Painting the Barn

Ive been considering painting my barn for awhile now. I want a red barn... it was gray. So I finally decided this weekend was the weekend! I am painting the barn. I went to walmart to get barn paint, which they used to carry in 5 gallon buckets for about $60. When I got there, they had 1 gallon pails, for 25 each. Umm hmm

So I came home, and did my research online, and found that Rural King had barn paint for the best price. Lil dude and I ventured off to Rural King early saturday morning. What was listed online for $42.99 was marked $62.99 and had a shelf tag reading $54.99 confusing much? Being the person that I am, I pulled up www.ruralking.com online inserted my zipcode, and pulled up the store website. Showed the clerk the price it showed online, and got the paint for the price I had planned to pay.

However my barn has not been painted since Ive had this house (over 6 yrs) and the weathered wood literally soaked the paint in. 5 gallons got me 2 sides done. I have 2 sides left PLUS the gables.

The worst part though, is that the paint is not red, as the bucket stated. Its a clay/brownish color. So not only will I be buying 1 more bucket of this at $42.99 then I will be buying TRUE red barn paint from TSC for $50 for 5 gallons and probably need 2 of those. I figured about $100 for this project and its easily stretching into $200 fast. *sigh*

When its done, it will look really good for pictures with some sunflowers planted in front of it though :)

Farm expansion

So after last summer's Great Chicken Massacre, I decided to order some chicks from www.idealpoultry.com Ive ordered from them before, and had good luck with the chicks I get. So I went online and started building my shopping cart, 2 chicks at a time.  The soonest ship date was September 21st, so I ordered my chicks for that date. 15 of them.

Well then I noticed Red, my broody hen sitting on a nest, when I poked her enough she moved to reveal she was sitting on 15 eggs. I figured they probably wouldnt hatch, simply because my biggest roo was only 5 months old.

I should have known better LOL chicks started hatching September 15th. I was gone over the weekend but came home to 2 eggs left. One partially hatched and one that didnt even try. So I figured I had 13 chicks running with Red. Nope just 2. Cute little black and yellow production red/barred rock mixes.

Then she overtook one of the other hen's nest and started sitting on THEIR eggs!

Catching up? Probably not!

So since I cant even begin to remember everything that has gone on in the past few weeks Ill just post a few times with some highlights :)

School consumes 90% of my time, clinic is consuming 20% of my time, kids always consume 100% of my time, so you see where Im going right? It adds up to far more than 100% Im overusing my time!

This weekend lil dude and I are on our own. Its been nice having an empty house, Ive enjoyed it, mainly because Ive had the flu for the past almost 2 weeks and its really hard to get any sleep when you have to chase a million kids around :) Of course if you are a mother you know this... you know its hard to chase 1 small kid around when sick, let alone more than one!

So on today's agenda is barn painting! Thats right, Im painting my barn red. Why? Well because this spring I plan to plant huge sunflowers in front of it, just to take a really cool picture. Yep, Im painting the barn red for pictures.

Blockbuster Blue Box

Or something of that nature. Anyhow... the other night we were driving to town (25 miles) to hit up the Redbox. I said to Mr Digger... wouldnt it be cool if they put a Redbox out here somewhere? Out here being the middle of no where near where we live. The closest town, population 1000 is only 7 miles from the house. Heck on a good day I could get one of the kids to walk that far for a new movie!

Mr Digger said we would never get one, someone would steal it.  Sad thing is he might be right. Either way... I was driving through town Saturday when I said something about it to my friend... and then looked over at the IGA and I saw the most beautiful sight in my life, a Blockbuster BLUE BOX!

I never in a million years expect to see that sight, but I was ecstatic! 7 miles vs 25 miles, who wouldnt pull over get out and run around their car 10 times hootin' and hollerin' in pure joy? After about the 5th time around the car I kinda felt foolish, but hey you only live once, reverse the direction and make it 10!

Sunday we went to town (little town) just to get movies from the Bluebox :)

I think though, that the statement about someone stealing it if we ever got one, came back and bit my husband in the tailend with a bit of karma though. Out of 4 movies rented, only one was worth watching. Ya win some, you lose some.

Online Shopping Snafus

I never have any time anymore it seems. So I did some school clothes shopping over Labor Day weekend, online for the all the kids. That was Sept 5th and one order on the 7th (it was a good sale) I purchased from Amazon, Aeropostale, Old Navy, Victoria Secret, Children's Place, Walmart and 1800contacts (via walmart).

So far my order from Amazon has arrived, as has the order from Aeropostale.... and nothing else. Old Navy I ordered on the 5th, it shipped on the 7th and it is now the 13th. The weather was cold over Labor Day and the entire following week. I ordered jeans for lil dude, I had anticipated a regular fall where we wore shorts until late October, however it snuck up on us fast and the weather has been strangely cold. So here we are with temps in the low 50's at 630 when the bus comes, and we have 1 pr of jeans from last year, that are probably considered "highwaters"


I have never had shipping take this long from anywhere... ever, unless it got lost. Im beyond frustrated. I seriously have no time to go buy jeans, as there is nothing but Walmart close by, and I hate their jeans.

Facebook Overshare

I know you know what Im talking about.

They come in many forms, the person who confides to you that their marriage is having issues, yet they post back and forth to their spouse like they just fell in love. The sappy sickly sweet things you say when you first fall, and fall hard? Yeah that stuff. 

Or the person who has every illness known to man, all within a week time span. First its the bird flu, then they move on to mad cow disease, then its swine flu, then they have unexplained night sweats, then its night chills, then its a mysterious spot that could be a mole, or it could be a freckle or maybe a cyst, but they are sure its a tumor. By feeling the shape, it must be cancerous.

Their children have every illness around or even better are allergic to everything. They are gluten, lactose free in everything they eat because of poor child Wubsy. Then they post about the awesome pizza Wubsy consumed at Chuck E Cheese for his 4th birthday. Of course its not mentioned that a severe reaction occurred or that Wubsy was rushed to the emergency room due to the reaction, because the pizza was so good, they were able to overlook the gluten and lactose reactions for the day :) YAY! 

What about the parent who's child is always the victim of something, be it a teacher, another student, someone in daycare, someone else's parent. Someone somewhere has it out for this one poor child every moment of their entire life.The kids grades are poor because the teacher doesnt give them help. The child got into 40 fights last school year because they are picked on, and bullied. Its never their child's fault, always someone elses, even when their child is the only one involved.

I see the wheels turning, you are thinking I have some wacked out friends on Facebook LOL okay maybe I do, if you use the term "friend" loosely enough.  But seriously. Why does everything in life have to be dramatic for some people? Why do some have to put on a front, like life is perfect, when half the people on their friends list know otherwise.

I am one who will always have compassion for women who are in a relationship in which they are verbally, physically, emotionally abused, and are not yet ready to take the leap of faith needed to get out. I know how hard it is to get away from the cycle. How hard it is to finally say enough and leave. I just don't understand making life look like a fantasy, when its clear to everyone else, its not. 

I don't believe in fairy tales, there is no prince charming, or knight in shining armor. There are good men, but just like I can go from sweetheart to bitch in under 5 seconds, ever man has his faults, and no relationship is perfect. You would think that people who pretend life is perfect or the opposite, horrible 100% of the time would get that we as humans, see right through the charade, and there is no longer compassion, but pity or disdain.

Is it Really September?

Life has been in overdrive the entire summer. every time I think I am finally catching up, or have a bit of down time... life happens.

This past week, for example...

College is back in session and Im off to enjoy my first day. I so looked forward to the first day back on campus. Its my happy place. I enjoy being around other people, and I love to learn. The night before Mr Digger was complaining of having to pee all the time, then not peeing. I bought him uristat. Figured UTI, told him drink cranberry juice and take the uristat. That morning he started texting me, said the pain was bad, and went on to ask me to come home. I told him only if he thought he was dying. That as long as he took the uristat and drank plenty of water and cranberry juice it should flush out a UTI in a day or so. Then I got the text saying the pain was now in his lower abdominal cavity. I texted a friend and said, I bet its a kidney stone. That was at 820am.

I got as far as into my first class. Was extremely excited about spending a fortune for virtual lab imaging supplies. My phone rings. I see its Mr Digger and I contemplate ignoring it, and I do. LOL Then the texts start, apparently he thinks he is dying.

So my first day back to class was cut short. I called his mother who went out to the ER to sit with him, however he had the nurse texting me constantly... wanting to know where I was, was I getting close? Was I there yet?

When I arrived imagine my "surprise" to find out I was right! Kidney stones! They doped him up good, and eventually sent him home with me to pass his stones. He wound up passing 5, one of which was HUGE, around 8pm that night.


Then comes Thursday. I get a phone call to come look at Devil Child's arm. Apparently the kids were playing and someone thought it would be a good idea to flip the hummer over with Devil Child in it. She screamed and carried on. Wouldnt let anyone look at or touch her arm, until I got there. Apparently aspiring to become a doctor has clout with 4 yr olds.  The BSN might hold some clout with her as well ;)  Trip number two to the ER. Not broken, just bruised. She will be just fine. In fact she is just fine, her normal ornery self again actually.

Fast forward one more time for the week... to Saturday. I had a rust spot on my truck, Mr Digger and I sanded patched and bondoed it. Then sanded some more. Okay who am I kidding, I supervised. Either way somehow while sitting 5 feet away watching the process, I got 2 slivers of rusty metal impaled in my right eye.

Of course as luck would have it, I didnt notice on Saturday. Sunday morning I woke up to a constantly watering eye. I removed my contacts. Then the light hit me. Oh wow did the light hit me. Even with sunglasses on in the darkened house with all the lights off, the slightest change in lighting gave way to stabbing pain through my brain. I finally gave up thinking it would "go away" around 6pm that night. Off to the ER for a third trip this week. We went over a YEAR with no ER visits, Im pretty sure... then 3 in one week. Gaah!

The doctor removed the metal splinters, and patched my eye. There are 4-5 good sized scratches on my eye from the watering and rubbing. It seems like Im looking through a cloudy window at the world. Today, is Thursday, I took the patch off yesterday, but am still semi-blind in that eye with some light sensitivity still.

There are now 3 types of pain I wont tolerate... kidney stones, tooth aches and eye injuries... give me a good long 30 hour labor and delivery any day!