A Frump Family Weekend

This weekend we had absolutely nothing on the agenda.

And as busy as we've been lately, I was grateful for the reprieve.

After Jericho's minimum day at school Friday, I decided we needed to clean his bedroom.

It was one of those ginormous jobs that required motherly intervention because it had gotten so far out of hand (and only just since Christmas, mind you!).

His room was...trashed.

Literally. We took out 3 kitchen garbage bags full of trash and other useless junk, because I was ruthless and threw out anything missing parts and pieces or clothes deemed unsuitable to wear anymore.

You know what I'm talking about...broken toys, puzzles with missing pieces, action figure legs not attached to bodies, totally lame Happy Meal 'toys', action figure bodies with missing limbs, packaging left over from Christmas presents opened at our house from everyone who was over Christmas day (which had ended up in his room that day in the hustle and bustle, and for unknown reasons got shoved into his toy tubs and under his bed instead of put in the trash bin), torn, holey clothing, and garbage from last year's school backpack which had somehow gotten overlooked all this time (because Jericho someone had zipped it inside a giant suitcase which is stored in the back side of his closet rather than take care of it when I asked him to last June). **draws in a big breath of air after blogdom's longest ever run-on sentence**

We didn't finish this delightful task until late that evening.

What. An. Ordeal.

Sorting through the rubble of folded clothing that never made it to his drawers, emptied out tubs of Legos, action figures, matchbox cars and three bags worth of assorted junk is always such a blast.

Afterwards, exhausted, we all retired for the night.

The next morning I walk past his room to see this:



Auuugh! Already messed up. Again!

Meanwhile, little brother's room remains virtually immaculate in comparison. Though he scatters a few things around the floor in there and the living room floor during a typical day, he is generally known to be pretty orderly.

He even cleans up after himself at lunch by putting his spoon in the sink, and his yogurt container in the garbage, and has been known to pick up stray dog food and other stuff that didn't quite make it into the trashcan (like plastic milk jug rings) and throw them in the garbage under our kitchen sink.

It's so good to know at least some of my genes passed on to that kid.

This was how I found his toys yesterday, lined up neatly on the couch.



Looks like we've got a classic case of Felix and Oscar living under our roof.

And Oscar has the audacity to try and blame Felix for messing up his room whenever Felix yanks the baby gate off the door jamb visits it?!

If anything, Felix leaves it neater than he found it!

:: :: :: ::

So early Saturday afternoon, after spending a semi-quiet and luxurious morning of uninterrupted blog and book reading in my pajamas and slippers, the sun came out between downpours.

The kids were getting antsy, and my husband was feeling a little cooped up due to all the rain.

So I sacrificially dragged my carcass to the shower, got ready, and we loaded in the car.

Destination: Fish Hatchery.

We've been meaning to go there for ages so that little Judah could see the "fitheeth" he likes so well.

Because I can't seem to keep a goldfish alive more than a couple of weeks, this is what we do instead. Our surrogate pets, if you will. The big plus being that I'm not responsible for cleaning out the fish tank.

As Jericho has gotten older, our trips to the fish hatchery have become more about taking on the challenge of filling cups with fish food from the gumball machine fish food dispenser there, than actually feeding the fish.

Which in itself is fun, because just your shadow passing over their retaining ponds is enough to bring them schooling around waiting for handouts.

Sprinkling a handful of the pea-sized pellets across the water creates a real splash. A miniature feeding frenzy. That stuff is like chum to sharks.

Judah thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of the trip.



Getting back to that fish food dispenser, that thing has been 'broken' for years. Jericho discovered a long time ago that if you jiggle the knob just so after you put your quarter in, you can fill an entire cup instead of getting a mere handful like you would in a normal gumball machine.

Jericho was able to fill two whole cups for a mere quarter.



It was a proud moment. This is the equivalent to his victory dance.

Unfortunately, Judah didn't get the whole concept of sprinkling food out of the cup, and tossed the entire thing it in the murky depths of one of the fish tanks.



As we were getting ready to leave, Judah spotted the "twacktoe", and wasn't very happy about the fact that rides were not included in this excursion.



There is still such a thing as a free lunch! For 25 cents, this made for a pretty inexpensive and enjoyable outing with the fam.



I was hopeful that after circling the fish tanks, looking for the big ones, and walking the length of that place for a couple of hours, Judah would be worn down enough for a nap when we got home.

I was wanting to get back to working on a story that's been rattling around in my brain for a while now (since, for some unknown reason, my creative juices seem to flow best when I'm running on fumes as far as sleep is concerned, and I have to 'make hay while the sun shines' or risk losing ever getting them written down).

No such luck.

Here he is in a get-up he managed to throw together with things he grabbed from the seat and floor in our car on the way to getting strapped into his car seat, wired as can be.

The pink glasses are an especially nice touch to this ensemble.




But that's okay...this one is so going to be used for blackmail when he's a teenager.

:: :: :: ::

So Sunday evening, our church was scheduled to have a Men's Bake-Off in lieu of our usual evening service.

Here are the baked goods.



Here are the men who just entered their baked goods in the contest.





When we arrived at the church, we found that due to abnormally heavy rains, a flash flood near our church had created a small river, which was threatening to enter a couple of our classrooms on the back section of our church property and wash out our parking lot.

After rounding up a few shovels, and using what we had on hand at the church (black plastic garbage bags), a group of guys from our church and our Hispanic congregation banded together to fill and arrange our 'sandbags' along that side of the property, and create a little rise to divert the river that had broken through the dirt berm we'd had in place before.

In a little more than one hour, this group completed a task which would have cost a small fortune if the classrooms had flooded and we'd had to hire a contractor with a tractor to fix the berm with the inflated prices they always charge after such storms.

I was so impressed that without even needing to be asked, our older son Jericho got down in the muck and cold water with the rest of them, and worked like a farm animal (which was a tremendous sacrifice on his part, considering he happened to be wearing his brand new Vans, lol!) and kept pace with them all.

I was so proud of him and my husband, whose brainchild it was to get the black plastic garbage bags for use as makeshift sandbags. It did the trick.

Later, when their work was successfully completed and they all came streaming in soaking wet for hot coffee and desserts, they wore the cheerful faces of a bunch of guys satisfied with a job well done. While I've never seen such a thing, I'm sure their camaraderie could only be likened to a bunch of guys just finished with an Amish barn-raising...appetites included!

One old guy known for baking the best chocolate cakes in our church won the contest, but in my book, they were all winners...though I still think my husband's homemade oatmeal macadamia nut cookies should have taken the cake.

Jericho came in dripping wet and muddy, his cheeks ruddy, his hands cold, and after flopping down on the chair beside me, picked up my semi-hot coffee, downed it, and announced, "I'm starving. I feel like eating a big steak!"

In his mind, I do believe he thinks he's a man now, and that this was one of his rites of passage. And he's well on his way.

Now, if we could only find a way to channel that same kind of satisfaction in a job well done into keeping his bedroom clean...

:: :: :: ::

When we got home this evening after running a few errands, and fording a few rivers, we pulled into our driveway and spotted this in the headlights on our garage door.

I'm not sure if you can see that very well, but those are garden worms.



Halfway up our garage door.

These are the same type of worms that are known for coming out on the sidewalks after the sprinklers are on in the mornings, or after a good rain...but never in my 10 years in this area have I seen them crawling on vertical surfaces before.

I suppose they were feeling a little 'sluggish' after the recent rains?

Okay, so yeah, that was a really lame.

Which is a shame, after such engaging, riveting news from my neck of the woods, er, I mean, desert.

Heh, heh. I'll stop now.

Good night.