"'Cause Shit Like That Doesn't Happen To Normal People"

Seriously. Someone said that to me yesterday. There is was: drinking with friends and relaying a hilarious situation that, naturally, doesn't happen to normal people, when it popped right out of her mouth. I didn't take it poorly though because, seriously, shit like that does NOT happen to normal people. The good thing is that I can laugh at the myriad of strange, awkward and inappropriate things that have happened to me. Which is good. I think?

Like the time I inadvertently told my coworker, "Oh, I didn't recognize you with clothes on." Which, I admit, sounds really bad when taken out of context. But, when you know that I ran into him, his wife and family in the mall shortly after I started an internship at the refinery and just simply didn't recognize him without his coveralls on (we all were generic blue coveralls at work. Hundreds of us. All dressed in blue) it doesn't seem so bad. Right?

Or, like the time I left the sunroof open on my car all night in the pouring rain and decided the best way to dry the leather was to drive the car with my seat warmers on and I ended up shocking my own ass. It felt like a 400 volt electric fence grounded on my butt. Not cool.

Or, a crowd favorite: the time I was house sitting and  my high school boyfriend chased a morbidly obese sheep to death on accident. Which, is funny in it's self, but then followed up by the story of my two brothers helping me bury the thing at my parent's house makes you about wet your pants. Remind me if you haven't heard the story about the dead sheep. It's makes you think, "Shit like this really doesn't happen to normal people."

And, there's the time I moved to Cody, Wyoming, and had lived there a total of FOUR days when the barn at the place I was house sitting burned down while I was at the gym. Went to gym, barn burned down, firefighters put it out, left me a hand written note on the kitchen table (small town mentality!), and were gone by the time I got off the elliptical. And, when I showed up to my first day of work a picture of the barn on fire was on the front page. Above the fold. In color.

And, as friends have reminded me lately, I just haven't been writing the blog lately. It's not that the crazy things stopped happening...it's just other things like life, a family, horses, swimming lessons and preschool DID happen. So, instead of remembering all of this crazy things, I've vowed to start writing them down again. And, I promise, I'll get around eventually to updating the pictures on my blog. But, one thing at a time, right?

If Only It Were That Easy

An actual conversation we had this afternoon while waiting for traffic at a busy intersection:

Colt: "Mommy. That is a lot of cars."
Me: "Yes. There are a lot of cars. We have to wait a long time, don't we?"
Colt: "Push the button. Push the button. Do IT mommy! DO IT!"
Me: "Do what?"
Colt: "Mommy, push the button and STOP those cars! Do it!"

Ahhh, the mind of a 2 year old accustomed to watching cartoons on DVR. Oh, how things were different when I was a kid!

Slugs, Slugs and MORE Slugs!

We have been working very hard on not touching the slugs lately. I got plain tired of scrubbing that goop they leave off his little body. I understand that at this age slugs are about the only animal he CAN catch, but still. NO MORE SLUGS!!

So, I was SO proud last weekend when, on our routine trip to the barn in the morning, when he spotted a slug he screamed, "SLUG!! Slug, mommy!" Followed shortly by, "No touching mommy. Just looking!" Ah, my heart fluttered with pride. And we walked on.

Three strides later, in the same breath, he looked at me and said, "Mommy licks slugs." And when I gasped and replied, "No I don't! Mommy doesn't lick slugs!" He just looked at me, quite compassionately, and said, "And daddy too. Daddy licks slugs." And then walked on.

Seriously? Seriously. Still pretty cute, even if he talks some smack.

Please Park the Lawn Mower.

This actually happened tonight:

At about 8:00 tonight, I jumped on the lawn mower to "clean up" some of the clippings from mowing the lawn yesterday. After that I thought I'd just do a small area behind the garage. Then, I thought I'd just do the fence line (afterall, tomorrow IS weedeating day!), then I thought I'd do MORE fence line, then I just decided to mow about 2 acres of our 5 acre field. Because that's totally normal, right?
Well, half way through the field I came back up to the house to re-fuel and Todd says, "You need to call the farrier back. He just called."

"Cool." I call, no response. So, I leave Todd with my planner (to schedule my appointment while I finished mowing the field - obviously) and head back out.

When I finally finish (after 9:00 sometime), I say to Todd, "Did anyone else call?"
"No. Oh, wait - someone DID call. Your sanity. It said it wants you back."

To which I reply, "Hmm. I thought I had that number disconnected."

Oh, So Many Things To Cover

Sorry for the huge delay in posts.... now, on to the stories.....

I'm not sure where to start: the long-awaited goat departure, the increase to 200 chickens on our property, the 5:10am chicken wrangling last weekend, or the story about why I'm sitting here with my leg elevated, iced, bandaged and the skin is missing from my right forearm.

Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves.....let's talk about the Moon Story.

So, Colt's new thing is "Cheer-o". I couldn't get this kid to eat Cheerios to save his life, but the tides have turned and it seems like that's all he wants morning, noon and night. His absolute favorite thing to do is bite them in half, hold them up and yell, "Moon! Moon! Mommy - moon!!" Because, obviously, Cheerios bitten in half look like moons. Pretty bright kid, right?

So, last night's dinner appetizer was in fact, Cheerios. He munched a pretty good sized bowl of them and kept exclaiming with delight, "Moon!!" After he'd finished up the last of them he coughed a bit and then started sneezing like crazy. Very unnatural, repetitive sneezing that didn't seem like it was going to stop. I turned to grab a Kleenex, and when I turned back the final sneeze (with much more vigor!) launched the biggest snot rocket I've ever seen on to his upper lip. Holding back the vomit that had crept up my throat, I went in with the Kleenex. 

But, before I could grab it he popped his little hand up there and rubbed it all around. Only, it wouldn't rub around. He grabbed the chunk, looked at it, held  and proudly exclaimed, "Moon! Mommy - moon!" 

Sure enough, that little bugger had crammed one up his nose.  He's a nose rammer. Gonna have to keep an eye on him.....