The Secret Life of Bees

. . . is one of my all-time favorite books.

I. Love. It.

But I prefer to read about bees, not own and raise them.

Oh well, so much for my preference.

As of two weeks ago, we now own and raise bees.

Which has been John's dream for a very long time.  And, as everyone knows, nothing comes between a man and his insect-nurturing ambitions.

Apparently, a cat, a dog, and 6 chickens were not enough.

At least bees are easier than the ear-biting/furniture-chewing/pooping-all-over-my-grass canine.

Easier.....until a swarm of these striped, flying arthropods decides to attack.

*Sigh*

Until then, bring on the fresh honey! {There's got to be a bright side to all the madness, right?}

Why I didn't want a dog: Reason #568

Because they bite.   

They bite ears.  

They bite the ears of little 6-year-old boys.  And they bite them so hard that it requires a trip to the emergency room and 10 stitches to put the ear back together again.

 

Mom telling him that he has to have stitches.

Okay, ya, that's owie.

Ah, Phineas and Ferb to distract him....why didn't we think of that sooner?!

Now that's a little more calm.  Thank heavens for anesthetic, The Disney Channel, and a really great doctor.

How many nurses out there would go out to the vending machine and buy her patient not only one package of Reese's PB cups, but TWO?!  Well, I know of at least one nurse who did.


The finished product.  And surely a scar to last the rest of his life.  Dangit.





I didn't want a dog.

I really didn't.

Oh, and I almost forgot.  It was Raegan and Haylie's birthday the same day.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my twins - born 4 years apart. :)
(At least their braces are kind of twin-ish.)
Raegan - 20, Haylie -16

Sorry, girls, that your special day had to take a back-seat to the dog/ear trauma.  Sheesh.

Brooke - From Joy School to BYU

May 1992 - Joy School graduation


 
April 22, 2011

Scrum-diddly-umptious . . .

. . . is what Brooke's new cooking blog is.   Finally, "The Flour Sack" is up and running.  Enjoy :)

                                                       click --->   The Flour Sack

Half Marathon

A picture is worth a thousand words.  This photo is no exception.

John and Brooke, just after they finished the Salt Lake City Half Marathon on Saturday.  One of them was "ready" for the 13.1 mile run, the other, well, mmm, not so much.

Can you guess who was ready?  Who was not? (Hint: Who looks happy, refreshed, and ready to run another 13.1?  And who looks like they are fighting with every ounce of remaining energy to muster out a half-smile for the camera?)

I wonder if the "big white spot" in John's vision had started to fade by the time this was taken.
(To quote Brooke, "When I saw dad come over that finish line, well, I've just never, ever seen him look that bad.")

*Side note:  Yes, John's right hip looks really, really big.  That's because it is packed with, like, seven drinkable yogurts and at least 2 chocolate milks (you know, the "free" ones they give out at the race).   He may have come home with a limp to rival Quazimoto's, but hey, he totally took advantage of the free loot.  That's my boy!

She's here.

Meet Miss Molly...

No lack of love around the house for this pooch.

 (Except maybe from me, but I'm working on it.)

The polls are closed...

...all votes have been tallied, and the results are in.

Let's see, what do we have here?

Scout - 8 votes

Molly - 8 votes

Okay, well, the numbers have spoken and the name has been decided.  Our puppy shall be known as...*drumroll*

Scolly.

(Or....Mout?  Hmmm, perhaps another poll in is order....)

Our farm.

The fact remains: We're getting a dog, so why not add some chickens to the mixture?!

Might as well.

*Sigh*

As we continue to ponder over which name we should give our new puppy, naming the new chicks has been much less stressful. 

Meet the newest additions to our farm - Flora, Della, Spot (or Sirius Black, whichever you prefer), Martha, and two as-of-yet unnamed chicks which belong to my "much-too-busy-to-name-a-chicken" daughters, Brooke and Raegan.  So for now we'll just call their chicks Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Six fuzzy little chirp-balls.

Who live in my kitchen.

In a cardboard box.

Who have learned to escape from the cardboard box and run like.....chickens around my kitchen.

While squeaking and pooping on the floor.

They're getting me ready for the puppy, aren't they?

Except the puppy poop will be bigger and MUCH more difficult to clean up.

Thanks chicks, at least your trying to prepare me.

Raegan's Thing 1

Martha

 The kids set up a Lego maze for the chicks to run through.  Poor things.  

They were completely lost AND they almost became the cat's lunch.  (See below)

Adam, being the thoughtful decorator he is, made a little drawing for the inside of the chicks' home.  Notice how lovingly Thing 1 is gazing at the artwork. 

 

Spot, named by Adam.  The rest of the kids know this little chickie as Sirius Black.

 

These chicks certainly live up to their name!  They are so CHICKEN!  One little sound or bump to their home and they all scurry into the corner and pile in a fluffy heap of poultry.

John made some little windows in their home.  They love to stick their heads out and see the
  action of the kitchen, hoping they don't end up on that dinner table someday as Enchiladas con Pollo.

And while we're on the subject of animals, I might as well include a picture of Matthew's "snow dog."  

Sadly, snow dog is dead now. 

Name

I never imagined naming a dog would be as hard as naming a child.  Man oh man oh man.  However, after much family deliberation (discussing, arguing, fighting - whatever you want to call it) we have it narrowed down to two names.   The problem is half of us want one and half want the other.  

I want to know what YOU think, so please take three seconds and cast your vote (on the right) for your favorite. The two choices are:

1) Scout (from one of the greatest literature reads of all time - To Kill a Mockingbird).

2) Molly (as in the unsinkable Molly Brown OR Molly from the American Girl Dolls, with which my girls used to be completely obsessed).

Here's a photo of our Goldendoodle girl (part Golden Retriever, part poodle):

Sorry, it's tiny and the only photo we have....taken by the breeder.  We have yet to meet this 2 1/2 pound fuzzy wad.  

So....does she look like a Molly or a Scout?  (If you hate both names, please vote for the one you hate the least.)

(Notice I said nothing (too) negative about the dog in this post.  I am working on changing my attitude about this irreversible situation.  And I'm doing better!  After I got in bed last night, I didn't cry!  At all!  Which is the first time since we made the decision to get a dog that I didn't climb into bed and break into uncontrollable and turbulent sobs.  Progress, people.  Progress.)

Dog

I can't believe I'm going to blog about this.  I have unrelentingly refused to write/talk/blog/think about this subject.   I have been under the impression that if I don't write/talk/blog/think about it then it will just go away.  AWAY!  Like a bad dream.  And, oh boy, I have had plenty of those lately.

But I can deny it no more.

It's really happening.

We're getting a dog.  

There, I said it.  We're getting a dog.  A DOG!   I, me, Maryanne, will be the owner of a furry, slobbery, eating and pooping machine. 

The truth hurts me.  Badly.

I never in my sane adult life thought that I would bend to such extreme pressure as has been put on me by family members who-shall-not-be-named (you know who you are).   My children have begged (begged!) me for 20 years for one of these furry hounds.  I was budge-less.  My foot was solidly super-glued on the ground.  I would never (never!) ever (ever!) own a dog.   

I don't like dogs.  They bark.  They poop.  They bite (I have personal experience with this).  They eat things they aren't supposed to eat.  They smell (like wet dogs).   They mat.  They go into heat (or go in search of heat, if you know what I mean).   They leave bits of fur all over the house.   They chase me when I go running in the mornings, and ferociously yip at my ankles.  They have to be bathed and groomed, and taken to the dog doctor. They jump on you and sniff you in places you don't want to be sniffed.  They have to be dog-sat when the owners go on vacation!  

Oh. My. Gosh.  Why would ANYONE in their right mind want a dog?!

So, ya, we're getting a dog.

(Repeating that 3 times within 5 minutes is part of my therapy.)

We pick her up in Idaho on March 18th.  The day that my-life-as-I-know-it will end.

For the past three nights, I've dreamed BAD dreams about this dog situation.   Haylie suggested I record these dreams so that, one day, when I am so in love with our dog and can't imagine life without her, I can reflect upon these silly and ridiculous dreams.  Ya, right.   

Here they are anyway....

Dream #1: 

I was in our back yard.  My family was there and a lot of other people (I don't know who they were because they didn't have faces).   This big, mean dog approached me from behind.  I tried to get away from it because I knew it was going to bite me.  As hard as I tried to escape it was all in vain.  The dog got a hold of  me and clamped its jaws around my leg with its dagger-like teeth barely touching my flesh.  And then it just sat there - waiting. Waiting while I stood there petrified, afraid to even breathe.   Everyone around me stopped what they were doing and stared at this dog with his jaw wrapped around my calf.  Waiting.  Waiting to see what it was going to do next.  Was it going to sink its teeth deep into my leg and cause severe pain?  Or was it going to compassionately remove its jaw and let me go.   It was tense and no one knew what the dog had planned.

In the end I don't know if the dog took a chunk out of my leg or not because suddenly I was in an elevator.  And it was turning upside-down as it went from floor to floor.  With me in it.

Dream #2:

I received a knock on my door and when I answered it there was a short hispanic woman standing there with three young girls.  She went on to tell me that that John was the father of these children.   (I apologize to my young nieces who I know read my blog - remember girls, this is only a dream!)  This news brought me complete and utter shock.  The next thing I knew this woman and John fell into a very deep hole in the front yard and, well, passed away due to their injuries.  

Suddenly, the hispanic woman's mother shows up.  She goes on to tell me that she will take and raise the two older girls but I will need to raise the 18-month-old girl AND THEIR DOG!  No!  Not the dog!!!  

As I was standing there contemplating the monumental tasks that were now in front of me, the dog ran away.   By the next morning he had not returned for which I was SO. VERY. HAPPY!  No dog - YEAAA!

Dream #3:

We had decided to adopt all 10 of the breeder's puppies - too difficult to chose one so we just took them all. There was a lot of snow outside and the lawn-care guy shows up to spray our lawn snow (??).  As he is spraying fertilizer on the snow all the puppies got out and got sprayed on.  They all immediately died.  But for some reason I knew that if I got them into a tub of water quickly they would be okay and not be dead.  So I rushed them into the house and threw them into the bathtub which was full of water.

They all drowned.

Help me.  Someone?  Help me....please.....help....help....