clusters

do you know anything about harvesting sunflower seeds?
when they are ready?
i think mine are ready.
mainly b/c the birds are now picking them out.
like little built in bird feeders.
the clusters freak me out.
gross me out.
make my skin crawl.
but in a weird way,
i love to pluck them out.
like i'm cleaning out the clusters.
cluster-freeing them.
very refreshing.
so once they are out,
how do i roast them?
please just tell me.
i don't want to take the energy to google it.
i'd rather just have you give me the answer.
oh how this reminds me of high school chem and physics.
some things never change.
kind of like how i feel like i am never going to not feel sick again.
{did you have to read that twice for it to make sense?}
even though i realize that chances are that at some point i will feel better.
it still feels like this is my new reality.
and that i will be sick forever.
never love food again.
be cranky.
be tired.
be grumpy.
which begins around 2 pm every day.
in fact, every morning i wake up and think, "i'm all better!"
not going to be sick anymore!
and then comes the afternoon.
and i remember.
convenient though, if you ask me.
with two small kids to get up with in the mornings.
very convenient to not get sick until 2pm:)
{having done this two times before i know that i will eventually feel well--
but in brennan's case it took 20 weeks--
whoever decided 12 weeks was the magic #???
MUST have been a man},
my house is not clean.
but occasionally i clean the toilet when i can't stand it anymore.
i begged sean to vacuum last night.
he did.
bless him:)
the laundry doesn't make it out of the dryer and off of the drying rack before we wear it.
which is kind of nice when you have a two level house b/c i don't even have to go upstairs to get the kids dressed in the mornings.
max gets her binky whenever she wants.
brennan watches about 5 hours of tv a day.
and then plays pbskids for an indefinite amount of time.
sometimes i eat french fries before 11am.
i can smell max's diaper from a room away.
and any form of mexican food is in my daily diet.
but not cafe rio.
b/c one week i ate there 3 times.
and i now i cannot even drive by it without gagging.
that was the beginning of when we ate take out for 3 weeks straight.
it wasn't pretty.
i will continue to support taco bell and their drive thru that opens at 10am until i don't have to anymore.
and hope that someone will just tell me what to do with these sunflowers.
so i don't have to go look up the answer for myself.
b/c i'm not good at that when i'm feeling great.
clusters.
shudder.

it's raining {fire}MEN!

the fire chief told us about fire suits today.
they are hot.
as in warm.
desert warm.
120 degrees warm in a fire.
which he said is actually cold.
he and i obviously have a different definition of cold.
his rebuttle was that the floor of a fire without a suit would be 1500-2000 degrees.
ok, so maybe 120 degrees is cold compared to that.
maybe he does have a point.

and the thing that makes a fire vehicle an actual truck?

the ladder.

which goes 100 feet up.

 they fell in love with max.

typical:) 

 when i was 18, these babies (aka jaws of life) pulled me out of my little honda civic.

 getting dressed in fire gear is quite the process.

 and when the oxygen mask goes on,

3 year olds get scared.

all of them.

it was really cute.

 do you know why they used to have Dalmatians as fire dogs?

i do:)
take a guess before you read the answer.
really,
take a guess.
.
.
.
.
have you guessed yet?
.
.
.
.
stop reading and take a guess.
.
.
.
.
ok, ready to see if you were right?
.
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.
firehouses had dogs to calm down the horses.
really,
i'm not kidding.
they used to use horses to pull the fire equipment to fires in the olden days.
and the fires would get the horses scared.
so they figured out that Dalmatians calmed the horses down.
and have been associated with firemen ever since.
did you get it right?
i didn't.

don't mind if i do:)

don't mind if i...

BOO!!!

"lion monkey"

when i was in the third grade i had a friend that had this AMAZING soda.
i took a sip and i knew we were MFEO.
the drink.
sprite or something clear and bubbly.
grape syrup.
lime juice.
and one slice of lime.
i asked her where on earth this sweet nectar was made.
arctic circle she said.
and what was it called?
LION MONKEY.
so that day i made my mom drive thru the drive thru (what a concept) and order me a LION MONKEY.
we repeated the name of that drink into the crackly speaker so many times.
they kept asking us if we were kidding and was this a joke?
the joke was them not giving me their drink of the gods.
LION MONKEY!!!
GIVE IT TO ME NOW! i said!
my mouth is watering just remembering the anticipation.
after some time of back and forth with the person behind the speaker it was figured out that the drink was not in fact called a LION MONKEY,
but rather,
a LIME RICKEY.
who knew?!?
oh the mind of a 9 year old.
every time i order one i think to myself,
they should have named this LION MONKEY:)
that would be better.
...
i took the kids there today.
ordered us 4 LION MONKEYS and let them take off to the slides.
at which point i ate a medium fry with fry sauce (mayo/ketchup sauce of glory)
then came the complimentary ice cream cones.
this was the most exciting part of arctic circle as a kid.
they used to walk around with dozens in trays that you could choose from.
2 chocolate, 2 vanilla.
mustaches.
one spilled drink.
and three happy kids:)

on the way home the boys analyzed and characterized who was a human and who was not.

humans that made the list:
max
diego
alicia
abby

non-humans:
mommy (b/c she is not a human, she is a mommy)

glad we could clarify that for everyone.
3 year olds are hilarious.
i love them.

shoe fetish

she wants to wear her shoes night and day.

over her footie pajamas.

naked and in her diaper.

wouldn't you want to wear them too?

note to self: next year buy 2 cans of spray paint.

the annual rivalry breakfast.
at the family yard.
we eat.
we sing out team fight songs.
we heckle.
and then we shake hands and wish each other's team well.
full well knowing we really mean we hope we win and you lose.
with a big smile on our face.
it was not pretty.
it was down right ugly.
but i still love my cougs.
and the sport of it all.
i just wish they wouldn't have slaughtered us so badly.
we will never hear the end of it.

the coin toss.

for which side sings first.

when i ran out of spray paint at the end i should have known it was a sign.

next year cougs.
next year!!!
(note to self: buy 2 cans of spray paint. 1 is not enough.)