I keep checking on my Mother’s Day bush to make sure it’s still alive. With the temperatures we’ve been having, I wasn’t too sure it wouldn’t just dry up and die. Our ground is all cracked and dry. It’s a Vanilla Spice Summersweet, Clethra alnifolia, I think. It didn’t have a name on it.
I asked the cashier, and I thought he said it was a Gardenia.
When I got home, I looked up the nursery name on the pot and searched for every “sweet” I could find, and that looks like the closest match to what I have.
I can’t wait until it blooms.
It’s supposed to smell really good.
Cowboy made sure Badger got me a card, but other than that it was no different from any other Sunday.
Heron and Raven sent me a text wishing me a Happy Mother’s Day, but they didn’t come up. Of course, I had Peacock and Badger here, since they do live here.
We also had Gealach until dinner time.
Two kids and one grandkid out of four and two, I guess that’s not bad.
Nothing special was done.
No gifts, no breakfast in bed, no special dinner.
Badger survived walking to the library yesterday.
She said they took all the teachers with them.
They posted pictures, but somehow my kid managed to avoid the camera entirely.
Today was Field Day, and it was a bust.
It was supposed to start at 9 am and run until about 1:30 pm.
We got there a little after 9 am, and they were still just practicing, with none of the competitions started yet.
It was already hot, and it’s an open field with no shade.
Badger was hanging out with a very chatty friend.
About an hour in, she was ready to leave and come home.
“My head hurts, my back hurts.” So we signed her out and came home.
I'm already over the limit on absences, tardies, and early dismissals. Even though it’s the end of the year, it all still counts toward truancy. I don’t know if the county truancy office will overlook it because we’re so close to the end, or if it’ll still be enforced the same way. It’s not like we can suddenly get back into compliance with Tennessee truancy laws at this point. Well, I guess technically we could, since there’s still about a week of school left. If they choose to pursue it, I could be sent to truancy court. I was actually planning to keep her at school today because she’s already going to miss Monday, and I didn’t want to add to the count. This will be our ninth dismissal. She has missed or left early sixteen days this school year. The only thing in our favor is that most of those were after lunch, so they didn’t count as full‑day absences. She also had seven medically excused days.
Our neighbor across the street seems to be picking her son up early all the time, or he’s just at home.
I just wonder how some people seem to always get by with it, but other people have the law thrown at them.
Badger came home, went straight to bed, and slept for about two hours, so she must have been feeling pretty bad.
With her history of migraines, sitting out in the hot sun is never a good idea.
If we’d left her at school, she would’ve been outside in temperatures in the eighties for six hours with only one bottle of Gatorade.
That’s a sure‑fire way to trigger a migraine for her.
Her school records already show that she has migraines, so if it comes to it, I’ll explain that she was unable to stay at school because of one.
It’s not entirely untrue.
She would’ve slept longer, but I had to send a fax, so I had to wake her up to take her with us when we went to the library.
Cowboy said we could’ve just left.
She’s old enough, but she would’ve freaked if she woke up and the house was empty.
He still can’t quite grasp that she’s not like her siblings.
She has mostly stayed in the house on the computer the rest of the day.
She did go outside for a little while and played with the water hose, but didn’t stay out long.
She still doesn’t feel good.
I think she just got too much sun and wouldn’t dress for the weather.
We told her to wear shorts and a cooler top, but she wouldn’t listen.
I assume bathroom remodel number two is on for the end of this month.
We've reserved a port a potty, so no bucket for us this time around.
Yay.
Eighty-five dollars for one week.
Money well spent if you ask me.
It may be a little embarrassing having a giant orange port a potty sitting out in the backyard, but that’s fine.
I'm still trying to talk Cowboy into reversing the bathroom like he first suggested.
I told him Badger would probably like the tub facing the door better than being stuck back in that dark corner like it’s now.
Yeah, so far that’s a no‑go.
I sent messages to the Brothers Three asking for help, especially getting that heavy tub out.
It took four people last time, and Cowboy’s thirteen years older now.
I just hope we can get at least two of them up here.
Spook had her kittens last night, 5/11.
I feel horrible. We knew she was in labor. Her water broke while Badger was holding her. She kept fighting to get in our closet, and I couldn’t have her giving birth in my closet. It was nearly midnight, and I didn’t have anything to make a birthing box out of. Cowboy was getting annoyed because she kept meowing and digging at the closet, so we tossed her outside. I had hoped that she would have enough gumption to go down and get into the shed. No, the dummy gave birth in my flower bed by the front door. I moved her and the babies inside this morning. It sort of looked like rain. She spent the whole day dragging this one kitten by its neck to each of our bedroom doors, wanting to go in and hide in the closet. We've named that kitten Jinx. If it survives, it’ll be a miracle. Finally, Finis told us she could have his closet, so I went in and took the rest of Badger's clothes out and set the kittens in there. She was content for maybe an hour before she started meowing at my bedroom door, wanting in. She can't be in my room, Cowboy hates cats and refuses to allow one in. I finally got up (because it was bedtime) and went outside, dragged the dog's night crate in the house, put it in the laundry room, put the kittens in it, and tossed her in and locked the door so she couldn't get out. For the next 6 to 8 weeks, we'll just keep her in the crate until the kittens are weaned, should they survive.  |
| I need to call the Humane Society and get her scheduled to be spayed. One litter is enough. We’ll figure out what to do with the kittens once they’re old enough to tell what they are. Hopefully they’re all boys, but knowing our luck, they’ll all be female. |
Finis has really been working on that trailer, I think.
He’s hardly here anymore.
Most days he stays gone until bedtime.
I just hope he’s ready to move in soon.
Is it really so bad that I want Badger to have her room back?
She’ll be 13 at the end of summer.
No thirteen-year-old should still be sharing a room with their parents.
We’re not a Third World country, and this isn’t the seventeenth century.