Riding in Cars with Boys

No, this is not a movie review.

Truth be told I've never seen the movie, but it's a fitting title to this entry.

I also realize I went a few weeks there where I was blogging daily and then I just STOPped again.  That's just how I roll.

I must first set this stage.

Two years ago my family & I moved here to Tennessee.  We rent a lovely farmhouse from a gal I had met on a mommy board forum thingy...

This gal has 4 sons, ages 13, 14, 16, & 20, and one grandson, age 16 months; complete with her bipolar husband that she's known since at least middle school, two dogs, two rabbits, 50+ fish, a mouse, a hamster, a tarantula, and two cats).  Top that reality TV!



Long story short my family is an extension of her family...her VERY extensive family of in-laws & blood relatives...we all celebrate all the holidays together, kids' birthdays, random weekends, the whole works.  I ABSOLUTELY love it & them!  If most of my in-laws & half my family weren't destined to live in the nuthouse to avoid prison I imagine it'd be how I would imagine my family life being - some petty drama, but everyone still loved, honored, & respected each other & didn't even have to pretend to do these things!

In short, off the top of my head, there are, counting my two kids, about 12 boys - ages - 21, 20, 17, 16, almost 15, 13, 10, 10, 9, 9, 4, 2, & 16mo ....There is also almost as many girls - ages - 18, 15, 14, 12, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and almost 2.  And one baby on the way.  Plus a dozen or so on the sidelines that fade in & out there...hey, I've been here 2 years, see them all at least a dozen times a year & I still don't have the count down totally.  There is also 15 or so adults for this particular batch, plus another dozen or so that belong to the dozen or so other kids...  In short - a LOT of people.  I've lived in towns that didn't have as many people in it.

But they all have their various levels of comfort, especially when it comes to things of a sexual manner.  I'm reasonably open with my kids, it doesn't bother or embarrass me to speak frankly/clinically with them & will answer or correct whatever misconception they may have about anatomy, sex, & child birth - I figure if I do well enough I won't have grandchildren until they're at least in their mid/late-20s.  RIGHT?


So, on with this...

On Friday the 20th my Carbon Kitty had kittens - 5 to be exact; 4 of which survived the birth.


awww...

On Saturday, the 21st, we were invited to the birthday party of one of the boys that just turned 9.



All went well at the party.  As the party wound down, that was held at the "MeMaw's" house, Mikeal wanted one of the 10yo boys to come spend the night with us.  I discussed it with his mom & things were settled, such was to happen.

Now, MeMaw lives about halfway between where I live & where my landlady lives (8miles from each of our houses to MeMaw's).  My landlady's just turned 16yo boy works about 1/2 a mile from my house & had to be at work by 4:30, but my landlady had to run home first & take care of some stuff there, before having to run him back out 16 miles, yada yada...  Being the awesome person I am I volunteered to take the 16yo to work - hell, so long as I don't speed past the driveway it's really not at all out of my way.

So I left the party with 16, 10, & 9 year old boys & a 4 year old girl in my car...

I start going over the rules at my house because this particular 10yo boy has never spent the night at my place, plus we have BRAND new kittens.

I'm explaining about how there is NO TOUCHING ALLOWED of the kittens when my son pipes up to explain how our cat POOPED out the kittens....this is that conversation:

Mikeal:  Yea, Carbon pooped out the kittens!
16yo boy: *snicker*
Mikaila: NO WAY!
10yo boy:  Dude - That's GROSS!
16yo : *snicker laugh*
Mikeal:  It's true, all babies are pooped out!
Me:  They're not pooped out, Mikeal.
Mikaila:  EWWWWW
Mikeal:  Well, they came out of her butt!  (said all know-it-all-like)
16yo: *BWAHAHAHAHAHA* *snicker*
Mikeal to Mikaila:  Momma pooped you out!
Mikaila: *laughing* NO WAY!
Me:  No, I did not poop either of you out - I had cesareans with both of you, remember.  Kinda like how LugNut had the puppies - a doctor went in, cut a line across her stomach, then through the uterus, & pulled out the babies.
Mikeal:  BUT Carbon POOPED OUT THE BABIES! I SAW IT!
16yo:  *just howling & snickering*
10yo:  *mind just blown in shock & questions*
Me:  No, she did not.  See, women have what's known as a vagina & vaginal cavity that connects to a uterus where the babies grow...when it's time the babies are pushed down the vaginal cavity & come out the vagina, which is totally different from the butt where poop comes out.

16yo:  *SNICKERING*

Mikeal:

*wait for it*

*Get over your shock that I just told a car full of boys all about vaginas, and used the word vagina & vaginal cavity & uterus*

Breathing now?

Mikeal:  Oh, so babies are peed out!
10yo:  Well, if they're not pooped out, they have to be peed out.
16yo: *HOWLING*

Me:  Dammit!  I almost missed the driveway....

16yo:  Yea, it's hard to see the sign until you're right up on it.

16yo exits the car & goes into work

There is no more talk about vaginas, pooping babies, peeing babies, uterus-es, and the like for the remainder of the 10yo boy's stay at our house.

At some point in time I fully expect to hear from the 10yo's mother...maybe.  Of course I'm good enough friends with the 16yo's mother that I'll likely tell her the next time I see her in person & within a week or two that whole family will know all about it....and poor Mikeal won't have any more friends spend the night here...at least not of this batch of boys.  (No, that last part won't happen as I'm sure they all know that I don't shy away from it...FUCK - they'll likely send the boys over here more often so they can avoid these talks!)

This post was brought to you thanks to @jillsmo & her post: "And no information was actually imparted"  ...I hadn't thought about making it into a post until after I started my comment there.

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Introducing Miss Zoey Frances

My newest niece addition is here!  Isn't she precious?

My newest niece's momma is my new labor hero!  Today was her due date, but she started having semi-regular contractions on Good Friday...went to the hospital on Sunday, then sent home because the contractions backed off after she was given some Nubain for pain.  They continued, got bad again, went back to the hospital on Monday, same story.  On Wednesday the contractions were fierce & 2min apart for over an hour...so went back to the hospital & that time the hospital decided they'd keep her.  Thursday morning she wasn't making much progress so they started pitocin...Thursday evening the doc came in saw no progress since that morning, so broke her water.  6hrs later Miss Zoey arrived...with no other drugs.

Yes...nearly 7 days of labor contractions, no drugs, and Miss Zoey came into this world weighing 8pounds 1 ounce and just shy of 20 inches long.  (Momma did have to get two internal stitches)...

I'm told my brother is handling it well, but is quite the helicopter.  I really don't blame him though.  His first love had one, possibly two kids with him before she ran off with some other man, leaving no forwarding information.  Then last year his wife ran off when she was 6 months pregnant after the state told her they would be taking the new baby from her upon her birth after they terminated her rights to her oldest that she'd lost custody of before she & my brother met - she kept up the drugs & stripper lifestyle; even was part of a big prostitution ring at the 'massage' parlour she was working at as a 'receptionist' around the time she found out she was pregnant...and Daniel has only heard that she filed for a birth certificate - outside of that no one knows anything.  He's been with this new gal since not long after that all happened & things seem to be well enough.  At least I've never heard my mom say anything bad about Zoey's momma and they've been living at my mom's house for a while, so that's definitely something - my mom has something bad to say about everyone.

I really hope it works out for all of them this time & that their local economy straightens up so that everyone can get back to work on a regular/full time basis.  And I'm so thankful that he finally found a gal that the paternity of his child isn't in question & seems to actually have a head on her shoulders.

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Sensational Crab Cakes

I really wish I would have known crab cakes were SUPER easy!  ZOMG!  It took about 5 minutes to assemble and another 5 minutes to cook for each batch.  This recipe will make about 18 palm-sized crab cakes...if you make them smaller it'll make more; if you make them bigger it'll make less..  And really, this is just a guide, feel free to add or omit what you like, I'm just sharing the way I made them.

Ingredients:

1 - 8oz container of Daisy Light Sour Cream
1 cup Mayo (not that Miracle Whip stuff)
3 Tablespoons bottled horseradish
2 packages of Crab Classic Chunk style crab meat; well diced
            (yes, I know it's fake crab, but it has a nice taste)
2 sleeves of saltine crackers finely smashed
            (I used child labor to smash them in Ziplock bags)
handful of finely diced/chopped red onion
1 Tablespoon dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon or so of salt
1/2 teaspoon or more of ground black pepper

Olive oil


Directions:
Set aside about 1/2 a cup of the crushed crackers into a small bowl.

In a large mixing bowl add all the other ingredients.  Mix with a handmixer on medium speed until very well blended.  IF you don't have a hand mixer whisk everything but the crab, onion, & crackers together, once well whisked add crab, crackers, & onions, mix well. 

Pat into about palm sized patties, then coat in cracker crumbs that were set aside.

In a large skillet heat a few Tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat.  Carefully lay your crab cakes into the hot oil.  When the cakes start to turn just slightly brown around the edges flip the cakes, wait a few minutes, remove from the pan.  Serve.

I served ours over a bed of couscous that had been lightly seasoned with diced garlic, olive oil, & parsley.

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Gardenesque

This is a bit of a continuation from yesterday...

Cucumbers - raised tire beds.  I have a bare area in my yard where some idiots thought they'd do donuts in the yard (happened just before we moved in) and it just destroyed that area.  I've seeded it twice with grass seed to no avail, so why not put my cucumbers there..putting the hills in tires assists in my not having to do as much weeding as I may otherwise, right? 

((Besides, you wouldn't expect much less of a recycling momma who was married to a mechanic if she didn't take advantage of things like old tires, would ya?))

Tomatoes & Peppers (I still need more rocks for my veggie rock garden, but they're in the ground...) I started with an overgrown corner of the yard, trimmed it way down...at least until I ran out of string for the trimmer and then with my lovely garden spade & pick ax I dug out this corner of the area, removing all the grass & some large rocks.

It's still a work in progress since I just started it yesterday...I'll take pictures later this week/early next week of at least this finished section.  And OMG! The pollen build-up is INSANE this year!

Snow peas & Radishes I've had this raised bed for 3 seasons now & it does really well for the peas & radishes, then after the peas have sprouted & then started withering (mid-season) I yank them out & put in some green beans that die off when it starts getting cool, then I switch back to snow peas...sometimes I'm able to harvest both crops of peas.  ☺  Radishes just take a month from planting to harvesting, but suck if it's hot out, so I do them like the snow peas.

Broccoli, Spinach, Cabbage are each in my containers this year.  I also did either onion seeds or carrot seeds in the big container.  I also have one container of Strawberries.

Strawberries are the rulers of my little raised bed...and man do they look promising this year!

I also planted two blue berry bushes this year.  I may get a few berries off of it this year, but I'm not going to expect much.  ((As you can tell, I already need to mow again, BADLY!  This having to mow every other day to keep up with the lawn is getting ridiculous!))

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Gardening

I still have strawberry plants from two years ago, plus some others I've added to the bed since and it looks like most in the 3'x6' raised bed are well on their way to producing fruits - YAY!

Well...so long as creatures like these stay out of them...

This is my newest garden-to-be spot.  The side of a mound next to the house that's impossible to mow & annoying to use the weed trimmer on.

My plan is to get it trimmed as close to the ground as possible, then cover it with weed/grass killing plastic then dig/cut out areas for my plants (mainly tomato & peppers) and then cover the plastic with either rocks or mulch to keep it in place...a Rock garden for veggies maybe?

I was really shocked by some of the things I found while trimming in this area...and SOOOO thankful that I decided to wear my boots & jeans instead of my normal shorts & sandals...The trimmer hit an especially thick area and out slung a rat snake...spewing it's gutsy juices EVERYwhere...then the trimmer ran out of string...but I did succeed in killing the super scary grass monster!  ((I spared you (and I) pictures of it....))  But I did include a pic of my awesome work boots that I just LOVE!

 I'll share the rest of my garden areas tomorrow....or the next day...it depends on the rain.

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I Might Get Used to This

It's April 1st.

Traditionally by this time of year things have kinda started blooming, it's still cool, but you can just almost taste summer in the air.

This year.  It is 85 freaking degrees!  It's been early summer here for over a month!

And are we ever enjoying it!

Traditionally (for us at least) heading out to the park for the kids to play in the creek there is reserved for after Memorial Day, at the end of May.  This year we started yesterday & went again today.

The bugs are a bit of a nuisance & the lack of shade from the trees not all being fully leafed out makes for a well sun kissed Momma...  Tangent:  WTH!  I'm about as white as a white girl can come, freckles, strawberry blonde/red hair (naturally)..burn to a CRISP quickly (thankfully it turns tan after it stops killing me)...and I gave birth to two children who can just wake up with the sun shining in their direction and instantly tan.  At least I know I should be easily spotted in the dark when the light shines my direction.

So, with no further adieu...PICTURES!

Dogwood blooms

I'd redo my blog again and use the dogwood blooms...but I do like the rainbow & Bradford pears that I have going on right now.

Or maybe I'll go with the crawdad pic here... can you see him?

Mikaila was determined to catch us some dinner....

I'm not too terribly sure whom she plans on feeding with her catches, but she had a BLAST doing it.  My fearless darling.  This was as close as Mikeal was going to get to it.  Sour face & all.

I don't know where he gets his fear of fish, crawdads, worms, frogs, bugs, dirt, etc from, but I guess he's just not all that into nature type things.

But he's awesome with his little sister.  Always looking out for her, helping her, loving on her....when they're not trying to kill each other.

It's a shame that tomorrow is Monday and they have to go to school or we'd go do it again....

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Fishing

Not quite as easy as one would believe but fishing is fun & everyone should try their hand at it.  I'm thinking of taking the kids out to North Carolina & having my baby brother take us out fishing in the ocean.  I LOVE going fishing, just haven't gone since Mikaila was about 18 months old or so.  I have no clue where to go around here as people are so freaking finicky about their fishing spots.  Losers.

So...what are some of your favorite places to go fishing?

I've never been fishing in the ocean, so I can't comment on that.
I have this thing against boats, so no middle of the lake or deep sea fishing for me either.
I LOVE going trout fishing.  That was my favorite thing to do with my daddy.
Before we left Oklahoma I had a few lake/overflow areas that we'd take the kids to go fishing because you were nearly always guaranteed to at least catch something.  (Usually nasty carp, but still the kids would LOVE it and the carp was awesome for my garden!)
I don't think I know anyone that goes fishing here in Tennessee, so we've not gone.  I've always found it important to find some native person to point out legal fishing areas and war me against actually encroaching on someone's private property...and around here it all seems like private property.  blah.


Do you have any awesome fishing stories?

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