I haven't been posting much lately (if you hadn't noticed). With good reason, I suppose. I haven't wanted to sound cranky. But I am. So I am afraid that whatever I might write here today will sound a bit negative, possibly whiny. You have been warned.

It's a fairly nice day today, and in spite of the fact that neither Chris nor I really feel well (some or all of us have been under the weather for the entire month of October), he is out there caulking the side of the house. I didn't really want to help him; but because we couldn't get the tractor running (we think the battery we bought for it doesn't have enough cranking amps), I gave it a shot. I lasted for about 20 minutes. Aside from the fact that I was really getting frustrated with all the little caulk boogers that refused to wipe off, the sun was shining on my back, and it made me feel really sleepy. So I came inside. I told him I might be up for it tomorrow. We'll see.

Yesterday, since there was a freeze warning for the night, I actually went out to the garden to harvest some of the fluffy bib lettuce that has been growing there. I had also pulled up most of the radishes I planted back in late September. They were beautiful and perfectly round and thin skinned. I have yet to eat any, but maybe I'll have salad tonight, and if the tarp holds off the frost, I can make the most of that lettuce in the next week or two.

This morning, I suddenly felt really tired of this trailer. I had been trying to reorganize the playroom earlier in the week and swap out summer for winter clothes, and had generally left a trail of bins and messes all though the place. The groceries are packed on a couple of shelves and in a barely-adequate refrigerator, and to get whatever it is you want, you have to move a half dozen other things and be careful not to knock anything off the shelves. Little frustrations start to add up. Really, I could be really happy in the trailer if the kids just had one small toy apiece and all we ate was oatmeal and sandwiches. But I guess that's not quite realistic, so I'll have to be satisfied with getting rid of random toys while the kids are at school, and maybe find a way to work another cabinet into the kitchen to alleviated the food storage stress.  ... Maybe I should get back out there and keep caulking.

With the soffit panels up and trim, it's actually starting to look like a legitimate house!
(At least on this side...)

We've had a visitor living with a for the past month, and he looks like this.

I don't like him very much.

For two weeks, Fin and Z would wake up in the middle of the night, coughing. At some point, Finley must have picked up another bug, because she started running a fever. I was so sleep deprived, I felt like the mother of a newborn, and my body, after holding up its defenses the best it could, finally succumbed and got sick, too. So did Chris. So did Gramma and Grampa. And yesterday, Joe came home from school running a fever, too.

So we haven't done much lately. The house waits for siding, the north pasture needs bush-hogging, and the trailer needs a thorough cleaning. Mucus man needs to get out of his chair and get gone.

Silly Kids

I am tired of cooking for ingrates.

I remember hearing my mother say that she never liked to cook, and now I understand why.

I fixed chicken noodle soup tonight, and of course the kids complained. I admit, it wasn't the most fantastic soup I'd ever fixed, but at least it didn't come anywhere near making them gag.

In dinner conversation (if that's what you want to call Finley's complaints, Joe's delay tactics, and my threats), Joe said something to the effect that it would be okay if I died, since they know to eat healthy food. Right. I'm sure apples, carrots, and cereal is the perfect, well-rounded diet.

We've been babygoatsitting.

One down (minus paint, caulk, and gable vent), three to go.

Grammar, Punctuation, and Right and Wrong

Recently, I read two works of fiction published in the 21st century that carried the same grammatical error within their pages. Both used 'try and' instead of 'try to'. This made me crazy. So I made a comment about it on facebook. You know how it is when you say something in judgment only to reveal your own hypocrisy? That is why Proverbs admonishes us over and over again that the wise man keeps his mouth shut.

Anyway, in my comment, I misspelled one word and apparently misused an apostrophe. Or did I? I don't know. I used to think that the proper spelling of "CDs" was "CDs", but in Reanna's 7th grade language book, it taught that "CD's" was proper, so although I didn't like it, I adopted the apostrophe in those circumstances. Consensus on facebook was that the apostrophe did not belong. I tried to look it up on Wikipedia, and there, the rule stated that apostrophes should be used on plural non-words, like "CD's". Another (probably more reliable) website said that the apostrophe should only be used on plurals of lower case letters, like when you mind your "p's" and "q's". So just as the comma used to be used before "and" in lists of three or more but isn't anymore (except in my writing), the rules of the apostrophe might be changing.

And this makes me crazy. Why? Because humans really do want to feel that they know what is right and what is wrong. We need to know where those boundary lines are because it makes us feel more secure in life. The problem is that those lines are sometimes hard to nail down.

And I suppose this is where I get into trouble with certain fundamentalists, because I think that, usually, their fundamentals are wrong. Just like grammar and punctuation, we try to define every circumstance and label it right or wrong, and then we end up with large books full of rules that people argue over and forget about the things that are really important, like relationship. That is why Jesus had to dumb all the rules back down for us: Love God, and love others.

And that is why I am going to try not to freak out about minor grammatical and punctuation issues, because if I do, I just might forget about the real purpose of language, the communication of thoughts and ideas.

Things go a little faster when there is a crew. With the help of my brother, Mike, and Ralph and his son, Logan, there is siding on over half the west wall now.