I dinna mean ta do it....

I decided I had too much energy today and it was a good day to burn that energy by cleaning some carpets. I drug out the steam cleaner and went to work in the bathroom. The bathroom and steam cleaners don't really get along. My last one passed away in there. Twice. Really. As luck would have it, my second cleaner decided to kick the bucket, too. Not totally, it just needed a swift kick in the arse to jump start it again.

Now I'm not afraid of appliances. I get that from my dad. He's the guy who takes everything apart. Recently he took half the outlets apart in his house without shutting off the power. After I saw him get shocked and he jumped two feet in the air, I decided I either had to put 911 on speed dial or leave so I didn't have to witness anything I didn't want to see. I do have sense enough to disconnect the power, though.

So... I took my steam cleaner apart.

Only problem was, I couldn't get it back together again.

Actually, I did get it back together, it just wouldn't suck any water up.

What did I do? I cried. Yes, I CRIED! Over a stupid steam cleaner. I have the worst luck with appliances. Could have something to do with the fact that I try to fix them myself, and did not inherit my dad's ability to fix things, only take them apart. Sometimes I annoy myself. So I cried.

Then I went shopping with my mother in law. That's what happens when she captures me during a weak moment.

The husband felt sorry for me. Clearly, this was serious, or I never would have agreed to take my mother in law anyway. He spent the last hour taking my steam cleaner apart and putting it together the right way. My dad uses duct tape. My husband uses super glue. It's a little more permanent, but ... it works, so I can't complain. I wouldn't have had this problem to begin with if I had just waited for him to come home and fix it for me in the first place. But then, I wouldn't have had any tears of frustration to show him and he might not have felt quite so sorry for me. And I might not have accepted the invitation to go to town, and I wouldn't have bought that cute new star to hang up in the kitchen.

I dinna mean to do it... honest.

Meeting cousins on country roads...

Leads to no good....

Expensive new hobbies...

And lots of photographic moments...

Come with me as we have our first flying adventure...

Turns out, the front yard is not the best place to fly a plane... too many trees and power lines. Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of a model airplane in the sky?
Let's walk out back to more wide open spaces... and big, annoying, curious, pesky critters....

"What the crap? This is my playground." said the blue mare with no name that I know of.

"Oh boy! Oh boy! Someone to play with! Oh boy!" said Three.

"Uh, anybody know if we're allowed to play with them?" questioned Joker.

They take flight... the curious beasts in the background watch on....
Ah... a nice, safe landing... sort of... landing is much harder than it looks... much damage occurs during landings... wierd...
Seriously Three ... that little flying thing is fascinating ... almost as fascinating as those little humans wandering around ... can we go play? Please? Pretty please? Oops... this landing, not so good... broke the propeller right in half ... MEDIC!
Here I am ... what's the emergency? Good thing it came with a spare....
Off we go, into the wild blue yonder...
This airplane is far more interesting... it leaves trails...
Oh wait, how about some video of yet another beautiful landing... perhaps the best of the night...

EXCELLENT!!!

So... husband... how does one get a plane out of the top of one of the tallest tree's on the whole 20 acres? You think on it while I wander over here and find more interesting things to photograph... La dee dah dee dah... Can I play? Sadly, I was so enthralled watching my dearest husband hoist a 20 foot ladder in the air with my broom duct taped to the end as he swatted the tree repeatedly until the plane fell out and yelling "watch out" to the boy standing a little too close by as the ladder almost crashed to the ground nearly giving the husband a heart attack as he imagined squashing his first born with said ladder while trying to save his new toy he stupidly flew into a tree, all while keeping this giant annoying pesky critter also known as Joker who was trying to crawl into my back pocket away from me because I'm not too fond of big pesky critters, especially this one ... I forgot to take a picture of the rescue mission. I'm such a disappointment, I know.
They attempted one last flight... this time away from the trees... they learned their lesson on that one real quick. It was getting too dark to see the plane anymore, anyhow.

The final crash was fatal. Turns out airplanes can't fly without tail wings. It's not toast... just needs a small surgical proceedure and loads and loads of super glue.

Until next time... live long and prosper... don't take any wooden nickels... and if you see cousin Cory on the side of a country road changing water, just keep on driving lest you be introduced to new hobbies.

The highlight of my weekend...

On Thursday night, Ishee went outside and rode her bike down the long driveway, got off, pushed it onto the grass, and walked back to the house. I asked her why she left her bike all the way out by the road. She said: "Because I don't feel good." She laid on the couch the rest of the night.

Friday morning, the only thing that had changed was her location and body temperature. When some kids get sick, they sleep all day or perhaps become lethargic. She simply gets whiny. More whiny than usual. Anybody who knows her knows that if she's not whiny, it's probably because she's asleep. Friday, she was whiny... and yappy. My husband made the comment that he didn't realize diarrhea of the mouth could cause such a high fever.

Thus, we did a whole lot of nothing this weekend. Good thing we had General Conference to keep us entertained.

By Sunday morning, she'd recovered back to her old bossy and mildly whiny self. Except for those two loose front teeth that are suddenly bothering her. I'm not sure how real that pain is as she is obsessed with the dentist and has been begging for another checkup.

Do you need to take some medicine? Sure. AH... she IS recovered and it's highly doubtful that it really hurts. She never wants to take medicine when she's sick, only when she's not. She brought me the pepto. Um... Pepto isn't for tooth aches. You need some Ibuprofen. She was willing and I poured her a tiny bit in the little provided measuring cup.

Just then, there came a knock on the front door. It was my mother in law, just coming to see what was going on at our house and if Ishee was feeling better. This was followed by: "Did you get a new bedspread?" Lets see... as a matter of fact, I did get a new bedspread on Thursday. But how would she know unless she looked in my bedroom window as she walked past? I hadn't seen her since I bought it, and sharing information like that is not something my "could care less" husband normally shares.

Usually, I keep the blinds closed in my bedroom, but the squirrels have been playing outside the bedroom window and the cat will literally destroy the blinds if we don't pull them up so she can watch. Thus they were open. And sadly, my mother in law has been known to look in the window when she walks past. The most annoying thing we did was build a garage so now she had to walk over and look in the window to see if we were home rather than just looking out her back door.

OH, but it gets better!

I took her in the bedroom where she admired the bedspread. I showed her the spot where the obnoxious cat, who is just begging to be fed to the dog, has already left her claw marks in it.

And then here came Ishee... who still had yet to drink that liquid Ibuprofen in the cup.

Oops!

"I just spilled my bright orange medicine on your brand new three day old "dry clean only" bedspread, mom!"

*sigh*

But hey... my mother in law brought me some "Moon Pies". I can't lose em all, you know...