Quick - Someone Grab the Marshmallows!

It is officially Spring now, and all kinds of green sprouts and buds are popping up, and certain trees are flowering. The daffodils are up, too, and I've already seen the first dandelion. I think they are like cockroaches and will survive a nuclear explosion. I'm anxious to see what of everything we planted last year comes back, and I'm really excited about our cherry tree - can't wait to see blossoms! We had our first round of thunderstorms for the season night before last, and yesterday afternoon we had our first 'dangerous thunderstorm warning' - a quick-moving storm that dropped some grape-size hail and buckets of rain. Today is more of the same - lots of thunderstorms and rain.

So now that we finally got some rain, we're not as dry as we were and hopefully the county will stop burning up. At least for a while, anyway. Intelligence-challenged folk have been out playing with fire during the dry and windy conditions causing most of the chaos. There's a reason that the weather service puts out fire weather warnings and tells you not to do any burning. So you have those brilliant people who decide to burn off their fields in a supposedly "controlled burn" only, it gets out of control. Then you have your true idiots who think it's fun to set huge round hay bales on fire. Those things burn forever. This behavior is found everywhere, of course, because stupidity is rampant. 

In Southern California there are Santa Ana Winds, when the wind blows the other direction out from the deserts and dries everything out (even more) making it a perfect environment for firebugs and accidents. I say accidents, but come on: smart people who use their heads don't build ANY kind of fire outdoors while a hot wind is blowing 40 miles an hour. Can you really call that level of stupidity an accident when there's all kinds of warnings on the news, radio and alerts pushed to smart phones? Why do they think there is such a HUGE fine for getting caught throwing a lit cigarette out the window in California? Oh - silly me: they DON'T think!

Here is a shot of the front page of the local newspaper the other day. I've mentioned this before on this blog somewhere, but I really feel that they should set up some kind of system of fines and compensation to the county for the enormous strain on our resources their lack of foresight causes. And notice it says "typcial number" - that means it isn't just me that has noticed the trend. Before the rain depending on what was burning, it either smelled like someone had a smoker going or someone was burning trash. The one smells kind of yummy and makes you want some barbeque; the other, not so much.

So I promised some photos of my lunch 'bento' lunchbox and here they are. The one tray has cauliflower, carrots and strawberries, and the other tray has leftover pork loin and yellow and orange sweet peppers. The strawberries are in my new silicon baking cups, and you can see the eating utensils on top of the lower tier lid which nestle under the top tier, and an elastic band to keep things together. There's also my infuser water bottle with cut up lemons. My next appliance is a spiralizer so I can make 'noodles' out of vegetables, but first, I need to get either some very small containers for sauces to put in my lunchbox, or some kind of other container or bottle that will hold sauces and dressings, etc. Hmmm...I might need a bag to put it all in, too...

It's thundering and hailing small pea-sized hail right now. I hope my outside kitties are safe and dry. I don't really know what Percy thinks about thunder and lightning. The other night I could hear him making these funny 'chirping' sounds - something between a purr and a meow, maybe - and alternating with something that kind of sounded like a yodel. Not being a cat owner prior to this, I have no idea what these sounds mean. When he is in his crate, he has learned to pull the sheet covering it open and closed kind of like curtains. When he doesn't want to be seen he pulls it closed. When I got up and checked on him, he was in there with his curtain closed making his little chirp-yodels so I put his stuffed parrot in there with him for company. He's really growing fast and I sure miss the sweet baby stage, because we are currently in the petulant toddler stage, I think. Everything must be stalked and attacked. But I like how he wiggles his backside just before he pounces :)

A Breach in Protocol

Had a nice day Saturday in Joplin: went by Hideout Harley Davidson to say Hi and look around. Got some gloves while I was there, which will look a whole lot nicer with my riding coat than my electric blue fleece gloves that I currently have. They are the only ones I have left since every black pair of gloves I've had have been (mis) appropriated by my boys. Typically they would cut the fingers off to use as army sniper gloves...Whatever, I finally learned to buy girly gloves so they would leave them alone. These new ones are black, but they have the HD logo in pink - matches my helmet :) - and they are a whole lot more expensive than previous pairs, so a certain 10 year old better leave them alone. Went to Hobby Lobby - they were having an awesome sale! 50% off wall frames and iron decor! So I bought a really nice frame for my degree and some others for some other certificates I received, etc., and got a couple of metal decor pieces ;) I can easily get lost for hours in Hobby Lobby, but my boys (and I include Hubby in there) won't let me. The lovely day was briefly marred, just a bit by some disturbing, but all too common behavior.

There are some weird things about people that I just don't get. You know, like when you go to a movie and you're the first one there - nobody else and all seats are open. You sit at the end of a row because you get semi claustrophobic and don't like to be blocked in for bathroom or vending trips, or, oh say, in case of fire...anyhoo, someone else comes in and sits right next to you. There is a whole theater available and they could sit at the end of any row, but they choose to sit right next to you, albeit one seat in between, but still! Or, as happened Saturday in the restroom at Sears, there are twelve stalls open - not two -  with just me in one, and someone comes in and sits down in the stall right next to me and poos. OMGosh, REALLY? Wow...just - wow! Why?? It must be some psychological thing, but I really just don't know. Is it for moral support? Is it a compulsion disorder like OCD? What is it about these people and who are they? Everyone I have mentioned this phenomena to feels the same way I do, so unless they are all lying, I don't know anyone who does this. Whatever is going on with them, it's seriously disturbing to the rest of us. I liken it to a breach in personal space like when people stand too close. Or a breach in protocol. What is the etiquette or protocol for public restrooms? If you see one occupied stall in a public restroom of more than two, you choose the one farthest away or at least put one stall's distance between. Everybody SHOULD know this. Clearly some do not. Maybe an experiment is in order. The next time it happens, and it won't be all that far in the future - it happens fairly regularly - I will talk to them. Maybe I'll ask them why they chose a stall next to someone when there are so many other options. Or, I could pester them for toilet paper. Over and over. Or maybe just flat out tell them how unwelcome their proximity is. They have violated public restroom etiquette as well as common courtesies; what should the penalty be? I'm thinking something along the lines of one of those prankster Japanese games shows: a hole opens in the floor and the offender and toilet drop onto a ski slope...Just a thought.

On a much brighter note, I hit well over 10,000 steps Saturday and all in all walked a little over 5 miles, according to my Fitbit :)  Yay me! And, the weather has been so nice the last few days, even though the Weather Service has put us in a Fire Weather Advisory and the county is burning up so that everything smells like smoke. Hubby and I went for a ride on the bike Sunday evening after church. A little smokey, but still nice!

More Ch-ch-cha-changes...

So do you have that song stuck in your head now? I do. But it's not as bad as that stupid Narwahls song - ack! Vintage Bowie is definitely preferable. 

Back on topic - more changes: I bought a FitBit Flex from Amazon, along with a Bentgo lunchbox, and some of those silicone muffin/cupcake baking cups - for dividing up food within my bento lunch (I don't like my food all jumbling up together - touching is okay, but getting all mixed in with each other, not so much). The Fitbit is for tracking my activity and exercise as well as food and sleep if I want. The Bentgo lunchbox is for bringing a healthy lunch, portion control, and it appeals to my inner-OCD self. I can organize my food and no one can say anything about it because that's what a bento box is for. I also bought a treadmill a while back. And, I'm seriously considering doing the Whole30 program too. Weight loss is of course a byproduct of the program, but it's more about food and eliminating the junk that we eat on a regular basis. It's restrictive, yes, but not as bad as some of the "diets" out there. It's just time to change things up; do things differently, hence the recent purchases. Plus, getting new stuff is fun, amiright?

The Fitbit Flex is an interesting little gadget. Of course I am always entranced by gadgets so it makes sense that I would end up with one of these, or something similar. The Flex won out over other such devices by ratings, cost, and the fact that I knew people who had them and could verify their performance and usefulness. The Samsung gear version would have been nice but it was way too much money. This thing has five wee little LED lights on it and I haven't quite figured them all out yet. I tried to do the sleep thing last night, and apparently it worked, but I didn't get it switched to "awake" properly because it showed me as "in bed" until 9:00 am when I got up at 6:00. But it also showed me as super restless those three hours, lol. It has a silent alarm feature where it vibrates on your wrist to wake you up, or, get your attention, depending on when and what you've set the alarm for. This will make it easier for me to track my walking both at work and on the treadmill, because I won't have to carry my cell phone (my Sammy came with a Health app that tracks steps) or wear something with pockets in order to count steps, etc. A friend told me to put it on my shoe while I'm on my treadmill because it won't track very well if I'm holding onto the handles - good to know!

I was so excited! I washed my Bentgo up and got my lunch stuff all set up then put on some eggs to boil to add to my veggies, etc., and went into the family room to watch a movie with Hubby.... and fell asleep. I woke up when T came into the room and wanted to know why the stove was on, and why there were eggs in the pan, but no water. Shoot! Apparently nobody heard the timer go off, which means Hubby was probably over there sleeping too! I cooled the eggs down and put them in the fridge, thinking I would check them out in the morning. But this morning I had to just grab everything and go because I forgot the guys were leaving early for a funeral at a church, so no time. I still didn't know if that egg was okay. The funny thing is that none of them cracked. I usually wind up with at least a few fissures, but these babies look perfect! And actually they are, or at least one of them is, because at lunch I peeled the one I brought and although the inside of the shell was a little discolored, the egg itself was fine - not even rubbery or anything! 

Update on the boys' room situation: S is discovering that change is not so bad after all. He isn't fully moved into his new room: one corner still has some things I need to get out of there, but no idea or place for where they should go just yet. For now, he is sleeping on two stacked mattresses with a nightlight and an outlet handy for plugging in his Kindle and finding that he quite likes it. since he slept on the top bunk, it plugging in his kindle wasn't easy, plus he had to share the nearest outlet with T. As for T, he is very happy to have a nice big bed, all to himself. Proof of that is visible every morning when I wake him up for school - he is smack in the middle of the bed at an angle and all sprawled out. Of course all of my boys sleep like train wrecks, so sharing a bed would be less than restful. As for me, it is quite lovely to not hear the constant fights over "crossing the neutral zone" or "stop breathing on me" etc.

I'll post pics soon, but so far I've been in a rush to get everything together in the mornings so no time for photo shoots! I really need to manage my time better and do it the night before so I'm not rushing around frantically in the morning. Oh, who am I kidding? I'll still be rushing around in the morning cuz it's how I roll...So no pics of my nicely organized food yet, but I'll post this pretty flower photo from a recent funeral arrangement. And one (or more) of my four readers just went "Eew!"... Why? - they're just flowers.

Change: What Happens When Snowmen Melt

Lot's of change happening at home, and some of it has put me in a thoughtful mood, to put it mildly. And it's all because we bought a new bed, according to my youngest. He is unhappy about the changes coming. He is resistant, but I tell him "Resistance is Futile" and of course he has no clue what I'm talking about. 

About the bed...It's been a few weeks now with our Sleep Number bed and I'll be honest, here, it takes a while to figure out what works. We came from a Tempurpedic wannabe: memory foam mattress that was about 10 years old and absolutely did not make it to its 20 year warranty. It was 'memory foam' alright - you could tell exactly where hubby and I sleep because it was a permanent memory in the foam. 

So, in the beginning with this new bed, almost every setting turned out to be too firm for us, but we are getting closer to our just-right individual settings. We are really glad we got the Flex II base that allows us to adjust the head and foot of the bed. That has helped a lot. I don't wake up stiff and sore anymore - yay! I did a little research and a lot of people feel like the Sleep IQ system (totally optional) is a waste of money, but I'm finding it very useful. It allows me to see how restless I am at night, how restless hubby is and how our restlessness may be affecting the other. It records heart rate and breathing rate too. Now, it doesn't seem to record every shift in movement, so I think the breathing and heart rate changes are what it looks for in determining restlessness. If I look at a normal night I can tell that my restless markers are right when I got in bed and when hubby gets home and when the alarm goes off. Those are times when I'm awake, or at least semi-awake. It also records when you get out of bed and for how long. Of course you can turn it off whenever you want, and it doesn't record anything.

We also got pillows: my pillow has a curved edge because I'm a side-sleeper, and I love it. I wake up with fewer neck and head aches now than with my down pillow. Hubby got one of those fancy cooling pillows - don't ask me how it works but it is designed to adjust to your body temperature and stay cool. He loves it. I need to buy a wrap-around type of bed skirt, though because the mattress is actually attached to the Flex Base (it has to be or your base would move and your mattress would slide off!) and a typical bed skirt that lays between a standard mattress or bed base and the mattress won't work. That means a trip to Bed Bath & Beyond - oh darn! :) We are also going to order taller bed legs, because the ones that came with the bed are too short for us. It puts our bed closer to the floor than we tall people like. The first time I got out of that bed was hilarious because I practically catapulted myself out of it. Our other bed was quite tall, and although this one is not exactly a futon, the difference in height was enough to really disorient me. Yeah, I know - not all that difficult a task.....

Along with big changes in our room come big changes for the boys. The boys have been sharing a room since S was 2. T is 14 (15 this summer) and wants his own room, but S is resistant to this idea. For him, T has always been the trail-blazer, so all he has do to is follow along because big brother has already figured stuff out. And they've always shared a room in his mind, and even though he complains about him, he wants him in there with him. And one thing he doesn't like is to go to bed by himself. If he has his own room, he will be forced to go to bed by himself. T wants his own room, and he also wants our old bed (go figure) so we've decided to let him have it, which means that S will move into my computer/art/craft/catch-all room. Which also means I have to find places for all of that stuff, and in order for me to find places, it means other places have to be cleaned out. I cleared out some junk in the hall closet to make room for my hair dryer, etc., and my crafty-type stuff (beads, soldering iron, etc.) will go to the garage for now. I made room in the linen closet by emptying the floor and the next shelf up for my art stuff. Those things absolutely can't go out in the garage.  My computer desk and a goodly amount of related paraphernalia is going into the living room, but I don't know what to do with a whole lot of other stuff. All in all, lots of work for me and some hard decisions to make as far as getting rid of some things because we just flat don't have room for it all. This distresses me just a little. Okay, a lot.

So I've had all of this on my mind and combined with the cold, gray weather we've had over the last few days and piles of dirty snow that are sitting around melting, it's made me a bit... blah. Then I spotted a bunch of melting snowmen on the way to work and felt downright sad. There's just something sad about a melting snowman, isn't there? I don't know that I always thought so - well, except for when I was a kid watching Frosty the Snowman. That was a tearjerker for sure ;)

Something to cheer up an otherwise drab day. I drew this on my tablet with a stylus (not a good one) and an app called SketchBook MobileX. It's a free app and has some nice options for brushes, pen and pencil tips, etc.,  and even the ability for a couple of layers and opacity settings. It was a fun doodle and I kind of like how it turned out.

To bring this thing home, change is inevitable in life. There are good changes and bad changes, and sometimes changes are just...different: neither good nor bad. But it happens, so we need to learn to roll with it. If I can get my kids to be more receptive to change now, they may be less curmudgeonly when they get to be old men. They may also live a fuller, happier life, which is also important ;)