Camping Stories

Inspired by my blog pal Lyn over at Duck and Wheel with String thought I'd share a camping story or two with you.

Over the years Hubby and I, then later with the kids have camped a fair bit.  The easy camping trips where nothing goes wrong seem to fade away in our memories but the ones where misery strikes stick with us for years.  Like a bad vacation I suppose.

Back in September of this year the Cub Scout pack got adventurous and decide to organize a campout for the entire pack (around 30 kids and their adult and sometimes siblings)  I had planned on a tent with the group, until the weather turned and the lows at night were going to be somewhere in the 30's.  Frankly sleeping cold in a tent when I have a camper in the driveway seemed crazy.  I therefore packed up the camper and drove it to the nearby state park where we were having the campout and purchased the last electric site for the weekend.  Oh, one little fact that my husband was in France this week didn't really deter me.  The campout was officially for Saturday night but I took the camper out on Friday evening to get set up and have a little quiet time before the cub scout stuff began.  The day went pretty much as planned and with some shuffling around with Sonny Boy who had football games and such it was going well. 

After the scout activities ended around 9:00 pm I hustled the kids back to our campsite and tucked them into bed, watching the two of them fall deep asleep faster than you could humanly think possible.  I lie there dozing and listening to the drunks a campsite or two over wishing they would settle down but they weren't too bad.   Soon I heard a guy start yelling across the campground, "Shut-up"  and assorted other demands to be quite.  I was glad of this because the drunks were getting a little annoying.  Less than five minutes later the guys starts yelling again " I said shut the F--- up!" and the rowdy campers start exchanging words with him - loudly.  By this time I could tell it was escalating quickly and start calling the park number to try and get the ranger.  After a lifetime of menus I still couldn't get a person so I hung up and called 911.  While I'm on the phone with the 911 operator I hear the guy yell "I'm a cop and you better believe I have I weapon"  I relay all the information to the operator as a now wide awake Sonny Boy listens to obscenities fly and peeks out the tent ends of the camper.  When I hear the weapon remark I make Sonny Boy get into the floor of the camper to at least put a layer of fiberglass between him and anything that might go flying.  I remain peeking out the window and see officers approaching past my camper with weapons drawn sneaking up on the melee going on 2-3 campsites down.  Soon I could hear that they had the screaming "cop" handcuffed and they pulled a squad car up and loaded somebody into it and a few minutes later an ambulance comes into the campground and treats somebody as well.  Igor happily conked out like a comatose log slept through the whole thing.  (to be fair I didn't make him get out of bed as he was asleep on the dinette which was below window level.)

It's always an adventure camping let me tell you.  Thanks Lyn for giving me good fodder for the blog.

The Gender Gap

I'm sure everyone (all three of you who read this) has seen the statistics that show a woman earns like 77 cents for every dollar a man makes.  Women seem to have a harder time climbing the corporate ladder, women do more housework than men.  The list seems endless as to how men and women are not treated equally in the world.

I'm  going to talk about another inequality, one I've never seen on the news or Oprah.  It's the Hunting, Fishing gap.  Some might call it a Hobby Gap, but in my world I most commonly see it related to hunting and fishing.

In many parts of the country Deer Season is a national holiday for men.  Rural schools close for a day or two, camo and bright orange catch your eye at every corner and caravans of campers, and loaded pick-ups go to the "deer woods". 

Deer Widows often have nights out when the men depart, but for the most part the wives are at home going to work, and keeping things running as always.  The only difference for a non-hunting woman between deer season and not, is watching the bank account deplete and dealing with the hassles of life without a back-up or help.

What chaps my hide (and other deer widows I know) is that there is no equivalent for women.  Women rarely get to just take off, and leave.  The good Lord knows that if I decided to leave for a week it requires much more than just packing my clothes and leaving.  I must make sure all the laundry is done, there is a clear calendar, not just for me but for the rest of the family and if there are things on that calendar it's clearly marked and explained and a dozen other things taken care of because frankly we all know who runs the household.  Don't get me started on what you come home to find in the wake of being gone for more than three days as well.

Honestly Hubby is a really good guy.   I'm just REALLY peeved to see the large amounts of money and time spent trying to kill an animal.  IF Hubby kills a deer this year that "free" meat will have actually cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $100 a lb.  yeah, lobster is way cheaper.  This irks me when I go the grocery store and buy the generic because it's 15 cents cheaper and I don't buy the nice handbag I've eyeballed because it's "too expensive".

My next husband will not hunt or fish.

Fall is Here

Hey!  I'm still alive and really I haven't given up blogging but finding the time to put up more poorly written drivel is getting really difficult.  In fact I have a whole whopping 28 minutes to do this post before I have to get in the shower and only one cup of coffee under my belt so if I wander from the subject....well you know.

The household has a new definition of busy lately.  Sonny Boy is in the throes of a loosing football season and what proves to be his most difficult year of cub scouts yet.  Igor is thrilled to finally be able to participate in Cub Scouts and he's already set to make Eagle.

Hubby is busy as ever with work having taken an assignment that kept him gone for two weeks solid, one week in Palm Beach, Florida and the other in Paris, France.  Yeah - too bad for him.  He texted me a picture of the Eifel tower lit up at night with a gorgeous full moon, I sent him a picture of the school bus parked in front of me at the elementary school.  The upside with the new assignment is that he will be traveling to France several times in the next year or two and we plan on taking the kids at some point.  There is a distant chance it could turn into some long term postings of a month or two at a time and that could be really fun because I'm definitely taking up the opportunity to live there for a little while.

Me, well I'm busy, busy, busy.  Officially wearing three hats in the cub scout pack, Working - only three hours a day but gee it's amazing that seems to cut into the day - and managing all the other mundane tasks of being a mom and I'm frazzled.

Thankfully some of the chaos will end this week as the last football game of the season is Saturday.  I can't tell you how happy I am to type that.  Sonny Boy has made HUGE gains in his football ability this year, alas he's drawn all the luck of a terrible team and a terrible coach this year.  The coach is really a little over the top and I think he often forgets he's dealing with 3rd and 4th graders.  It's so noticeable that parents from the other 3rd and 4th grade team in town have reportedly been discussing it.  Sonny Boy was even ready to quit a few weeks ago and that was enough to send red flags up because he LOVES playing football, and would play year round if we could find him somewhere to do it.  I explained that this is a life lesson, he wouldn't always have teachers and coaches he likes and sometimes you just have to grin and bear it till it's over, but that I would make sure he didn't have the same coach next year.  (I'm decent friends with a guy on the board) 

Right now we are seriously shopping for a truck.  Pulling the camper with the mini-van makes us nervous as we fear the tranny will drop out from under it on a road trip.  Hubby has narrowed the search down to a couple of different trucks and will go look at another tonight.  Basically it has boiled down to buying a newer truck with fewer features and lower miles versus a truck a few years older with a few more miles and EVERY bell and whistle that can be put on one.  It's hard to make that decision because the bells and whistles are very nice and this will be our main family vehicle (buying a four door truck) and the little luxuries can make a vehicle on a long road trip.  First world problems eh?





I've been singing this little ditty a bit.

Still in the race

Not dead yet, but when I'm not doing about 300 things at one time I resemble this.  Frankly even stringing these two sentences together is taxing.  More blog to come.

...And They're Off!!

 

 

 

 

as the bell rings on the running of the  2013/14 school year YOU ARE NOT WEARING THAT takes the lead followed half a length behind by BREAKFAST ARGUEMENT, in third place is FIND YOUR SHOES & GRAB YOUR BAG.  Coming down the back straight is HOMEWORK FIGHT and he's making strides on the leaders, rounding out the field is LOST LIBRARY BOOK, EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES,  NEED LUNCH MONEY,  and FAMILY DINNERS.

 

As we make the final turn HOMEWORK FIGHT is coming hard on the outside and passing BREAKFAST ARGUEMENT and gaining quickly on YOU ARE NOT WEARING THAT.  GRAB YOUR SHOES & GRAB YOUR BAG is looking winded and is being gained on by the field.  HOMEWORK FIGHT is taking the lead and half a length ahead of YOUR ARE NOT WEARING THAT.  Looks like FAMILY DINNERS has been pulled up short with a leg injury and will not finish the race.  At the wire it's HOMEWORK FIGHT for a win, place is BREAKFAST ARGUEMENT, and in a surprise longshot EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES is in show.

 

 

These are the unofficial results, hold all tickets until race results are final:

 

Win:  HOMEWORK FIGHT

Place: BREAKFAST ARGUEMENT

Show: EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVTIES

4th:  YOU ARE NOT WEARING THAT

5th:  FIND YOUR SHOES & GRAB YOUR BAG

6th:  LOST LIBRARY BOOK

7th:  NEED LUNCH MONEY

 

FAMILY DINNERS didn't finish the race due to a broken leg and will be humanly euthanized. 

 

 



Busy is as Busy Does

The last few weeks have been the kind of busy that's nice, except for the fact I've been battling an almost constant migraine the last two.  Uhg, not much seems to help it, drugs make it lie down for a few hours but then I'm groggy and spacey from them.  Sleep helps some, but really one can only sleep so many hours a day.  I'm in hopes that once we have settled into a school schedule my body will decide "hey this is life now" and quit torturing me.

The new job is going well.  I'm still in the training phase, but honestly I have the hang of the daily kind of stuff that crops up and will pick up the odds and ends as I move along.  Oddly enough there is a lot of tiny little details that go along with putting books back on the library shelf you probably would have never guessed.  Probably the hardest part is not browsing through the interesting looking books as I take care of them.  My trainer noted I will fit in well because I've read so many different things and know who Eudora Welty is - even though I've never read her. 

 

 

My want to read list has grown by leaps and bounds the last couple of weeks as I see books pass through my hands.  I have not indulged this as I am re-reading the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.

 

I'm in the middle of the next to the last book and it's like hanging out with old friends.  I haven't read through the series in several years.  I of course know the outcomes of the big plots but have forgotten the smaller snippets and details.  There is a new book to the series due out in March, it was originally scheduled for a December '13 release; but a new TV series on Starz is being developed, and my hunch is they are timing everything to whip up frenzy.  I don't really think they need to whip up too much frenzy, as it seems everyone on the fan sites are in a lather for the show and the new book.  I know I am.

 

 

Sonny Boy is in full football practice mode.  He was thrilled with it up until the last practice and they scrimmaged the other team from their league.  Sonny Boy had a bad practice (or so I heard, wasn't there) and managed to mess up the snap several times.  A kid quit on Monday, and when I asked Sonny Boy why he thought the kid quit he thought it was because the coach was too tough.  Sonny
Boy's coach is pretty tough, but I don't think it's extreme, it is football after all.

 

We have likely nixed our plans for camping over Labor day weekend.  The weather is threatening to be really hot and humid.  We do have an A/C unit on the camper, but without reservations on a holiday weekend the likelihood of getting a campsite with electricity is pretty nil.  I guess we'll have to make it up some other weekend soon. 

 

 

Right now my  "to-do" list for scouts is looming large.   In a fit of "sucker written on my forehead" I now wear so many hats in the pack I'm not quite sure what they all are.  I have got to sit down and get all the work whipped out very soon as procrastination has been a big enemy in that department.

 

 

I am so glad school starts soon, the boys are driving me off my rocker.  If they are not electronically entertained they are at each other's throats.  I seem to be the only one in the house with enough balls to tell them "no" when it comes to video games so of course I'm the bad guy.  I declared that once school started there would be no video games during the week, I'm sure it's going to be a battle with their pixelated minds but the two have totally forgotten how to play.  Frankly between the constant headache I have and the need to do something other than play referee I'm tempted to let them mush their brains this week just so I can have some peace.  I might let them.

 

This game is their current obsession and seems to be the rage with all the 9-11 year old boys I know.  Sonny Boy went to a birthday party the other day and it was completely themed around this game and he thought it fantastic.  I don't really understand it as I haven't played it, but I'm told it's like electronic Legos to an extent and it takes a fair amount of creativity to build and play in it.  The biggest problem is that it is loaded on our computer and therefore when I want to use the computer I usually have a short person at my elbow begging to play.  I have ran them off about 6 times since I started this blog post.

 

Well I suppose I should get off the computer myself.  My never-ending to do list is calling despite the fact I'd really just like to take a Percocet and sleep off the headache that never goes away.  Unfortunately neither is likely to happen totally.

 

 

 

 

 



 



 

 



Whirlwind Summer

I'm having a hard time believing we are well into August already.  The summer has flown by at an extreme rate this year.  I can hardly believe it.

July was busy.  Hubby and I dumped the kiddos with their Grandma and Aunt and went out to the Pacific Northwest for a week.  It was a great vacation.  Our rental car was upgraded from cheapest available to a Mercedes with 250 miles on it.  What a car!  We saw snow capped mountains, Crater Lake, Whitewater rafted

I am in black sleeves and a yellow helmet, Hubby is the bald guy in the bright yellow shirt.  Rafting was a blast, Hubby declared the best part was the squealing noises I made as I was hit with face full of 55 degree water. 

The Oregon coast was beautiful but wicked cold.  I don't think that was unusual either as we were told we were there on a nice day!  We visited relatives and I met the last of numerous cousins of Hubby's I'd never met before.

Coming home I got the camper ready and Hubby and Sonny Boy went to EAA in Osh Kosh, WI  for a couple of days, came home, I packed them again and they went to Cub Scout camp for two days.  I'm tired of packing for camping I don't get to go on!

This week swim lessons for Igor started as well as football practice for Sonny Boy.  Just that in it's self is a lot.

The big news is I'm now gainfully employed.  I won't be rolling in the dough by any means but the job just dropped in my lap.  I was in the library back in July and I was practically shoved an application to come be a shelver.  I'll mostly work while the kids are in school which works out really well.  I start in a couple of weeks, currently they are running background checks and I go into the clinic for a physical and drug testing in just a few minutes.

Busy, Busy, Busy.  It's good though.  Possibly some big things on the horizon and I'm hoping that pans out.  It could be one heck of an adventure.  Hopefully will know if it come to fruition in a couple of months.

The Music of the Morning

One of the things I look forward to most once school dismisses for the summer is a laid back, relaxing morning.  The chore of getting the boys up, dressed somewhat decently, fed, shoes, backpacks, etc. etc. in the morning is like trying to control the chaos at O'Hare airport while speaking only Russian.  Sure a few words get through now and then, but mostly the hoards only hear gibberish.

Summer is different.  Most days we have nowhere to be at a specific time, and if we do I specifically make the appointments at least late morning.  Instead of fighting the "good fight" I usually bow to the electronic baby sitting of video games and T.V. so I can sit in peace on the front porch and watch the world go by.  This is the first week we've not been "up and at 'em" and I've really missed my summer ritual.

Mostly I notice the sounds of the neighborhood.  Birdsong is almost constant, the twittering of robins, the chirps of house sparrows, and the cries of the always alarmed house wren are easy to pick out.  I live near the city pool and mornings are reserved for swim lessons so I can hear and occasional "boing" from the diving board and sometimes screams - particularly if it's the start of a new session and a few new water scared pre-schoolers are involved.  There is of course cars driving by and making the corner giving me snippets of their conversations, radio, and sneezes as they pause at the stop sign.  Foot traffic is regular but often eerily quite, many times I don't realize someone has gone right past my house unless Callie (dog) happens to be sitting with me and she rumbles under her breathe at them.  This summer I have the lovely sound of construction equipment a block over as the utilities are reworked and the street repaved - hopefully that will be completed soon.

My morning time on the porch gives me time to compose my plan of attack for the day, time for the caffeine to kick in, time for Sonny Boy's ADHD medicine to kick in.  A calm before the storm of life.

Tooth Fairy Fail

 

My children have the World's Worst Tooth Fairy.  Not only did she not deliver for Igor's tooth last week but she also neglected Sonny Boy as well.  As I type this, I have several one dollar bills drying with "tooth fairy dust" on the table along with a letter from "Toothie" explaining that she was on vacation to the Fairy-land Islands.  The letter is signed in glitter of course.  Oh she also sprinkled fairy dust on the dog's head - I'm pretty sure the dog isn't amused.

Really I think all this is a little much for nasty little chunks of white enamel.  I'm pretty sure Sonny Boy is in on all the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny gig but doesn't want to give it up for fear of not getting "the goods".  I'm pretty sure I had it figured out by the time I was 10 years old.  Igor on the other hand buys it hook line and sinker.  I sometimes wonder if Sonny Boy plays along for Igor's benefit, but since he rarely pulls punches with his little brother I somehow doubt it. 

I googled a little to see how the tooth fairy stuff started, seems it didn't really take off until the 1920's or so and really became entrenched in the 50's with the baby boomers.  Why in the world did anyone think it was such a great idea I'll never know.  Frankly our tooth fairy is forgetful and often has to up her ante for being late.  It seems our tooth fairy is not the only one with this issue as my SIL reports the same issue with hers.  Maybe it's something to do with our family?

This will go down in family lore - How the tooth fairy was always a day or two late and we'll laugh and laugh.  Hey, at least Santa still comes on time.

The Inheritance

Photo credit: bill barber / Foter.com / CC BY-NC

 

 

Two weeks ago we loaded up the kids and left town one hour after school dismissed for the summer.  We hauled up to northern Minnesota to Hubby's hometown with the plan to garage sale his father's estate.   We arrived late on Friday night and crashed into bed with early morning work planned.

 

Work we did, four solid days of moving FIL's stuff that we had stashed at various relatives homes for the winter during the Live-in War and from the garage we had blocked her out of.  On average there were five of us going non-stop for 18 hours a day with lots of help from a cousin, MIL's boyfriend, friends of SIL and even Hubby's 93 year old grandmother pitching in washing filthy items, dishes and generally keeping the kids pinned down somewhat.  What a nightmare!

 

With the exception of one day of lousy weather, God was smiling on us as we were able to move the mess into the driveway and start spreading things out on tables and the lawn.  My best estimate on the amount of tables set up for the sale runs about 20, some as small as card tables, several 4 x 8 sheets of plywood on saw horses, and at least 10 6-8 foot school/church tables gathered from near and far.  The tables hand themes - that's how much stuff there was.  We had a Harley shelf, a gardening table, hardware, tools, power tools, and a large tent filled with clothing.

 

 

We sold an amazing array of items from a Jolly Roger flag on a 9 foot pole, a sausage mixer, taxidermy ducks and fish, camping gear and a couple of push mowers that didn't run.  We had a huge turn out of folks for not putting an ad in the paper or online.  Simply signs at the corner and cell phones pulled out with the phrase " you gotta come to this sale" uttered left cars lined up down both sides of the street for two blocks.

 

Of the 15-20 trailer loads of stuff brought in, not to mention the goodly amount of stuff already stashed in MIL's basement we sold the vast majority of it with only one trailer of mixed goods going to a thrift store and one of larger pieces of furniture going to Restore.  Hubby and I dragged home a trailer with assorted goodies as well.

 

Hubby's share of the picked over stash resulted in about 7 large Tupperware bins and a gun safe traveling home with us.  Currently the dining room looks like the start of a hoarding problem as we haven't had the motivation to tackle the stuff after all the constant schlepping the previous week.

 

After the sale we then started clean up over at FIL's house as hope to get it listed soon.  What a mess!  We hauled one trailer of mixed metal to the scrap yard and didn't even have them weigh it.  The next trailer of steel weighed in at 2,000 lbs, BIL's truck sported several chunks of random aluminum and a boat that the guys cut up into pieces.  The kids scrounged 22 large garbage sacks of aluminum cans out of an outbuilding.  I then started a burn pile and large amounts of scrap wood, pallets, yard debris, anything burnable really; and started feeding the flames while Hubby and BIL worked on getting a boat ready to sell.  In the process of readying the boat Hubby was using a power washer.  BIL went in the house for some reason came back out and calmly announced "We've got a problem"  In we go to find several inches of standing water through the first floor the house.  ( a pipe burst we think, didn't look too hard into it)  Thank goodness we had pulled everything out.  In the process of literally sloshing the water out the front door with a garage floor squeegee with no handle I had scrounged from the garbage pile, I got a good look at the house.  We have all agreed it's pretty much a scraper and we can't imagine anyone actually thinking they could live there.

 

By the end of the week we were all just punch drunk with exhaustion.  Simple mistakes and minor mishaps were rampant and so numerous I can't begin to remember them all.  Sly remarks were constant as it was either laugh or cry and we laughed at the situation as much as possible.  Some of the funnier remarks were " I'd love to have a time lapse of all the running around in random circles."  "It's a new crappy reality show name - The Inheritance"  " I could have been done a day ago if I would just quit losing my marking tape and sharpie" " I promise not to do this to my kids"  "Unless I drop dead unexpectedly, the only thing left will be my hospital gown and the bed I die in".  On and on the snarky remarks flew.

 

The kids frankly were left to their own devices.  Both my children and SIL's children were left to run wild for the most part and called in to eat and go to bed when we looked up and realized how late it was.  One particularly bad day, as I literally pulled a fighting Igor and Sonny Boy apart I was asking just where the hell my 14 year old nephew was because he was needed to wrangle the kids.  (he was golfing, smart kid, I should have gone and been his caddy)  Sonny Boy came down with a nasty cough which necessitated a trip to the doctor's office only to find out "It's probably viral, drink a lot of fluids"

 

All's well that ends well as they say.  In the end it went about as smooth as one could hope.  Every time I opened another box with a "What in hell was he doing with this?" in it, I had to remember FIL's quote to Hubby.  "When I die you're gonna find stuff and wonder, just know I had a plan for all of it."  I'd sure like to know what his plan was for that giant steel I beam in the back yard was.