Today

Today I:

-transplanted more trees. I think I'm around the 75 done mark... I don't want to know how many are left. Now that the trees are in four gallon nursery containers, it looks like we have a real nursery. Crazy, that's what that is.

-moved the laundry basket of folded clothes from the couch up to my bed, and put half the clothes away. Then I moved the half full basket down to the couch again, so I could have room to sit on me bed.

-went to parent-teacher conferences where Kacy's teachers said she was great, a great student and all that. So smart, and so humble, too. For reals. Oh, and she's confident. May she use her powers for good, that's all I'm sayin'. As for Will, I knew this was coming: He's a smart boy who knows what he's doing, but she wishes he'd follow directions the first time she says them. Like, when she tells the class to put their homework in their backpacks when they are finished, everyone does it. Except will, who she has to tell personally. I raised my eyebrows in great surprise and replied, "But surely you are mistaken! My Will would never so such a thing! He's such a great listener at home! It must be your fault as a crappy teacher." Just kidding. I told her that for a few years I suspected he had hearing loss and even had his ears checked. His ears are almost mostly normal. It's a personality disorder called laziness. We're working on it. We've been working on it for about five years now.

-drove to "town" to the Wal-Mart so I could get a few supplies (like laundry soap so I can continue to wash and fold clothes and then not put them away) and my car started acting funny. I would decelerate and the warning lights came on and the CD player quit playing at every stop sign. Then, while trying to make it to Wal Mart (because they have a car section...) I lost the power steering for a second. I called Ryan and he went through a list of questions, and while talking to him, an older guy and his grandson (?) walked by and said, "Did you throw a belt?" I shook my head and said that I didn't think so, and they kept going. Ten seconds later Ryan told me to go pop the hood and check the belt. Well, I first went and got the most important thing on my list (the laundry soap) and while back there saw the same guys from earlier. I asked them if they knew where a car-fixing place might be, as Ryan suggested that I may need to get it fixed right then if I were to make it home tonight. The older guy said that he didn't live there, I responded the same, and the younger guy looked at his watch and said everyone is closed up. True. They asked me about he symptoms of my car's weirdness, said all the things Ryan had said on the phone, and then I thanked them for their time and paid for my Tide. An aside here: the three older kids semi-freaked out when I bought the Tide. "You've never gotten the orange one before!" I told them that we were going to live on the edge and try something new, whoo-hoo! I journey to the car, pop the hood (while the kids are hanging out the window asking when we were going to McDonald's) and check the belt. It's fine. I start the car and check on the belt while talking to Ryan. It's fine. None of my warning lights are on. The two guys from Wal Mart see the circus that is my life and that I have the hood up and come check on me. They look at my dash for information, have me turn on my lights, and advise me to go straight home without turning on the CD or radio, no AC, and no charging my cell phone because most likely my altinator is bad. (How do you spell "al-tin-ate-or?) So I go and do the thing that three men told me to do, thinking bad thoughts about Mazda and how I wish I had any of my Fords back. Or my VW bug. Sure it caught on fire once, but I didn't need those wires anyway.

-My mom sent me a link to a blog post about keeping the Sabbath Day holy. It was supposed to be funny, and a lot of comments said she was funny, but I must have left my humor in the Wal Mart parking lot. Maybe it struck a nerve of mine because I hate (HATE) when people have the attitude of "Since I'm not perfect, I won't even try!" and "I'm going to justify my struggles with using the phrases 'Don't judge me" and "I'm going to hell!' in a public forum for all to see. You know what? No one is perfect. Isn't it all about improvement? Striving to be better today than you were yesterday? Helping others along the way? I suppose the post was good for me in that it made me evaluate my feelings about Sundays. They can be the hardest day of the week, no doubt. But I wouldn't trade them for all the shopping or sporty activities in the world. Even on the days I want to lock my children in the car (with the windows cracked...of course) and enjoy a Sunday church service all by my lonesome, I still end the day with a restful feeling. Anyone who has seen me in a pew all by myself with my four kids- one of whom is Ed- may not believe that, but it's true. And someday I will be the older lady in the ward that gets to "chuckle" at the young mother struggling to keep her kids reasonably well behaved. This post also brought up a weird (possibly very negative) personality trait of mine. No, not that one. Or that one. You can stop now! The one I'm talking about is my inability to be friends with someone who can't take responsibility for themselves. I once broke up with a boyfriend after he slid his truck into the back of another car in the snow while reversing out of a parking space. I didn't break up with him for his poor driving skills, but because he said, "I have the worst luck! Why was that car even parked there? If it hadn't been snowing, I wouldn't have hit it!" WHHAAAAA! This was on top of "mean professors" and any other reason things weren't easy for him. I don't like you if you can't take responsibility for yourself. Could it possibly be he was a bad driver? Or that HE caused an accident? Or that HE wasn't paying attention in class? Or when he later got a ticket for a "Minor In Possession" (underage drinking) that it was all the cop's fault. Yah... moving on.

-this week I caught a rat that weighed like two pounds! He was a big one, and I made Ryan take him out, because that's a man's job. I'm in charge of all the poop in this household (ewww! dipers, booties, the dog...) I figure he can be in charge of taking out the two pound woodrats. The funny thing about those rats is that they are cute. Much cuter than any caged pet rat I've ever seen.

-the wild flowers are coming out in full force! Just today there were mountain sides of poppies. It looked like someone dumped a huge bucket of orange paint on the hills.

-helped Kacy with her math homework in the car; they were subtraction problems with borrowing. She was having a hard time with the first one, asking me how to do "27-8" because she didn't have enough fingers. I told her she was going to have to "borrow", and she replied, "But Ed's asleep!" It took me a second to realize what she meant... she thought I meant for her to borrow Ed's fingers.