Apparently I'd rather read than blog. Apparently I'd rather read than...anything.

So I have a stack of books from the library I'm very interested in reading, plus all this regular work I have to do, like nourish and nurture the children and maintain an efficient, peaceful, organized home, right? I walk by the bookshelf last week and notice the set of four (yes, 4) books I picked up at a yard sale a few weeks ago. These are books I have read several times before, and I think to myself, "I'll just pick up this first one and revisit the first couple of chapters, just to reminisce about how much I love these books." Yeah, right. 3 books and 1762 pages later, my library books are still untouched, the Netflix movie I've had a week is still sitting there, and I'm fighting to stay awake during the day because I'm staying up too late reading. Ah well. Only one more book to go. I hope I'll revisit the real world in time to do the shopping and the laundry this week. But if I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath.
(I love these books, but I do not recommend them to everyone as there are some pretty graphic love scenes. If that sort of thing is easy for you to skip over, and if you like books with a great amount of detail, these may be the books for you. I still need to find the fifth installment in paperback.)

Who's the real idiot?

I hate it when people in books act like idiots. And I don't mean making a mistake, or acting according to character flaws, etc. I mean when the author writes people acting like I don't think actual adults would really act. I especially hate it when it comes out of the blue, unexpected and extremely irritating. As a reader, what am I supposed to do? I can't talk to them and tell them to grow up. I can't quit reading the book, because that would be self-defeating. I have to just suck it up and keep reading, hoping that either there is some purpose or some motivation that I have missed, or that the idiocy will turn out to be only a minor flaw in the entirety of the story. And I was really liking this book, too. Stupid people. Stupid author. Ugh.

Simplicity.

Unjustified

Saturday evening my brother-in-law called and invited the girls to come over and go swimming. Russ and I were in the office and concurred that neither of us wanted to go, but someone should take the girls anyway. This someone is usually me, which is fine. I'm the mom. I get to stay at home, and that earns me a much freer schedule in some ways, but a more demanding one in others. One of the ways in which it is more demanding is that I'm always on call, 24/7. Russ had just spent the day planting corn, fixing sprinklers, weeding the back lot, and getting the little house rented. He leaves early in the morning, works as long as he can, and comes home tired. I stay at home and work all day, too, but my duties ebb and flow and are more re-arrangeable than his, so it usually falls to me to continue supervising the kids until bedtime. And I think I'm pretty happy with the system as it exists at our house. This particular evening, I was blogging, so when Russ got of the phone and we decided the kids should go swimming, he turned and finished his finances, and I finished my blog entry. When I shut off my computer, he was dressed in his swim stuff and was hollering at the kids to get ready. I was surprised. "I thought you didn't want to go." I said. "I don't," he replied, "But I think they need to go, so I'm going." Can I just tell you how mad I was? I was furious. Livid. How dare he? I mumbled something sarcastic about being sorry I finished my blog before I got ready, and then I just shut the bedroom door and let him go. I took a good hour to calm down, and I really began to wonder why I should be so insulted. If he had complained about my timing I would have told him that if he wanted things done according to his schedule, he was welcome to do them himself. Which is exactly what he did. And I was actually happy to not have to go. So why was I so mad? Was I irrational, or were his actions really insulting? I still can't decide. I guess I don't mind if he takes some of these duties on himself, but only if it's because he loves me or wants to give me a break, and not because he thinks I'm failing in some way. Anyway, I recovered my composure long before they got home, and we haven't spoken of it again, but I wonder. Which was it? And do I really want to know?

Corn...when did I eat corn?

We planted a field full of corn today. Row by row, 2 seeds at a time. My neck got sunburned and I felt like a farmer's wife. The implement we used looked something like this image. You press the pointed end into the ground, then press the handles together, which opens up the end in the ground, making a hole. Then you drop the corn seeds down the length of the tool into the hole and you close the handles again and lift the tool out of the ground, Then, as you press the tool into the ground about a foot further down the row, you step on the previous hole to press the dirt down and cover the seeds well. So you do this about a hundred times in a row, for about 50 rows. It's hot and repetitive , but at least it's easy enough that you can visit and talk while you work. And when it's all done, it's actually pretty satisfying to look over the field full of neat little furrows that you planted and envision how it will look in a month or two. I am glad we only have to do it once a season, though.

A long day.

On Wednesday Russell punished Katie and Liz for some infraction by assigning them to weed a 15'x20' unplanted (mostly bare) patch of our garden. Who knew this would turn out to be the most difficult task they have ever attempted in their lives?

8:45 - Girls are given their assignment and told to get started. They work diligently for approximately 4 minutes before beginning to throw dirt at each other and play together.
9:00 - I go outside to remind them to work. They work for 2 minutes before they wander over to the fence to watch the sheep next door. (Which I have to admit are very interesting, with little lambs and all.)
9:10 - I yell at them from the back porch to get back to work. They walk to the weeds and stand and look at me.
9:15 - Repeat of previous actions.
9:25 - Ditto.
9:30 - Upon finishing my indoor chores, I go out to help. I tell them to get out from under the peach tree and then offer to work with them as long as they work.
9:40 - I leave, because even with me working right next to them, they will not work. I tell them they cannot have a snack or lunch or any other food until they are done. If they start working right now they could be done in 30 minutes. I clean the driveway and back porch. They play.
11:30 - They realize that lunch is coming up soon and they are getting hungry. I think perhaps a corner will be turned. They pull a few weeds and then go back to watch the sheep. Oh, well.
12:30 - I remind them of lunch, but they seem uninterested. I tell them to stay in their little area, and they do...until I go inside again.
1:45 - Russell comes in and asks if I have gone into the empty house next door for anything. I haven't. They have found an unlocked door and been resting and playing in the empty house, although they are not there now. I check on them again. They are hanging things from the clothesline that crosses the weed patch. We lock the empty house.
2:00 - I am inside keeping the other kids busy, and I sit down on my bad for a minute or two. I fall asleep. After about 20 minutes I start to have bad dreams about everything that could go wrong out there with no one keeping an eye on them, so I get up and go out. Everything is fine. I should say, everything is the same as it has been all day. Girls playing, weeds thriving. I keep peeking out every so often to make sure they are alive.
3:45 - Russ and I go check on the progress. No girls. We see them in the back lot playing with something. Closer inspection is called for. They have found some old bottles of stucco dye that Russ's brother, Craig has left out there. The bottles hold about 8 oz. of vary dark dye that is the consistency of yogurt. Liz and Kate have uncapped about 6 or 7 of them and used fox tails as paintbrushes to paint the side of a big dump truck in the back lot. Of course they have managed to drip/smear a liberal amount of dye onto themselves: hands, faces, clothes, hair. We clean up what we can and march them over to Uncle Craig's to confess and apologize. They do so, to which Uncle Craig responds by telling them they've probably learned a lesson and would they like some strawberries? Thank you, Craig! That'll teach 'em! We allow them to pick the strawberries, but will not allow them to eat until....yep. Until the weeds are done.
4:15 - Back home, and I have had it. I sit on a lawn chair in the middle of the patch and point to weeds, individually and specifically, and demand their removal from the ground and deposit into the trash. The girls cry about how unfair everything is, but it takes us about 15 minutes using this method to finish the job.

15 minutes.

They have spent an entire day in the hot sun, getting yelled at by parents, not eating, not hiking to play in the river (which was one of the things I had planned for the day), and not going to the library (another plan). All for 15 minutes of work. That is so frustrating for me. I want them to learn to be self-motivated, and I believe the way to do it is to allow them some opportunities to reap the consequences of failure. Unfortunately we all have to miss out on the fun things as well when one or two children choose to fail. But I can think back and remember JR having the same kinds of days, and he eventually learned. He's much better than he used to be, so I have hope for the future. Of course, I still have children coming up. It's going to be a long haul. Let's just hope my sanity will stand by me until the end.

To quote the famous poet...

It was Burns that said, "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men, Gang aft agley." Well, my best laid plans went awry last week when I went shopping at Costco and found a boxed set of the first 3 Percy Jackson and the Olympians books by Rick Riordan for only $10.99. That's less than $4 a book! I had no choice but to buy them. And then, of course, I had to read them. So all those lovely books I was planning on reading are still sitting in the "library books" section of my bookshelf, and 3 new paperback books each have a crease in their spine, but I feel so much better acquainted with Greek/Roman mythology. It was an enjoyable week. I am always slightly surprised when authors keep writing good, new books. Somewhere in the back of my brain is a little corner that believes all the good stuff is already written, that there cannot be anything really great being written because there are only so many ideas and combinations of words that can be strung together. Maybe it's the old fogey in me that wants to be sure the old days were the best days, or maybe it's the cynic in me that wants to believe that civilization is hurtling toward destruction and nothing good can be forthcoming. Whatever it is, I have a delicious sense of discovery every time I read a new series of books that I truly enjoy. And I enjoyed the Percy Jackson series, what I've read of it. (My name is on the library list for the last 2 installments in the series, but I'm sure they follow the entertaining pattern already set by Mr. Riordan.) Definitely recommend.