food chain

The cats ate our Venus Flytrap.

I sure hope the cat grass comes up soon.

Another one bites the dust

Eric's contract has been settled, so a chunk of the money I tucked away got spent today. I took a wad of cash to our neighborhood National Chain Home and Garden Store (NCHGS)* and paid off our credit card. Yeah, I could have written a check, but it was more fun to get the cash in small bills and hand over a stack for them to count. Hey, I was nice. I really considered paying the last $50.00 in quarters. When I factored in the weight issue, I decided $5.00 bills were small enough.

The best part was that we owed $10.00 less than I thought we did. I celebrated that with a lemon ice!

So now the washer is officially ours. We have four more accounts to go. Barring catastrophe, we should have them done before Christmas.



*Yeah, I could tell you which one it was, but I don't want to advertise for them.

Blond and blonderer

Mom, Favorite Aunt and I went to the Missouri Botanical Garden over the weekend. They're gardeners, and I'm a wannabee, and no one else wanted to go, so it seemed like the perfect way to spend a day!

The gardens were fabulous. Of course, it was also Chinese culture weekend, which I missed on the website (if it was there) so we had to dodge some dancers and a twelve foot dragon, but it was worth the trouble. It was even worth the extra $2.00 a person they tacked onto the admission price.

After we toured the gardens, we stopped in the gift shop. (We're shoppers; it was a must-see.) I was very happy to find a purple basil* already started, AND Feverfew seeds**! Yeah! Cat grass for the furries and a Venus Fly Trap were unexpected bonuses.

So, high on cloroform and adrenaline from the hunt, we got back to the car and headed home. I was driving, Mom was riding shotgun, and when she pointed out the sign for 44 West, we were all surprised at how easy it was to get on the freeway from the Garden.

*Interruption for perspective*
The Missouri Botanical Garden is in St. Louis. I live in Illinois.

About two miles later I saw the sign for 44 West. I looked at the compass; yep, we were going west. It just so happened that there was a lull in the conversation, so I said, "Mom, why did you tell me to go west? Do you want to have dinner in Kansas City?"

She thought about that for a second and said, "Oh. We were supposed to go east."

(This is normal for us. We can both get lost in a wet paper bag if we don't have a map and a compass.)

I have to give Favorite Aunt a lot of credit for not laughing when I took the next exit to turn around and go home.

Let it never be said that I don't listen to my mother!

*Purple basil is great for cooking and salads, but I'm told that if you dry the leaves and bundle them in cheese cloth, it keeps mosquitoes away. I haven't tried it yet, but I plan to. Cat nip mixed in is supposed to increase the bug-free radius but if you have outside cats around, you probably don't want to go there.

**Feverfew is an herb that's great for curing migraines. I'll have to look it up in my herb books, but I think you use the leaves dried to make tea, or to make a tincture to mix with water. I currently buy it in a capsule at a health food store, but I want to try the tincture to see if it works faster. (OK, I also want to learn the technique for making tinctures!)

I

Pinched from Gemmak:

I am: feeling truly pitiful today
I want: everything to come together in a nice, neat package
I wish: we knew what was going on with Eric's job
I hate: critters with more than four legs
I miss: being able to hang out with a few specific people whenever I want
I fear: the struggles my kids will face as they grow
I hear: occassionally; eight years in hazardous noise areas took their toll
I wonder: if I'll make it through my kids' teens, and they're good kids!
I regret: getting my degree in business and not psychology
I am not: organized
I dance: badly
I sing in the shower: sometimes, usually if I need to practice something for church
I cry: too rarely for my own good
I am not always: a nice mom or wife
I make with my hands: dinner for my family
I write: too sporadically
I confuse: myself and others
I need: to have my allergies magically disappear
I should: be writing. Or cooking
I start: lots of different projects
I finish: far fewer than I start

Confirmed and recharged, but watch for falling pies

We had company all weekend for Vicky's Confirmation. We had a lot of fun, and church went off without a hitch. Vicky is very happy to be done with her class.

On Saturday we went to the Missouri Botanical Garden. It's well worth the trip if you're in driving distance. I took gobs of pictures (killed two sets of batteries), some of which I'll post here eventually.

Since my favorite aunt was here, I hornswaggled her into making apple pies. We decided, since she made three of them, to bake one and freeze two. I thought it was a wonderful idea.

Until this morning.

I was getting ice for their cooler, and while I was wrestling the box that the ice drops into, a pie jiggled loose and fell out. On my foot. I took pictures, but you can't really see the goose egg on the top of my instep in them. Maybe I'll have better luck when the bruise kicks in. I'm going to have fun working this week. Motrin is my friend.