I know I said this wasn't that kind of blog....

...but I'm going to tell you how I redecorated the living room.

First of all, I had a great idea to change the look of the room with only a new rug, and some curtains and throw pillows I found on clearance at Kmart.

I say "great idea" because it seemed like a great idea when I was standing in Kmart looking at the clearance rack. But as usual, the exacution of my idea was less great than I had envisioned.

Okay, so here's the living room when we first moved in:



Yeah, I know. It looked so NICE before we had a chance to wreck everything. Sigh.

And here's a photo from last Christmas so you can see how it looked with the curtains and pictures. Oh, and a lot of other stuff.



Anyways, the rug was starting to curl up at the edges and I wanted to change the room a little.

The only problem was I decided to start this project at like nine o'clock at night and force all the kids to help me.

I started getting a little nuts when things weren't coming out exactly like I'd envisioned.

Also when I found all kinds of trash crammed under things and stuffed inside the furniture, including an old container of yogurt hidden in the folds of the curtains. And it wasn't completely empty either!

Anyway, here's the final result.

Not exactly HGTV material, but I think we'll get used to it.

I feel much safer now....

The other day a maintenance man came to our house to repar something, and he said he'd do a safety inspection while he was here.

So he checked the smoke alarm and fire extinguisher, and cleaned the air filters, and then he asked me if we'd had safety sickers installed on our upstairs windows.

(image from wikipedia)

I didn't know what he meant, so he showed them to me.

Wow, huh?

It's a good thing he installed those safety stickers right away.

That will keep those kids from falling out of the window.

What I found under my couch

No there's no photograph. I have to maintain SOME dignity here.

As Barney says, you have to Use Your Imagination.

So last night I saw a Care Bears video tape case peeking out from under the couch and I pulled it out.

(Yes. We still use videotapes. I'm an OLD mommy, remember?)

(yuck-face image from http://winsonyeung.com)

The case was covered in some kind of clear sticky ooze I could not identify, and it dripped slowly but continuously as I lifted it up.

I made a face and sighed. Further investigation was needed here. As much as I hated to do it....

I moved the couch to look at the floor beneath.

I found a large puddle of the same unidentified icky mess with several plastic toys dotting it like islands.

Also I found some dirt. And some hairballs. And dried-up spill of what appeared to be pink nail polish

I wiped up everything but the nail polish, which will require some kind of major solvent to remove, unfortunately.

Then I tried to figure out what the wet spill was, examining it closely. The puddle was clear and sticky, thicker in the middle than it was on the ends as if it were in the process of congealing, and it smelled strangely fruity. I still had no idea what it was.

Searching for further clues, I tried to figure out where it had come from. There were no open containers around, and no telltale "spill-proof" (HA!) cup near the spill. I took the couch apart to make sure there wasn't any sort of dripping bottle hidden under the cushions. I simply could not find the source of the spill either.

I shrugged and gave up, deciding to go ahead and wash the couch cover while I had it all taken apart. As I usually do, I put a quilt over the couch to protect it while the slipcover was in the washing machine.

(I don't really have to say WHY the couch needs protection, do I?)

When GG saw the un-slipcovered couch, she said, "Who threw up?" That's usually why the cover gets washed.

Then my husband told me what had happened while I'd been gone that evening. Apparently ET had left a large bottle of flavored water uncapped near the twins.

I said, "AHA! The souce of the Weird Unidentified Spill is revealed!"

Let's do the math on that shall we?

   1 open container of clear sticky beverage
+ 2 crazy toddlers
+ time to fester under the couch
= ONE BIG  NASTY MESS!!!

Mystery solved.

(image from http://www.walmart.com)

After this ET came downstairs and saw the quilt-shrouded couch.

"Who barfed?" she said.

At least they're consisitent.

Bye Bye Automatic Sprinklers...FINALLY!!!

A few months ago I posted about the annoyance of the automatic sprinklers turning my backyard into a swamp.

(Read that post here if you're interested.)

At the time I was happy that the office had finally turned the sprinklers off, but apparently that was only a temporary reprieve.

Those suckers were right back on again in a few days, randomly spraying to their little plastic hearts' content.

It wasn't just the backyard, either, although that was definitely the most irritating place for an automatic sprinkler.

There were also sprinklers in the front: aboveground and made of PVC pipes with protruding sprinkler heads to puncture the tires of unsuspecting cars that accidentally strayed from the pavement.

But now, I have good news!

THEY FINALLY PULLED OUT ALL THE SPRINKLERS!

I saw some workmen oustide sawing the PVC pipes up and stacking them on the grass.

Which they left sitting out in piles.

So that later I saw a couple of neighborhood boys playing light sabers with them.

(Meaning the boys were whacking each other upside the head with lengths of PVC pipe.)

Seems like somebody should have anticipated that problem...

The Backyard Swamp

As I mentioned before, there’s a swamp in my backyard.

Or you could call it a mud pit.

Here’s a photo of the muddy handprints the twins decorated our fence with.

When THEIR FATHER was watching them, may I point out.

Although some trouble may have happened when I was watching them too...

Turns out it wasn't the BEST idea to let them play in the mud.....

It’s getting better though, mostly because one of the neighbors managed to convince the landscaping people to turn off the automatic sprinklers back there.

They really were not needed anyways, since it has rained enough recently. The sprinklers are only there because of the new construction here; they wanted to jump-start the grass growing.

It was really irritating though, because we had no control over the sprinklers. Like, we’d be sitting in our own backyard watching the kids play, and suddenly the sprinklers would come on.

Oh. Great. Now we’re drenched. And it’s not even raining!

The sprinkler situation got so bad that methods of sabotage were considered. I won’t reveal the exact plans…but chewing gum was involved.

But anyways, the yard is getting better now that we only have Mother Nature watering it.

And YES, we did clean off the fence. Twice.

Surprise! You're Moving!

I've been offline for a while because I had a surprise move.

You probably think that's a joke, but it isn't.

I've known for a while that the house we were living in was going to be torn down at some point, but the military housing office could never tell us when or where they would be moving us out. Then when they decided to do it, they shoved us right out!

On a Tuesday at four o'clock p.m., they took us to look at a new house. On Wednesday at nine o'clock a.m., movers arrived at our old house to pack us up and and ship us over there.

Seriously.

So I've been unable to write on my blog for two weeks. I was a little busy.

Plus my internet was turned off.

When I came back online, I had 237 messages in my e-mail inbox.

About 229 of them were spam, by the way.

So anyways, now we have a new home with more space. And a fabulous view!

The packing was all done so fast it's kind of a fun surprise opening boxes.

Okay, not really. But moving in was an adventure.

Here's a photo of the movers bringing boxes upstairs through the front window. I thought this was funny, if a litle unorthodox. I hope their boss doesn't see this and get upset.

Now to go unpack another box...

A Mother's Day Mess

 On the afternoon of Mother's Day I was standing in the kitchen when suddenly the sink began to burble.

Suddenly black water began gushing up from the drain. I stood staring at it as the sink slowly filled with murky and slightly chunky water.

This is bad, I thought.

We've had some plumbing problems before. Previously I wrote about a major toilet back-up, in Old pipes+big trees=big problems.

As I watched the nastiness gurgle up in my kitchen sink, I suddenly remembered a conversation I had with my neighbor a few days before, in which she told me how a sewer backup had caused a mess in her bathtub several months ago.

What she'd actually said was, "Turds! In my TUB!" She'd added, "And I hadn't even GONE that day! Whose WERE they?"

I know. I should have warned you. Ewwwww....

Anyways, as the gross mess threatened to overflow the bounds of the sink, I realized I'd better stop staring in horror and DO something!

I grabbed a bucket and yelled for help.

What followed was like a three-bucket fire brigade, involving me, my husband, and GG. We scooped up bucketsful of the disgusting water and fled out the back door to dump it in the yard.

In the middle of this scene the twins appeared and GG stopped scooping water and hustled them off to their room, shutting them in. They started yelling like crazy from in there.

Boo and a couple of her friends appeared from the back of the house to see what was going on, and we shooed them outside. From their bedroom, the twins continued to scream about the injustice of missing all the action.

ET never emerged from her room and missed the whole screaming-bucket-brigade drama.

We kept it up until the sink finally stopped regurgitating and settled down to a low level of nasty water at the bottom. Then I called maintenance, who fortunately arrived quickly.

They warned us not to flush the toilet, until the mess had been sorted out, as disaster might result.

Again, ew........

There followed a marathon scraping, plunging, and snaking session that took over the kitchen for the next three hours.

But there was good news! It was only backup from the garbage disposal, not the sewer. No turds were involved. (Whew!)

All in all, an interesting, albeit messy, Mother's Day.

Ant Infestation!

We're being taken over by ants!

Tiny black ants are driving me nuts by showing up all over the place. As soon as I kill a bunch of them in one place, there they are in another place!

Now, I understand that we live on a tropical island, and a certain amount of insect activity is to be expected (as per the brochure issed by the military housing office)....however, the ant population seems to really swell occasionally. Like right now.

It's like a plague around here. They even infested my Bible! That's GOT to be against some kind of commandment.

Anyways... YES we've had an exterminator come. YES we've done our own spraying also.

And YES we've sealed up all food and cleaned up all food crumbs to stop attracting them.

(Which is difficult when you have two toddlers roaming the house like Hansel and Gretel leaving trails of food, by the way.)

So we're getting it under control.

But Boo just came home and said that all the backpacks and lunchboxes at school got invaded by ants too.

Actually, her exact words were, "My backpack is full of ants. I need a new one." This said while bringing said bug-infested backpack INTO the house.

I told her a small bug infestation wasn't grounds for an entire new purchase, and helped her take the backpack into the yard and clean it out.

Although, come to think of it, maybe I could use that line to get a new HOUSE.....

Would that work on the housing office?

Being Late For Dinner Carries a Stiff Penalty

Tonight at dinnertime Boo didn’t come in from playing outside when she was called.

One of the good things about living in Hawaii is that the kids can play outside all year long. And barefoot too!

We live on a military post, so it’s a safe area that’s full of young families. That means there’s always someone outside to play with too.

The rule is, the kids are supposed to stay within earshot of the house. If they go anywhere else, such as inside a neighbor’s house or away from our circle, they are supposed to let me know where they’ll be and I give them a time to be back.

But tonight when I called, Boo was apparently too far away to hear. I figured I’d have to send one of her sisters to find her.

Then she appeared after we’d already sat down to dinner without her, and promptly burst into tears, because she knew she was in trouble for being out of bounds. Apparently she’d been playing in the field a few streets over, which she knew was too far away to hear me.

So the penalty for this infraction has already been set; we’ve been over this ground with Boo before. If she can’t follow the rules for playing outside, she can’t play outside for a day.

Honestly, this is punishing myself too, because it’s torture to enforce it. Tomorrow Boo will be whining like crazy and throwing herself around the house in agony. ALL DAY LONG. But if I don’t come down on her, she’ll never pay attention to the rule, will she?

Still, tomorrow is going to be a LONG day. And it’s a Saturday, too.

Which is why Boo was really in hysterics at the dinner table. “But it’s my ONLY DAY to play ALL WEEK!” she said dramatically. (Not including Sunday. And every afternoon after school. But don‘t bother her with facts, please.)

So dinner was a noisy affair, what with all the screaming and crying. Oh, and the comments from Boo’s older sisters. “You should make her stay in Sunday, too, if she doesn’t shut up,” said ET helpfully.

I really enjoy it when a fourteen-year old child gives me parenting advice, by the way.

And then Baby Girl joined in the general mayhem with her own screaming. She was wearing a sundress and had painted her bare shoulders with strawberry jelly while I was occupied with Boo. I think she was trying to be some sort of Jam Warrior.

At this point the phone rang. It was a wonder I heard it over the din. Actually, my house pretty much sound like that every time someone calls, it seems. Telemarketers probably think I’m sitting in a stadium. Or a prison.

It was my neighbor, whose daughter is Boo’s age, calling because she was also unsuccessful in summoning her child to dinner. I asked Boo if her friend had been with her in the field, and then informed my neighbor of the out-of-bounds child’s whereabouts.

I think someone else is in trouble too.

Old Pipes + Big Trees = Big Problems

Last week we had a major plumbing problem.

Oh, wait, I forgot my disclaimer. Here it goes:

POSSIBLE GROSS-OUT WARNING: This blog post involves matters of the …ahem… powder room. So put down that sandwich if you’re going to read on.

Okay?

As I was saying….

Last week we had a major plumbing problem.

We only have two bathrooms, and both toilets were clogged.

(Why do I say ONLY two bathrooms? Remember, we’ve got seven people in this house. Granted, only five of them are toilet-trained, but four out of that five are female, and one of the four is a teenage girl--I think you get the picture; two bathrooms are barely adequate here!)

We’ve had some plumbing issues before in the past year we’ve been in this house. (I may have mentioned earlier a little thing about sewage bubbling up in the front yard, remember?) It’s an older place, and the pipes are probably in need of an overhaul.

But since we live in military housing, all I have to do is call the maintenance office to get such an issue fixed, right?

Well, mostly.

First of all, I called first thing in the morning and let them know about the problem. I explained I would be out of the house until lunch time. They said, “Well, just call us when you’re going to be home.”

I’m like, I just TOLD you when I’m going to be home. AFTER TWELVE! Can you not just write down on the schedule for maintenance to come by after lunch?

Do you people need help in purchasing a day-planner?

But apparently, once I’ve called, I’m supposed to be continuously home until they arrive.

So I called at twelve when I got home and they promised they’d be over before five.

Unfortunately on this particular day I had to pick up one of the kids from school instead of having them all come home on the bus as usual. (My oldest daughter had orchestra practice after school and would have to be picked up at four.)

So of course by the time it was almost four and I needed to get to the school the repairman had not yet arrived. I called and told the office I was going to pick up my child and said I’d just leave the kitchen door unlocked in case maintenance came while I was gone.

When I got back the repairmen was standing in my yard waiting. I guess he hadn’t gotten the message about going inside.

Okay, here comes another disclaimer.

DEFINITE GROSS-OUT WARNING: This next section is not for the squeamish. I’d suggest you skip this next part if you’ve still got that sandwich. Seriously.

Even though both toilets had been clogged since the night before, there were still people in the house with bathroom needs not covered by diapers. Five of them.

I know. Ewwwwww….

But the toilets had enough slow drainage to get the water out if you waited a little while, so I’d minimized the mess inside by periodically plunging the toilets enough to get (mostly) everything to go down. And then I’d actually cleaned the toilets in between so that maintenance wouldn’t have to be any more grossed-out than necessary.

Until we pulled up to the house and found the repairman waiting, and GG dashed from the van and directly into the bathroom.

So much for the clean commodes I’d worked so hard on.

Again: Ewwwwww…..

END OF DEFINITE GROSS-OUT SECTION: All ye squeamish can come back on board.

The good news is, they DID get the toilets working again, eventually.

There were two repairmen, and they spent almost THREE HOURS working on my toilets.

They snaked the toilets. They snaked the sewer line. They snaked the AIR VENT in the ROOF over the bathroom!

Plus they took the toilet off the floor.
(Actual unretouched photos here!)

It turns out the problem is that there are actual tree roots growing UNDER MY HOUSE and UP INTO THE SEWER LINES!

We have some huge and beautiful trees around our house. I guess we know what’s been fertilizing them.

All together now: Ewwwwww…..

Scaring the Maintenance Man

I think we frightened a repairman today.

I called him earlier today because of the smoke alarm. It keeps beeping like it has a low battery, but we changed the battery and it’s still beeping periodically. Especially in the middle of the night.

As you can imagine, this is not very conducive to sleep. So my husband took it down during the night, and I called maintenance this morning.

We live in military housing, so we don’t have to fix these annoying little things ourselves like real homeowners. It’s quite nice. A few weeks ago the toilet started that irritating run-run-running thing, and instead of eternally jiggling the handle, or spending a weekend with toilet parts all over the bathroom going, “What the heck is THIS part for?” I just called maintenance, and a nice man in a zippered jumpsuit came and fixed it right up.

And then there was the time when sewage started bubbling up in our yard. On a Saturday. I won’t say any more about that except that I was SO glad I could make a phone call and file it under Not My Problem. All I had to do was yell, “You kids stay away from that!” a few times. (You’d think it would be intuitive to stay away from something like that, but kids are weird. They were fascinated by it. Ewwwwwwww…)

Anyways, today when the repairman arrived, all my kids were home from school and the twins were up from their nap. We also had about five neighbor kids in the house, eating our food, watching our TV, and playing on our computer. (It was raining outside.) We are talking maximum home capacity here. You can just imagine the noise level.

So as the doorbell rang, my 13-year-old was being dragged around the house on her back by her also 13-year-old friend. (I can't imagine why. Like I said, kids are weird.) I went to answer the door as the giggling pair reached the entryway. The twins heard the doorbell, stopped pressing buttons on their noisy toys, and came running, yelling, “Hello! Hello!” I said to my oldest daughter, “Please get up,” and stepped over her to open the door.

The scene that greeted the repairman was this: a teenager lying on the floor while another teenager pulled on her arms, a pair of two-year-olds peering around the door, and the sound of a large group of kids in the next room singing raucously along with the TV, “Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?” (I think we all know the answer to THAT.)

He looked a little shocked. I looked down at my daughter, still on the floor, and said, “Please get up. I really meant that.” She got up, clearing the way for the repairman to enter.

I said, “Sorry,” and told him about the problem with the smoke alarm. He gave me an explanation about how you have to press the test button after you put in the new battery. (And why would I want to do that? To make it give off that horrible sound on purpose?) Anyways, he put in a new battery and pressed something, said it would stop beeping now, and asked if we had a stepladder so he could put it back up in the hall.

I said, “We have a chair,” and went to get one from the dining room. He followed me past all the kids in the living room and looked surprised that all our dining room chairs were lying on their backs under the table. I explained that we have to do that so the twins won’t climb on the table. As if to emphasize the point, the twins went tearing past us hollering. Over in the living room a fight broke out over the chair closest to the TV. The repairman began to look like he was thinking, “I have GOT to get out of here.”

He replaced the smoke alarm quickly and explained that it would keep beeping for about ten minutes while in test mode, but that it should stop after that. Neither of us could really hear it, however, over the noise from the living room. (Which explains why we only noticed the problem in the middle of the night.)

I thanked him and he left as fast as he could. The twins followed him to the door yelling, “Bye-bye! Bye-bye!“ at the top of their lungs.

I think I heard him muttering to himself as he walked away, “Get more birth control; get more birth control…”