It was a good day

Things like this can go either way, you know? So much depends on one's attitude. It was a good Thanksgiving. 

Light did most of the cooking. She loves to cook, and doesn't have any way to cook at school. That works out really well for me, because she's eager to cook when she comes home. Today she made pies (pumpkin and pecan), rolls, green bean cassserole, and some other stuff, too, I think. I did the turkey, and showed Light how to make my stuffing. It turned out really well. I like my stuffing. Superman made cornbread to go in the stuffing. He is the best cornbread cook in the house. I made the sweet potato casserole with the sweet potatoes Superman cooked. Oh, and he fixed Brussel Sprouts using a nifty recipe he found earlier this week. The Brussel Sprouts were GOOD!! I mean, like really good, not like Brussel Sprouts which taste nasty. Maybe I'll have him post the recipe as a guest blogger here. What fun. 

Anyway, there was lots of food and it was all good. Mostly, anyway. There were just the six of us for dinner. I haven't seen C and S since mid-morning. I'm not sure who they were with today, but they've got many friends and an extended family-of-choice around here. S has local family of origin, too, but he doesn't usually spend much time with them. C's family of origin no longer lives here. He stayed, they moved. Eh. But I digress. (as usual)

We didn't have dinner until after 7:00. Light set the menu and the dinner time. She had us scheduled to eat at 6:00, but as these things do, the cooking lasted longer than expected. She's a good cook, but not too experienced. She moves much slower than I do in the kitchen. I didn't realize that until we tried to work together today. She takes her time with all the chopping and mixing, etc. I move like a whirlwind with my chopping and stirring and stuff. I'm dumping things into pots and bowls in a blur of activity. She carefully measures each ingredient and meticulously stirs the mix. It drives me crazy to watch, so I mostly stayed out of the way.

It was warm today. We almost got up to 70 degrees! With the oven blasting it got really hot in the kitchen! Way hotter than it should be this time of year, by golly. Superman and I had the window open in our bedroom most of the afternoon. 

I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade this morning. I'm not overly fond of parades, generally, but I love to watch this one every year. It's tradition. We don't watch football around here, but we do watch the parade. Well, I watch the parade. I turned it on in the living room so the kids could see it, but I'm not sure they really watched. 

Diva was really tired today. I think she was up a lot the night before. I know she got up at 3:00 a.m. and I gave her some pain medicine then. I don't think she went back to sleep after that. By mid afternoon she could barely keep her eyes open. She almost fell asleep at the dinner table. Poor kidlet. She's doing much better. She still can't talk well and is a bit sore, but not bad at all. Night time is the worst. She drinks enough during the day to keep her throat well hydrated. It gets dry and very sore when she sleeps. 

But she's so quiet! This is a new state for her. She and Sproing are exceptionally loud. Children are loud. My children are very loud children. Except now Diva just shuffles around the house barely making any noise. Well, except when she wimpers and whines. That's annoying!!! I told her even if her throat hurts she is not allowed to whine! Sometimes that works. 

Sproing wandered off this afternoon to see one of his friends. He didn't return home until amost 5:00! Lordy, child, where have you been? What if we'd planned supper for earlier in the evening? Oh, well, as it was we didn't eat until 2.5 hours after he got home. And while he was gone the house was fairly quiet. It was lovely. As soon as he got home, though, things got really loud again. He was hungry, and he doesn't do well when he's hungry. Superman and I tried to get him to have a snack, but not eat too much. That was tricky. And it didn't work. He griped, yelled, argued, and screamed from the time he got home until he stomped off to bed. He was contentious at the dinner table. He argued with anything else anyone said. He refused to eat the stuff he'd asked for. This is typical Sproing behavior. It's tiring. He jumped up and stormed out of the room at least twice in the course of our dinner. Matching him scream for scream makes things worse. Mostly we were quiet but firm with him. Then he screamed at us. 

But it was a good day. He was screaming and acting out, but I was calm. I didn't get overly upset. Superman was really good, too. He didn't rise to Sproing's bait, either. We were both calm but firm with him. He didn't follow the plan quite so well, but we did our part. The boy is kinda funny sometimes. Between 5:00 and 8:00 this evening he was "going to bed! I don't want supper!" at least 5 times. The second time he left the dinner table we were all about finished anyway. I made him wash one of the serving bowls then he went to bed seething with anger. About 5 minutes after he got into bed I went in and sat on the bed beside him. I asked if he'd like me to scratch his back. He didn't answer, but I did anyway. I know he likes it. Then he started talking to me. He told me why he was frustrated, what it was he really wanted when he was screaming earlier. He actually listened to me! It was a good conversation! Both of us really like it when we can talk reasonably like that. He just hasn't figured out how to talk that way in every situation. It's almost as if he can't just talk until after he's screamed and pitched a fit. I don't know why. But the less upset I get about the drama, the less drama there is. As I said, today was a good day. I stayed cool!

But damn, that boy wears me out!

The mood on the bus goes round and round

I'm getting used to having the monitor on the bus. He really is a friendly fellow. He talks about dirt track racing, and a lot about cars. The racing seems interesting. (I said this to Light earlier this evening, and she said "No, Mom!") But I especially enjoy the discussions about cars and trucks. He is a wealth of information at the very least. He's lived here all his life, knows a lot of people, knows history and reputation and other useful stuff.

Today we were discussing cars, used cars, buying cars, buying cheap cars, deciding what would be the most financially beneficial for an old clunker- stripping it down and making it into a race car, or buffing it up a bit and selling it as a cheap used car. Sometimes it's a tricky decision to make. I'd never thought about it before.

Twitch is 17. He still has a driving learner's permit that has now expired. He never asks to go out to practice driving. The only thing we have to drive now, anyway, is the full size van (very very large and hard to maneuver) or my beloved truck. Twitch despises my beloved truck. He also isn't keen on learning to drive on a standard transmission.

It would be extremely helpful if he had a car and a license and could drive himself to and from school, take his siblings to school in the morning, run errands for his darling mother, and have transportation to and from an eventual JOB!!! PLEASE!!! SOON!!! So I was discussing with my monitor the options for buying a cheap used car. He's got connections! He knows lots of stuff.

There is a car for sale now that he knows about. It is in excellent mechanical condition. This is like saying the blind date your cousin is setting up for you has a pleasant personality. Oh, yeah, it is bug ugly. We drove past it on the way back to the bus lot. The hood latch doesn't work, which the owner discovered after the hood flew up while she was driving down the highway. It flew open and hit the windshield, cracking the windshield badly. She should have suspected there might be a problem after she rammed the car into a tree in her yard, bending the front grill and hood area. But she remained clueless. The car needs window glass in one of the doors, too, because she did some dumbass thing to break that. There are a few other areas of body damage from various too-close encounters with stationary objects. (Not a good driver, methinks.) With a little bit of body work and some salvaged parts, this could be a very good (if ugly) car. And I think I can get it for under $300 if I move quickly.

My original purpose for this post was to say that I'm feeling better about having Mr. Monitor on the bus. But I seem to have gotten distracted. Oh, well. Par for the course.

I was not excited about driving the Kidney Shaker. It is old and smelly and dirty. Really dirty. Until yesterday it hadn't been used since sometime last spring. The buses spend the summer at their summer estate, a large meadow beside the maintenance shop. They get dusty and moldy standing there in the rain and the hot South Carolina sun. Kidney Shaker was nasty dirty.

It also has a slow governor on it. The thing will only go 45 mph, rattling and shaking in protest with every rev. It gets even louder when it idles. My route takes me way out to the bottom of our county, and I drive Henry at 55mph when we get out of town. KS is slowing me down!

I was in a bit of a funk about the bus when I picked up my last bundle of kids yesterday afternoon. They were a bit freaked about getting in this ancient rust bucket. I mentioned that it was a very old bus, and one of the little boys said "Cool! It's an antique!" All the kids were excited about that, and so was I! What a great attitude. Since then I have (mostly) had fun driving the antique bus. I can't say my kidneys have enjoyed it, though.