Author Archives: mamaboe

Cuteness alert!

And no, I’m not talking about the Moose.

What could be cuter than a 10-year-old boy on the tippy top of a ladder, earnestly trying to color in realistic Ghost eyes, on a 9-foot wooden moose Halloween costume?

Is that a run-on sentence?  Because I feel like it went on forever.  And nothing is more irritating than reading a run-on sentence, unless it’s writing ad nauseum about a run-on sentence.  That is most definitely more irritating than actually reading one, I think.

Definitely.

What was I talking about, again?

Right, the cute-but-scary Moose ghost’s eyes.

Critter colored in Moose’s ghost eyes with a precision and conscientiousness that I have never before witnessed in this boy during homework.

Maybe homework needs to be a little more fun, is what I’m implying so very subtly here…..

If you drive by, give scary Moose-Ghost a honk.

IF YOU DARE…….. Dun dun DUUUUNNNNNNNN!

The saga of the MUDPIT PROJECT, a collective evolution of “Might-As-Wells,” continues!  This week My Captain and I finally got the herringbone pattern of pavers, and all the pain-in-the-petootie cuts it required to finish the edges….DONE.  Next up?

The Sand.

(Dun dun DUUUUNNNNNNN!)

Critter and Varmint helped out as soon as they got off their respective school buses.   It was not as fun as it looks.  (Which, I realize, isn’t saying much of anything.)

You have to take dry concrete sand, and push it back and forth over the cracks and seams of the brickwork.  Then you have to tamp it with the gasoline powered tamper.

But wait!  We purchased our tamper Used!  And do you know what this means?  That’s right, Vern, it means we don’t have all of the original parts!  We had NO tamping sheath!

It’s one thing to tamp gravel and sand with your bare-bottomed tamper (sounds so dirty!), but when you have your neato-cool, raw-thar expennnnsive pavers ready for tamping, you have to put the tamper’s protective sheath on the bottom, so it doesn’t scratch them thar raw-thar expennnnsive pavers!

Scratched pavers will make a Captain cry!!  Note to self.  Complete and total No-No!!!

My Captain, the consummate “Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome” hero that he is, quickly devised our own makeshift, wooden sheath that worked remarkably well.  Some left-over plywood and two-by-fours, some counter-sunk screws, and three different CVS-brand, heavy-duty, fabric band-aids later…. a sheath was born!

Oh sure, he got frustrated, he muttered some, thankfully inaudible, phrases that the kids pretended not to hear; and he banged his thumb a time or two…right on the blister he got at the last FEMA collapse rescue training.

But he DID overcome.  And he did so in front of the kids, which is important!  They need to see how we adults deal with adversity, so that they have a clue how to behave when adversity hits them!  One simply does not give up when an obstacle is placed before them!  One does not simply say “To Hell with it” and go upstairs to finish her son’s half-eaten after school snack! Nay Nay!!  One perseveres!  And Persevere My Captain did!  (I, on the other hand, finished Critter’s snack….)

Yes, Critter and Varmint learned a lesson in perseverance this week.  A lesson powerful and meaningful enough that I suspect it will last well into their lives.  Score one for the ol’ parenting model! Woot! Woot!

And Me? What did I get out of this event?

I got a hefty dose of eye-candy.

And really, isn’t that what it is all about?

Don’t judge.

A couple of weeks ago our closest little town, Poolesville, had their annual market day.  It’s named…get this….”Poolesville Day.”

Crazy, huh?

There is a parade, and every organized group of every possible venue is in it.  Every school and club marches,

every horse club,

and farm club, and politician, and …well, you get the drift.  It’s great fun, and there is always FOOD.

Which is a good thing because Varmint was in the Parade with her cheerleading squad, and they had to be there earlier than we’d like to be anywhere on a Saturday, I promise you!  I had not had time to put together breakfast for everyone because, well, I suck, apparently.

But of all the food vendors, we couldn’t find any good breakfast food so early.  And no one had their other lunch food ready!

So using all the resources I can muster on a Saturday morning, I grabbed what I could find in the car, and we made do.  Adapt and improvise, right?  It’s either that, or starve, right?

Actually Critter is the only one who would make do.

The rest of us starved.

Don’t judge.

My Captain and I have been away for our Anniversary (more stories from that later!) and we pulled in the driveway late at night.  We noticed nothing amiss with the little cottage in the woods.

But the in the daylight of the next day (yesterday) I found we had been vandalized!  SHOCKING!  Our little cottage in the woods had been vandalized!  Our sweet, quaint, modest, unobtrusive little humble abode.  Vandalized.

After I got over the shock, I racked my brain.  Who could have done such a thing?  Who in the world would be so sneaky?  So devious?  So tricky?

And then it dawned on me.  And I made a phone call.  And I was right.  The perpetrator will indeed find that vengeance is mine, and it will be served cold.  And probably moose-shaped.  So when he least expects it….he can expect it.

What was the vandalism, you ask?

MY MOOSE!  The prankster had adorned my Moose with pumpkins.

Who had done it without my knowledge?  All fingers pointed to Lewis Orchard, down the road from the little cottage.  They are in the middle of pumpkin harvest, and I know Robert Lewis has pumpkins coming out his ears right about now.

Obviously, I am going to have to ‘adorn’ their house in turn.  So stay tuned on that one, while I consider my options.   And if any of you friends have a sneaky, funny idea or two, send ’em to me.  I’m ALL EARS.

Bwaahahahhahahahahahahaaaaaaaaa!