Thursday, October 2, 2014

Why I've Stopped Blogging

If you still have this page bookmarked, I owe you an explanation. It used to be fun to blog, and worth the pain in the ass of uploading pictures. But then Charlie started going to sleep later.  I can't be on the computer while he's awake since he'll either demand my attention ("Help me! Help me!") or insist that I play the "robot arms" video again, so he can DANCE. He's not usually in bed until around 9:30, and by then all I want to do is take prescription pain medications watch tv.  Blogging has become a thing that hangs over me, something that I'm not doing, and that's no fun.  I actually did a post at one point a few months ago, but never posted it because it sucked. 

It would be nice for the world to be blessed with my clever to come up with lines.  For example, Charlie's first sentence was, "More ketchup." But I didn't want it to become a series of stories about funny things my adorable son did. It's not just that it's too self-centered, I'd be afraid I'd cross a line and embarrass future Charlie. For example, we got an inflatable kiddie pool and put it in the backyard. (Having a house is awesome).  Charlie would lie on the edge of the pool, naked, pour a cup of water on his penis and say, "This is nice..." Does the world need to know that? Of course not. It would be wrong to post that on a blog.  (Side note: If I could have lunch with any two people who lived at any time in history, it would be my dad and Charlie when we are all 38, so we could meet each other as contemporaries).  

And now we're expecting another baby in December. Oh, did I not mention that?  Nilda's pregnant. (We spent years of shots and prayers to get Charlie, and for the second kid, we took a nap. And, it's another boy.)  So I think it's time to take a break from the blog.  I feel like Trey in 2004, which is a reference only Andrew will get. Maybe I'll get back into it someday or, maybe like all blogs, this one has run its course. In the meantime, here are a few things I've uploaded through the months that I never got around to posting.

Winter sucked. We moved to a house to get out of the cramped apartment, only to find ourselves stuck in a house that you have to shovel your way out of.  They say it takes a full year to adjust to a house, and they're right.  Btw, everyone who told me that I would have to shovel snow must not have known about the nice men who will shovel your driveway for you, and all you have to do is pay them.
We took Charlie to see Sesame Street Live, which meant he got to go on a train AND a taxi.  He was practically catatonic the whole time. Also, Madison Square Garden does not sell alcohol before noon on a Sunday and IT IS AN OUTRAGE!!
Charlie had his first taste of a black & white milkshake from Carvel. He's not sharing.

I have no idea how my parents raised four kids.  Good job, Mommom and Poppop.
I have no idea how we realized this, but Charlie loves the Jeopardy theme song.  
 Charlie mixes up the word "blueberry" with lady parts.
Anything you say to Charlie can and will be used against you.  You need to STOP, Mommy!
Thanks for following along.  Maybe I'll see you soon.  Oh, and the lawn's looking great, thanks for asking.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

The Lawn

It's been a long, terrible winter, but it's finally getting warmer, staying light longer and Deadliest Catch is coming back soon.  We can almost start to enjoy having a house again.  Tonight we worked on the lawn to achieve Nilda's dream of an organic lawn.  Here's what we did:
  • Dethatch: I had no idea what this meant two weeks ago, but apparently there's a layer of dead grass called "thatch" that can build up and suffocate the lawn.  You take it out by using a special rake to rip up the thatch and take away, but that's way too much work so we had the lawn people do it this morning.  Lawn people are your friends.  And they leave about 20 brown paper bags filled with thatch on your driveway. 
  • Aerate: When soil gets compacted and unable to properly drain water, it can hurt the grass. You can aerate it by punching little holes in the soil or using a chemical aerator.  I don't see how the chemicals is the way to go, but Nilda assures me this is part of her organic lawn plan.  She sprayed the aerator this afternoon.  
  • Top soil: We put top soil over the bare spots.  I gather this is supposed to give the seeds something to grow in, but I imagine this will mean the spots on our lawn that consistently flood will have the healthiest mud on the block. 
  • Overseed:  This is putting new grass seed on top of the lawn. Because apparently that's something you're supposed to do.  Nilda, after hours of research, picked out this very special kind of grass seed that has micro-clover and is supposed to be drought and weed resistant,  It must have vitamin c or something.  We were going to do this over the weekend, but the lawn people said we should do it now since it's supposed to rain tonight and that will make it harder for the seeds to sink in.  I got home a little early around 6 and we got to work.
  • Fertilizer:  After using the nifty rotary spreader to put down the seeds (because we have one of those now), we put Milorganite on the lawn.  Dad tells me that Milorganite is actually sewage from Milwaukee, which means it's very possible we have Matt and Mary's poop on our lawn.  Happy birthday, pookiebear.  
  • Compost: By now it's dark and Charlie is screaming his head off to go inside, but we have to put down the lobster-shell compost Nilda picked out on top of the grass, known as top dressing.  We had planned to use the spreader for this too, but soon learned that the compost, which is basically dirt to me, does not go through the spreader, so we were just throwing it around by hand in the dark.  Don't worry, I had watched one of the many youtube videos Nilda had sent me in advance, so I knew what to do. 
What all of this means is that you can never predict what kind of crazy obsession Nilda will pick up next.  When the girl who grew up in the city and did not want anything to do with yard work spends hours - hours - looking at pictures of shrubbery on line, you never know what will come next. She even got a compost bin.  Nothing is safe.