A fun (but short) weekend

Cameron and Lauren somehow came into a couple extra tickets to Stampede.  They invited Mallory and Quincy to come up and go with them.  I heard it was a lot of fun!  I love that they sent me some photos!

I made a flying trip to town yesterday morning at the crack of dawn to get groceries.  I then came home and the girls helped get the house cleaned up before I worked the night shift at the liquor store. 

After mass today, I started the smoker and cleaned the pool so that the kids could all come home for an afternoon of fireworks, swimming and dinner.  My brother typically has had Langfest the weekend before the 4th, but he just isn’t up to it.  We improvised.  I love when all my kids can come and hang out.  I’m sorry we missed Spencer and Lauren though.  

What I thought were wild kittens.  Are.  Not.  Wild.   This one, I would say would make a sweet little house kitty. Except we have 2 house cats already and I don’t really want a 3rd.   He tends to be following whoever is in the yard around, including the rock pile cat. 

Two best holidays are hands down Halloween and 4th of July.   Playing with fire, eating the bbq, taking a little swim, being together.  It was a great weekend.  

Grand finale

 You ever jump in with both feet for all the weird reasons and do something irresponsible?   That’s probably what Jim thinks today   These kittens were dumped off around the corner from my parents house.  I was worried that they would get killed on the highway and I felt bad for them, and so I agreed to go get them   Saige went with me   We would never have found them if the crew working on the house hadn’t shown us that they had crawled into the bottom of the chimney!   I never know how long outdoor cats will stick around   I keep trying to keep a few barn cats around   Last year, I brought home 7 incredibly feral cats   They are sort of still here.   I see glimpses   They run back and forth to the neighbor’s house   There is one who lives in the rock pile in the back yard    I tried to lure her to the barn but she won’t stay down there.   Every night, I take her some leftovers and cat food - she stays 10 feet away at least, and I can’t get anywhere close to her   Which is how I like outdoor cats because they last longer that way   Anyway, these two were spitting and hissing and not friendly   They have been given some food and water in the barn and we will see if we can get them to stick around.   Interestingly, the rock pile cat apparently also has a kitten.   As I started the mower this afternoon, I caught sight if it running into the garage   We are currently trying to lure her out with tuna   Since the kitten is identical to the rock pile cat, and appeared from the rock pile direction, I assume it is her baby   

Anyway Jim has said nothing about the new barn cats   I assume he just knows that I am insane and there’s not much help for him.  I am sure he knows that we need pest control, and doesn't mind that it isn't a job I saddle him with (I HATE and have an unnatural fear of mice/rats).  

Are you sick of softball photos yet?  Ready for me to stop posting terrible sports shots?  Absolutely horrified by my horrible photography skills?  Well, then you are in luck, because this was the last game of the season!  A little break for you!  And for me too, because this week has been long, and brutal, and I am tired of 4:30 dinners, and the city of Pomona, and of the umpire who look s like grizzly Adams, and of the same 5 songs that they play between innings and during warm ups.   There I said it.  Am I a bad parent?  Maybe, but at least I am an honest one.

Tonight Harper's team played for 3rd or 4th place against Lyndon.  Harper played an incredible game.  She had a couple of good at bats, scored some runs, and played the night away at 2nd base.  At one point, she made a double play by herself.  I was incredibly proud of her!  She had an error at the end of the game, and was pretty hard on herself, but honestly, she had an amazing night and errors just happen.  Every single person has something occasionally.  They ended up losing, but  it was such a tight game, and a long game.  I am proud of this whole team.  And always proud of my Harper girl!  

Fun team, fun summer, good coaching, no drama, hard working kids, all around good season!

And when it was over, I came straight home to watch the presidential debate.  Honesty, I should have stayed to watch the championship game, because it would have been much more productive.  How in the world are we in this place again?  I hate it here (politically).   Enough of that, this is a family friendly blog, and I don't really care to make it a political debate spot.  Just sum it up in saying I know who I will vote for, because I strongly believe in the policies of one side, and I am just not going to watch any more of that sh*tshow.  Lesson learned.

Movin on up….to the done zone

 

Harper's team played West Franklin tonight.  The winner would move on to play for the championship, the loser would move to the game to determine 3/4 place.  This is the team from last week where there was the dugout brawl, and I worried that emotions might still be running a little bit high.  The WF team is, in all honesty, very good.  Their coach has been coaching these girls for quite a few years.  She also happens to be one of the most obnoxious people you will ever come across.  (My opinion only).  The parents, on both sides were well behaved tonight.  Our girls played hard.  They probably put in more effort than they have all season.  Two of our best hitters (a set of twins) are away this week at church camp, so that hurt a little.  It was a good game!  Harper had a really good hit and happened to be the first hit of the night after a couple of innings of being 3 up and 3 downed.  I was happiest that after the last couple of days of miserable heat, it was in the mid 80's and very pleasant out!  

Harper's team did not win today.  They will move on tomorrow night and play for 3rd or 4th place.  Harper has been on this team for about 5 or so years now.  They are fun to watch, have little to no drama amongst the players, have 4 pretty great coaches, and have really grown and gotten so much better together over the years.  I am proud of them all!  I am also highly excited about having our evenings back!

I have a couple of other "summer stories."  Harper and Saige have been watching a series together.  Yesterday I overheard this conversation that completely cracked me up:

Saige:  Hey Harper, lets watch some episodes of Supernatural!

Harper: oh hey girl.....I have a confession.....I accidentally watched 3 seasons without you.

Saige: ok so we can go back 3 episodes and I will catch up.

Harper: no girl....3 SEASONS.  I am so sorry!  

I started laughing - how do you watch like 60 episodes of something without telling the person you were watching it with?  She was like well, it has been going on for a while now, and I felt bad about it so I decided to tell her!  Crazy girl!

The pool - we bought the whole thing new in 2020.  It was a replacement for a pool that was here when we bought the property and then it subsequently broke.  When the pandemic happened, I talked Jim into having a new pool installed, and I learned a lot about all the things we did wrong with the first pool (except there was nothing really that we did that could have prevented a 20 year old liner from splitting out).  Anyway, last Saturday, I went out, as I do every morning and plugged the filter in.  Nothing happened.  I checked the breaker, and the wiring that Colin fixed, and everything seemed in order.  I plugged in a hand mixer, and it came right on.  I watched a bunch of YouTube videos.  I followed their instructions to trouble shoot, to clean the impeller, to restart the motor, and then I resorted to getting Jim to help.  Except the pump motor was dead, and nothing we did could fix it.  It had a 3 year warranty.  It is 4 years old (of course it is).   We ordered a new pump, but had to wait for it to be delivered, as nobody had one locally we could run pick up.  I was worried I would have to start over on the water cleaning, but decided to run 2 chlorine dispensers, and hand skim it and try the best I could until the pump arrived.  It was delivered today.  Jim worked his magic and got it running tonight after the game.  I am happy to be filtering again, and I am thrilled that the water is still great!  

And finally....a story about the dogs.  At night, we have to put Ollie in our bedroom.  If we don't, he tends to do bad stuff like get into the trash can, or lift his leg and mark stuff.  If we put him in there with us, he tends to go lay on the tile in the bathroom, sleeps all night, and then goes out with me in the morning, no bad stuff done, everyone happy.  Around 4 am, he started hitting me with his nose.  Boop boop- on my hand.  Boop boop on my arm.  I will admit that I don't always sleep soundly, and I was annoyed that he was waking me up.  He rarely does anything like that.  I told him to go lay down!  I rolled over.  Boop boop on my rear end.  I took my foot and pushed him away from the bed and sternly told him to go lay down!  It was raining really hard, the wind was blowing, and the lightening was very vivid and striking a lot.  I was annoyed that he woke me up for a little rain.  He did go lay when I grouched at him.  I get up this morning to find that Blitz has completely eaten through the banister again, as in clear through, missing rail.  I thought ohh she must have been really scared.  I had a text from Grace saying that it was raining so she wasn't going to be walking today.  I then realized I had a bunch of texts from the power company saying they were sorry it was taking so long to get the power restored, and that they would do the best they could but there were multiple outages.  They sent me an outage map, with tons and tons of listings all around the area.  I then got on facebook, to see what people were saying and the first thing I saw was the county road guy begging people to give him a chance to get the roads clear before they left home, unless they were going to work.  He also stated to watch for downed lines.  I knew then that we must have had a pretty powerful storm go through, and felt bad for not "listening" to Ollie.  He was trying to save my life!  I am hearing that multiple places had 80 mile per hour wind.  With living in all these trees, we rarely get much in the way of wind, but I went out and walked around the yard looking to see if there were damages.  I saw none, which I am thankful for.  I am being told that Carbondale has a lot of people with trees torn up all over.  I am glad it wasn't a worse storm!  Colin texted to say he was being sent this way on storm call, and that they told him to bring a couple days worth of clothes and supplies.  I haven't heard from him since this morning, I am thankful that he is out here working to restore people's power!  I am also thankful that we were never out this time!