Wednesday, April 27, 2011

When did I start hating the phone

In my younger days like many a teen girl I pretty much had a phone glued  to my ear. Now my teen years are way back in the dawn of time you know right before everyone had a cell phone and texting was the norm, before any of us really knew what the internet was, let alone how to email or IM. The most advanced gadget we had was a pager which was just a way for someone to get you to call them when you weren't at home.

So the phone was my go to communication device for obvious reasons. When I turned 18 I got my first cell phone, nothing fancy still just a way to make and receive calls. Which was fine, I was a talker and that was all I needed. After a couple years I upgraded to push to talk cell ( the walkie talkie like Nextel/Sprint phones) still these phones were all about talking. It wasn't until I was in my mid 20's I got my first phone that took pictures and could text message. Now I adored these new features but I was still a talker. I've since upgraded a few more times and now have the do it all Droid 2 with more features than I even know how to use.

Somewhere along the way I stopped being a talker. Now and then I like to have an actual conversation, but for the most part I would rather text, email or FB than pick up the phone and talk. It has nothing to do with the people on the other end of the line, I don't love them any less, I just don't feel like talking. Now weather this change has more to do with me aging and changing or the changes in technology making it so much easier to be less personal I don't know.

Recently I've come to pretty much despise the phone for it's intended purpose. I'm happy to use it to text, email, post an update or a tweet,or play a game of angry birds, just don't ask me to make a phone call. I forget to call people back even the ones I really intended to call, if you have a cell and especially the same service provider I will text instead of calling . When it rings I get all annoyed without having a clue who it may be, just the ringing annoys me, and it's not the ringtone I've tried changing it, it doesn't help. I don't know exactly when my feelings about talking on the phone changed or why, but I actually kind of hope I get over it. I'm starting to feel like an asshole, shut in, whose not going to have any friends left because I can't be bothered to pick up the phone and return a call, or answer when they call me.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Veggie garden time

I love spring for so many reasons. The weather is starting to warm up, Yay! No more snow, another Big Yay. Grass is starting to grow, leaves start coming back, my flower beds start filling out again. My flower beds are a huge thing for me since I finally got them just about where I want them a couple years back and very little tweaking needs to be done to them each spring. Just the basic clean up and weeding and I can sit back and just watch all the hard work I put into them come back again and again. I love that.

But one of my favorite parts of spring is planting my garden (my vegetable garden). Every year I try and every year something goes wrong. Something will grow but only one year did everything I put in the ground actually grow and yield fruit or veggies. But this year I have a feeling things are going to be different. I haven't done anything massively different, it's just a feeling.

I started most of my seeds indoors in greenhouse flats, this is nothing new I've tried this before and failed miserably. But this year I waited until the middle of April and things began sprouting almost over night. I now have over half of 2 flats filled with starter plants that will be ready to go into the ground by next week as long as all chances of frost are gone. That shouldn't be a problem, but this is Michigan and it's not unheard of to get frost in the last week of April but I think by next weekend we should be safe.

I'm super excited about having fresh veggies all summer from my own garden. Last summer we had tomatoes,cucumbers, and peppers and just having those 3 things fresh on a regular basis was amazing. Not to mention money saving since we eat a lot of salads around here. I also love teaching my kids about providing for themselves, as well as others since any excess we have that we won't be able to use or can in time we will donate to local shelters or food banks. The kids will help with everything from planting, to weeding, harvesting, and if all goes well canning and preserving for winter. They will also go with me to donate any extras.

Until then I will be dreaming of all the fresh yumminess  that will hopefully be coming from my own backyard in the next few months. How about you, do any of you have plans for backyard gardens? If so what will you be planting?


Monday, April 11, 2011

Going to the North

This past weekend the hubs and I decided to take the  munchkins and all our toys up north. For those of you unfamiliar with Michigan lingo that is any where north of the thumb area where we reside. In our case it was about 5 hours 200 and some odd miles. When we told the kids we were going up north my son (the 4 y/o) immediately started saying we were going to the north, like were from the Confederacy and were heading into Yankee territory.

So we pack up the kids and the 4 wheeler, and dirt bikes, and go~kart, and hit the road in the wee hours of the morning. It was fairly nice weather in our area and all the snows been melted for at least 2 weeks. We get to our friend T's land at around 9:30 a.m and it's a little chilly but not bad definitely not bad enough to explain the large patches of un~melted  snow everywhere and still frozen ponds. We unloaded set up and gassed up all the the machines.

We  explored a few trails that didn't work out so well due to the snow,and we all look forward to getting back up there and seeing them when they're clear. But we did find some really great riding after awhile. The day warmed up and we found a pretty perfect clean path that the Princess was able to ride like a pro I swear I think she is better than me on a 4 wheeler, Apparently the go~kart is a pretty smooth ride or the boy was just that tired cause he actually nodded off at the end of the day in the passenger seat (wish I had a picture). For once the hubs actually got to let off some steam since I was there to watch the princess while he road his dirt bike.

A  couple really good old friends of ours were with us too, our friend T whose place it is we stay at and his cousin will just call him K. Anyway the princess had a grand time chasing them down on their 4 wheelers and trying to race them. She cracks me up sometimes last weekend she was at a pom competition, this weekend she was riding around on a 4 wheeler chasing down grown men and getting all muddy and loving every minute of it. Not to be out done the boy would backseat drive from the passenger seat of the go~kart and demand I catch the princess as she was not to win. 

We only got 1 day because the next morning we woke up and it was cold and raining like crazy. Everything was just a huge mud puddle mess. Which would have been all kinds of fun if a) it wasn't cold and b) we had more clothes but we had already gone through everything. But our buddy goes up every couple weeks, so we can go back up just about anytime and stay longer. Now it's just a matter of figuring out when our schedules mesh.

Oh well I'm not complaining even that 1 day away with the family to just go hang out and have fun doing something we all love together that really is just priceless.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Another Saturday another Pom competition

The princess and her pom team had Tri~States yesterday. It's like the 4th competition  shes's done in as many months. But for the first time I think she really enjoyed herself. She loves pom and she loves performing, but the being there all day is kind of boring for her.

Usually we all go as a family to her competitions, but this weekend the hubs had to work, and this one was a 2 hour drive one way on top of being an all day thing so I got my little sister to babysit the boy for me, because otherwise I would have spent the whole time running up and down bleachers telling him no and pulling my hair out. So it was just me and the princess. Which was kind of nice we don't get a lot of time just me and her.

On the drive there we talked about what she didn't like about comp. and mostly it's just how long it is and that she gets bored. I asked her if she ever watched the show or if she just hung out with her friend.She said no she never really got to watch , because her one friend didn't want to, and she was still getting to know the other girls because this is her first year on the team, and most of them have been together for 2 or more years. So I suggested that when she wasn't practicing with her own team she actually try to watch the other teams performances and if her one friend didn't want to watch then she could come sit with me or try hanging out with some of the other girls who were sitting down to watch.  When we got there the baton teams were still going on, and her team mates were all loosely gathered so we found seats in that general vicinity got her stuff together and off she went to visit. But every once in awhile she would come find me and sit down for a few to take in the other teams.

When it came time her team went out there and totally rocked. They performed twice once for open and once for championships. They placed 1st for open and 2nd for Championship. Yay!!!

On the way home she was exhausted but in a better mood than she normally is after a comp. I asked her if this one was better for her than the ones before and she agreed that yes it was. She had more fun, she actually liked watching the other teams, even the ones she was hoping her team would crush, she was starting to make more friends and that made a world of difference as well. She also really liked that it was just me and her and no little bother running around annoying her all day. Can't blame her there he can be a pain in the rear.

So all in all even though it was a long, exhausting day she was pretty happy about it all in the end. Now we have a break until the next one in May.