It was a glorious morning for the first day of Spring, with a gentle steady rain and temps around 62 degrees.  Ahhhh!  Finally the creek is up, the ground is wet, the grass is green, and that means it will soon need to be mowed.   Uggghhh!

The riding mower's battery is dead.  We borrowed a battery charger from a neighbor, but after charging the beast all night, the rider still wouldn't start.  Rain is forecast off and on all week, so soon this grass will be terribly high.  I've pushed the first (read "way too high") mow of the season, and I swore to never do that again.  I am letting my men deal with that, though.

Then yesterday Josiah was vacuuming the porch.  I guess that sounds funny.  Our front porch is covered with that lovely classic green indoor/outdoor carpeting, and Josiah is responsible to make its greenness visible again each week.  We have birds' nests build on the tops of the porch's support pillars, and the nesting material tends to blow down all over the porch.  Likewise with miscellaneous leaves and those little helicopter thingies that come off our boxelder trees.

Anyway, he was vacuuming away, when our aged vacuuming cleaner made a whining, groaning noise and then exploded with a BANG!  I think I'd better put brooms on our Wal-Mart list.  = )

I guess Andrew is starting his early this year.  He walked into my office (on the second floor) while he was doing the breakfast clean up (on the first floor) - go figure - and said, "Mom, do you know what I want for Christmas more than anything else? A pet squirrel!"

Now there's an idea I had not thought of.

Our kids have never been to a regular movie.  They have been to a few IMAX films, but those are only about 40 minutes long.  They have seen a few movies on video or DVD, but we have never gone as a family to a movie theater to watch a movie.

We went to see "Amazing Grace," about the life of William Wilberforce and his fight against the British slave trade.  It ended up being an outstanding movie, generating some good discussion among our family members, but the MOST amazing thing was what happened before the movie started.

It was a tiny theater, capable of seating maybe 100 folks.  It was mostly empty, but on the front row, when we walked in, there sat Alice Russum!  You may be wondering, "Who is Alice Russum?" 

John and Alice were members of our small church some nine years ago, before his work moved them out of state.  He works for an oil company, and they are currently living in Vietnam.  Scott had been overseas on business until just a few days ago.

So, when we walked into this tiny theater in our town of 6000 people and saw Alice and friends sitting there, Scott said, "ALICE RUSSUM!  What are you doing here?!?!  You're supposed to be in Vietnam!!!" at the very moment that Alice was saying, "SCOTT AND PATTY!  What are you doing here?!?!  Scott, you're supposed to be overseas!!!"  We all had a great laugh, hugs around, and then met for lunch today after church.

It really is a small world, and you really should go see "Amazing Grace." 

Scott has mild asthma and when it gets bad, he sometimes has to use an albuterol inhaler (prescription drug) to open things up.  Since he doesn't use it regularly, we just keep a couple inhalers stashed away for use in emergencies.

We got something in the mail from Scott's insurance company.  I wouldn't want to name names, but this would be the company that we love to hate; the four-word one that starts with "blue" and ends with "shield."  They were writing to inform him that because the traditional albuterol inhaler uses a chlorofluorocarbon  (CFC) propellant, and because CFCs "reduce the amount of ozone in the ozone layer that protects the earth from the sun's harmful rays," the Food and Drug Administration has decreed that no CFC inhalers will be produced or sold after December 31, 2008.

In addition, the new inhalers, which use a hydrofluoroalkane (HFA) propellant, are more expensive than the CFC inhalers, so we have been forewarned that our albuterol prescription cost is expected to rise.

Whether or not CFCs deplete the ozone layer (and whether or not such depletion matters) is a can of worms I will not open here.  My beef with the FDA is this:  unlike aerosol cans of things like hair spray and insect repellent, which do shoot into the air, albuterol is "shot" only into one's mouth, the lips of which are instructed to be tightly closed around the mouthpiece.  The stuff only goes into one's mouth, NOT into the atmosphere at all!!!

This is clearly a case of government regulation on steroids!  Remind me to buy a lifetime supply of old-fashioned albuterol inhalers over the next 18 months.

There is ample evidence that spring is here:

1.  The daffodils are blooming.
2.  The tulips are pushing up.
3.  The birds are singing cheerfully at 6:15 AM.
4.  The spring peepers are peeping.
5.  The grass is turning green and will soon need to be mowed.
6.  It was 75 degrees here today and the boys are wearing shorts.

But I am not READY for spring.  I have not yet had winter.  The past few years, I have agonized over this same terrible situation.  We don't get any snow (just a light dusting a time or two), and while I am still daily, eagerly, with bated breath anticipating our first serious snowfall, spring comes!

Is it a sign of my increasing age that the seasons rush by much faster than they used to?  For goodness' sake; when I was a kid, summer lasted forever, and winter was eternal.  Granted, spring and fall did move along, but all four of them managed to last a good three months at least. 

Now each season is only three weeks long.  It was just Thanksgiving a few weeks ago, wasn't it?  In any case, it is clearly MUCH too soon to be spring, all peepers to the contrary.

Andrew was in bed at 8:42; 12 minutes past his "lights out" time, but not too bad considering we sprung ahead today.  He was clearly told to stay in his room, in his bed, with the light off and the door closed.

So far, he has re-appeared to:

1.  ask me a question that COULDN'T wait till tomorrow (I told him 5 times that it WILL wait)
2.  let me know that the kids all forgot to take their fluoride pills
3.  inform me that the smokehouse light is on
4.  tell me that he simply cannot fall asleep, and it might be because his legs hurt really bad

All this by 9:50. 

I get in bed, read for a few minutes, and fall sound asleep.  This is true no matter what time of day or night it may be.  It doesn't really require much effort at all, and I can't even remember the last time I felt compelled to stand up when I was supposed to be asleep.

Josiah and Jessica have taken on a dog-and-cat-sitting job for a week.  It will pay very well, but it's kind of involved.  That, added to the fact that neither of them has ever owned or cared for even one pet, much less three, AND Jessica being out of town for the first three days, meant that I went down the road with Josiah last night at 8:00 PM and this morning at 7:00 AM to help him.  I think this will be my normal routine till Jessica gets home.

It's pretty much standard pet stuff:  dry food and water at night (in three locations), wet food and water in the morning (in three locations), dog in for the night, out for the day, cats switched (one has free reign of the house while the other is locked in the master bedroom;  then they swap places every 12 hours - I think this is for contraceptive purposes?), one cat given amoxicillin twice a day, litter boxes cleaned nightly, treats as needed (how do I know if a dog or cat "needs" a treat?), and please water the plants if needed.

The only down side for me is the time - it takes Josiah about 30 minutes to do it all - and the fact that I am severely allergic to cats; as in, my face starts itching and eyes watering after 10 minutes in the house.  I have to come home and shower in order to stop the reaction.

Now I know why we don't have pets.  We get to enjoy the neighbor's enormous dog and two cats vicariously, without paying the food and vet bills.

Last night was rugged.  I was up at 1:00, 2:00, and 3:00 AM, I guess because I was afraid I'd oversleep and miss taking Jessica to meet the AIM gang for their trip to Kentucky.  Then I ended up sleeping almost till noon, but that was okay, because it's OFF DAY!

I did accomplish quite a bit today:  paid all the bills and updated all the various accounts in Quicken and QuickBooks, wrote and mailed all the giving checks (a blessing to Josiah, who usually does it for handwriting practice), and wrote 7 ministry thank you notes.

Josiah will need to let himself back in tomorrow after his Boy Scout event, so I sent him out to make sure the key was there.  It wasn't.  Since he was the last one who used it, but now can't remember what he did with it, I took him to town (he paid gas) to have a new key made (which he paid for), and he now owes me 10 tokens for my inconvenience.

I love parenting boys.  = )

It's been a week since I posted, and that after I PROMISED myself to post something daily.

Katie's History Day paper on the Russian Revolution made it to finals at the regional level of our state competition.  Hers was one of three selected out of 37.  If she's first or second (of those three) at region she moves on to State.  We'll find out in two days.

Jessica is off to the Kentucky Drama Festival with AIM before dawn cracks tomorrow.  She'll be gone the weekend and is VERY excited. 

Josiah is deep into the Redwall books and only comes up to breathe occasionally.  Today he came home from AIM practice but forgot to get out of the car.  He stayed in there reading for an HOUR!

Andrew made Baked Apples tonight to go with our Broccoli Chicken Fettucine.  Yum, yum!

Scott and I are both doing well - sleeping on opposite shifts.  = )  Speaking of which, I need to change the clocks on Saturday afternoon.  Ugh.

Today I learned something new:  you CAN order a static IP address, but it will cost you.

Our foreign language software (Rosetta Stone) wouldn't work today.  I did the things I usually do to fix it, and they didn't fix it.

I called RS support, and they talked me through the exact same steps, only to find that my IP address had changed twice in rapid succession.  It changes all the time, but not usually in less than a minute!  That guy told me it would be wise to set my router to a static IP address.

I chatted router (Linksys) support to figure out how to do that.  He stepped me through a few gyrations and then I was left with four row of empty boxes.  When I asked what to put in them, he said I would have to get those values from my ISP.

I chatted ISP support (CenturyTel) who told me that even though the Linksys set-up page now said, "static IP," the IP address listed therein was in fact not static, but dynamic.  I should call a certain number at CenturyTel to request a static IP address.

I called CenturyTel to request the static IP address, and the very nice southern lady who answered asked me how many static IP addresses I wanted.  I told her I had no earthly idea.  Would that determination be based on property value?  number of children?  what time I got up today???  She didn't know (she just ordered them), but I should contact CenturyTel tech service and ask them how many static IP addresses I needed.  Wait!  I was still chatting with CenturyTel tech service!

I laid the nice lady down on the desk (I hunt and peck, and I can't even do that with a phone shoved between my shoulder and my ear) and typed back to the mystery guy to find out how many static IP addresses I needed.  His reply:  "Usually none."  Thanks a lot!  I then explained to him what I wanted to do and why, and he said he thought one should be sufficient.

So I told the nice lady that the techhie guy said I only needed one.  She said that was fine, but she did need to tell me that there would be a $20 charge per static IP address per month.  No way!  I told her that would never fly with my husband and that we'd just let the IP addresses keep changing at whim for a while.

An hour out of my life with nothing to show for it, except a little more knowledge about things I didn't want to know, and frankly, never knew existed!   I think when I grow up I'm gonna be a computer tech.

Ours has been dying slowly for months, and Scott bought us a new one right before he left on a trip.  The final death throes occurred on Wednesday morning, and Wednesday afternoon we also lost all our phone service.

Today, once the phones were working again, I spent about three and a half HOURS trying to get all our ducks in a row and get online.  Actually, Katie wired everything up for me, and all I had to do was run a software CD.  How hard could that possibly be?!?!

Turns out - pretty hard.  Those ducks did not want to stand in a line.

I talked to three different DSL tech support people at CenturyTel.  I chatted online with a router tech support person at Linksys.  I almost cried twice, but that may have also had something to do with the time of month. . . or maybe the time of life!

I now know much more about phone lines, Ethernet cables, USB ports and their cables, routers, modems, bridging a modem, the back of my computer, LAN  IP settings, and cloning my PC's MAC (is that an oxymoron?) than I ever wanted to know or even dreamed possible.

Since you are reading this, I must have done something right. 

I was having a tough time with Josiah today.  By holding him accountable for his actions - forcing him to take responsibility for his chores and academics that weren't done to even minimal standards - I had caused him to be VERY angry and VERY depressed. 

He was convinced that he couldn't do his math right, so he might as well zip through it quickly and get more than half of them wrong.

He knew that he could NEVER wash a dish correctly, so he swished several of them through some water can called them clean.

It wasn't possible to vacuum or sweep his bedroom floor clean, so he sat in the bed and stared at the wall, doing nothing and just thinking about how angry he was at me.

I couldn't get Scott's advice, so I called in the girls.  I told them the situation (probably in triplicate), and they listened patiently.  Then they spoke, and I think they were quite wise.  Katie, the Quiet One, did most of the talking, and then Jessica did most of the implementation.  She listened to Josiah, got him to laugh, pulled him up emotionally, helped him get the floor of his room clean, and then helped him do over 30 math corrections!  I think she worked with him for the better part of two hours!

By the time Scott called, when he asked Josiah how things were going, Josiah said cheerfully, "Everything's really going well."  My mouth hung open.  Two hours ago, he had been wishing he was dead, and now, thanks to the girls, he was great.  What wonderful girls!

Actually, that would be CRUMBY.  Last night Jessica made us a crumb cake, and boy, is it ever yummy.

You know those wonderful coffee cakes that have loads of crumbs on top?  Everyone knows that the crumb part is much better than the cake part, right?  Well, we have a recipe that fills a jelly roll pan and has a very thin layer of cake and a very thick layer of crumbs.

It was really for breakfast, but we really couldn't justify making another dessert when the crumb cake was still sitting on the counter.  So, we had crumb cake for dessert tonight, too, and there still some for breakfast tomorrow.  Well, right now there is.  By breakfast time. . . I don't know.

We are the proud parents of the only two boys west of the Mississippi who have to be REQUIRED to go outside.  Even then, one of them asks why and the other frinks, whines, and cries. 

We have clearly created two monsters.  I would think that after they have been inside all morning and part of the afternoon doing chores and academics, they would LOVE to go outside (it's in the 50s and sunny) and be boyish.  They insist there is nothing to do outside, but we have a trampoline, a big sandbox, a treehouse, a big grassy yard, adjacent woods, gravel roads, neighbor kids, a creek nearby with a mile-long dirt/gravel road along it. . . what more could two boys want?!?!?

Josiah wants to read, and Andrew wants to play with his cars on his car mat.  Now, reading and car mats are both great things, but something is clearly wrong with this picture.  I confess that I am a bit discouraged by it.  Mostly, I just want to know how to change it.

Today (a Sunday), I had one kid who refused to get up on time, one kid who lost its Bible, one kid who left for church without even brushing its teeth, one kid who left a Bible at church (I made the kid go find it before we left for home), one kid who left its coat on the "pew," and one kid who lost a Bible after we got back home.  And we only have four kids!!!

I am trying to be consistent with each of them and help each of them develop the habits of obedience, diligence, and responsibility.

I like for Andrew to stand on my back when we are practicing his spelling words.  Weird, I know.  The other day, he was standing there when he said with a sound of horror, "MOM!  You have some white hairs on your head!  I can see one, two, three, four, five, six!!!  They are so WHITE!  Oh, there's even more; six more, so that makes twelve."

That sounds about right:  two for each of the "kids" mentioned above, or maybe just an average of three for each of our children.

thanks to Katie (in red above), I got to attend a very fancy luncheon with her on the 22nd floor of a building downtown.  It was the local DAR chapter meeting, and they were honoring the several local winners in an essay contest about Christopher Columbus.  Katie's essay was written from the viewpoint of Queen Isabella, and it won 1st place for 11th grade.

The lunch was quite nice, and at two-and-a-half hours, it gets points for being THE longest luncheon I have ever attended in my life!  It was quite an honor.  We both feel very honored.

Every year in February, Josiah's scout troop does a weekend campout called the Klondike.  Last year it snowed and the forecast this weekend is as follows:

Friday - highs in the 60s, lows in the 40s, breezy
Saturday - highs in the 50s, lows in the 30s, 90% chance of heavy rain, winds 20-30 mph, possible hail
Sunday - highs in the 40s, lows in the upper 20s, sun and clouds, breezy

Josiah can be a bit of a space cadet.  He was supposed to be packing this afternoon, but until I mentioned them, forgot things like toothbrush, deodorant, tarp, tent, and extra socks.  He has a cheap poncho, but we all know they aren't a lot of use in windy rain.  I suggested his ski bibs for both warmth and dryness, but of course, he has totally outgrown them since he bought them to go skiing a year ago.  He took his dad's, without asking him (Dad is out of pocket right now) and promised that nothing untoward would happen to them.  May he prove correct!

About forty minutes before his ride was expected, Josiah came in and said, "the tent's gone."  I have decided to let his problems be his problems, and since he knew about this camping trip a month ago, the fact that he waited till an hour before departure to collect his equipment was emphatically NOT my problem.  I asked if he had looked in the camper (yes), the shop (yes) and the playroom (yes).  I told him I guessed he'd have to share a tent with someone else, and left it at that.

Twenty minutes later, I see him out in the back yard swinging a rope over his head.  I went out, walked into the shop, saw a small tent that I don't even recognize in the middle of the floor and the usual tent right where it belonged under the workbench.  I pointed these two tents out to him.

He was supposed to eat supper before he left, but he forgot to eat anything.  That means he couldn't take his supper meds, and that is not good for him, his co-campers, or us when he gets home.

(Sigh)  Here is what I know:  Josiah will be a fine, godly, responsible young man, who will marry a wonderful lady, have a bunch of great kids, and provide well for his family.  He will get up on time for work, he will remember to put on deodorant, and, when necessary, he will be able to find his tent.

We're using a token economy for the boys.  In Andrew's case, an hour of obeying right away and not whining gets him a token.  Sadly, the thing that he hasn't yet learned with money (to save some!), he has equally well not learned with tokens.  Therefore, he always immediately spends the tokens he earns, and by definition, never has any in reserve.

Two tokens buys a piece of candy out of the jar.  Five tokens buys the right to play with the neighbor boys.  Completing the breakfast clean up in 30 minutes yields THREE bonus tokens, BUT if the clean up is not done in an hour, he must pay one token.  If it's not done 30 minutes after that, he pays two more.  If it's not done 30 minutes after THAT, he pays three more, etc.

Breakfast clean up starts at 8:30.  Today, after much whining, lots of fit-pitching, excessive screaming, and an undisclosed number of resulting swats, he finally announced at 11:15 AM that he was done with the breakfast clean up.  I thanked him for a job well done (it really was a nice job) and pointed to the chart on the wall that clearly said "If clean up is done before 11:30, Andrew owes Mom 15 tokens."  He frinked.

We then started in on the rest of the chores and academics.  While he was reading Judges, we heard the sound of a lawn mower outside the window.  It was warm and sunny out, but I knew there wasn't yet any grass anywhere to mow.  We looked out and saw the neighbor boys and their dad.  These are Andrew's new friends; the ones he loves to play with, and the ones who have promised him that the very next time their dad is available, they want him to come with them to ride the go-carts.  (He's never ridden a go-cart, so he has been eagerly awaiting this day for six weeks!)  Dad was on his four-wheeler, and each boy was in a go-cart.

Andrew was instantly ready to go.  I told him that as soon as his chores and academics were done, he could pay me the five tokens necessary and go play with the boys.  He began crying, then sobbing, as he realized that - due to his own poor choice - he would have to pay a debt of 15 before he could earn the five to go play.  To add insult to injury, the phone rang just then, and it was one of the boys, asking if he could come out and play!  He had to explain that he had a debt he would have to pay first.

Please remind me that SOME day this child will finally learn that if you make bad choices, you must live with the resulting bad consequences.

Meanwhile, he's finally done with his work and is playing outside, but not allowed to go to the neighbors' house. . . or ride their go-carts.

Signed,
The Wicked Mom of the Walnuts

As I may have mentioned, Josiah can be a bit . . . ummm. . . blonde.  One night, he forgot to confirm his ride to a Boy Scout meeting, which required us to drive him there at the last minute.  Scott was not pleased by this and said that we needed to get the kid a notebook and pen to keep in his pocket and write down what he needs to do.

I, who spend much of each day with the Boy Wonder, said that that wouldn't work for two reasons:
    a) most of his shorts and sweats don't have pockets
    b) once he wrote something in the notebook, he wouldn't remember to look back at it

Instead, I suggested we get him a voice recorder with a belt clip.  He could talk into it, and then play it back.  He would use it because it is of the electronic genre.  He cannot resist anything electronic.  So, we got him one and gave it to him last night.  He likes this gadget a lot, but so far, he has taken to recording our conversations (when we don't want him to) and playing them back either at high speed (like chipmunks) or v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y (like a basso profundo).  Tomorrow is Monday, we will be back to a regular routine, and we will see how it works.