Tuesday, August 03, 2010

August is here

Yeah, that's my title and I'm sticking with it. So it's really boring. What's it to you? If anyone wants to brainstorm some blog entry titles for me, go right ahead. Yes, kids, I'm talking to you.

July flew by in a haze of heat and humidity here at Maison Sydney. I am hoping that August will be a little cooler. I know that's very silly of me. But I can hope, can't I?

Last year at this time, we were starting to get excited about the upcoming Disney trip. This year, we are starting to get excited about the upcoming Ocean City trip. We are beach bound on August 28th, and the kids cannot wait. When we get back, we will have just a few days until the start of the school year. But that's all still a month away.

We don't have much exciting to report about July. I did finally finish a bigger and fancier chicken tractor for the chicks.
chicken tractor
This was meant to be lighter and easier to drag around the yard. Unfortunately it turned out a little flimsy and the wire ends on the bottom frame tend to catch in the grass, so it really is not easy to move at all. Last night, after I finished it, the kids and I carefully carried it to the back of the yard near the coop. One of the joins popped out in transit, so need to re-glue that one. Rich and I need to figure out a way to make it more stable and smoother to move. But, for now, they can enjoy it in its present position.
chicken tractor 2
It was hilarious when we first tried to put them in there. Catgirl carried Melanie out there and put her down and turned around to walk back to the coop to get another chick. Melanie flew right over her head and beat Catgirl back to the coop. This happened a few times. They seemed terrified of the big cage. In the end, we had to carry them over one at a time and close the door to the tractor to keep them in until we needed to open it for another chick. But once we had 4 of them in there, the other 2 did not want to be left behind so they followed. One thing we have noticed is that the chicks hate to be separated. Once a couple of them go somewhere, the rest of the always follow. Are they chicks, or sheep?
Allie
We were able to watch them enjoy the grass while we ate dinner. Afterward, Rich saw a hawk swoop down, obviously thinking he could get a nice chicken dinner, only to veer back up into the sky when he saw that he was thwarted by my chicken wire contraption. Take that, you predator! Haha!

In other news, Mathboy and I have started running. We're doing the "Couch to 5 K" training app on our iPods (C25K). It's a very gradual training program that has you alternate running and walking for approximately 30 minutes total. Doane Academy has a 5K run at the end of October, and we both want to participate. So far, Mathboy is doing great, and is already on day 2 of week 4. Seeing as how I am a lot older and heavier than my son, I am going slower than he is. I don't want to hurt myself and have to stop. That would not be productive. But yesterday I bought real running shoes, and this morning, I started week 3. It went very well! Either week 3 is easier than week 2, or having real running shoes made a big difference, or both. :o)

Also, we finally painted Mathboy's room late last week. It was time: the faux clouds and the space-themed wallpaper border were fine when he was 5, but now that he's going on 14...? Not so much. For some time, we have known that it needed to be done, but were completely overwhelmed by the job it would be: taking down all those karate certificates, and class pictures, peeling off the wallpaper, patching the many little holes in the wall, unloading the ginormous Ikea bookcase, unloading the computer desk so full of junk that he can barely use the computer....

Plus, we needed to agree on a color. Mathboy wanted dark green. I said no. Rich said he was old enough to make up his own mind. Sigh. In the end, we bought 4 or 5 samples, and painted splotches around on the wall to see what we all could live with. For a while, the running joke was that we should just get more green samples, do splotches all over the entire room, and call it Camo.

I do not have complete "after" pictures yet, because we have not rehung the pictures on his wall yet, but this is what we have so far.

Here is a "before" shot, from over the winter:
Mathboy's window!
Look: SNOW! Remember snow? Remember that it was cold once?

Here is a "before painting" shot, after we had taken down the wallpaper border and patched many, many,many nail holes in the wall and prepped for painting:
painting: before
Like the splotches?

Here's his room "after painting, and the purchase of new bookcases, curtains and bedspread:"
DSCN1914
DSCN1915

Still gotta hang those pictures up. :o/

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