Color My world Part 2

Okay this wasn't what I had in mind when I said I loved color! That hair dye comes off on everything even my new white/ soon to be pink towels!

Color My World

The little weather exclamation point on my computer was yapping about frost all day yesterday so late in the afternoon I decided to go outside and pick everything. Why do I insist on growing swiss chard every year when everyone in my family except me hates it? Well don't tell them but it is definitely on the menu tonight! Since I posted it watch and see if they don't all develop "dinner plans". Ha. Basil also we gots. And we gots lots of it. I planted Cinderella pumpkins this year but time got away from me and they were only watered when it rained much less fertilized. That doesn't matter because those two pumpkins are the most beautiful red orange. If only I could paint a room that color! They just as wonderful as last weeks fuchsia gladiolas! Some people are missing the color connections in their brain. They actually like beige house, walls, clothes, etc.. I guess it is like the music connection I don't have but my kids sure do. Karl hears music all the time. A constant sound track. For me it is the colors. Maybe that is why winter in upstate New York is so hard. It is the lack of colors. I really should paint a room soon! Fuchsia or Orange?

Creature Feature

It was such a beautiful Fall day. I took the dogs for a run over at the reservoir. I tried to time it so that I would intersect with Inga's kayaking/canoeing class but I was a little early. Our high school believes in creating "lifetime activities" through gym class. Inga is taking kayaking and Erik is golfing. This is the fourth time Inga has picked kayaking. She loves anything to do with water. She also took scuba diving, fly fishing, rollerblading, self defense, ice skating, and (another favorite) archery. It sure does beat the old days when your only choice was field hockey or basketball. Wait, now I remember there was no choice! As I walked along with the dogs the reservoir was filled with much laughter and giggling and not one kid was on the sidelines because they "forgot" their gym clothes.

I have to add that there maybe another reason the kids don't forget their clothes. As Erik discovered when he left his clothes on the bus in the morning. If you come unprepared to class you still have to participate and you have to make up the class afer school. This has caused much stress for Erik. That rule would have been the kiss of death for me as I relied on the "Oops I forgot my sneakers" excuse pretty often.

While I was walking along enjoying the gym class I came across this giant unfamiliar caterpillar.Caterpillars often crack me up because they sport such scary attire. Like this guy's horn. When I lean down to take their picture they rear up and hiss at me or curl up and show me their threatening eyes. Imagine though, if they were say, 15 feet long! I guess I wouldn't be laughing then.

Hair of the Dog

It seems one way or another I am always fixing hair. Dyeing teenagers hair, dyeing dog hair, or as I did today cutting dog hair/fur. Somehow I ended up with two Barbie dogs. They are designed for you to play with their hair. In fact it is required. They do not shed. Great for kids with asthma but what if Mom has actually grown out of Barbie? It is either pay 100.00 or do the dog yourself so here I am. One dog done one more to go. Cooper actually seemed pretty pleased with his haircut. Maybe he is just grateful I didn't dye him green.

Rockin and Fencing

Monday night is lessons night for Inga and Erik. I got smart this year and managed to schedule them all on 2 nights...well two nights and an afternoon. Last year there was a lesson four nights a week. Inga takes bass lessons and voice. Erik takes guitar, drumming, and fencing. He is angling for bass lessons but overlap is a bad thing.

Inga and her friend Zack were working on starting a band. They wrote some songs together, got some other kids, and they used to have band practice. Zack's dad is a guitar tech/stage manager for various bands ( REM right now) so his house is like Rock and Roll day camp. Big amps. Inga scored 100 percent on the state chemistry exam and for a reward we bought her a bass. I found a bass teacher. ( He used to play for Foghat and also the Outlaws) But AP Global studies involved so much work she found it hard to practice. Things kind of petered out. She kept taking lessons and playing for fun.

Meanwhile Erik started playing Karl's drum kit in the basement and we turned around and Erik was playing in Zack's band as the drummer. I think Zack was worried for awhile that Inga wouldn't speak to him ever again but it worked out okay. She forgives him. I think. The new band jelled together pretty nicely and I turned around this time and I was hauling equipment to shows. "Band Mom" is way cooler than "Hockey Mom"! Erik and his band have played four gigs so far.

When Erik was at the private school all of his friends took fencing. So we signed him up too. Odd I thought but okay we will go with it. I hoped it wasn't like Ta Kwan Do. That Ta Kwan Do guy took himself way too seriously. Fencing has worked out great. The teacher is good with them. Patient but firm which good since they are playing with swords. Erik is starting his third year now. This year they had a choice of weapon and Erik and his group picked sabers. Sabers are less flexible than the regular foils and now they can strike any part of the body. Heads are fair game. When I watch them warm up and do drills I am reminded of ballet. Actually they even have "positions" just like ballet. The shifting of weight and emphasis on hand positioning, the drills across the floor, all these things are remarkably similar to ballet but I won't say anything..

Book Club

Friday night I had a meeting of my Book club. We have been together about 8 years. Some people have moved, some people have splintered off to form a Bunko club instead, but our core group of 6 woman have remained through out the years. It is an inter generational group with people in their twenties and people in their sixties. This adds dimension to our discussions. One of the first books we read was about the Taliban and Afghanistan. Someone brought a color coded map which I thought was pretty cool. I think the next one was a about a talking gorilla. We read all different kinds of things. This year we read Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah which was about renovating a house in Morocco. Enjoyable but it did not make me want to renovate anything in Morocco. We read Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortensen and David Oliver Relin. After that book we donated money to build schools in the mountains of Pakistan in the book club's name. This past month we read The Nine: the Secret World Inside the Supreme court. I haven't finished that one because halfway through I got too disheartened to read on. Clarence Thomas is worse than expected shall we say. With the election coming up it was even harder to read. Next month we are reading the Hounds of Baskerville. Last year we read a spooky book in October. We read The Thirteenth Tale. I recommended that one with some trepidation due to some hints of incest but everyone loved it for the spooky factor so we are hoping to repeat the theme this year.

Yep, we always talk about the book. ( Well except that one time we tried to read Shakespeare) But of course we also follow along on with what's happening with every one's families births, weddings, school problems, etc. We manage to talk religion and politics pretty well too. No arguments have ever occurred although we do get loud. (Inga and Erik hate it when Book Club is at my house!) Someone usually has a funny story. I guess I will always remember Bernadette's stories about delivering the newspaper on her pony and sharing one bathroom with eleven other siblings. Oh yes, and her boss that thought Canada was in Europe. Judy and I are separated by a generation but we have remarkable parallels in our lives. Hopefully that means someday soon I will start traveling to all the places she has been. (Well I'll pass on Antarctica at Christmas!) I am often tired upon arriving but less tired when leaving. Book clubs are a good thing.

Ta Da!

Ta Da! Inga's room is clean! Clean, sorted, scrubbed and hung out to dry. Oh yeah. I did buy organizing thingys for all her stuff because she holds on to everything! When I throw things out she goes through the bags rescuing stuff. But I have to say she did let me throw away six bags of garbage. We did finally pack up her dolls. (Not to throw away of course.) Inga and I built a bookcase and organizer this morning. The bookcase had special hidden recesses for screws. They instructed you to angle your screwdriver in the little recesses and then screw them together. My screwdriver doesn't angle well. Well you would need a screwdriver with a fourty-five degree angle in it to do this easily! We managed. We managed to nail the backings on without any nails poking through to the otherside! Yeah. Inga nailed without hitting her fingers! Yeah! We even worked out more efficient ways to hammer. We are hammering queens nows. Holding the hammer farther back on the handle works a lot better.