April 18, 2015

Another sweet morning of sleeping in and sleeping in and

 sleeping in..’til about 8:30.  Up with coffee and a little shopping – I looked all over for bus items. Found some incredible stuff that I wish I could do myself.  I have the two manuals on how to repair the engine, but I can’t find much about other items – such as the sink and so forth.  I should go to the swap meet in Lincoln on the 2 of May, but I’m having a yard sale that weekend.

Ethan did come in to ask if he could go to his friend’s house and I reiterated what I said yesterday in as few words as possible.  He was not happy about what I said, and honestly, I hate confrontation and it would have been so much easier to say, “Ya know, you did a great job cleaning your room, so sure!”  The problem is it took  --- requests and it was done because he wanted something. 

The first job was to clear out the back room and put yard sale stuff in the front.  The problem is, much of this stuff is expensive-ish stuff that I don’t want to sell for $4.00:  2 juicers, a bread machine, a drum set, a lithograph by a dude from here (no , not that dude), a large dog kennel, and all my Montessori stuff save my manuals.  That’s a lot of years and a lot of time and money.  I’m not sure how to price those.  I have a sound box with all the little pieces (this took me days).  Granted, these aren’t valuable per se, but it takes a great deal of time and effort to create these jobs.  After the three of us had moved everything out, I wanted to install a new stereo that was Bluetooth-ready, so Mags and I headed down to Folsom while Ethan sanded an old ladder for later star-gazing.  Then we went to REI for something we forgot last week for the icebox (a Yeti cold pack) and smiled and high-fived each other while riding in the bus.  I passed a lot of people…I’m that bus doing over 70 – as long as it isn’t uphill.

Once we got home, the next job was to dismantle the above mentioned dog kennel to prepare it for the yard sale.  I had pork roast in the crock pot with a tasty marinade and it was ready, so Ethan got a head of lettuce from our garden, Mags made mashed potatoes, and we had a delicious dinner watching The Office (Mags had macaroni and cheese).  At one point, I mistook my large lump of horseradish for mashed potatoes…ohhhh, that was not good.  My eyes still water thinking of that.

After we straightened out the outside patio, the kids wanted to play Mario Kart, which was absolutely ridiculous for me…I drove off the edge so many times that at one point I just quit.  Oddly, I won the two games in which I never even picked up the control.  The kids and I grabbed lanterns, blankets and head lamps and headed up Ethan’s sanded stairs to the flat roof for some stargazing.  It was nice..but kinda sad to see much “light pollution” that there were few stars we could really see.  Ethan kept talking about seeing planets everywhere and I told him that wasn’t possible…until I looked it up on my iPhone and noticed there were actually 5 plants we could have potentially seen.  I give up in knowing stuff, anymore.  I think at this point I’ll just work until retirement and then stop.  I think my brain is done "learning."

Digging through lots of garage sale stuff, I was reunited with my perfect key chain for the Bus.  Sorry, Giants...always a fan, but I think this one suits Lizzie better; Maggie shot my hands driving us home; While dismantling the kennel, Ethan say what he describe as a "unicorn spider" hidden in the metal...it turned out to be a cricket, which we donated to Violet; Star-gazing on the roof.