It’s Monday and the beginning of another week. With a screaming infink waking me up, I was not wanting to get out of bed. But here I am, an hour later, typing away in front of the computer. Maybe it will be a good day after all. Leif is on his third bowl of cottage cheese, watching a bit of Pingu before we make  him get some real clothes on.

Thinking ahead a bit, I’m realizing it’s going to be a full day. I, of course, have work to do, which will keep me quite busy, but I’m in a good mood and thinking I might throw in a little guitar playing throughout the day to keep me sane as Leif demands that I help him do whatever it is he is doing at the time. I’m thinking many cries of help will come from the longing to get up to the top of the new bunk beds. Hmmm. A two and a half year old on the top bunk with hard cement floors below. I think I’ll keep a close eye on him.

Later in the day, we’ll be going for a walk down to pick Gavin up from the bus stop. Always a pleasant break in the day. Leif likes the outing. We’re in the last week of school here, so we only have to walk down 4 more times. Then summer break is upon us.  The boys will be home idle for a whole week before we ship Gavin off to granny’s for the summer.

On top of that, I think today will be beer making day. I have the ingredients to make Holly a delicious tasting 90 calorie lite beer. A vast improvement over the 55 calorie Bud Lite she’s used to. Sure it has 40 more calories, but hey, when you realize that the amount of calories is directly related to the amount of barley, which is directly related to alcohol content and, most importantly, the flavor, I think you’ll agree that those 40 calories are worth it.

To end the day, we’ll be enjoying a lovely Chicken Tikka Masala for dinner and a bowl of chocolate ice cream for desert. We’ll let the kids romp around and play with Bey Blades and maybe a computer game if their good. I’ll be able to sit on the couch a bit and, once again, marvel over a perfect glass of Dry Stout. I just can’t believe how perfectly it came out.

So there you have it. Today should be a good, full, busy and fun day.

There are lots of awesome little things that I just don’t post because I forget them before I sit down to blog again. Or because I just don’t have time. Or just because I think their too small to have a whole post for.

For instance, last weekend I took Gavin and Leif to the Taro Festival. There is always a tent that is full of different plants for sale including Tarot. In that tent is a booth that helps make aware of loose animals that get out of their designated areas and get into the water supply and all that junk. They had a little display of a large field with  hills and fences and streams with little cows and goats and pigs all over. Some in their designated spots, some in the wrong areas. They also had a little fishing pole type stick with a magnet on the end. The idea was to use the magnetic stick to pick up the magnetic animal that escaped and put tem into a little circle surrounded by little stones at the base of the hill.

Well, Gavin happened by this booth and thought it would be fun to try. It did look game like. So the lady at the booth explained to Gavin what he had to do. He happily followed through and cracked jokes about the pigs climbing fences and all that. When he was done, he received a sticker and a temporary tattoo as a reward. He was very excited.

I later explained to Gavin that the little circle with stones around it was an Imu. An imu of course is a hole in the ground filled with piping hot stones that you put your banana leaf-wrapped food (usually pig) in and cook it. Gavin was horrified. I killed all those poor cows and pigs! The poor kid had no idea he was transporting those poor creatures to their death. And the thought it was so fun at the time.

It’s things like that and these other things that bring balance to all the Stupid things that happen. I’ve included a small view of all the good, silly, stupid-in-a-good-way, and other random stuffs that makes me happy.

I found a Magnetic Jesus on the mother-in-law’s refrigerator with awesome interchangeable clothes and accessories. I spent probably 30 minutes playing with it instead of getting ready to go like I was supposed to be.

While watching watching Leif in the bedroom, I was viciously attacked by a Viking. Fortunately I had an App for that on my phone.

Being able to visit beautiful waterfalls whenever we feel the need.

Giving beer bottles a loving bath so they can be filled with delicious home-brewed beer.

Four varieties of hop rhizomes are wrapped in burlap waiting to be planted. (Two have been planted. Two await their burial.)

Spending an evening making delicious dough so you can wake up in the morning and have gorgeous sticky buns for breakfast.

An eight year old boy who is learning how to knit.

We have a cat who has been clinically diagnosed as fat. She doesn’t seem to mind. Although she has taken to sleeping on her back with her feet in the air. It must be more comfortable this way.

Often finding the boy sleeping in various positions. This time he was being spied on by two cats who must have been offended that he stole all the blankets.

This month is stupid. Just full of stupidness. I think it started when I slightly dented our car on a tree. That in itself was stupid. Then I had to do the whole insurance thing and make appointments to get the car fixed and all that. Stupid.

small dent

This led of course to getting a rental car. I was thinking like, “Oooh, I can get a cool Mustang or a Charger.” No! I get this.

Ok. Fine. It’s more practical. Wait. No it’s not. It only gets 16 mpg. What the hell?  Even the Mustang and Charger get better gas milage than that (19 mpg for mustang and 18 mpg for the Charger). Crap. Oh well. Gavin likes it anyway because it has automatic side doors. Ooooh.

So now that the car badness is all out of the way…. Ummm no. What do I do next? I take the rented minivan and back out of the driveway. Doesn’t sound bad right? Well, it is. Because right as I was backing out, the wind blew our gate (a metal cattle gate for the cattle we don’t have) closed. Not all the way mind you. Just enough for me to ram it straight back into the post that holds it on. The gate nearly folded in half. 🙁

It was slightly funny only because there were no scratches on the car. But not funny, because now our gate doesn’t close. I’ll have to figure out if I can fix it enough to still be useful. Otherwise, I guess we’re buying a new one.

Ok. Yes. So now done with car stupidness. Sigh. No. Not yet. As she was leaving for work two days ago, Holly sideswiped the wood post that usually latches the now useless gate closed. There is now a 5 inch scrape by the rear passenger side wheel well.

Still not done. Yesterday morning when Holly was getting ready to go to work, she noticed that one of the back tires was completely flat. Dang. This sucks. I looked in the car manual to see if there was a spare tire and there was. In the stupidest place ever. You have to take some special tool out of the back storage compartment and stick it in a hole in the center of the car and turn it to drop the spare tire out from under the center of the car. Whaaaaat?

How stupid is that. Anyway, it took me a bit, but I finally figured the whole thing out and was able to change the tire. Needless to say, Holly was late for work.

Other than having days where we were in bad moods or the kids driving us crazy or work related crazyness, I think that about completes our stupidness. Good times right?

What an awesome weekend. I haven’t been able to dance much being on a secluded island and all. But this was perfect. We missed the Friday night social shopping for Saturday’s breakfast and brunch. But Saturday came and it was time to dance.

The guest instructor, Alan Twhigg, was great. He really had a way about him that made learning dances and technique quite easy. We had live music provided by the Humuhumunukunukuapua’a & Strathspey Society Band. They are a great band and have played for our Weekends for quite a few years now.

We danced until early Saturday afternoon. That gave us 3 or so hours to get ready for the Saturday evening ball, an evening filled with fancy dresses, kilts, beautiful foods, and lots of great Scottish dancing. I don’t think we got home until almost midnight, by which time every muscle and joint in my body was crying out for the soft cushy futon mattress. Oh what bliss.

This only lasted a few hours though. We were awake again bright and early to start the second day of activities. We had to be at the palladium at 7:30am, which meant showering, dressing, loading the car with coolers of food and bags of dancing gear, and leaving the house by 6:30am.

Sunday’s dance class was not as intense as Saturday’s, but it consisted of some great dances with beautiful and fun formations. For example, the first dance was a relatively short dance with pretty simple formations, but after each round, the entire set was rotated 1/4 way around clockwise ready to start again from your new position. It really made you think about your position in the set as well as the other dancers positions. It was a fun little dance to start with.

With the end of the classes came the end-of-the-weekend ceilidh. We arrived a little late due to the necessity to repair Mary’s brakes. Unfortunately, this meant missing out on some of the foods, but there was a giant pan of delicious meaty Fettucini Alfredo, which I am a sucker for. I wasn’t really prepared with any sort of act for the ceilidh, but I did bring Mary’s guitar as a backup plan. I ended up taking part in a silly hula skit with a few other dancers. This was not really sufficient though since it wasn’t really my skit. The band brought a nice little acoustic guitar that was nicer than what I had, so I borrowed theres and performed a very unpracticed song. Worked out well though. Just threw in some humor and all is forgiven.

Sadly the weekend came to an end. It was so wonderful meeting all the new visitors as well as the ones who have faithfully returned year after year from afar. It was a really good turnout with really good food, dancing, fun, entertainment and friends. I look forward to the workshop again next year.