Bad Melody!

Argh! Melody is a very smart sheep. She's a very BIG sheep. She's a very strong sheep. Melody did this.

My neighbor Martha likes to mow her lawn, and my neighbor Sheryl and Mike's lawn, and part of my lawn. Whatever floats ya Martha...Anyway, she always tosses the clippings over the fence for the sheep. Melody is a big pig. Like Pavlov's dog , the sheep sit at the fence and cry every time someone mows their lawn, whether or not it's Martha. So all day yesterday other neighbors were mowing their lawns - first Gabe accross the street then Peter, next door, on the other side. Neither of these people offered any free food to Miss Piggy Melody, and she got impatient waiting for it so she decided to remove the gate and seek her own goodies.

Guess what I'm doing tonight?

An actual argument

I have two autistic boys on my bus this summer and what follows is an actual argument they had this morning...

K - "Hey guess what? Did you know..."
E - "not now"
K - "that the.."
E- shoots K a nasty look
**short pause**
K -"Oh, I'm sorry"
E - "I was reading. You interrupted me."
K -"I'm sorry, E. I was just exited about this new book I have. Do you forgive me?"
E - "Yes."

We should spend as much time coaching our non-autistic children on how to behave civilly as we do our special needs kids. The world would be a much nicer place to live if we did.

Visit with Sammie

Ahhh summertime. I'm not going to say the living is easy - far from it in fact with a very headstrong, very mobile, two year old. But today it was a little easier because we went to visit with Sammie. Sammie is the swim instructor at the Nottingham town beach.

This beach is actually on the same road as we are but over the town line. So Sammie's been doing this for a few years now and has built up quite a rapport. We go down there occasionally to chum up the sister after her lessons are all over with. We had a great time swimming there today.

It's a twister! It's a twister!

Wow!!

So we had a tornado on Thursday. My family was safe, as were all of the kids on my bus (a couple of them live really, really close). I still haven't heard from my boss or the people at base, and I'll take a drive up there later today as they just opened the road. I know my boss is OK though, 'cause one of my co-workers who I spoke to saw her on TV, and I'm assuming the damage to the buses was minimal 'cause the news would have been all over it otherwise.

One of the little girls that came to Ali's Birthday party last night lost most of her house and her next door neighbor. Here's a picture of her Dad from the Boston Globe:

Interestingly, this is the fourth deadly tornado to touch down in Deerfield. Wow!

I'm glad it's over.

Coming up for air

Briefly taking a pause to give some updates on life at the O'Brien household. Ali has turned 11.

We had a really hard time deciding what to get her until I heard about a benefit concert that Pete Seeger will be performing for the strolling heifers in Brattleboro VT in September. So we got her 2 tickets and she and I'll be going to the concert and attending the reception afterward. It's going to be a fun night, and I hope she remembers it always.



We spent the day at Grammy and Papa's boat. We had an Om put on her cake 'cause she'd just finished yoga camp.

My gardens are is doing well and I finally got all my tomatoes in the ground. I still need to find something cheap to hill my potatoes in (cheap mulch hay anyone?) . I got some fence sections for my birthday last month and Ali and I spent Saturday putting up the first 3. They look awesome - much better than the old fence, but they'll look even better once I slap a coat of paint on them and plant a nice little perennial garden in front of it.

I've gotten both sleeves and a third of the back of Ali's Peace sign sweater done, and I'm nearly done with the second of her purple and yellow striped socks done - 2 more pairs of socks left to go, and the remainder of the sweater plus a hat and some gloves and she'll be all set knitwise.

We'll wait until next month at least before we start in on the pants - been doing a summer school run and I actually have less time at home between runs now than I do the remainder of the year.

Swap Shop

The town of Deerfield has had a swap shop at the transfer station for many years, but recently it's become overridden with too much junk and not enough maintenance so the board of selectmen shut it down.

I see a swap shop as an essential tool in decluttering, recycling/reusing.

Several other people in town felt the same way and we petitioned the selectmen to re-open the swap shop. They agreed provided it was attended by volunteers every time it was open, and that we keep it clean and organized.

Our grand re-opening was June 28th, and today was my turn to be the attendant.

I had a great time. The lady I worked with was a treat, I met some new people and I scored some cool items too (as well as got to play with some neat toys I left there for someone else to take). Quinnie got a little toy car, a child sized recliner and a child sized adirondak chair. I got a metal thermal coffee cup a wicker laundry basket and the Stitch N Bitch book. All of these items were in supreme condition - very gently used, if at all.

I'm so glad I volunteered.