Plants & Puddings

We both had today off work so we dropped Jack at day care & got stuck into the garden. I felt a tad guilty taking him to day care instead of the zoo or something but it was so nice to really get into a job and spend some quality time getting a lot accomplished.

We spent about 5 hours dead-heading, mowing (last one of the season hopefully), raking, edging borders and moving plants around. I now have all my Hydrangeas in the south-facing shady wet border where they seem to thrive. My back is aching like buggery and I bent over far too much for a pregnant woman but it was worth it to see the tidy results. I'm also hoping that all this Autumn work will pay off next spring when I'll be far too preoccupied with Jack & Danny to worry about those pesky thistles in my east border. Damn them to hell, they won't go away.

My next garden dilemma is where to put my dwarf purple beech tree. The term "tree" is a bit of an exaggeration seeing as its no bigger than 18 inches tall. It cost a lot of money and I've moved it twice already to no avail. I would hate to lose it but can't seem to find the right spot - it gets so cold here in the winter and so hot in the summer that some plants just can't hack it. I had the same dilemma with my Stewartia tree last year, moved it and it died. It took me until May to finally admit that it wasn't going to form new buds and come bursting back to life. There's a good reason you don't see a lot of these kinds of trees in Ohio I guess. Now, if I lose my golden chain tree (Laburnum) then I'll be really upset. I've kept that bloody thing hanging by a thread for the last 3 years and I'm counting on it finding it's niche and really flourishing in 2009. I was messing with it today and even talking to it, willing it to hang on and endure another Ohio winter with me. The neighbours hopefully didn't hear me.

I'll try and post some pictures of my garden before it gets covered in snow.

Finally, why the picture of a Christmas pudding? We swung by a special grocery store today to pick up some English crumpets and saw that they had some puds in boxes in their seasonal display. I picked one up and they were asking $30 for it. Thirty dollars! I am willing to cough-up five bucks for McVities chocolate Hobnobs and even six bucks for British tea-bags but 15 quid for a Christmas pudding? I'm not paying $30 for something I'll set fire to, make myself sick eating and that will inevitably make me fat. I can do that with a $5 cherry pie.

Veteran's Day - Two Little Boys

Tomorrow is Veteran's Day in the USA (Remembrance Day in England), held on the anniversary of the World War 1 ceasefire at 11am on 11th November 1918. In England, people wear poppies on their lapels as a sign of remembrance. In the USA there will be parades and services for American veteran's of all wars.

This past week I read a short piece on the BBC website about some of the last soldiers to die in the Great War, including Henry Gunther from Baltimore, who died at 10.59am, just one minute short of the ceasefire. Even though everyone knew the end was just moments away, they fought to the end. It's so very very sad.

I also saw today that Rolf Harris is going to re-record "Two Little Boys" to mark the 90th anniversary of the ceasefire. This is the only song in existence that makes me cry. There's plenty of books and films that do, but not songs, bar this one. So I'm going to post it on my blog for you all to sit down and enjoy for a moment.
It was a number 1 hit in England 40 years ago and much loved in Australia & Europe. Was it loved in the USA? I have no idea and will have to ask an American friend ....

How to Give your Husband a Heart Attack

When your husband is driving in the dark & rain and making a left turn into oncoming traffic at a busy intersection, shout as loud as you can "watch out - here comes the spiderman!" in the hope of making your toddler son laugh.

It will have the desired effect on your toddler, but will make your husband swear like a sailor and look at you in disbelief.

Oops, sorry honey.

Avoiding the Dreaded Basement

Our basement has become the dumping ground of my old office and stuff to put away. We 're also in the middle of painting the fireplace down there and Craig had a ton of plumbing work in the downstairs loo, so it looks like a bomb site. A bomb site infested with pesky cats. Those two little buggers have added to my troubles by covering every fabric surface in hair and plucking the carpet. It is a crying shame that our basement has become so trashy because we love it. It's a huge walk-out room with a big picture window and we've got a big screen TV down there ideal for winter night films and football. SO, the plan is to clean it, fix the loo, finish painting and kill the cats. Only kidding.

While Craig got cracking this morning, I took the little fella to an indoor play area for a couple of hours. I know I got the better deal here! Being 6 months pregnant certainly has it's advantages when you want to avoid hard work.

Jack builds a fort! 10 seconds later, an older child comes along, knocks it down and one piece hits Jack in the face. Her mum says nothing to her, so I give her the most evil & scary face I can muster up. I think it flew right by her, not surprisingly.

Jack has started to develop such a great sense of humour. As well as being kind and friendly and caring about other people, he now makes us laugh every day. Yes, Yes, I know I'm gushing too much about my boy but he makes me proud every day. He's a good egg.

Raincoats & Rockcakes

We kept Jack off day care today at the advice of his doctor. This morning, while I got some work done he watched Noggin the only way you can when you have a sore bum - spread out on his belly, on his bean bag, with a raincoat on ...

After his nap this afteroon, he came through to the kitchen where I was painting something. He had rosy-red cheeks and a sleepy face and mad hair like Ken Dodd and he asked expectantly "are you making cake?" So Craig grabbed the ingredients and they made rock cakes together.

You might ask why I didn't grab the ingredients? Well, because I can burn a salad. We have a deal in our house: Craig cooks, I clean, and everyone's happy (and not food-poisoned).

Staph Infection - Part 1

Last week I blogged about Jack getting a horrendous rash on his bum after I bought him some cartoon character underpants and didn't wash them before he wore them for the first time. The underpants contained some kind of irritant (formaldehyde maybe) that really hurt him. I washed the offending undies and tried them once more but they irritated him again so I've chucked them out and bought cotton tighty-whities. The original & best obviously.

This last couple of days I've noticed a red lump on his bum and it was so sore he couldn't sit down, so today I took him to the docs. My poor boy had to lay on his belly with his head on my arm while the doctor lanced and drained the red area and took samples from it. He screamed bloody murder and cried his heart out. It was horrible to watch. The doctor said he has a staph infection and he's sent the samples away for testing to see which staph it is. I'm obviously scared to death that it's MRSA and hoping it's any one of the other types of staph. He's now on antibiotics and cream and bath treatments and the doctor's keeping in touch.

If any mum reads this blog, take note & please don't buy undies with paint or dyes or anything that might irritate tender skin. Stick to plain cotton and wash it before you use it.

WHO in their right mind thought it was a good idea to put harmful chemicals on kids underwear???? I know the undies didn't cause the staph - but they caused a skin abrasion that got infected with staph. I don't know where the staph came from but we're now paranoid about washing hands and towels.

Sorry to bore you with this, but it's worrying me to death ...

This Moment in American History

It was about 10.45pm and I was checking on Jack when I heard Craig, already in bed with the TV on, do an intake of breath. I tip-toed out of Jack's room at lightning speed and hissed "what what???" and he replied "Virginia picked Obama!" and we both got excited and watched, as in the next few minutes Obama was named President Elect. At one point I realised I was holding Craig's hand so tight my fingers were overlapped, painfully.

We stayed up to watch McCain's speech - wow, the old McCain came back! Where has he been for the last 12 months? I shed a small tear for him and felt really good about what he said. He was gracious and eloquent. It then spanned to Palin and I thought (and sorry, but I'm going to be honest) - "please go and crawl back under your rock".

Then we stayed up to watch Obama's speech and I cried through the whole thing. It was so moving and inspirational and everyone was so desperate to hear something about hope. Seeing all those people in Chicago and New York & DC celebrating and waving American flags was great. Craig turned to me and said - "we should take down the Buckeye flag tomorrow and put our America flag back up". Phew! What an emotional & historical event it was.

Today I feel happy & refreshed and excited about the future. A lot of other people must too because I had to go to 3 shops before I could find a USA Today newspaper. I also saw something rather funny this morning - "The Onion" newspaper ran the headline "Black Man given Nation's Worst Job"

Like a Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

I'm like a cat on a hot tin roof I'm so excited. For the last 12 months I've been wrapped up in this election. That's 12 months of discussing policies with friends & colleagues, watching debates, keeping up with the radio & TV and newspapers. It also included an Obama rally this summer and I'm so glad now that I took the time to go and see him.

Without sounding too warm & fuzzy, it definitely seems like there's excitement in the air today, like we're on the verge of something new and the rest of the world will hopefully fall in love with America all over again.

Tonight, Craig and I will be sat cuddled up on the sofa, watching the results come in. I might even drink a small glass of champers. Let me re-phrase that as I don't want to jinx anything. I HOPE I'll be drinking a small glass of champers.

The Purple Dinosaur from Hell

Jack loves Barney and asks several times a day to put Barney DVDs on. I try and get him to watch Leapfrog or Sesame Street or Noggin but he chants "Barney!" until he wears me down.

Here's the thing. I absolutely detest Barney and all his friends. Especially the little yellow one that has a gravelly voice that sounds like he smokes 40 Marlboro a day. And the green one with a big flat head brings out something close to rage in me. I mean, I could quite easily drive over the lot of them if I ever saw them on a sidewalk.

I happened to get onto this subject with another mum at work and she confessed she felt the same. Turns out there's a whole society out there that can't stand them either. There's even websites dedicated to hating them.

What is it about Barney that brings out my dark side I wonder?

48 Hours to Go ...

Not being a US citizen, I cannot vote on Tuesday. Still, I cannot let such a momentous occasion go by without saying something about the election on my blog.

As usual, Ohio plays a major role in the election and on Tuesday night we'll watch the results pour in but will probably be in bed before the announcement comes, sometime after midnight. Here's the conundrum - shall I turn the bedroom TV on to see the results, say at 1am, and run the risk of hearing something terrible and never sleeping again, or should I wait until Wednesday morning to find out?

I don't normally use my blog for polical ramblings, but like I said, momentous occasion and all that. SO, if I could vote, who would I vote for? Well I'd vote for Obama because I'm a liberal Democrat. I always have been and I'm proud of it. Most importantly though, I think he has what it takes to get us out of this mess. And what a moment in history it could be, to have a young, dynamic African-American President in office.

The next 48 hours are going to be excruciatingly long ...

The Beginning of NaBloPoMo

November is NaBloPoMo for me. I did it last year and am going to attempt it this year. There's no theme - just me twittering on every day for the next month.

Last year I posted 37 times. I'll be lucky if I do 30 this year as I don't seem to have the energy these days to get everything done. As I'm sitting here, my annual plants are outside, black and squishy from the frost, my Hostas are yellow, & there's leaves on my lawn.

I'll just have a cup of tea and then I'll shape myself.