package of M&M's or a large package of Skittles! *
• The winner of the Everyone Else Division will receive a Loralee's Fancy Poetry Contest certificate, their poem will be posted in the sidebar as the poem of the week, and they will receive their choice of either Decadent Mint Brownies or a Strawberry Bouquet! *

*Winners who live more than 25 miles from Salt Lake City will receive a Loralee's Fancy Poetry Contest certificate and a package of M&M's or Skittles, plus the recipe for the mint brownies (and I don't just pass that around to anyone!). ;-)

So wax poetic; be clever; get silly! And good luck! ;-)

(To see past winners, click here (2009) and here (2010).

Strike Updates

MARCH 11

Broke the unexpected news: Mom is on strike!
Bruce divvies out the housework amongst the kids.

MARCH 12
The drains all backed up while I was out playing with my sister.

MARCH 14
A facebook friend asked how the strike was going. I hadn't intended to post it on facebook, but now the whole world knows about my tantrum. ;-)

MARCH 15
Aaaaahhhh! Nobody's done laundry since the basement flooded! What a smell! Tomorrow I will buy Oxy-Clean and Febreeze.

MARCH 16
I had a bad day—mostly at Walmart when I didn't want to be. While dinner was cooking this evening, I took pictures of the messy house. I intended to look at them with Bruce and ask him to make the kids do their stuff better. Bruce didn't know this. He told the kids I was taking pictures to post on my blog—it was very effective. The kitchen looked amazingly great last night!

MARCH 17
I'm making St. Patrick's Day cupcakes. Since the kitchen was fairly clean, a lot of the mess today was mine. This gave me an excuse to do some clean up (like washing the sink and countertop). What a relief to do it myself and know it's done well!
Shhhh. Don't tell my family!

MARCH 19
Oh, this makes me tired. Being in a messy house makes me tired.
The kids are cleaning up every day, but still only once a day. That would be OK if the mess didn't keep reappearing.
Very tired.

MARCH 25
The kids did a phenomenal job cleaning up while I was running errands today! But once I get home, they let things slide. Like I'm going to pick up the slack for the rest of the day . . . which I am not.

MARCH 27
The house is such a mess today. This morning I woke up before everyone else and thought I'd at least clean up the kitchen. But I didn't. Where is the line?
I felt humiliated when Bro. Epperson (a man with nine children, a wife who teaches school, and quite a clean house) came with his son to collect fast offerings. Dirty kitchen with stuff piled all over the table; the dishwasher hanging open and full of dirty dishes; the floor obviously not swept in days; toys and games all over the living room; overflowing laundry hampers all over the living room . . .
Am I the only one who sees and feels this?

Poem of the Moment . . .

Have you noticed? I have a different poem in the sidebar about every two to three days. The poetry contest is coming up soon! So be ready to play with me in April! :-)

It must be Spring-time!

The ninja-birds are at it again . . .

I saw some movement from the corner of my eye . . . Starlings landing in my maple tree.

They wait in the tree, checking things out, and then they fly down to the lawn. We have a tree branch on the lawn—the first heavy snow came before the trees lost their leaves, and the weight broke several branches around the valley. It's a fine place to search for nesting materials. But that blue thing didn't fall off of any tree.

While his friend sits in the tree with a piece of nesting material in her beak, this guy nonchalantly flutters down to the rail of the deck. He stays there for a minute, and then runs across the railing . . .

. . . to the other side of the grill. Soon his friend drops down underneath the grill. I can see a little movement under there. Then they are both back in the tree, and then they fly away.

Here's what I find in the grill when I go to check things out.

The starlings are at it again . . . Springtime is really here!

What a Week!

It is probably my just punishment for leaving my family in the lurch, so to speak. Not that I'm rescinding—the "strike" is still on, and probably will be permanently.

We've had a crazy week! First of all, Mom went on strike. Since I quit being the housekeeper, I discovered that the kids will actually do a fairly decent clean up; it's just that after they've done their job once for the day they think they are done. So if the kitchen's been cleaned and then five people each get out three dishes, two butter-knives and one cup . . . and the milk and bread and two jars of peanut butter and three flavors of jam . . . then those things all stay out until the next day. And somehow nobody ever sees the dirt on the stove-top. But I do have to say that Ryan did a superb job on the kitchen last night. I think we are getting it.

Well, on Saturday all our drains backed up and flooded the basement. This could have been sheer catastrophe—and expensive. But the kids discovered it early and used the wet/dry vac in the basement. And my marvelous husband rented a power snake and got the line clean and working again. Yaaaay!!

Monday evening I was thinking our house didn't smell so good. Did the cat or the dog poop somewhere? By Tuesday night I had it figured out. Nobody had done any laundry after the drain thing happened. And there was a LOT of laundry in the basement when it flooded. Ugh!

Yesterday (Wednesday) I drove my kids to school and then stopped at Wal-Mart for Oxy-Clean and Febreeze; when I got back out to the van it wouldn't start. It really wouldn't start. My parents came to get me and we left the van there. I came home to a rather disastrous house, with no time to work on schoolwork, and I had to figure out how to get the kids home from school. At least that last one wasn't too tough—just a phone call, since their cousins also go to Entheos.

School got out at 3:15; the kids called me at 4:30 to ask what was going on. By 5:00 Bruce was heading out to see what was going on, when the kids finally got home.

I fixed dinner in a really dirty kitchen, we ate, and then we were going to go back to Wal-Mart so Bruce could have a look at the van. With my nerves all a-jangle, I ignored all the cleanup that had to happen and tried to soothe myself by playing the piano instead. Pretty soon the little girls were shrieking and dancing behind me; older kids were getting ready to go to Mutual; Bruce was on facebook; Michael was on his computer. I felt like the saloon pianist in a cartoon—the guy who just sits there playing, hunched over the keys while bullets whistle around his head.

At last, in the rain, Bruce and I drove his car back to Wal-Mart so he could check out the van. It's not the battery. It's not the starter. It's probably the fuel pump. But he couldn't do anything in the Wal-Mart parking lot, in the rain, in the dark. So the van has to stay until he can get back to it. We went back to his car and guess what—it wouldn't start! One of the battery cable/clamps broke. So we called a friend to take us home; the car will stay there until Bruce can get to it after work today.

At least all this is happening over Spring Break, which is good. That is the silver lining. Because I don't really have to go anywhere this week. Hopefully the car stuff will be worked out by the weekend and life will be back to normal.

Or is this normal?

Mother on Strike!

This Mom has gone on strike.

Actually, I got the idea from my Advanced Sewing teacher. I was talking to my friend, Cherylene (who is a mom of five) about how frustrated I've been with the housework. This semester has seemed more difficult than last semester to begin with; and on top of that, I can't do my homework at home without doing two hours of housework first just so I'll have space to do the homework. Toward the end of class Helen, the teacher, often sits and chats with us older ladies in the class as we work. She told me that one of her neighbors put a sign in the yard, "The mother of this house is on strike!" We all laughed.

Fast-forward to Thursday, March 9. I was sick and headachey all day, and I had my evening class to go to. And I had to take the bus besides, which meant I had to rush to get out of the house, leave just as dinner was ready to eat, and leave the house in rather a state (the house and I were both in a state). I told all the kids who were within earshot that after dinner they needed to clean the kitchen and the living room. I said this to them twice. As I ran to the bus- stop I remembered that we had a package of cookies on top of the fridge that the kids had been coveting. So I called the house, and told Lindsey that after they cleaned the kitchen and living room they could have that package of cookies. And then, for good measure, I texted Michael and told him that after dinner the kids all needed to clean the kitchen and living room and after the rooms were clean they could all have the cookies. I think I made myself perfectly clear.

When I got home at 10:35 that night I was tired and starving, so at first I didn't completely notice the state of things. I did see that the dinner dishes had been washed—yay, kids! But after I had my very late dinner I saw that the stove had dried up rice, hard, oily bits of cheese, oil, and grit all over it, and that it was covered with unwashed pans. The counters were not cleaned, the floor was not swept, the sink was filthy and had some dishes piled in it. The living room was untouched. And, adding insult to injury, the empty cookie package was sitting on the kitchen table!!

not my kitchen, but you get the idea

The next day was Friday. No school for me. By the time the kids had gotten ready for school the kitchen sink was heaped with dirty dishes, and the counters were still piled with stuff too. I could get the house whipped into shape, although it would take me the entire time that the kids were in school to do it. But I just plain-old didn't want to. I was wavering on whether or not I should clean up because, after a month with no oven, that very Friday I decided it was worth calling a repair man to at least look at it. (Turns out it was very much worth having the repair man come.) I would die of embarrassment if this guy came in to check out my oven and the kitchen (and particularly the range) was as filthy as it was.

And then I remembered the mom on strike. So I made a sign and hung it in my yard. And I made a list of grievances and proposed solutions and posted it on the front door. I felt a little qualm about it—I knew that it could be embarrassing for the family. But I thought I'd rather let them be embarrassed than be totally mortified—as well as over-worked—myself. So. I am on strike.

Bruce got home before the kids were out of school that afternoon, and he was quite willing to support me and play my game. He said that if I was on strike I'd better not go pick the kids up from school; so he did it. And he made them come in through the front door (instead of through the garage) and he made them all stand around on the front porch and read my STRIKE notice that was posted there before they came in. (Which, I found out later, made the neighbors wonder what was going on.) Then he divvied out the housework—including laundry—amongst them and told them to consider the strike as a permanent thing.

They got the house to look fairly decent that afternoon—not to my standard of perfection, but not so bad. And they did OK on Saturday—especially considering that our stupid plumbing backed up that day (Bruce fixed that—My Hero!).

By Sunday afternoon the house was looking pretty disastrous again. As I worked on fixing dinner (I was going to stop cooking too, but reconsidered since I still want to eat good stuff) . . . As I fixed dinner on Sunday, I thought how nice it was that my spring break was starting this week and I could get the house looking the way I want it to. And then I realized that, no, I can't do that. I want my kids to learn this lesson: There is no slave of the lamp, no magical being that comes to our house to clean up, cook, shop, do laundry, etc. And Mom isn't magical either; she is tired.

So I'm leaving all the housework—except for what I use just for myself—to be done by my family. It might kill me!

Or maybe the kids will step up. I hope so!

Daylight Savings

It always catches my by surprise. Here I thought I was awake an hour early, with a little time to spend just for myself, when Bruce's cell phone alarm told us we had to be to choir practice in half an hour.

Like I said . . .

I do like the extra sunlight, but this time-changing business is nothing but annoying!

The Most Important Meal

Everyone says it: Don't skip breakfast! Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!

Well, I often skip breakfast. Not because I'm not hungry; I usually wake up starved! But I look in the fridge and in the pantry and my body says, "Bleh." After about 45 minutes—the amount of time it takes to get the kids up and ready for our daily drive to school—I'm not starving any more, but I do feel ready to eat. So when I get home I can eat something in a nice, leisurely fashion, and stave off my hunger for another few hours. It's good.

Bleh.

Except on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I go straight from the kids' school to my school for Cardio Fitness Class (aka Play Like a Hamster on a Wheel Class). Then I feel a little guilty because not only did I skip the most important meal of the day, but now I'm exercising after having gone my entire night with no food to energize me or get my metabolism going. But it's still not too bad, because the class is only an hour and then I go home and have something to eat in a nice, leisurely fashion, staving off my hunger for a few hours.

But Wednesdays are terrible! On Wednesday mornings I go through the usual routine: Wake up ravenous; peer into the fridge, "Bleh;" get the kids up, get ready for school, etc. But this time I have to go straight from the kids' school to the train station and head up town for six hours of classes. By the time I've made it to my first class I know I could eat something. About an hour into class I am truly starved. After another hour my body quiets down and stops complaining to me, and I can finish the first three-hour class in peace.

But then I have to go to Patterns, the class that requires the most brain work. And the five minute walk from Tailoring to Patterns reminds me that I am starving, and that I have three hours of mind-intensive class to finish, and that the classroom is fiendishly hot. And then the afternoon blahs hit. It makes for a tough class.

Things might be different if this was in my fridge

or my pantry in the morning

Well, yesterday morning was kind of awful. I'd stayed up Tuesday night until 1 a.m. finishing a whole lot of hand-sewing for Tailoring class because I'd missed two weeks in a row due to strep-throaty kids, and was falling behind. This late-night sewing got me almost caught up with the class (and, as a bonus, I got to "watch" BBC's Sense and Sensibility while I sewed). At 1 a.m. I carefully laid my coat-fronts on the ironing board, so as not to wrinkle them, and then headed to bed.

Wednesday morning: I wake up about half an hour early, but still starved; look in the fridge, "Bleh." I think, "Maybe I can work on that late project for Patterns." But instead I start packing my school bags. Between my preparations and getting the kids up and ready for school I spend the entire hour and a half just getting myself ready to go. And now I'm really starving! But it's time to hop in the van and drive off. I throw a few granola bars and a bottle of water in my bag and we leave. As I'm pulling up to Entheos it suddenly hits me: I left my coat pieces lying on the ironing board! After some choice expletives (shoot! dang-it!) I drive back home. And then, thinking that I'm late anyway, I make myself a sandwich—which was kind of bleh, but quick and easy to do. At least I won't be hungry through the first class. I get my stuff together and drive for the train station. I get there just as the train does, and I have to RUN to make it (I am too old for this kind of adrenaline rush!) This gives me a headache and nausea that make me regret the turkey-pastrami sandwich for the next hour.

And then, a miracle happened! I didn't feel hungry throughout my Tailoring class! I didn't get hungry in Patterns until the last 30 minutes or so of class! I didn't feel like I'd rather go to sleep than draw another pattern all afternoon! I felt pleasant all day!

Could it be that I'd jump-started my metabolism for the day? Maybe breakfast really is the most important meal of the day! Whaddaya know?

Of course right now, first thing in the morning, having woke up (woken up? awakened?) feeling starved, and having looked around and gone, "Bleh," I am blogging about breakfast instead of eating it.

February's Good News

Uh-oh! February got short-changed because of all the tons of homework that was causing me fits.

But here's February's good news anyway:

Here's the good news of the day:

February 1

Got the bodice drafted and sewn for Patterns 2. Tomorrow I can try this stylish outfit on my dressform.

February 2

Yummy dinner, fell asleep in front of one of my favorite movies, to bed early. When did 10 p.m. become early?

February 3

Not much to tell today. I got all my "body drafts" made in P by M tonight.

February 4

Melanie dropped by to visit tonight. :-)

February 5

Bruce and I went window shopping this morning. Actually, bathtub shopping.

February 6

I don't remember. Lindsey says we talked and laughed together.

February 7

Umm. Stressful day.

February 8

Oh! Super stressful day!

February 9

Tailoring wasn't as bad as I anticipated. I feel a little lost in that class. But Helen (teacher) "held my hand" and I got through it happily.

February 10

Got my workout. Does walking the treadmill remind you of a hamster on a wheel? Bruce and I bought cookies on the way home. Yum!

February 11

I bought a year's supply—or what should be a year's supply—of cinnamon hot cocoa today. :-)

February 12

OK. I just re-read Feb. 10 and it made me laugh. I worked out and then bought cookies. Yay, me!

Bus Adventure

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays I get out of school too late to go pick my kids up from school. So Bruce rides the bus to work, I leave the van at the train station and take the train into town; in the afternoon Bruce buses over to the train station and then goes to get the kids.

Today, on the bus, I was just sitting there minding my own business and playing Sudoku on my phone. At one stop a man got on and, even though there were lots of empty seats, he sat right next to me. He glances at my phone and says, "How do you text on that thing?"

I say, "I go to my 'contacts' list and enter the name/number that I want." and go on playing my game.

He says, "Text me."

Well, that was unexpected! I say, "I can't; I don't have your name and number in my phone."

He tells me his name and waits for me to do something. I say, "I don't have your number." and play my game.

He says he doesn't know if he can remember his number. He thinks for a minute and then slowly gives me his number. I nod, and keep playing my game, wondering— what's the deal here? Is he just friendly? is he simple? does he think I'm cute? (I wasn't this afternoon), is he looking for a friend? I don't know what to say, so I say nothing. I am very rude, I suppose. After a few seconds he says, "Give me your phone number."

!?!

I say, "I don't give out my phone number." And I wonder how long I will be sitting next to this man. But he got off at the very next stop.

And this little adventure is the most unusual thing that has ever happened to me on the bus.