Backgrounds, Dishwashers, and Pico de Gallo

I would like to say right away that this post will have nothing important in it. If you have better things to do, off you go, with my heartiest "thanks for dropping by anyway."

I read some blogs this evening and realized I still had icy trees on the background of my blog, which seemed a few months behind times. So I decided to change it. Why I decide this at 9:30 at night is beyond me. At this point, I am just not that functionally intelligent, so the amount of frustration with technical things is much, much higher. I went into my March pictures, found a lovely tree just budding out and figured out how to resize it for my blog. They only let me upload a picture that is the size of a large postage stamp, so once I finally had it on there, blogger thought it looked tacky with only one itty-bitty picture and threw 30 more pictures on there in a tiled pattern for a bizarre and totally incomprehensible look. I revolted and put the picture of blocks on there in a display of civil disobedience to blogger. I am not sure how this is civil disobedience. But I feel it is somehow.

What I would like to know is this--why can I only upload a tiny picture when blogger knows full well it won't work for a background?

In other news, we have a dishwasher! Justin put it in at the beginning of April and I am finally getting used to it. This is a big deal, since I have washed dishes by hand for the past 5 years. In times past, I was very economical with dishes, since I didn't feel like washing 48 different plates that had been used only for toast and PBJ's. Now, I am sorry to say, I splash out a bit, using one plate to reheat my meat on and then moving the meat to the taco salad on an entirely different plate. It feels extravagant. And best of all? As I sit here on the computer, Justin is doing dishes. Yes, really. He installed it even when he knew it would mean he would be expected to help a bit more with dishes. How is that for gentlemanly behavior? I think it is great. And before anyone points out that it would have been more gentlemanly to install a dishwasher when we moved in three years ago, I will fully disclose that Justin has been trying to buy me one since we moved in, but  I tend to resit large purchases, since it seems.... well.... extravagant. So it is all my fault that I have been washing dishes by hand. Me and my large purchase hang up.

It seems silly to not have pictures, so I think I will put one or two up. 

Okay, make it one. And yes, that is the best I could do at the moment. Well the best that wouldn't involve plugging my camera in and uploading new pictures. And anyway, this is pico de gallo. And a picture of that should be enough for anyone. Well actually, a bowl of it should be enough for anyone. At least a bowl and a bag of tortilla chips for eating it with.

I like this stuff. A lot. And Ashley is the pico de gallo queen. I might hire her just to wait around and make it when I get to hankering for it. I want it about 4 times a week. The perfect lunch. Or supper.

She uses the Pioneer Woman recipe. Here is your ticket to scrumptious eating. As long as you are willing to chop a lot of things. It is worth it though, boy is it worth it.

And while looking for that recipe, I came across this list of Super Bowl food by Pioneer Woman. I would like to try pretty much all of these recipes, unhealthy though they may be. http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/category/holidays/super-bowl/?posts_per_page=40

And now, I will stop writing random, tired brain thoughts. Have a lovely night.

Pictures

I don't have the time to write a blog right now, but it is bothering me that my last post on here was whiny, so I am going to put up pictures and thereby, make my blog cheerier. Plus, life is pretty great, so there is no reason to be whiny just because I feel slighted by mother nature. I am sure it was nothing personal. (The weather returned to normal 40's and 50's immediately after our spring heat wave and now I am feeling very cold. Which just goes to show that human beings (at least this girl here) is never quite satisfied.) I also just realized that my blog still has icy branches on the background as well, which is not really April. Ah well.

Here are some Life IS Good pictures.

Lily with her foam block skyscraper for her snake

At the playground

Ring them bells

Muddy girls

Throwing rocks in the water--wicked cool

Some of Olivia's pictures that were on my camera

A breakfast picnic (Daddy had got home at 1:30 AM unexpectedly and had to sleep in the kids room, since the kids were all piled in with me.) We didn't want to wake up Daddy, so we had oatmeal, PBJ's and PB Toast on Mommy and Daddy's bed! And I just referred to myself in the third person as Mommy. 

All of us Cottens

Gilbert thinks pictures are funny

Sunday girls

Sweet babies

These next pictures should actually be at the very beginning of the post, but for some reason aren't. I am pretty sure this doesn't bother me. If it keeps me awake at all tonight I will change it. 

We got Gilbert a leash! He loves it.

Where the hustle and bustle was

Caleb and David splitting wood

Going to see the new calf. Hooray! Lily and Cheyenne are being cute. 

Owen, Matt H., and a new calf

Elm tree buds

Drawing off some syrup

Elliott being tough and carrying in the wood

Trying to determine if Lily has the required muscle mass to help carry wood. She failed. This seriously cracked me up. He was so serious about it. 

Gilbert meeting Miss Mercedes Grace H

Being Gilbert

Cody gave the kids motorcycle rides and the mother's heart palpitations. And not from how cool he was. The kids loved it and he drove slow for just a tiny ways, but there were sighs of relief each time he returned. 

Gilbert indulging in some mud

 Nate and Lily

Being tough in a twirly skirt is hard to do

Going to collect sap

I feel gypped

I am sitting here with the windows open to the 80 degree weather outside, hearing the birds twitter, which should make me feel happy. But I am not. Whine, whine. My crocuses are blooming. And it is 80. Crocuses are meant to peek through snow, not blossom brightly at 80. At this rate my lawn will be covered in dandelions at the same time my tulips and daffodils are out. Sigh. I like things to be as expected. I am sure this says something about me. Probably that I am a stick in the mud and boring.

I don't want summer weather in March. I want 40's that mellow into 50's. I don't want mosquitoes biting me in March. I want to just hear just the spring peepers for a few weeks before mosquitoes enter the scene. (And yes, I have to mentally say moss-kwe-toes in order to spell mosquitoes right.) It just feels all mixed up. I keep feeling like the baby will be coming soon, since this is the sort of weather I was expecting in June, when the baby is meant to be born. And for some reason, it is a shock to me to realize I have almost 3 more months before Baby-in-Utero is born.

I am complaining about the nicer than normal weather. I am a grouch. It is a grouchy sort of week I think. I am working on our NYS audit, which doesn't make me happy. The amount of paper and ink and adding and subtracting and ferreting out receipts, birth certificates, W-2's, and letters from schools and doctors saying my kids do exist is exhausting. My husband is leaving again for the weekend, which will be very fun for him, but makes me incline to melancholy. Gilbert has strep again, so I keep wondering who will get it next. And I have been low on energy, so there are several loads of laundry to be folded and put away, as well as a load of dishes that need to be washed. And now, with all this nice weather, I need to get out the rubbermaids and rehaul the closet so that my poor kiddos don't have to overheat in tights and long sleeves, all the while thinking "what if it snows in 2 weeks and all they have out are shorts and flip flops?" Which pretty much ensures that the rubbermaids of put away winter things will sit around for 3 weeks just in case we need them. And I am starting to get indigestion.

Isn't my life hard? No? Sigh.... I will now stir myself to go accomplish something, However, just for the record, I don't want to.

What a whine-y post. I apologize. I blame it on the La Nina and some sort of Arctic Oscillation which have kidnapped my beloved spring and plopped me down in the middle of June with no mental preparation.

Maple-y things (and other things)

You will all be relieved to know that our rat creature has vacated the premises. Or died. Not sure which. But it doesn't smell and it doesn't wake me up at 2 AM. I am not too interested in the particulars beyond those two things. It helps that it is close to 60 degrees outside. The scrabbling around was definitely worse on nights that were zero. Last week, Justin was in Syracuse working with Evan, so I had to be brave and bang on the wall a couple times a night all by my lonesome. The first night, I didn't hear it at all, which made me think it had left or died. Then I remembered that the night before it had been really lethargic. Justin told me it was probably stuck in a stud bay and starved to death. So I spent all of last Monday feeling sympathy with this fellow creature who was only trying to live the life it was given and thinking further philosophical rat thoughts. That night, my disgusting fellow creature woke me up 4 (FOUR) times. And then I wanted it dead. I was quite merciless about it. That is how most of my philosophical moods go. I spend awhile thinking deep thoughts and complimenting myself on how deep I really am. And then reality intrudes and my philosophy flies out the window. Fortunately, I do not have a good memory for this sort of thing, so I never have to remind myself how pompous and ridiculous I was in thinking all that nonsense. Except about child birth. That is vivid in my mind. The whole telling people who have been through it that I didn't understand how someone could have an epidural or pain meds when it makes the baby so lethargic for the first few hours of life. And other superior I-clearly-have-never-given-birth-but-have-a-lot-of-theories moments that are too shameful to bring to mind. I pack them away in the section of my brain reserved for such moments. When I get Alzheimers at 72, I will probably only be able to remember my suppressed memories of getting my come-uppance. I will wander around the nursing home apologizing to everyone for thinking I knew more about childbirth than they did. And for not writing them back within a week 50 some years earlier. And for thinking I was superior because I didn't struggle with what they struggled with. And since everyone there will be slightly senile, they will thank me for my apologies and feel superior. I will be a joy at 72.

Since Justin was working in Syracuse, I was on my own last week. I don't like it. At all. I feel like this blog is in grave danger of becoming some sort of confessional of all my weaknesses if I don't be careful. But really, not liking to be alone and not liking to deal with rodents can sort of both be shoved under the general heading of Inability To Deal With Real Life Situations Without Making a Great Deal of Fuss and Bother About it. So for my ego's sake, I will just pretend that actually I have only one general weakness. Everyone has one weakness. The fact that my one weakness encompasses 73 other weaknesses is just.... well... convenient.

JoAnna was here for the week last week and Lindsey was here the two weeks before--both being examples of capable, independent women. So I felt challenged to behave like a rational, capable, independent woman too. So I tried. But I was glad to see Justin when he and Evan came back up Thursday night to boil sap on Friday. I am just not sure I AM capable and rational. Especially after last night, when Justin left again and I had to talk myself out of a panic attack or two when the house creaked itself to sleep around 11 PM. The first night is always the worst. And listening to Laura Ingalls Wilder tapes makes me feel even more incapable when Ma took care of life, bears, grasshoppers, no water, and then sat up late into the night waiting for Pa who may or may not have been attacked by a bear on his way home to get home. As I imagined all sorts of human horrors who could have suddenly appeared in Moira and in particular, my living room, my rational brain kept telling me to remember the pioneers. I got up twice in the night with the kids and somehow life isn't as frightening once I have been to sleep and have woke up again without actually having been murdered in my sleep. It is reassuring.

Yesterday was Evan's birthday. Over the weekend, the sap had run well, so Evan decided to come up to help boil it. And since it was his birthday, Clover and the kids decided to stick with him and come up too. It was sunshiney, 60 degrees, with an underlying smell of sweet maple-ness floating in the air from the sugar shack, happy/muddy cousins, and the promise of birthday cake after supper. All this richness just after two weeks with Lindsey, followed by one week with JoAnna. Life doesn't get much better.

Boiling sap is hard. Notice the "Sap Heads, LLC" sign in the corner, present from Evan's dad.

Believe it or not, they were discussing cake decorating.

Mom's daylilies coming up

It was that kind of warm, sunshine-y day. 

Orianna and Cheyenne waiting to decorate the cake Cheyenne made for Evan

Doing taxes. The other end of the table was having ALL the fun yesterday.

Elliott and his gingerbread

Playing on recliners. The cool thing to do.

Getting ready to decorate.

A very serious business

Then the kids who were not allowed to help Cheyenne decorate were allowed to decorate plates and dip pretzels in the icing. Oh yeah, we are that kind of mothers. Icing as afternoon snack--perfect! 

The finished product and the birthday guy. We had to take the cake down to the sugar shack where they were finishing off the syrup

It was quite the par-tay.

Boiling sap and almost syrup

Gilbert doing his happy clap

Enchanting outfit. After getting mud clear up to her knees, Rilla had to wear red overalls that were being handed down from Gilbert to Lincoln. They were capris on Rilla. And then she tied the look together with a pink flower be-decked tutu and red boots. She knows her fashion. 

Sunday night, we enjoyed the last hour of daylight by collecting sap. 

Cody bringing back the tractor

Gilbert and Lily getting a 4-wheeler ride

Orianna driving the 4-wheeler

Lily

It is a hair rising ride into the maple trees they tapped in the woods

Camera's don't really understand taking pictures in the woods at dusk

This is blurry, but it was a really cool picture. Venus and maybe Jupiter through the maple trees.

And since this is mostly about sap, I will put up the pictures of boiling last Friday

The sugar shack with steam rolling off

The overfilled creek

Justin trying to get the cupola to dry the smoke and steam up right

Because it was REALLY steamy in there!

JoAnna showing off the latest in maple syrup production wear

Gilbert loved hanging out with Daddy after a week without him!