It's Been a While!

Oh my gosh has it really been a week since I posted?  What the heck is wrong with me???  I have got to take a look at my priorities!

Well, seven days and counting until summer vacation.  The school days are almost over, and it's funny how silly they get at the end.  I'm sure it's almost pointless to try to teach the kids much during these last two weeks, they're probably so squirrelly.  They fill the time with field trips, track and field days, and events like "Franks with Fathers."  Which, by the way, was a huge hit in our family.

While they count their days down to no more school, I count my days down until the sweet three month break from waking with an alarm clock, worrying about homework and permission slips, spelling tests, academic performance, and backpacks.  Now my worries are band lessons, baseball, football, weekly pool dates at Gramma's, and keeping them from complaining about boredom.  I love this time of year.

And today I have to do laundry.  I know!  Shocking.  Laundry laundry laundry.  Someday instead of a chute somebody's going to invent a conveyor belt where it just drives the clothes through a wash cycle and then back into the drawers, all folded and fresh.  The Whirlpool Magic Belt.  But until then, I spend at least 5 of 7 days with a large chunk of time spent sorting, washing, swapping, folding, ironing, hanging, and stuffing.  And when it's a sport season there's even more pressure because I have to make sure the uniform parts are all done and ready.  So they are magically there for the grabbing for the kids.  They think I do it for them, but really I do it for me.  Because I've had those days of screaming and running around frantically through the house, five minutes after we were supposed to leave, yelling "where the heck is your baseball shirt/hat/glove/nut cup/football jersey/uniform pants/insert your whatever here"!?!?!  And insanely hollering about how everybody needs to take more responsibility in our home and how I don't wear this stuff so how am I supposed to know where they put it and why is it so difficult to get things down the chute and now we're super late and would somebody PLEASE fill the damn water bottles and start loading the car and could somebody PLEASE take the dog out to pee so we can all get out of here and enjoy some family bonding?????  Been there, too many times.

Ahhhh.  Let me take a sip of my coffee.

I think I know why I haven't been blogging as much.  My usual routine is to sit down here and write after the kids go to school.  If I don't do it then, the day sort of gets away from me.  And with this nice weather, my temptation is always to take my coffee out on to the porch.  I tried blogging from out there once, with my iPad.  I hooked up my wireless keyboard to it, and typed away.  I had this awesome post all ready, and then it went to another page because I had filled up the first page.  The whole thing just disappeared, and I couldn't find the first page.  And I realized that what I could see had no formatting.  Like when you press "return" to skip a line.  Not there.  It was just one formless, giant paragraph, and I couldn't figure it out.  I'll have to try to get better at that, because while it was working it, was pretty awesome to be out there while I was writing.  Now I have to remind myself to park in the office for a bit and get some writing done.  I feel more tense, I think, when it's been a while since I've released my random junk on here.  But even now, as I sit in here, I can hear the birds outside, and I think I just heard my loveseat on the porch whispering, "I'm here, and nobody's sitting on me......come out......coffee tastes better out here......."  Peer pressure.

People, I need to figure out my goofy dog situation.  I live on a hobby farm (duh).  I have lots of space out here, and six months ago I thought I have the perfect place for a dog, we need a dog.  So we got one.  Little Freddy.  Only he's not really little.  He's awesome, and we love him to pieces, but we are still learning this whole dog thing.  Out here, everyone has dogs.  And they're outside all day, usually.  They just hang around.  I took it for granted that country dogs just do that.

Freddy doesn't.

Yes, I'm talking about you.

Freddy is a hound of some sort.  He follows his nose.  And he wants to run across the road to see the dogs that live over there.  Or run for miles chasing a squirrel or a rabbit.  I know he could get hit by a car and that terrifies me.  I know he could get so far away he wouldn't find home again.  And I know it's rude to have a dog that goes to other people's places without an invitation.  The dogs across the way roam over here sometimes, and it is frustrating.  So here we have a dog, and we live on a farm.  And for the six months that we have had him, we take him out to do his business.  On a leash.  It's almost embarrassing.  We let him off the leash once in a while to play fetch, but only when we're directly playing with him.  If we want to just be outside and not be constantly engaging him, we have to tie him up or put him in.  It's just stupid.  We bought one of those shock collars with a remote, and the idea is that we're going to work with him for a couple days and give him a quick zap when he leaves the area that we want him to stay in, and that might train him, but really, we don't know what we're doing.  I think it's just magic that all these other farmers have dogs that just hang around.

And for my own sanity, I HAVE to be able to let him out.  Just open the damn door when he's all whiny and let him run out there, then let him in when he's ready to come back in.  And we can't fence this place, that would be insane.

So, if you have any words of wisdom, I'd love to hear them.

Well, enough rambling.  Have a great day, everyone.  I'll figure out the iPad and write more often.