Daily Adventures

Jet's first overnight stay elsewhere was a doozy. He was up until 2 am watching Harry Potter movies and then up at 6 because there were kids that went to sleep early that were too excited to stay asleep... and then he swam at Union reservoir and when he came home at 2:30 he had a snack and sat on the couch to tell me about the party and before I even realized it he was fast asleep on the couch.

He got a good hour's nap and we did some stuff together to help him wake up. He said, rather plaintively in the midst of it, "I didn't think our party was today."

( The Party was Today. )

... well, not the moon's fault anyway.

The pollen counts have been ramping up higher and higher.  My medication worked for the first few days I was taking it, but my flow tests have been going steadily down for the last five days, and we had a really busy weekend.

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It is good to have a husband that says, "Stay home. Don't go to the party just because you said you would. You're going to be way overwhelmed if you do."

And he's right.

Every since the OUR Center garden turned more into a managerial/direction type of thing where I have someone talking to me the whole time I'm working there, it's been a lot harder on me. I'm still not recovered from the overwhelming "having people talk to me about a lot of things" from the projects I was doing at work. All I want to do is hide in the basement and play video games with Jet, which isn't really healthy for either of us.

( So we haven't *just* done that... )

I got up with Jet this morning. We played Parcheesi on his new car games book, and it was good. John got up an hour later and looked quite refreshed. :-) So he made baked pancakes while I put myself together. Then the three of us headed to a four-year-olds birthday party at Sunflower Farm here in Longmont.

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The party went well. 40 parents and kids all in the house as it was raining really well. It's times like these that I'm glad we have the house we do. "Welcome to Seattle," was John's greeting at the door. Hee. It was good, lots of food was eaten, no one was badly hurt, and there was lots of fun to be had between Jet's playroom upstairs and the basement full of things to do.

I was flat on Sunday, though, so just knitted while John ushed the beginning of the service. Then we left for home. I fretted about replanting things until I put a dozen of Jet's baby spider plants into One Big Pot. Then I was better. I still have a couple dozen tomato plants to redo. Jet had a birthday party in the afternoon so we went and got a birthday present for Chris. Jet spotted a maze toy he really wanted, so he opened his bank, found that he had the $11 dollars he needed, and he asked, quite politely, if I would take him there to buy it. So we did.

While Jet was at the party, I watched the concluding Twelve Kingdom DVDs for the three girls. Two-thirds of the series was them getting their clues, and once they had them they were quite effective with them. I was glad of that. I always cringe at people throwing away their clues, but maybe that's what makes a good story, how they recover them, the consequences of tossing them in the first place, and all that. Bujold books always start with a grand Tossing of Clue or some really cringe-worthy mistake and bungle or fuck up and I usually can't read it after the first time. I like reading the recovery and process to something better in the end the best. Slogging through the first two-thirds of them trying to figure out their clue was so hard that I had to stop for a few weeks, but the ending was worth it as all the hard lessons they learned pay off.

Dinner was leftovers. It's definitely past "clearing the fridge out" time for the upcoming trip.

I finished three baby sweaters in less than three days. My right hand was tingling a bit this morning, warning me that perhaps watching multiple DVDs and knitting mechanically while watching was not the best of ideas. I'll do more planting today to make up for this and for that. I hope to gift the sweaters today. :-) Then I'll publish pictures.

Thursday was the movie, and Jet home late with his backpack and box lunch. With only 15 minutes to eat, he never gets much of it down, and so eats a huge breakfast and dinner on school days.

Friday was mostly sitting at home and watching TV, video games, and a Star Wars movie. I spun a lot while Jet and I just lazed around the house. John did four or so errands, and ended up with two sets of brewing recipes. He'd just bought a beer fridge from someone at work, which was good enough incentive to brew again.

The spinning was the result of a revelation I got when I opened the envelope containing the Crown Mountain Farm Sock Hop samples. I'd always thought the wear qualities of yarn had more to do with the material in the yarn. I've spun mohair, nylon, and silk into my yarns for solid wearing characteristics, and often stick to harder, harsher wools like Border Leister for heels and toes. I couldn't imagine merino being able to wear well. Until I saw and felt this yarn. I hadn't thought, up to that point, that the amount of spin could make such a difference. Wow.

Then I completely over-spun a two-ounce hank of Big Yellow Taxi. Took it all the way to where the singles would start to kink, and then tension plied it back on itself. The resulting yarn is like a high-tension spring. Nearly hard, but with that silky hand that only fine merino can have. Some spring in it, but I definitely took it too far for commercial yarn. I'm intending to make Jet a pair of socks in it as it's his favorite color and I can see the wear characteristics in action.

Saturday Jet got up at 5:30 so John was up and brewing by 6. The steam in the house helped clear my head. So I was completely up to seeing Bob and Mei in the evening. They came and we cooked lots of good Asian stuff, including some Thai-like green papaya salad and a big batch of garlic chive pockets with tofu and some turkey, I think. We made enough for us to all freeze and keep and some for leftovers as well. It was yummy to do and something neither of us would have done alone. Jet played and talked and got everyone to play Pop Belly Pigs, which was fun. And he enjoyed some of the chocolate dessert we all had.

Sunday was church and the later evening just made my head all stuffed up. I was worried that it had gotten into my lungs, but after a good, hard sing, I realize that there was no way I could sing if the cold had gone into my lungs. So that was good.

The whole afternoon was filled with a BBQ we through for, mostly, the folks on our block here in the neighborhood. We invited Cynthia and her family just 'cause they fit in well with the other families here. And it was a blast. We cooked a chicken that Dean defrosted, burgers that Tonya brought over, and hot dogs for the kids. There were a good dozen salads and four kinds of desserts. The kids had a blast on the climbing structure and through the yard. The parents enjoyed being able to just sit and talk for a while.

So, today, I'm tired of people. I was well enough this morning to go out for a walk with John and Jet, so we just went to Roosevelt Park in Longmont and looked at the roses. Then, when we got back home, the boys took off on their bike (the three-wheeler, as Jet calls it) to go back there and play in the kid pool there. Jet saw it and really, really wanted to go there instead of to our neighborhood pool. Since John told the neighbors we were likely to be going to the Botanical Garden in Denver, instead, no one here is expecting us. *grin* So I get my alone time and the boys get some real exercise in.

For the last couple of weeks John and Jet have been giving "Jetapalooza" invitations to families around our neighborhood, at church, and at work. Yesterday we had the PARTY! :-)

It was great. We had cross cut short ribs in teriyaki, grilled chicken (we'd cooked 'em Wednesday and reheated them with BBQ sauce), roasted sweet corn, and hot dogs for the kids. Last minute additions included a couple quarts of strawberries, half a cantaloupe cut into cubes, and a beautifully ripe pineapple that I'd seen at the store and had to have. I cored, peeled, and cut it into a container. We had juice boxes, pop, water, and a dozen different kinds of micro brew beer, as we just hadn't had the energy to brew beforehand, either real beer or root beer, or I would have done it.

We made ice cream. Hand-cranked ice cream, and everyone gathered around, curious as to the process and the results. I didn't add enough sugar to the mix, so I noticed that the ice crystals were bigger than they should have been and the mouth feel wasn't quite right, but no one really complained, and Brian, the teenager next door ate a good pint of the stuff. My. I need to get that right, especially since we now have another vanilla bean.

People brought a wonderful array of salads, fruit, breads, appetizers, and yummy stuff. So the food was absolutely fabulous, and everyone nibbled and ate constantly. Yay!

The climber was a real hit. The water cannon was on constantly, and all the kids slid, got really wet and cold, and ran around in the sunshine, got too hot, and slid again. Sunscreen was everywhere. The moms and dads occasionally got hit if they were Too Close, and the water balloon station was a big hit as well. John bought four bags of water balloons and we had fillers stuck to a couple of hose areas, so the kids could fill their own. Wow. :-) The basic rule was if someone says no, you can't hit them with a water balloon, but in the mid-afternoon it was hot enough nearly everyone amiable to a hit or two. That was pretty nice, though the whole backyard is now dotted with little brightly colored bits of rubber. We had plenty of shade for the parents, as by three, the house was providing a good shadow for a big portion of the patio and a bit of the back lawn.

The mix of people was Just Right, too. Pretty much all the kids had someone their age to play with, and the one that didn't had brought along a friend, so they were set. It was pretty evenly mixed between neighbors, church, and work, so everyone had someone they knew and more they didn't, so lot of folks really enjoyed seeing new people and getting to meet others. The kids enjoyed each other a lot, and even some notoriously shy kids figured out it was more fun to be swinging and throwing water balloons at each other rather than sticking to Mom and Dad. So that worked out really, really well. Pretty much all the parents were of the opinion that their children had had a blast. No one got hurt, no one fell off of anything, and the only ground hitting was in a few too-tired tantrums as parents decided to go home. To be expected, and on the most part, with all the fruit and color and fun, most of the kids did great.

We partied from 3 until about 9:30 pm. :-) And we didn't even get any complaints from the neighbors! Yay! I guess that's an advantage of partying with little kids, they all go to bed earlier rather than later.

I did grill duty as I love doing it, and John did the coordination of the ice cream. It's been a long time since we had a good party, so I was feeling a little rusty and tired from work. But it went well enough, I think. The ribs went a lot faster than I thought they would. Next time we'll have to get more than four pounds of them as no one ate the chicken until the ribs were gone. We'd bought three chickens, thinking it might be too much, but everything but one thigh and two breast quarters (I cut the halves in half) got eaten. The corn worked out well, as we could just start it well before dinner, and the cobs, in the husks, stayed good and hot for a long time afterwards. We'll have to remember that for later in the summer.

*happy sigh*