Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Happy Birthday Boy

It's my son's birthday today.  I had to work all day, although it really was a good day.  I had a few clarifying conversations with some teacher and had a "working lunch" with some of the science teachers who asked me to come "talk story" about reading and vocabulary strategies they could use in their classes.  I didn't get through my boxes of books, but I did get my syllabus done.  There are a few things I need to find out before I am really set, but so far so good. 

When I got home from work, I found that my ewe had indeed died, but there were also a large number of yound adults driving up the driveway.  I had to feed them, do the laundry for myself, and sort of do some straightening up because my family comes home tomorrow and school starts the next day.

I looked around the room at these very nice kids who have been my older two kids' friends for the past few years with some mixed emotions.  I was so pleased when they decided to over-ride my son's seeming desire to make his birthday low-key - they dug out the candles (little football candles from someone's 10th birthday years ago) and sang to him.  They tried to sing bad, but they have all had some training in singing, and it came out so nice.  In spite of a slight blush and abashed look, I think he secretly loved it.  On the other hand, there was a missing face with my older daughter living on another island.  I called her and put her on the speaker phone.  I could tell she was a little sad - she asked them to "pick her up".  It was meant to be a little bit of a joke, but I could hear that she was feeling like I was - I wished she could have been here. I had to go wash dishes to hide the fact that my eyes were tearing up.  You'd think I would be over it already. 

On the garden front, I seriously overplanted peppers of various kinds.  I did see a recipe on http://cookingwithveggies.com/, my sister-in-law's blog, for stuffed peppers that looked good, but this weekend I am seriously going to have to do something with a powerful lot of jalapenos.  I have enough tomatoes to make some jalapeno salsa, but there are more peppers to deal with.  Maybe I will just pickle them.  I love those, so they will get eaten up. 

The boys who came over today looked at out taro patch and said, "Wow, that really needs some upkeep."  I feel so guilty.  My husband planted so much and we're so behind in weeding. I need to mulch those potatoes yet again, too - forget Jack and the Beanstalk - it should have been Jill and the potato plant - hope they are making tubers as well as all these leaves! 

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