Lazy me

I know somebody somewhere thinks I sit around watching soap operas all day and that I never get anything done.  Well you know what? They are wrong.  Some days I never get anything done but it isn't because I sit around watching soap operas.  So...here is a little bit of what I do...
These things are not in order of how they were done.  Sometimes in a world of chaos, we just take things as they come, order or no order.

We moved a chicken house. 

I crocheted a few (at least 75) flowers for a wonderful person.

We found a corn snake and put him in a safer place.

I finally learned how to make a "tooth brush" rug.

I found a sunbeam in my yard.

We hiked 3.2 miles and swung on a vine.

We saw a Fox Squirrel on a post.

The dog even helped roll the kids around in the barrel.

We rolled our kids around in a barrel.

We stuffed a kid in a barrel.

Almost 50 pounds of sweet potatoes.

Me and the boys dug some sweet potatoes.

The SWAT bus I drove in the memorial day parade.

I bought the piece to fix the toilet.  I was going to fix it but

 my husband beat me to it.

 

The tiny screen from the cold water for the washing machine.

This is what came out of the screen.

This is what it should look like.  No sediments clogging it up.

I fixed the washing machine while Superman was out of town.  This was to fix the agitator.

Hump Day

We all made it to Hump Day! What a relief.

I have got to get out of the house more though. I am spending way to much time inside and our yard is really suffering from it. I need to pick up a few things and tidy the whole yard up. It really isn't too bad, but it isn't nice and neat like I prefer it to be. Since Rocko came to live with us, he has taken to laying in two places. Of course those places are right up against the skirting on the house. Right now it is just pushed in just a little but if I keep on putting off working on it, then it could get pretty ugly. I like to keep up with things like that so they don't get to far out of hand. It is one of the easiest things to fix too.

Speaking of getting out of hand. Yesterday I had the horses grazing on the yard. I hear a really weird noise in the den. I walk into the den and I can tell that the noise is coming from the window. I open the curtain and what do I see...Shadow looking back at me. Shadow is one of our horses. She has the screen from the window in her mouth. No joke! She pulls on the screen and it comes out of the window, then she drops it. Once she drops the screen, she starts licking on the window. What's up with that? She is just being her silly little (1500 pound little) self. And now I have a screen to fix. But this is just one of the things that happens around here from time to time.

School wasn't bad today. JD did have a small issue with a sassy mouth, but I just don't put up with it anymore. I just tell him in a very calm voice to go to his room. When he is ready to do school work and put his mind on the task at hand, then he can come back to the classroom. Today was just one of those days that he needed sleep. He gets that way from time to time. He went to his room and slept for over 2 hours. He knows that he cannot come out of his room without my permission, so after his nap he opened his door and called me. I didn't jump up right then, I waited a minute or 2 and then I went into his room and ask if he needed to go to the bathroom or get something to drink. He wanted a drink and then he ask if he could do his school work. He started on his school work and there were no problems at all the rest of the day. I really think that he is having some sleep issues and at some point they are just catching up with him. Superman and I are paying attention and we are trying to put things together and figure out ways that we can help him.

Tomorrow is our weekly field trip with our home school group. The boys look forward to it every Thursday. I have a few more emails to read and then I am off to bed. I refuse to stay up to late tonight.

Have a great evening!

Professional vs Mom and Dad

One night last week our middle son came to us and said that everything under the bathroom sink was wet. Of course it's bedtime when this happens. Just one more thing to keep us all from getting a good nights sleep. LOL

And yes, I am (as usual) the first one to arrive on scene. Sure enough, everything under the bathroom sink was wet. It wasn't wet enough that anything was damaged, just some swollen rolls of toilet paper and a few towels that were damp. The damage could have been bad but the toilet paper and the towels saved the day.
I start examining the situation under the sink. In the doorway of the bathroom were 3 boys that wanted to know just what was going on. It kinda reminded me of our "Pulling Teeth" experience. There wasn't a drip that I could see, so I felt around on all of the pipes until I found the culprit. It was the drain pipe, better known as a Pee Trap. I know silly word and that is exactly what the boys thought.

I checked all of the fittings, found one a little loose and gave it a good turn. This fixed the problem. Over time things just kinda work loose or they just get used more often. All of the boys had to ask questions and add in their suggestions and comments on everything that went on. Our oldest boy said that he had read about a Pee Trap once in a Home Improvement book, but it was a trained professional that did the work, not a mom and dad. I loved that little comment. Our boys are starting to see that mom's and dad's are pretty darn smart.

Once again we saved money instead of calling out a plumber. Check things out before you call a professional. But then again you might just be able to call a mom or dad.

The Beginning of Summer

The beginning of Summer is officially here for us. We all got through Memorial Day with our thoughts on those that have served in our Armed Services and those that still serve in our Armed Services. A great big THANK YOU from our family!

We saved a little bird on Memorial Day. We thought it was a Mocking Bird but it has turned out to be a Blue Jay. It's really neat and I will post the story and some pictures in my next post.

The river calls to us ever day now for swimming and tubing. That's a story all in it's self and that will come later also.

Have a wonderful summer! I'll be around all summer long, in between teaching the boy's summer school and the river.

How We Saved Over $200 Yesterday

Yesterday was our 5th wedding anniversary. Can you believe that I forgot it? But my dear husband remembered it. LOL Well that's just another reason I call him Superman.

What did we do? We stayed home and didn't spend any money. I like the not spending part. Actually, we saved over $200. For over a year now our refrigerator has been leaking water inside the top of the refrigerator section. The water was coming from the freezer area. You know - the bottom of the freezer and the top of the refrigerator. We have been keeping a tall cup under it and trying to remember to dump it out every day. Some days we remember and some days we forget. Yesterday we were just hanging around the house and chatting about what we wanted to do. Neither of us wanted to go anywhere or really get too involved in anything.

A couple of days back, Superman had given me a link to a website that has some really wonderful information about doing a little home repair on appliances. I ask him to pull up a chair beside my desk and look up the info on our refrigerator to see if maybe, just maybe we could fix it. So that is what he did. We looked online and read a few things and wa la, we discovered the problem. The defrost drain tube is/was clogged. So off to the refrigerator we headed and started taking everything out of the freezer and pulling the refrigerator out from the wall. Then we started taking the refrigerator apart to find the drain tube. Ah ha - we found it. He worked inside the freezer area and I worked behind the unit. We started pouring hot water into the freezer area and I was poking a small wire up from the bottom of the drain tube. Before we knew it the drain pipe was unclogged.

We reassembled the refrigerator, plugged it up and waited for the dripping water inside. And today we are still waiting for the dripping water. I think we can stop waiting now because we have no water dripping. The refrigerator is worked without soaking everything under where the dripping was.

That is how we spent time together on our anniversary and saved over $200. It wasn't difficult either.

***Update***

I have several request for a link to the website that Superman gave me. Here is the link that I used. Free Repair Help

Here is another great place for help with appliances Appliance Aid