I Win at Guns

My sister has “discovered” a drawing/guessing app that is somewhat like Pictionary. And by “discovered” I mean “I told her about it thinking we could have a fun distraction”. 

However it turned out to be “she has turned into a maniac and will not let me do anything else because she wants to PLAY!”

Today’s Exploit:

Yesterday Matt and George were having a conversation about guns and ammunition.

This is nothing out of the ordinary, generally when they are both awake and in the same room they are talking about guns.

Matt was telling George that could use soap for something, but George said that that might be bad since soap has lye in it.

While Matt was looking on the soap box to see if soap still does use lye, he suggested using candle wax, and said that you could use “shorts” with it.

I automatically assumed some type of ammunition.

George, on the other hand, assumed clothing and said, “No, I think I’ll be wearing blue jeans if I do that.”

Matt: No, shorts.

George: I don’t think that would be fun.

Me: Ahahahaha!

Eventually George realized what Matt was talking about, and I got to make fun of him for catching on before he did.

That is probably that I will know what is going on in a gun conversation before someone who actually uses a gun.

The Texas Bug Experience

I have a trainee. Some things he picks up really fast. 

But sometimes I’m left scratching my head in complete awe at how dumb he can be.

Today’s Exploit:

I have been having bug experiences this year.

Everyone has been telling me about how Texas has tarantulas EVERYWHERE! AHH!

But I haven’t seen a single one in 4.12 years in this oven.

Until last week.

Since last week I have seen about 17, Followed 2 around, watched the DD harass one with a stick and probably ran over 2 in Starla because they moved the wrong way when I tried not to squish them.

I have also learned how to catch them in a plastic cup, but I haven’t tested that lesson yet.

In other news I have seen a 7.863 inch long, poisonous centipede and an unknown millipede of the same length. Both were about as big around as one of my fingers. 

Exhibit A: The poisonous one. It has long creepy legs.

Exhibit 2: The unknown one. It has a bazillion short creepy legs.

The Great Mouse Hunt

Did you know that you can make flax seeds into granola? I didn’t. I want to try it but I can’t find flax in the middle-of-nowhere.

Today’s Exploit:

We have mice.

It appears that we have many of them.

We saw 3 in about 10 minutes the other day.

That is when the hunt began.

Matt and George and Reed take turns with the BB gun, they have set out a multitude of sticky traps and all the doors are blocked with towels to keep them out of bedrooms.

They do this because the mice seem to like to cuddle with me.

They managed to shoot one and catch another on a sticky trap. 

Another got caught in a sticky trap when they were all gone.

It was so sad. 

I hate sticky traps.

So I took the trapped mouse outside and dropped a brick on it so it wouldn’t have to struggle and eventually starve.

I didn’t like it.

I almost cried.

And there was no one there to give me a hug.

Cookies For Sale

I finished Accounting. I think it was the first really useful class I took. Some others have given me new points of view, but the majority of the information has been worthless. Yay for hard Accounting.

Today’s Exploit:

I sold some cookies today. 

I have been spending my free few days between turning in my final project for Human Resource Management and the start of my next classes reading and making cookies. Also I have been avoiding cleaning, but that is not important. 

I sent some cookies with H. one day. And one day I took some to his rig myself. While I was there H’s friend Slick ate six cookies. I heard a rumor that he at most of the rest of them later that evening. 

Then H. came home and said his driller had requested some White Chocolate Macadamia cookies. I assumed that they were the new favorites since I hadn’t made any oatmeal ones in a while. 

But no. 

He wanted some to take home to his family and wanted to pay for them. 

So I did my first ever calculation for how much to charge for cookies, which took longer than the making of the cookies. I might have to add a few cents for calculation costs. 

Then I made a bazillion cookies, because the recipe made a lot. 

And I sent them to the rig.

I feel silly having sent them in a ziplock bag instead of a real cookie bag, the way we used to get them from the Donut Ranch Bakery. Also, I need to design some stickers for the cookie bags! 

Agh!

So much to do. 

And I already had 731405 things on my list.

They Plague Me

I have been reading Terry Pratchett continuously for the past 2.475 months. I still have many books to go before I finish them all. Yet there are nowhere near enough of them left.

Today’s Exploit:

Another mouse is in our trailer. It was on my bed again the other night. I yelled at it and flailed around trying to throw it off my bed and into never-never land where it will live it’s life in rodent heaven and never want to climb on my bed again. 

Today I did laundry and washed my sheets to cleanse them of mouse filth.

Ew.

Also, today, George told me that he saved my life last night without me knowing it. He shot the mouse as it was making a dash for my room. Then he shot it again as it tried to escape from it’s spot under the stove. 

I’m not sure which makes me more nervous. The mouse or George.

At least it didn’t come and run around on my bed again. 

My sheets won’t last very long if it keeps doing that, since I have to wash them vigorously after being touched by the horrible, horrible monster. 

I think that this is one situation in which I would welcome Oni, and not hate her when she tries to sleep behind my knees. 

AAAAHHHH! They’re EVERYWHERE!

My strawberry preserves are pretty syrupy, but they are really good on ice cream, with some chocolate. And they are good on scones and waffles.

Today’s Exploit:

The other week I did yard work. I think I mentioned a garden.

The other thing that happened was an infestation.

We were out in the yard and Klay was trying out the weed puller tool. And like any kid (I know I did it a time or two), he managed to throw a lot of dirt in his own face. So I took him into the bathroom where he panicked when I tried to use eyedrops to get the dirt out of his eyes and was just fine with “water” being dropped in his eyes. 

While we were all crowded in there trying to get the dirt out a dog came in. The neighbor dog digs under the fence and H. left the door open inviting it in. The dog was lead out, and the dirt crisis was managed and all was good until H. noticed a tickle.

He found a tick on his side.

Ew.

He killed it with a lighter and started making dinner.

Then he found another one.

We couldn’t decide if this was from working in the yard, because I didn’t seem to have any, or from the dog.

Upon inspection the wall by the back door had several ticks, and the bathroom had more than desirable.  

We thought it must be the dog, since they were mostly where the dog had been.

But then H. went to the garage and shook his shirt out and several more fell off.  

Gah.

Nothing like the creepy-crawlies right before going to bed.

That night he sprayed the yard with tick-and-other-bug spray, and watched as multitudes tried to climb up the wall to escape.

Turns out it was the yard and the crazy-super-tall-spiky-poky plants he’d been pulling. 

The next day he sprayed again, and again.

The back patio looked like a rain storm, just before too many raindrops fall and all the concrete turns dark with the wet.

SO MANY!

I also spent that night going over the hallway and the bedroom inch by inch with a flashlight, a paper and a candle to make sure that they were not going to attack in the night.

Everywhere.

I get the creepies just thinking about it.

Of Snails and Pokeys and Bluebonnets

I am learning Accounting! Finally. Something I can use! And it’s really hard. Credit only sometimes means positive and debit only sometimes means negative. I thought math was supposed to be easier than this. Calculus is easier.

Today’s Exploit:

I have been longing for a garden for years. I have big plans for when I own a house, for a billion flowers in the front yard, and raised vegetable gardens and fruit trees in the back yard. I want so many kinds of trees I’ll probably end up with an orchard. And I want a swing set.

And LOTS of party lights and wind chimes and lightening bugs. 

*Side note: lightening bugs are pretty awesome, I see them sometimes if I go running in the late evening at the right trail down by the river.

This year H. decided to fix his yard, because he now lives alone and is in charge of all of this stuff and actually has a yard. So I gave orders on how to do it and played in the dirt and discovered that Texas has some super large snail shells, and lots of them still have snails in them.

I got to plant flowers along the walk way, and told H. to pull all the scary bull nettle super-duper-quadruple-stickery-and-poky giants that lived in the back yard (that are actually called Prickly Poppies). They were probably 4.527 feet tall. And leather gloves don’t do much to dissuade the stickers from sticking you. (I meant to help, but then I had to do homework and it took lots longer than expected.)

Then he added grass seed to the big gap where the monster pokeys were, and a timed sprinkler system to the back yard and drip hose to the walkway. So the flowers are getting lots and lots of water and not interested in flowering anymore, but H. won’t listen to me and they are still getting lots of water. 

Lastly I planted some bulb plants that I can’t remember the name of, but have big pretty orange and red flowers and a transplanted bluebonnet that I rescued from the middle of the yard. They are along the back fence where they get plenty of scorching light and the sprinkler still hits them. Who knows if we made it before the end of bulb-season, but maybe next year, and maybe they will put up leaves. Maybe. 

My Family is Growing

I am taking 2 classes right now, this evidently means that I am a full time student.

Also, Accounting is hard.

Today’s Exploit:

My family is growing.

Ok, I think you have been introduced to all of them, but they are growing up.

They all have their very own REAL pots now.

I spent the afternoon the other day mixing up dirt to add to Allie and to pot Jack in a pot instead of the bottom of a plastic jug. And also to pot Pete in a pot that won’t blow over when someone walks by or sneezes three doors down.

Aren’t they lovely?

This is where they live when I am at home and they are not living in a crate or on the ground at a rig.

Petey has new needles, and I am excited that he is not dead after being left alone on my trip to Canada, when Cupcake was in Wyoming and not available to water him.

I got the pot before I the new growth, I didn't intend to be matchy-matchy.

And Jack has turned out to be a Jacky, with very lovely flowers. The flowers are much preferred to the fruit thingies that she produces.

She has so many buds!

I Feel Like This Makes Me a Big Kid

I had a long list of posts to write about last night. 

Naturally they are all gone because I didn’t have a piece of paper within arm’s reach at the time.

Today’s Exploit:

I was very brave today.

I did something that I have never done alone before.

It was a big step for me in my kitchen experimentationalism, or something.

Anyway.

The thing I did.

I did it by myself.

For the first time ever.

I canned!

They sealed and everything, on the first try!

That was somewhat less exciting than I had hoped.

But the canning was not.

Yesterday I stopped at a truck on the side of the road with H. to buy some strawberries.  I don’t know if I have mentioned it before, but I live rather near the strawberry capital of Texas, and they make sure you know it.  They have a water tower painted like a strawberry, a huge sign saying “Home of the Strawberry Festival” and everything is painted green and red.  Everything.

So I got a flat of Poteet strawberries.  That’s a lot of strawberries.

I helped Tammy make some jam once, and I helped my dad make some syrup a few times, but I never did it by myself, and I was never in charge. 

So I looked up a recipe for Strawberry Preserves, disregarded it, and looked up instructions on what to do with the jars to make them seal.  

Then I gave up on recipes and tried to remember what we did to make syrup.

I didn’t have any dish washing gloves, that was a major setback. But I got some cool silicone tongs to make up for it.

I hulled 4 pints of the strawberries with my spring-loaded-super-duper-strawberry-huller from Aunt Sarah, and then I sliced them with my extra-sharp-and-kinda-scary-strawberry-chopper/slicer from Cupcake.

It took me about 20.462 minutes to do a million strawberries.

Then I added some sugar and left it to sit overnight in the fridge. 

Today I got out my steamer to my BIG pot, that I magically saved, and put my jars in it, and put my strawberries in my other pot to simmer.

When the jars were hot and the strawberry juice was no longer opaque I used my antique ladle, because it’s the only one I have, to add the preserves to the jars.  I sealed them and turned them upside down on a white towel, because that’s what Tammy did, and because I only have white towels. 

I waited and waited for them to pop to mean that they were sealed, but they never did.  So I checked and they were sealed, they just didn’t do the fun part. 

And now I have 6 jars of home-grown strawberry preserves, that may turn out to be strawberry syrup, but that’s ok because I made it.

By myself.

Aren't they pretty strawberries? They were the small ones, and therefore less expensive, but it also meant I got more of them. Yay