Mother’s Got A Dot Com

#2 Brat came home early from school today.

Why?

A bomb threat. The police came in with dogs, armed to the teeth, and got everybody out of there. Apparently, a student from another school had made the threat, although that’s not been confirmed.

No school tomorrow either, so Easter came early this year. For some. Most of the pupils and teachers still have all their stuff there – #2 Brat’s friend was not allowed to take her scooter home, for one.

Good thing they take it seriously – but scary!

At 8 o’clock Saturday morning, our neighbour rang. Our 5 horses had been romping around in his garden most of the night (Actually, they’d been all over the place – the white stuff told the tale), and he was now about to take his dogs out, and could we remove them, please?

Hmpf. I don’t blame him. They’re lambs, really, but one of them literally weighs a ton, and is quite imposing. Not really the company you want for your rose bushes, either – except for what comes out of their back side.

Anyway. Hubby and a couple of Brats went and got them, and put them back with their regular diet of silo hay. When they investigated what had gone wrong, it turned out that the elecric fence installation had no power. So, when Hercules (yes, that is the name of the monster horse), who’s no fool, sussed that one out, he just pushed the fence down and led everybody out for walkies.

We got the power back on, and we’ve checked it daily ever since…

I’m a bit apprehensive about this week end – hubby is going away, and so are 2 of the Brats that are eligible for horse-hunting.  There’ll just be me and one Brat here to do the biz if Hercules decides he needs some time away. Luckily, the white stuff is still covering most of our neighbour’s rose bushes. Not to mention his lawn… And the monster horse is a lamb – he just looks like a monster horse.

I’m not going to whine about the weather or the snow for a while. I promise.

Today has been lovely, the white stuff is melting fast, and I’ve cleared a space on the terrace that’s large enough to put out a few deck chairs. That means we can enjoy a nice cup of cocoa with whipped cream in the sun, while letting the sun tan our faces by reflecting on the white stuff.

I think I’ll just enjoy the coming week. I’ll paint Easter eggs with the Brats, pick birch branches that I’ll put in water to enjoy a bit of spring indoors, buy a great big pot of mini daffodils, and stick my tongue out at the white stuff, as I watch it melt. I’ll not worry about life insurance quotes, unpaid bills or even mortgages, and just enjoy life for a few days.

Wouldn’t it be nice to just vacuum the old mind for any worries, and take a day or two doing time out?

(Illustration photo, courtesy of me – from springs past)

Thank God It’s Friday – and Hubby’s been called out to snow duty again. Which of course means that it’s snowing. The great outdoors is back to looking like mid-January. The calendar, however, hasn’t changed with more that a day since yesterday, and shows that April is one day less away.

Global warming, my big behind!

FYI, we’re not supposed to have snow for Easter in April here. We’re supposed to be enjoying colorful crocuses and daffodils on the brink of bloom. The daffs have been seen to crack through the snow, but that’s all been hidden during the night, thank you very much. The birds are singing. Makes you wonder if they know what they’re doing.

Great blogging weather though.

It’s looking like other things are perking up. Unless any must-have household appliances choose to blow out their electronics in the next month, and the car(s) stay on their best behaviour, we’ll be all right. Actually, given another month or so, we could possibly even handle the odd unforeseen expense – which is a much better state of affairs than what we’ve had lately. (Great big sigh of relief).

# 1 Brat came home for a flash visit this weekend, bringing a friend from school. Now, the school in question is run on Christian principles, and I thought that maybe I had to be on deCorum watch.

In a household with 4 teenagers, sometimes words are spoken that would not be acceptable in polite society. This is certainly true in this one, and the little 2 1/2 year old tyke is quick to parrot anything he hears too. We tend to try to ignore it, since we’ve experienced that whatever is made a big deal of, just gets more interesting.

However, I’m not one to willingly offend my guests, so I hoped for best behaviour all round. (Let it be said that swearing is not an everyday occurance around our dinner table, and I repeat: we just don’t make a big deal out of it). Anyway – #1 Brat and friend arrived, and in came this beautiful girl, polite, friendly… and then she smiled at me. Revealing a great big “bag” of snuff under her upper lip. I managed to contain myself. I did not laugh.

Prejudice is a strange thing. In hindsight, I failed on at least a couple of counts:

1. Christian people are offended by swearing. Some are. Many though, think as I do, that it’s just words, and what counts is what’s on the inside.
2. Christian girls don’t use snuff. Eh… where did that idea come from? She might well have had deep rooted beliefs, what do I know? We never discussed the matter, and no swearing occurred.

As life is a life-long learning process, I can sum up the weekend’s lesson as follows: Appearances and preconceptions almost always lie. Get to know people first, and then refrain from passing judgment.

It seems to me that the Mystery Shopping industry must be heaving… My little work-from-home sideline as a proofreader has turned out to be quite a job this month.

Up until now, the largest number of checks I’ve been assigned in a month was around 40. Which made it one little egg in my basket. This month, I’m fast approaching 200 assigned proofreadings. My basket is filling up…

Since I also have to attend to more mundane chores, like changing nappies (that’s diapers to anyone west of Land’s End, Cornwall, UK) and feeding hordes of Brats, as well as chasing dust-bunnies, blogging has been forced to the back seat.  I know the weather conditions in places like Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur  and St.Petersburg on any given day, but that kind of information does not make interesting blog posts. Especially if coming from someone who’s never actually been in either of those places.

One mundane thing that filled my heart with joy today was that I spotted the first sign of spring: In a spot in our garden, where the snow has gone for some strange reason (most of  the garden is still covered with 10 inches of snow, which is 25 centimeters to anyone of the metric persuasion), the daffodil bulbs that I threw there last year are sprouting. Not blooming, sprouting. Green things sticking up, with snow all around. This means that somewhere down there, in the cold ground, things are happening, and the new Ice Age won’t be for this year. Always good to know.

Global warming, while not applicable for us Northdwellers, will give us another year’s respite, and while waiting for milder times, I keep my mind active by putting eggs in my basket.

Easter’s coming!

- know that feeling? When you’re juuust about to drop over the edge? I’m talking finances, not mental sanity, though it seems the two are closely linked.

What idiot was it that said that money doesn’t make you happy? Me, I’d gladly settle for rich in an unhappy sort of way. I don’t think there is any major problem in my life that huge amounts of cash wouldn’t solve at the moment. I may be hugely misled, but problem-free seems pretty d*** close to happy to me.

I don’t care about Vegas vacations, luxury or new clothes. I just want the people that owe us money to cough up, so that we can honor our obligations. “Yes, but…” only cuts so many times when you’re talking to mortgage/bank people.
Can’t think why. Every scrap of history tells them that we will make good. Just this once, why not cut us some slack? With property prices as they are, it’s in their interest (pardon the pun) too.

I still sleep at night. I’m weird that way.

Here’s #6Brat, Miracle Boy, taking matters into his own hands. Mum’s taking only snow pictures these days, so he probably thought he’d better put some balance back into the photographing of daily events.

When he saw the picture just now, he said: “Is there a bogeyman in there?” I assured him that there was not, and he concluded he’d probably eaten it. Charming.

With him around, I’ve thought about getting separate insurance quotes for just about everything in this house that has buttons and knobs.

Cameras, TVs, freezers (yes, been there, done that), DVD players, decoders, not to mention computers. My keyboard keys are marked with red permanent ink – doodle fashion. The screen has got regular blue ink doodle marks on it, and all the light switches that are accessible go on and off regularly.

I have to check the under-floor heating several times a day – it’s usually either turned way up or off altogether. We have all sorts of weird VHS recordings, because little mister has been switching channels just as whatever we’ve recorded started to get interesting.

The batteries in our flashlights are permanently depleted, and if he gets hold of my cell phone, he’ll send messages to the first one on my contact list. Every time. Luckily, it’s my aunt, and she thinks he’s the 8th wonder.

The only thing that he leaves alone is the vacuum cleaner. A little man already…

Have you ever seen something, or heard something, and found that your mind has wandered to something completely different? Or vaguely associated, but totally out of context?
When given the keywords sleep number bed to blog about, I was first irritated by the impossible, nonexistant grammar and word alignment. Then, I decided to try to be creative, and so this sweet little true story popped into my head:
My mother-in-law is the youngest of 12, and she was born in 1936. Her mother was born in 1890, and had her first child in 1907. Up until the second youngest, there was two years between every time a child was born. MIL was an afterthought, and was born 9 years after number 11.
Anyway. Before her, there were 6 boys and 5 girls. They all slept in the attic, and the boys shared one big bed.
The story goes that one of them sat up in bed one night, and when asked why, replied: “I just had to sit up for a while, to rest!” Legend also has it that when one of them needed to shift, he had to say: “one, two, three, turn!”, and all of them shifted at the same time.

They all lived to a ripe old age – in fact, 4 of the 12 are still around. The ones I’ve been lucky enough to know have never seemed traumatized by their childhoods, either. I don’t think I need worry too much about the fact that my 2 youngest Brats have to share a room.

The perfect weekend starts on Wednesday and ends on Tuesday. That, and any variations (Thu-Mon, Fri-Tue,etc) is what we in my family call an oval (or elliptical) weekend.

Just now, I’d happily give an arm and a leg to be able to buzz off (preferably without bringing a cell phone) for the traditional Friday-Sunday type break. I don’t think I’ve had a truly Brat-free day since Hubby and I had an oval weekend in Paris in November 2007. Tomorrow, though, we’ve managed to snatch a few hours to ourselves during the day. So, we’re off on a little expedition, just the two of us. A novel experience…