Most Drawn-out Birthday Celebration Ever

Yesterday I received a Wii Sports Game Disc in the mail. "Wow, girls! Thank you so much--what a great idea for a birthday gift!" I gushed.

With confused looks on their faces, they both said, "Ummm, we didn't get that, Mom."

"Really? Well then, who did? It was a perfect idea. Maybe you should call your dad and ask him."

When Carl answered his phone, Hailey asked, "Dad, did you buy Mom a Wii Sports disc?"

Pause.

"If you didn't, who did?" Hailey asked.

Pause.

"Oh," Hailey replied to Carl, then turned to me. "Did you buy it for yourself, Mom?" she questioned with accusation in her voice.

I replied, "What? Hmmm. I guess I did. But wasn't that the perfect idea for a gift?"

See, I could tell by early last week that no one had given much thought to my birthday present this year, but I'm not one to pout. Instead I got on e-bay and found just what I wanted.

"We're making something for you, Mom. It just isn't finished yet," Katie informed me. Keep in mind, my birthday was Saturday.

"That's nice. Until then, is anyone up for some tennis?"

"No, we have something to do," they answered, then suspiciously scurried upstairs.

About thirty minutes later they asked if they could walk to Casey's for something, but they couldn't reveal what something was. I allowed it, knowing it was key to my birthday gift. I'm smart like that.

After returning from the convenience store and spending a few more minutes upstairs, they entered the dining room shouting, "Don't look, Mom!"

Finally, the big reveal:

The white sign says, "It's your day, be merry and eat candy." Then says "candy" again with an arrow pointing to--you guessed it--the candy.


They painted a flower pot and a tin can gold and attached turkey feathers left over from the turkey Carl shot this spring. "We disinfected the feathers, Mom. Don't worry." The "feet" are full of peanut M&Ms. Smart girls. They know that chocolate heals anything.

This present was worth waiting for.

Birthday Tests

My real--as opposed to virtual--birthday has come and gone. I celebrated my 41st by going to Grand Lake with my family, taking our new-to-us ski boat on its maiden voyage. For my Colorado friends: we have a Grand Lake too, but ours feels like bath water.

Sadly, I have no pictures. Somehow I managed to whack out my elbows and spent the entire day alone in a cheap motel watching AMC movies starring either Wesley Snipes or Bruce Willis. How did I manage to damage my elbows, you ask? Surely I was tubing or doing something remotely daring. Alas, no. I sat on the top step of the boat, which is practically in the water, held my life jacket in my hands, and slid forward into the water. No strange popping sensation. No awkward movement. In fact, it was all rather smooth and graceful, until both elbows zinged as if I had hit my funny bones and my fingers continued to tingle. They still tingle a bit, causing me to type with my left ring finger and my right index finger and thumb.

When the pain failed to subside (imagine nonstop funny-bone-zinging) and I began to bake in the hundred degree heat index, I cried uncle and headed back to town. Carl and the girls settled me in to my budget room with bottled water, Mike's Hard Lemonade, snickers bars and the TV remote, then returned to the lake, promising to call me every hour.

During the first phone call Hailey cried to me out of frustration at her inability to get up on skis. I reassured her that she had too much Solomon blood in her for that particular inability to linger long (because Carl has water skied since age five, I love to watch him show off ski--don't tell him I said that, though. I have to live with him). Once Hailey calmed she handed the phone to Hannah who cried and said her tummy hurt. My Mommy Radar screamed on high alert, knowing that Carl does not consider basic needs like hydration as well as he skis. Getting Hailey back on the phone, I charged her with the responsibility of ensuring that everyone drank extra water and made it home alive. She informed me that Hannah was fake crying, but she'd make sure everyone had plenty to drink.


The next two phone calls went much better, between which I dozed and watched the aforementioned movies. They returned to my room around 6:00 looking like happy, red, tired lobsters. They intended to cool off then return to the lake, but they never made it back.

Because the Tahoe's air conditioning blew hot and cold that morning, we decided to hang out and watch more movies until the temps dropped into the cooler eighties before heading home. We finally drove into the garage at 10:30.

I'm beginning to feel better this evening. The tingling has subsided some, replaced by an intense ache and weakness in my hands and wrists. But, I'm a thinker. It's a curse. When things like my odd elbow injury happen, I wonder why. Not as in why me, just why? What purpose did it serve? Was I supposed to learn something? Was my family? Because if we were, I'm not getting it. I'm proud that it didn't get my family down. We still had a good time doing something other than watching television or separately playing something electronic. Well, I guess I watched TV, but you know what I'm saying.

If I'm supposed to be learning something or changing something, I'd appreciate it if someone would clue me in, or at least give me a hint. Normally I'm a quick study, but I seem to be taking this one test over and over. I'd like to ace it and move on.

You're Invited

Saturday I turn forty-one, just a heartbeat away from being fifty. I don't mind being in my forties, but turning fifty just sounds old. Am I borrowing trouble?

I have no plans for my 41st birthday yet. I've been feeling crummy the last few days and discovered yesterday that it's the result of an abscessed tooth. Until the antibiotics kick in, I won't feel like planning anything except a movie marathon viewed from my couch.

That's where you come in. Shamelessly piggy-backing on my blogger buddy, Tara's, idea, I'm planning a last-minute cyber-birthday party. All you have to do is post your favorite party food or drink recipe in the comments, along with any other celebration ideas or thoughts, and Saturday we PARTY! Virtual party, of course. Consider yourself invited--no R.S.V.P. required.

Life in Tornado Alley

I live smack dab in the middle of tornado alley and have all of my life. I grew up on a farm fifteen miles from town, which is the same as as saying fifteen miles from nowhere. We didn't have tornado sirens on the farm, so the whole siren thing has taken getting used to.

As a child I was frightened of storms. More specifically, I was frightened to be ALONE during storms. Nowadays I'm energized by them, as if the electricity in the air absorbs through my skin and travels through my bloodstream. Rain, lightning, thunder, hail, high winds. I'm fascinated by them all. Nevertheless, despite my voyeurism, I have never seen a funnel firsthand. Never.

The first few times the siren went off here, Carl was still at work. We didn't have a basement so I gathered the three girls and went to the neighbor's basement. I did that twice and neither time did a tornado touch down. I learned that the sirens are turned on whenever the clouds contain rotation that could easily drop down in funnel form, but a funnel does not have to be present.

After the sirens had cried wolf twice, I began ignoring them. One morning I was awakened at 6:30 to the sound of high wind. I laid in bed listening groggily as it wailed through my yard at higher and higher decibels. I became uneasy but thought, "There's no siren. I'm not crawling out of bed yet." Suddenly I heard CRACK and BAM followed by the sound of a locomotive barrelling down the street, but still no siren. Carl and I leaped out of bed, opened the front door and gazed on unbelievable destruction.

Entire trees had been uprooted and laid over into the street. The electricity went out and stayed out the entire day. The wind died down so we awakened the girls and drove around to try to determine what the heck had happened. I had never seen destruction like that without a tornado siren. Enormous trees were uprooted everywhere, two of our neighbors had trees fall through their roofs, and power lines laid dangerously across many roads.

It turns out it wasn't a tornado, but was a straight-line wind, which doesn't trigger a siren. Thankfully no one was seriously injured in our town, which was a miracle. If I ever get a chance to scan the pictures I have from that day, I will. Until then, here are some pictures of a straight-line wind storm we had in May of this year. Again, no siren.

Katie, Hailey and friend Shelby in front of an uprooted tree. I wish I would have taken a picture that captured the depth of the cavern left from the tree root.

A broken tree...

Another uprooted tree that landed on a van.

Same van, different angle....

Mother nature is a powerful beast.

Special

"She always ruins EVERYTHING!" Katie screamed with tears in her eyes as she carried Hannah from upstairs to me in the kitchen downstairs. I rapidly envisioned several special items that Hannah might have broken: a ceramic statue, a piece of artwork, even the walls weren't immune from Destructo-Hannah.

"What did she ruin this time?" I asked Katie as I cringed inwardly. Unfortunately this had been an ongoing problem. Our neighbor girl, Emily, and Hailey stomped in to support Katie. Great.

"I had these special sticky notes set out that were a special color and Hannah ripped them all apart and flung them all over the deck!" More tears. Oh, the drama.

Hannah looked at me with guilty blue eyes. "Hannah, how would you like it if they ripped the head off of your monkey?" No response. I tried to think of something she played with every day. "What if they broke your tricycle, Hannah? Wouldn't you be sad?"

The three big girls behind me erupted in giggles until I remembered: they HAD broken her tricycle. A few weeks ago Katie and Emily had been driving a riding lawn mower around and accidentally rammed it into Hannah's tricycle, destroying one of her tires. After Katie and Emily repaired the tire, we began calling Hannah "Pebbles" after the Flinstones character. Can you see why?

The tension was accidentally broken as well.

You would think the sticky notes were a present or a unique color or at least something Katie had been saving, right? Wrong. Because Katie just rescued them yesterday from a long life buried in Carl's shop, their "special" color was faded pink and they had been rendered virtually sticky-less. Good grief.

About an hour later Hannah walked up to me with her hand behind her back and whispered, "I have a present for you."

Now that's special.

Small Town Living

I'm reading the Twilight series. I originally intended to blame that on Katie because she considered reading it and I wanted to preview it before she did. However, since she found it boring, she didn't get past chapter two of the first book. I, on the other hand, finished the third book today and want to begin the fourth immediately. Please don't think less of me.

Because Hannah is fishing with Carl, the house is hushed--perfect for a junk novel reading marathon. Outside the sky is the brilliant blue only seen after rain has washed the haze from the sky, but surprisingly the humidity is low despite that same rain. I chose to ride my Hoveround the three blocks to the library to return book three in exchange for book four, Breaking Dawn.

I parked my chair outside (I prefer not to use the elevator unless I'm having a difficult day because it requires my bothering Liz for a key--besides, I could use the exercise). As I walked up the air-conditioned steps inside the library, I saw Katie's Sunday school teacher who asked me about a conference she had mentioned to me a few weeks ago. We visited a few minutes before I approached the front desk to return some books and movies. There I saw two other ladies I knew and we joked about brain fog and discussed different people associated with In Cold Blood. Unfortunately Breaking Dawn wasn't available, so I chatted with Liz for a few more minutes and headed home.

Experiencing a sudden need for chocolate (does this ever happen to you?), I decided to stop in at the post office. Sheri keeps a stash behind the desk there for kids, but I figured I could bum some kind of chocolate off of her. In the two blocks I travelled to the USPS, three people I knew drove by and waved.

As I drove my chair across the marble floor of the Post Office, Sheri gave me crap because her best friend had the audacity to show up at 4:29--one minute before she closed the front desk.

"Well, I don't need much. I just wanted a..."

"A stamp?" she interrupted.

I placed a quarter on the counter and said, "No, actually I'm in desperate need of chocolate. I didn't realize the time."

She cackled and said "Suuuure you didn't." But being the friend that she is, she came through with a Snickers. In the time that it took her to dig it out of the drawer, an acquaintance came in at the last minute. We all joked about how he would have been out of luck if I wouldn't have shown up right at 4:30--some friend. Yuk. Yuk. Yuk. Before I left, I asked Sheri if I could borrow her copy of Breaking Dawn. Chocolate and a book. I definitely owe her.

Why am I rambling on and on about these mundane meetings? I love this little town. I love that people wave at each other, that in the span of three blocks I am reminded of how blessed I am with my simple life. Cheered by the sunshine and camaraderie, I feel an unexpected gratitude. I wish I could say I was one of those people who kept a gratitude journal, who made a habit of consciously recognizing her blessings. But I'm not. Ashamedly I admit that I'm more apt to notice what's missing or messed up. So when gratitude sneaks up on me, I'm compelled to make a note of it.

Breaking Dawn beckons. Time to set out on that marathon.

Day Trip Number One

The girls counted down their last four hours of the school year on May 22. By May 23 I already began hearing, "There's nothing to do!" Those words ceased the minute I informed them that I could find something for them to do, like washing clothes, washing the car, washing the floors...lots and lots of washing. However, their heavy sighs and hunched shoulders whined more loudly than any mere word.

At ages twelve and eleven, Katie and Hailey are not only fun travel companions, they are also excellent Hannah helpers. I decided I would plan hopefully-weekly girls days out this summer, probably one of the last summers that my girls will consider a day out with mom fun.

Yesterday morning I loaded my Hoveround while Katie and Hailey packed lunch boxes of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cheese and crackers, fruits and veggies and drinks as well as a sack of extra clothes for Hannah Savannah and drove the ol' Tahoe to Coffeyville, Kansas. I began our outing with a hasty prayer along the lines of, "God, help us have a fun and successful day. And especially help us to be patient when things go wrong, because something surely will. Amen." Norman Vincent Peale (whose name is hyperlinked there, dang this dark background!) probably would not have approved, but if you've trekked anywhere with kids, you know my prayer was pertinent.

Our first stop was The Dalton Museum, home of all things Dalton Gang related.






In 1892 five men attempted to rob two banks in Coffeyville. Four of them were killed by Coffeyville citizens and the fifth was reformed after doing a stint at Lansing. We had already toured the museum once, a few years ago, and found it to be somewhat boring, so I promised the girls we would make this stop a short one. However, this year we all enjoyed it, thanks largely to John and Wendy, the husband and wife team who were manning the museum that day. They gave Katie and Hailey a scavenger hunt list of twenty items as well as plenty of hints when the girls became discouraged. John even offered to keep an eye on Hannah so I could help, which took constant concentration since many items, including but definitely not limited to an old cash register (so many buttons to push) and an antique metal bathtub (just her size), were kept on the floor. Here she is standing beside an antique bottle capper.

This mural remains the most memorable element of the museum, a movie-screen sized portrait of the four dead Dalton Gang members. The sign below it reads "CRIME DOES NOT PAY." Many fliers of that picture and caption were distributed in the late 1890s in an effort to deter criminal activity. What do you suppose would happen if we did the same today? Or if we laid out a row of overdosed drug addicts with the caption "DRUGS KILL."





On the television to Katie's right we could have watched an excellent documentary produced by The History Channel, but I'd seen it before and knew Hannah would never sit through it.

We just had to do the tourist-y pose:

The girls correctly answered all of the questions on the scavenger hunt, which merited them a couple of mock newspapers about the infamous day. After saying our goodbyes we headed towards the bank the Dalton Gang held up, which has been preserved. First I wanted to stop at the Tahoe for a drink, so I asked Hailey for the keys. I had handed them to her because her shorts had pockets. She looked in the back pocket of my Hoveround where she had put them without my knowledge, but they weren't there.

"I saw Hannah with them," Katie informed us. "In the museum."

I wanted to sarcastically ask, "And you didn't take them from her?" but I held my tongue. Maybe that prayer had some efficacy.

We returned inside and sure enough, they were on top of the old-timey cash register. Whew!

On our way to the bank we spied this fountain, a kid magnet if I ever saw one.

We entered the bank through the adjacent Chamber of Commerce, where we also took Hannah for a bathroom break. While I helped Hannah, Katie and Hailey held my keys and checkbook. I've GOT to buy a purse.

Inside the bank:

Inside the vault inside the bank:

We left the bank in time to arrive at the Brown Mansion, (again, there's a hyperlink) with about fifteen minutes to spare before the next tour, just enough time to eat a few bites at the picnic table under a shade tree on the grounds.


Katie and Hailey leisurely unloaded the lunches while I grabbed my checkbook, which contained the tickets I had purchased at the Dalton Museum. Except I couldn't find it. My checkbook that is. Everyone frantically reloaded the Tahoe and we tore out for the bank, hoping the checkbook would still be there.

Sure enough it was, but now we had an hour to kill until the next tour began at the mansion. I called my new friend, John, to determine where to find a park for playing and picnicking. On his recommendation we drove to Pfister Park, an excellent recommendation indeed.

As we packed into the Tahoe yet again, Hannah had her one and only meltdown of the day. Not too bad.

I could go on and on about the Brown Mansion. I've toured it at least four times, but this was the most enjoyable. The tour guide allowed Hailey into this chained-off room to play the piano. She also took us out onto the...what's it called...veranda? Terrace? I'll say "veranda." It's the upper porch/deck in the picture above. What a view!

Hannah snapped the picture below.

Hannah also took this picture. She and I sat on the main floor while the tour guide took Katie and Hailey through the basement. I didn't feel like taking that many stairs.

As I worked with this picture, I noticed the sign. Oh well.

This was our final stop. I HAD to buy a purse.