What If the Church?

The pastor of our church along with a few others in our area decided a couple of years ago to see what it would be like if the church did what it was intended to do in the beginning. Serve together, worship together, pray for each other - regardless of denomination. They started "What If the Church?" Today there are more than 50 churches in the metro area who participate. A few weeks ago was our annual serve day, and over 3,000 volunteers helped with projects at dozens of locations in the city. 

One of the places that needed fixing up was an elementary school where one of my friends attended when we were kids, and her kids go there now. The teacher's lounge was badly in need of updating, and the landscaping needed to be - well landscaped instead of just dirt and dead plants. I helped pick up leaves and plants outside for a bit, and tape off and paint a bit inside. With a mask of course! It was fun meeting new people from other churches and seeing some old friends there. 

There was more to do than could be accomplished in one day, but we put a huge dent in the project.

So thankful to have been able to be a part of such an amazing ministry!

Bachelorette Parties

http://www.beforetheidos.com/Bachelorette-Sash-p/hbh-35402.htm

One of my best friends from middle school got married Saturday. I had so much fun over the last couple of weeks going to her shower, bachelorette party, and, of course, celebrating at the wedding. There are seven of us who bonded in 8th grade, and we all still keep in touch. We may not see each other as often as we'd like to, but we always pick up right where we left off. All but one of them was able to make it back to town for the wedding.

They're a conservative bunch, so we had a seemingly tame bachelorette party, but it was so much fun. We went to dinner at a Japanese steakhouse. (Our chef was hilarious and made some interesting shapes with the fried rice). Then we went to an entertainment center where we bowled and played laser tag. We ended up back at my friend's house where we had a cake decorated with "Much Hap-penis" and watched The Princess Bride.

My husband was giving me a hard time about there being no naked men involved. It got me to thinking that I've only seen strippers twice, and neither time was for a bachelorette party. So here's a run down of the various things I have done at bachelorette parties..

Improv comedy show
We went to a family-friendly place, but there turned out to be a bachelor party there, too, so they came up with a fun skit about marriage that had plenty of suggestive humor that was appropriate for the occasion.

Camping
We burned mementos of old boyfriends in the bonfire, had a penis piñata, and told funny stories.

Riverboat casino
This was a great option because there's not only gambling there, but also restaurants and other fun activities.

Barhopping
I love going out dancing, but though this is the most common way of celebrating, it's also my least favorite overall. It's not original, and it's hard to talk to everyone.

Great Wolf Lodge
After swimming, we went back to our room, ordered pizza and played games.

Road trip
For my bachelorette party, we went to St. Louis for Mardi Gras. For my sister's, we went to Memphis and partied on Beale Street.

Slumber party
I actually had two bachelorette parties. Since my sister lives in St. Louis, Mardi Gras was reasonable since we could stay with her for free. But most of my friends from high school had kids already, so going out of town wasn't easy, and they don't drink, so Mardi Gras wasn't all that appealing to them anyway. We decided to have a slumber party at my parents' house like we did when we were kids. We played spoons and pounce, ate junk food, talked about boys, and watched a movie just like old times.

Appliance Ailments

Apparently I haven't been paying enough homage to the appliance gods because we've had a run of bad luck with them lately.

Towards the end of April, our dishwasher died. It came with the house, so we weren't sure exactly how old it was. The silver lining to that was literally silver - we bought a stainless steel one a week-and-a-half ago; now it matches the stove and fridge.

Speaking of the fridge, the day after DH installed the dishwasher - Monday morning - we were getting ready for school and work, and noticed water dripping from the ice dispenser - and a huge puddle on the floor. We frantically moved all the food to the beer fridge in the garage (thank goodness for that option since I had just bought groceries the day before). He and I were both upset about it; we bought the refrigerator 14 months ago. I was stressed out the whole day wondering if we'd bought the extended warranty on it. Beware my fury if it had just been a one-year, and we'd barely passed it!

Thankfully when I got home from work, DH had had a little time to fiddle with the settings and got it working again. We'd had a power outage the night before, so we're thinking it just didn't completely reset correctly for some reason. And he also told me he'd found the receipt and he'd gotten the extended warranty just in case it wasn't really fixed. Whew!

Having just dodged that bullet, disaster struck. The next Saturday evening, I was doing laundry. I put in a big load of towels and a blanket, and the washing machine started making a terrible grinding sound. DH lectured me on having too big of a load, but I do that size all the time. Apparently almost 4 years of it was too much. He was not pleased. Especially when he couldn't find the receipt and, therefore, the warranty info. Our friends were on their way over to watch a movie and hang out, so we put the search on hold until Sunday. Thankfully, we realized that we'd bought the washer at a different store than we were originally looking for in the receipts, and he found it. And we have a five-year warranty. Whew! But they couldn't get here to fix it until yesterday. Luckily I had finished all the clothes last week, so we barely made it through. Guess what I'm doing tonight?

Baby Bullets: 11th Edition

These are from early in the year:

Baby R started to stomp her foot when she was angry. It's so dang cute, it's hard to get upset with her.

S's new sassiness is not cute, however. She started sticking out her tongue. I about lost it the first time she did it. We had a big talk about how kids might do that at school, but we don't do that in our family.

Please-y cheesy wheezy is the new catchphrase that I think Baby R picked up at daycare and both of them say it. Funny kids!

I downloaded Pac-Man to my iTouch and when the girls were playing it one day, I started to sing "Pac-Man Fever."

Now the girls break into song on occasion.

Speaking of songs, the girls love to put on a show. When we were at my parents' house one afternoon, they took the hymnal and another set of music sheets off the piano and put on a choral concert in front of the mantle. It was the most lovely gobbledygook I've ever heard.

R putting Pull-ups on then some on her head and extra ones around her legs and being a penguin

I have no idea why Baby R started this, but she's been saying, "Okay, sir." To me. It's like Marci and Peppermint Patty. Perplexing.

S had her first father/daughter dance at school - melt my heart!

Baby R had her first haircut - and went with a bob! Very dramatic change. She looks so grown up! And absolutely adorable!

We walked to S's school for the carnival, and Baby R was picking dandelions and blowing them along the way. S turned around and scolded her, "Don't pick Mother Nature!"

Ultrasound

I'm behind in posting, I know - sorry! We had our level two ultrasound a few weeks ago. S decided to stay at school because they were making ice cream that day, so Baby R was the only one who went with us.

Everything looked good which was a relief. I've been having crazy worries about the baby having issues: We have two beautiful healthy kids; why push our luck and have a third?

Baby R did a great job of being patient for an hour - the last five minutes got to be too much for her and she was ready to go. Which was a good thing, because that's when we found out the sex, and it wasn't what she had hoped for. It was, however, what DH was wanting - it's a boy! He was beaming with pride. I reached out my hand to hold it in this tender moment - and he slapped me five. Seriously. That's how excited he is.

Baby R said that it was ok. We'll have a girl next time. Sorry, kiddo, party of five is it for this family!

Ted

Everyone has funny autocorrect message stories. This one happened a couple of months ago, but came to mind recently so thought I'd share. 

Me: Can you grab a couple of bottles of aspirin for my parents today?

DH: What strength? Low dose?

Me: Ted

Me: Yes.

DH: No, this is not Ted. Try again.

Me: LOL. I don't know why an attorney at yes got auto corrected to Ted.

DH: What?

Me: Attempt

DH: Ur at an attorney?

Me: Yep, I'm leaving you got Ted.

Me: Dammit! For

DH: Finally

Weird News

May 2, 2013. The Royals are in 1st place. It's snowing. And we are completely caught up on work in my office. Either the world is coming to an end, or the stars are aligned. My boss is going to buy a lottery ticket in hopes it's the latter.

In other weird news, we had decided to sell our house before it completely collapses. There was a passionate, irrational debate about it in which DH swore he wouldn't sink another $40k into this money pit, and I cried about leaving our neighbors and walking distance to 4 parks, the school, our church and the library. And reliving the nightmare of moving 4 years ago when I was pregnant with Baby R. (This is one of the first posts that leads up to that story.) We called a realtor, signed the paperwork, and then DH decided we were going to lose all our equity and be lucky to break even. Which was exactly what I had told him at the beginning. :)

So we're staying. Which I'm happy about. Except that our crazy neighbor is at it again. (You may recall my Turf War post from last year.) The most recent issue we've had is that she built a fence along our property line in the fall. No one on our side of the block had a fence from our place to four houses down on the corner. Our visual backyard was the size of a football field. Granted, it wasn't all ours to play in, but it was a nice open space in the middle of the suburbs. It wasn't ours to keep open, but it was definitely disappointing to see it built.

But not wanting it there isn't the issue. The problem is that our understanding of where our property line was turned out to be wrong. By 2-3 feet. Thankfully DH built our raised garden beds 3 feet off the property line, but now her fence is an inch or two from them. Which is a huge pain in the butt since two of the beds along the fence are 8' - 10' long, so it's hard for us to get to everything. But we didn't plant anything this year anyway since we thought we were moving. And because the coating on her fence seems to be potentially hazardous, per the following email from another neighbor who had looked up the chemicals the fence company told her were used on it:

Don’t want to scare you…but that fence does seem to be somewhat of a health hazard…especially to pregnant people.

Here are some of the things I read today.  The possibility of the chemical washing off into your garden does seem possible. 

The lady at Guier fence said that it was unusual that the fence still had that strong of an odor.  She said it was not toxic…and that there was not anything that could be done about the smell. 

Wish we could make her take it down!  

http://www.beyondpesticides.org/wood/pubs/poisonpoles/chemicals.php

Treated with copper naphthenate.  These chemicals all have serious a adverse impacts on human health and the environment.

The oil-based wood preservatives, pentachlorophenol, creosote, and copper naphthenate are all easily absorbed through the skin, as well as through inhalation. The arsenicals are less easily absorbed through the skin, but are readily absorbed by inhalation of dusts or smoke from burning treated wood. Children may ingest all of the chemicals in soil contaminated by leaching from poles.

Wood preservatives are known to cause a variety of chronic health effects, though copper naphthenate is mostly untested. Some of the known health effects are:

·         Impair the immune system: creosote, penta, arsenicals.

·         Interfere with reproduction: creosote, arsenicals, penta.

·         Cause birth defects: penta, arsenicals.

·         Cause cancer (EPA's cancer classification): creosote (B1 - probable human carcinogen), penta (B2 - probable human carcinogen), arsenicals (A-known human carcinogen).

·         Cause genetic mutations: arsenicals, penta, creosote, copper naphthenate.

·         Interfere with hormone function: penta, creosote.

Reproductive Toxicity and Teratogenicity Chemicals may interfere with reproduction in different ways-by causing infertility, death of the fetus (fetotoxicity), low birth weights, or birth defects. Creosote, penta, and the arsenicals all interfere with reproduction, and/or cause birth defects.

Leaching potential and environmental fate Studies on the movement of wood preservatives from poles have found that they move from poles into soil and from the soil into aquatic ecosystems. The mechanisms by which the various chemicals move are different. Some of the materials are water soluble and are transported as dissolved salts. Others are adsorbed onto soil particles and are carried into streams as suspended particles in heavy rainfall. Once in an aquatic setting, the soil particles provide a steady source of contaminant.

So needless to say, we're not happy about the fence to begin with. The coup de grace happened this past Sunday. 

DH's 40th birthday was Tuesday, so Sunday night we had about 30 people over, and I made shishkabobs, corn on the cob, baked potatoes and cupcakes - yum! It was fun. Until our neighbor started walking through our yard with her dog and banging on our side of her fence with a hammer (which she does from time to time, even though it's been there less than 6 months and is in perfect condition). We were clearly having a party; people were sitting on the back porch and kids were playing in the yard. Not the time for trespassing and needless hammering.

Then she walked up to the patio door and called to DH inside and asked him to come talk to her for a minute. During this time she told him that she wanted to have her fence stained so she needed him to move the raised garden beds so the painters could get to the fence. He told her no, and she didn't understand why he wouldn't do it since he's moved them before. He told her he's never moved them. She left in a huff.

So Monday we get home from work and there's a message on our answering machine. She says she doesn't know what she did to piss us off, but she doesn't understand why we won't just move the garden beds, and she's mad that he blatantly lied to her about not having moved them before.

Um, people? I have photographic evidence that the garden beds are in the same place they've always been. Exhibit A:

This was taken the first summer we had the gardens. The red line I drew to show where we thought the property line was. The reason we thought it was there is because behind where I was standing to take the photo is an electrical box that is the corner of our yard. The red line is a straight line down the middle of our houses back to the box. You can see that it's a few feet from the edge of the gardens.

When our neighbor had her yard surveyed to put the fence up, we found out that the edge of our property is actually where the white line is, and it does a funky curve at the back to incorporate the electrical box. 

Why she thinks we moved them and where she thinks we moved them from, I have no idea. Do you realize how long it took DH to build those? And how much time and effort it would take to move them? If we had moved them, she would have seen him working on it for days. Not to mention the enormous section of our yard that would be a big dirt spot. And when did this move supposedly take place?

But the real question is, why does she care if our side of the fence gets stained? She can't see it. If we lived in a subdivision where everyone had fences, she wouldn't even be able to get to our side.

That's not even getting to the petty points of not wanting to do it because she was rude and crashed our party for this conversation. Or that she could have built the fence back to the electrical box instead of on the property line in the first place. Until she had it surveyed, she didn't know that section was hers anyway. Our yards are huge! Neither of us needs that strip of land. If we had built a fence, we would have kept it straight back simply out of common courtesy. If we didn't have garden beds there, I wouldn't care that she put the fence where it is now. It's all ridiculous. Hopefully she'll forget about it and let it go. I'm not going to get into a fight with her over it.