We're at the end of July, so it's time for my 'what we've been up to' blog. The short answer: not much. The long answer: See below.
Calib was gone for a week and a half, off to Ohio, and the rest of us... well...
It's been a couple of rough weeks here. When I last left you, our Air Conditioner had to be replaced. Which, yikes. But hey, at least you have a good 10-15 years before you have to worry about that again, right?
And after that a million little things went wrong. Like why did we have to call Progressive four times before they finally took our money to pay our bill (even though we have it automatically taken out)?!?! And why is it so hard to duel enroll and get straight answers about registration, like why is registration not a stream lined situation? Then there's the one panel on top of our screened in patio keeps getting ripped- and I know we need a new one, but I'm trying to delay that expense. Plus, it keeps raining so much the front way out of the subdivision is so flooded half the time we can't leave that way, which makes going to the store twice as long-- and on and on...
Which is all no big deal- until you add all these little inconveniences together with other crap...
Calib was then in Ohio all of two days before he was like 'Yea, my phone won't charge unless it's plugged in'. I mean, it is two years old. But, I was so looking forward to not having those phones on our bill anymore, since they were just about to be paid off. Peyton's wasn't having that problem- but it couldn't have been far behind, so we got the Google Pixel 2 on a BOGO offer for them, which made the payments about the same as it was before. Still, Calib was basically phone-less in Ohio.
Then there was the exam Asa is struggling with (does anyone have any tips for actually passing the nearly impossible Oracle exam?!?)-- he's since moved on to the next class, and will have to come back to Oracle. And I'm sure he'll get it eventually. It's just frustrating for him when he does so well on the practice exams, and I don't get the certifications where they hold exactly what's on it so close to the vest something like 3 quarters of people who take it fail. But anyway, ugh.
Then, Asa forgot he was on call for our dating/engagement anniversary. Which, is sort of my fault, because I didn't put his on call week on the calendar like usual. So, our celebrating got relegated to take out last minute. And it was the worst on-call week ever. He topped out somewhere around 90 pages- and most of those came between 2-6 AM, so we were both pretty sleep deprived. I, at least, got to go back to sleep- but imagine your alarm going off 10-20 times a night. It wasn't awesome.
And then to top it all off, we had some car trouble- in fact, the worst car trouble. So, I know we have two older cars, and this was supposed to be the year of the new car (until, you know, Asa's work decided it would be more cost effective to eliminate his entire department so someone half way across the world would do it for way less). But, whatever, it's fine.
Or it is fine, until they tell you the better of the two cars needs a whole new ENGINE. Ugh. It's also the car that used to be my dads, so I have emotional attachment to it. So, we had to get that fixed- and it took most of the work-week to get it done. (Shout out to Paul's Mobile Mechanic for getting it done early).
So, the second car has air condition issues. Nobody can quite figure out what's going on with it. So, you CAN take it places, but it isn't ideal. Since you know, we live in Florida and it's 9000 degrees outside. We had to get dog food that week though, so we headed out to Costco, and when we got there the back window refused to go up. And then it rained.
So basically, it's not been an ideal couple of weeks. BUT, we have the car back (we're now going to have to get the window fixed in the other car) and it's good to go. Calib is home with his new phone, and here's hoping the electric bill is not $400 next month since the A/C won't be running non-stop.
Anyway, I'm sure you didn't come here to hear me complain. So, I'll give you another rather amusing event of the last two weeks.
Someone left the hamster door open overnight. Moresby, however, was still safe in his home. I'd like to think he was like 'Corinne and Asa have had a crappy week, I don't want to add to their stress', and/or he took one look at the outside world and though 'nah, I'm good here'.
Oh, then there was the great tadpole pool of 2018. Peyton came to get me at like midnight one night and was like 'Dad needs to see you outside', and I'm like 'oh no, what now?' Turns out the inflatable pool had filled with rain water and we were now the proud parents to a couple thousand tadpoles.
Asa just wanted to dump them out. Hayden and I were horrified at the prospect, so we got a bucket and my fish net and went out to rescue them.
The pictures don't really show how many there were- but there was a ton!
And, I got Asa on board to take the bucket down and dump it in the pond across the street.
I didn't want to do it- there's probably gators in there, people! Also, I know, probably a lot of them died. Though I don't think the water temperature would be that different to be an issue, but the PH balance would be- and now there's predators, which there wasn't in the inflatable pool. But, I felt better about putting them back in a natural habitat than just letting them all suffocate by getting dumped out.
It took a long time, and a couple trips to get them all out of there- but I got at least 95% out before I dumped out the pool.
Also, during all of this, we were watching the neighbor dog (and now we're watching the neighbor plants).
And, while cleaning out the garage, two stray dogs wandered up, and I returned them to their owners. Between all of this, you'd think I'd earned some good karma. So hopefully things start to turn around here.
At least Racetrac still has the 'All you can swirl' going on, so we had that to look forward to. (Hayden gets the 12 and under free cup!)
And, even without a car we rode our bikes down to the pool like every day, so that was nice.
And Asa and Peyton discovered there was a Pokemon gym in the next subdivison over, which you can get to through the back of our subdivision if you're willing to get off you bike and walk it up a small hill. It's only about an 7-8 minute bike ride away, so we've done that quite a few times (thank goodness for our bikes!)
We didn't have official jobs while Calib was gone, but Peyton and Hayden did a good job helping with some of those things anyway. Peyton even helped with dinner a few times. It was self-serving since I told him we'd have mashed potatoes only if he made them, but hey, whatever works.
I worked on finishing all the quilt squares from my grandmas stuff. At one point I had everything cut, and then I kept bringing more stuff back with me. I think I have plenty now to get working on the quilts.
I just kept throwing all the scraps on the floor, which the dogs loved. They kept making a bed out of it.
The blanket fort is still up- but I did take the walls off and wash them to make it smell a little less like boy. Plus at least this fort is easy to vacuum since I can almost stand up in it.
And, I did take all my frustrations out on the front bushes and hibiscus. I've hated those since I moved in. Eventually I'll get new stuff to plant, but at least that stuff is gone. I should have taken a before and after picture, because despite the fact Calib came home and totally didn't notice- it is a huge difference.
Besides that we're taking a hiatus from school work, or at least Hayden is, to work on projects for the fair. So, if you aren't into craft/art projects you can scroll down.
We cut off the top of water bottles and shaped them into flowers, and then he painted them.
He did it in a couple different layers/coats but painting the 'back' of the flowers (what was once the outside of the water bottle.) They turned out pretty cool, and we just wrapped some wire around the top of the water bottle to create a stem.
He wanted a 'vase' to display them in. We filled a bucket of room temperature water and dumped in some nailpolish and swirled it around with a tooth pick.
Then we took an empty Cheerwine bottle and dipped it in and swirled it around until it had grabbed most of the nailpolish.
We let that dry and we got a cool kind of tie-dyed bottle.
And then he stuck some flowers in there. It doesn't photograph nearly as cute as it is in person. But he has this for his recycled sculpture.
Then, he made a button tree out of buttons and wire. Again, I probably need a backdrop of not my kitchen to show how cool this looks in person, but basically he just strung buttons on wire and then wrapped them around each other until he got his desired effect.
When we were looking through the recyclables for water bottles, Hayden thought some of the stuff out there would make some other cool artwork. So, with a little direction from me, he came up with a fun face using a piece of cardboard, two silk milk containers and a Mike's Hard Lemonade bottle. I told him he could do like a paper mache type covering to give it some texture and cover up the tape- so we went with that. All we needed was some glue mixed with water (and elmers glue was 50 cents a thing so I stocked up a couple weeks ago), and some newspaper.
We had to let that dry for a few days.
Then he thought two paper towel rolls inside of each other (one cut like teeth inside one with a mouth cut out) would make a good mouth. He did a coat of gesso (which was really the only thing I bought for any of these projects- and we've used across quite a few crafts) and then painted the whole thing, and added some brown paper for hair.
We also made some faces out of smashed pop cans. All this took was a little smooshing and some puffy paint (which also took a few days to dry).
He decided they needed some hair, so we cut that out of foam, and I suggested using some more puffy paint for interest.
We couldn't decide what to put them on, and then we decided to use another piece of cardboard, which he gesso-ed and then painted in a checkerboard pattern. I wasn't sure hot glue would stay to hold these guys, so he just slathered them in elmers glue and again, let them dry a few days- they aren't going anywhere.
For his 3-D sculpture he decided on making a pelican. We took an empty bottle, some foil and some tape to construct the shape.
We wrapped the whole thing in masking tape and then covered it in our favorite primer- gesso.
We're still working on this one. He painted the first coat on it this morning.
He also just has some plain paper artwork. He drew a scene lightly in pencil and then covered the paper in dots for his marker pointillism.
And for his watercolor he drew a bird, then traced it onto sheet music.
And then he went to town with his water colors. I think this one is super cute.
We had leftover glue mixed with water, so I looked into what we could do with that- and we decided on making a bowl from fabric scraps! I set up a ball for that shape of the bowl, then Hayden dipped his fabric pieces in the glue and water mixture and covered a little more than half the ball.
Two days later it was dry as could be, so we popped the ball to see if we had a winner, or a Pinterest fail on our hands.
Turns out it works! It's pretty hard, but you can shape it a bit, we carefully pressed the round bottom into the counter and created a sort of flat bottom. He's thinking he wants to clean up the edges by folding some more fabric scraps over the edge, but overall, it's cute!
Peyton, meanwhile, is beyond the arts and crafts these days. He has a few things to enter we worked out through out the year, and has all kinds of antiques and such he plans on entering, but he had school work to do in place of crafts, which he apparently likes doing by lantern in the blanket fort.
Speaking of the blanket fort. It's probably going to have to come down soon, we are going to Ohio again in a couple of weeks. But, before that time, we had to have our annual Waterstraut All-Nighter. Peyton usually asks for us to all stay up all night for his birthday (and we usually do it a few days before or after). This time we were set to do it the day the air conditioner went out, so that didn't work out. So here we are with our midnight-run of taco bell.
Then there was lots of video gaming and Big Brother Live Feed Watching.
Followed by 3 AM Donuts.
Followed by more video games.
Calib, who is always the first one out, lasted longer than usual this year- he was asleep somewhere around 4:30.
Peyton and Asa then moved to Rock Band (Hayden is just out of the frame of the picture).
And around 5 AM I went to shower and lay in bed. I left the door open though, and did stay awake until 6 AM with the rest of them.
Asa then rewarded me with breakfast the next 'morning' (ahem, 1 PM) for making it the whole night.
I leave you with the usual cute Waterstraut pet pictures.
Next Up: Heading into August, where the heat really gets me- but at least it's my birthday month!
