less than 24 hours until NYC

I first want to point out that I tried to use the less than sign, but unfortunately Blogspot thinks I am trying to write code. So I actually had to type the words "less than"  which kind of lost it's zing.
Anyway, in a few hours I, and certain other members of my family will be heading East (and a little North) to the Big Apple.
We will be leaving behind a dog and a large burly man, lest anyone be reading this thinking the might like to break into our house. No seriously, there will be someone there.

Anyway, I have these grand visions of blogging during our trip, posting pictures and writing clever stories, but in reality, I probably won't do anything, until I get back.
But a girl can dream can't she?
Anyway, I am excited. I am packed and (mostly) ready to go.
I am most excited about flying with Everette (he does not reciprocate). I LOVE traveling with Everette. We have the best conversations.

Everette's brother and his totally awesome girlfriend have planned the whole weekend. The one thing Everette wanted to do was go to Ellis Island. I don't know how much time the scheduled but I am sure it is not enough. Because the one thing I know for sure about Everette is, if there is some sort of historical or informative fact written on a plaque anywhere in a five mile radius of is eyes, he will read it. All of it, until there is nothing left to read.

So Peace, Love, and Lady Liberty.

Catch up

So about a month ago I mentioned that we took Jonathan to the Whistle Stop. We had a great time! Here are the pictures...

 Jonathan is looking up at the four trains that traveled around the restaurant.

 Everette and Jonathan eating breakfast

Right before we left (after I put away the camera) they opened the caboose and we got to go inside and sit in the top observation deck. It was really kind of fun!

 It really wasn't dangerous!

t

 But Daddy helped anyway!

 Afterward we got our first official Barbershop haircut. It was a very big event.  I have pictures of that, but they are on my cell phone currently.  And it's dead.

Hey... did I mention Everette is taking me to New York City next week? More Details to come.

One of those moments

Every where I go, I have an internal debate as to whether or not I take my camera. Usually I don't because it is big and awkward, and I don't like dealing with it for the entire event. Sometimes I am glad I didn't bring it, but other times I kick myself repeatedly.
Today was one of those times... sort of.
Today one of Everette's roommates from college got married.
The wedding was at someone's house, and since the house had limited parking we parked at a nearby church and were shuttled to the location. It was kinda fun.
As we stepped out of the car, my self-inflicted beating commenced.
I should back up, and explain that Everette's old roommate is one of those people. One of those people that you admire and secretly want to emulate.
He is quiet, but he is kind, and sincere, and sweet, and hilarious! If you can get him to speak.  And let me just say never leave your drink unattended if he is around, but that is another story. He is the kind of guy that might be easily passed over, and probably didn't have girls banging down his door in hot pursuit of him. Which I personally think was in his best interest (he may or may not agree), because the any girl who took the time really see him, would see just what a treasure he was. And I think Amy (his new wife) saw his awesomeness.
Anyway, it is one of those weddings you go to with a lot of anticipation. Not because it is going to be a slammin' party, but because you, from the very bottom of your soul, want to smother these people with goodness, because of the high regard in which you hold them.
I have only been to a couple of other weddings like that.
Back to stepping out of the car. The moment my eyes fell onto the scene in front of me, I was wishing I had my camera, but in the same instant I was glad I didn't have it. Sometimes when I have my camera, I become obsessed with capturing the image the way my eyes see it, and sometimes, in doing that, I miss out on what is in front of me. So I sat down, determined to blaze the image into my mind and into my heart. To say it was magical is simply an understatement.

I Have a really good explanation

for my absence. I really do.
We have been potty training Jonathan for the past...three weeks.
And lest you ask how it is going, let me just say that we are still potty training.  we haven't trained we are still training.
And quite frankly when I sit down at the end of the day I am too pooped to come up with anything interesting to say. Not to mention, Everette and I have been trading sickness.  Nothing horrific. Just congestion and sore throats.  Like swallowing glass, sore throats.
In the midst of all of this we celebrated Jonathan's third birthday. In fact, I sat down on his birthday to write an adorable mushy lovey post about his unending sweetness, but as it turns out, he was a giant turd that day.
Like, skip-the-bedtime-routine-go-to-bed-thirty-minutes-early turd.  And while I didn't end the day wishing he had never been born, I certainly did not feel like regaling is eternal delightfulness.

The weekend before is birthday was delightful, we went to the Whistle Stop in Monon for breakfast on Saturday. And had a great time, and I took lots of great pictures. And if I ever unload them, You will be the first to see them.

This is such a super boring post, but I knew I had to do something, since I am pretty sure only my mom reads this anymore.
But I will return someday. (Are you tired of all my non-committed empty promises?)

A Humongous pain in my hieney: email change part 1

So first of all, it has come to my attention that I don't actually know how to spell the word "heiney", is it "ei" or "ie". You will have to excuse my ignorance.
Anyway, back to my butt pain. A lot of you know Everette and I (and others) have begun the process of changing our email addresses. If you didn't know, then FYI my email address is megan@elmillsdotnet. Surprise! Everette has owned his own domain since before he could drive (ok maybe not that long, but close) and he hosts email addresses for several other people as well (pretty much my whole family). We sent a letter to those people, the first thing we did was apologize for the pain in the butts we had caused. My original draft said "huge pain in the butt" but Everette edited it to "moderate" (I hate censorship).
But I still maintain that this is a huge pain in the butt! For two reasons, 1. it is   2. I like to be melodramatic
I suppose it might not be so huge relative to other things, but it is highly annoying.
So for the next few days I will be using this blog to whine about how hard my life is.

Feel free to stop coming by if you want. But if you are one of those people being forced to change you might find some helpful hints.

Reason #1 for my pains
The actual transfer itself is pretty easy, (details to come shortly) but once Everette transferred my emails and folders the menu on my .Net account looked like this:

You can see on the left side there a bazillion folders and some duplicate. This majorly stressed me out.

I was whining to Everette and he showed me how to hide them.

 

(just drag the folder to where it says 62 more, then they will all be hidden)
But I still was not satisfied, just knowing they were there and all disorganized bothered me immensely. What if I needed to shuffle through them or search them, and how do I file my new emails?
Everette pointed out that I don't need to organize them, because the google search tool is so effective you can just type any word from the email you are trying to locate, and you don't need them to be organized. This is coming from a man who keeps EVERY email, and for years have filed them by year and then by month on Thunderbird.
So I asked him what he did now. He simply clicks the Archive button and they disappear. Waiting to be accessed at the click of a button.

Stay tuned for more tails of woe.

There will be more trust me!

For my demanding Fan base

I have some very needy fans. Seriously. They demand more frequent posting than once a month. I think they need help. But they are also a little scary so I try to appease them.
I am currently too busy to post.
Too busy watching the hair on my toes grow (yes-it's true, I have hair growing on my toes).
So I will just leave you with this little story that happened this morning.
Well it started a few weeks ago when our vacuum broke. More specifically it broke on a Friday afternoon right before we had two different groups of company coming over. Did I mention we have a dog?
Gross.
I asked Everette to look at the vacuum, and he promised he would. But he too was busy. Busy, working, and hanging shelves in the laundry room, and planting lettuce in the garden. Clearly, nothing important.
So fast forward two weeks to Labor Day weekend, and our floor is approaching dirty gas station outdoor bathroom status.. which is dirty--even for me.
Everette finally begins to take the vacuum apart. Upon which he discovers a GIGANTIC..and I mean gigantic, and totally disgusting ball of dirt and dog hair, with a few of my hairs to tie it all up nice and tight clogging the hose attachment, cutting down on the suction of the whole operation.
Everette detached  the hose from the vacuum and attempted to dislodge the ball by shoving a broom handle through the hose. The ball would not dislodge.
Not until Everette broke it apart with a screwdriver could he plunge it with the broom handle. It was beyond gross. I told Everette he was my hero, and asked him if he would have my love child. He informed me that we had already crossed that bridge and we proceeded to clean all the filters and start fresh.
This morning I was reassembling the vacuum so I could sweep my grody floors.  I found I was missing one important piece. I was pretty confident that Jonathan had moved it somewhere, but I was less than confident in his ability to recall where said piece was left. You would not believe the Jonathan-directed-treasure hunts I have been on in search of a lost sippy cup.
So I continued to scour the downstairs. After a while, I figured I wouldn't be out much if I asked him, at this point I had already sent myself on a wild goose chase.
So I held up another piece that looked similar and asked Jonathan if he had seen it.
"yes" was his reply.
Not too suprised (He ALWAYS says yes)
I asked him where he put it.
In the most casual, matter-of-fact way any toddler can muster, he said, "I put it in the car" and he tossed his hand causally in the direction of his Cozy Coupe.
Skeptical,  I headed over there. But as I leaned over, sure enough! There was the missing piece.
You just never know.

I wish I had a camera...

when I stepped out of the shower, this morning.
But since I have a strict no cameras in the bedroom/bathroom policy, you will just have to use your imagination.
Cameras laying willy-nilly in your bedroom, just seem like asking for trouble. It is kind of like leaving your BMW windows down, keys in the ignition in a rough neighborhood. I mean yeah, you would be pissed if someone stole your luxury car, but really, could you be mad at anyone but yourself?

Back to this morning and the bathroom. No, wait... another aside.
In my house growing up, the toilet paper holder served primarily as a stand on which to place the new roll. It is a whole family thing. I know this because now that we are all grown and out of the house (mostly) I still come home to find the toilet paper sitting on top of an empty roll still on the holder.

                                                (That's how the Greene's roll, ahh haaaaaaaahaaaaa!)


Growing up in this environment, developed this philosophy: changing the toilet paper roll is not critical, and in fact hardly worth it, unless, and only sometimes, when company is coming over.
The problem occurs when two people collide in Holy Matrimony.

                                                               (too difficult to replace)

Apparently when Everette was growing up, NOT replacing the toilet paper on the holder is some sort of deadly sin (the 8th I think, I haven't founded listed in the Bible, but Everette assures me it's there). Which, I should point out, that he grew up in a house with four boys and one girl; and I grew up in a house of three girls and two boys. And, as we all know, girls go through toilet paper three times as fast as boys. So the frequency of roll changes at my house to his, is like 9 times as often (did I ever tell you Math is my best subject).
Anyway, after several of the a fore mentioned matrimonial collisions, Everette and I came to a compromise...
We bought one of those holders, hook style, where the roll slides on and off without any dismantling of the complicated spring-loaded do-hickey. Ours is the deluxe edition with a magazine rack.

(this is actually the one we have)

Which has worked well for us until now... The problem that occurs when Holy Matrimony collides with Holy Terror. Ok maybe not holy terrors but busy, curious, charming, mischievious, investigative, grabby almost three-year-old didn't quite have the same ring.
OK now, back to this morning.
I stepped out of our shower and in my blurred pre-contact-lens-insertion vision, I saw a swag of TP looped around our bathroom floor. As my eyes searched for the roll, I followed the strand into our bedroom, across our bed, around the corner into Everette's closet. Jonathan, having long since forgotten it, and moved on to other exciting things.
I sighed as I walked across the room, careful not to step on the paper, as my damp feet would surely break the strand.  As I rounded the corner, I saw what was left of the roll. I reached down to pick it up and reroll it. Everette would have ripped it off, because his toilet paper has to be nice and neat as he is a folder. I however, couldn't bear to toss all that TP, and since I am a wadder it makes no difference to me (Actually, I am a wrapper/folder, but that requires to roll  to be free of any anchoring apparatus so I have long since abandoned my wrapping ways and sacrificed to wad. That is correct ladies and gentleman, I am a toilet paper martyr. And I hope someday I will get my crown).
Everette is out of town until Thursday, so I have one and a half days to use all that TP, as I am a girl, it shouldn't be a problem.

Sorry folks, I thought it had been too long since I had talked about some sort of bathroom topic.

Better than my pinkie finger

A few months ago, after I blogged about my dad, at his request, I was chatting with my brother (who is older) about it, and he looked at me wide-eyed and said, "I would never asked to be in your blog!" Of course, at that moment, I began to conspire to find a way to post about him. It is like the time when he was in middle school and he had a bunch of his friends over and shut the door to his room to keep his highly-annoying-5th-grade sister (me!) out. I spent the rest of the evening (before and after dinner) carving a hole in his door with a butter knife, the size of a nickel, so I could spy on them. I know it was the size of a nickel because that is what by brother attempted to cover it with. Which worked until I pushed it off with a chopstick.
Don't worry, what goes around, comes around, after he left, that became my room.

So you see, I have some sort of disorder that triggers an obsession with doing whatever my brother tells me I can't or shouldn't do. Another time, he was antagonizing me and I threatened to pour milk on his head at dinner. He said, "you wouldn't."  Before I knew what was happening, I lifted my arm, glass in hand and dumped it on his head. I am just really glad he never said, "Don't get addicted to methamphetamine." or "don't play with guns." or my life could have taken a serious turn for the worse.

Before everybody starts talking about what an obnoxious sister I was, I feel the need to share two things:
1. my brother and my cousin used to play laser tag with me and my younger sister, except there were only two guns and two targets, you can guess how this went down.
2. my brother also was known to deliberately eat leftovers in the fridge marked with your name.

The problem is, my brother is a pretty good story teller in his own right, and any story bearing any humor(and believe me there are plenty) he has already told on himself. Like they say, the best defense is a good offense.

A few days ago my brother got a new cell phone, and by that I mean, he got A cell phone.

You see, my brother... he is very passionate. He has a lot of things he believes in very strongly.
This in general is a pretty good quality. Actually, let's be honest, it is a pretty great quality. It means he  has a strong sense of right and wrong, and isn't afraid to stand in the right, alone.
It means he had the guts to go back to school to get his teaching license to teach FACS (home ec) to high school and middle school kids.
Sometimes, his strong beliefs, find him in a pickle, especially as they pertain to technology. Like the time he told me ipods were from the devil, and it is necessary to hold the album in your hand, and see and touch the album art to fully appreciate the artist's music. Which may, in fact, be true, but it doesn't seem to matter to the millions of people who download music from itunes. People, as it turns out, like my brother--eventually, who learned to appreciate the convenience of all of your music being in one central place, so you can take with you on your family's two week road trip to Yellowstone National Park. And people, like my brother, who appreciate the affordability of downloading music as opposed to purchasing CD's, and was over the moon when for his birthday I gave him Amazon credits to download every Avett Brother's album onto his ipod.
although, I find it necessary to point out, that if my brother were to live in a world where this technology does not exist he would be exceedingly happy with all music in the form of records.

Brian's opinions about cell phones were not dissimilar to his previous thoughts about ipods (you could imagine his views on iphones!).
So here it is... 2010, an age when they are handing out cell phones to infants in hospital delivery rooms, and my brother finally gits himself a "shiny new cell phone". Not only is it a shiny new cell phone, it is a touch screen, with a full QWERTY keypad. A keypad which he has used to text me no less than 5 times in the week he has owned it. Which, to the rest of the world that may not seem like a lot but, in the past year I can count on two hands the number of phone calls/emails I have received from my brother. 
Don't get me wrong, I am excited my brother has a cell phone, I finally have direct access to him, I don't have to go through his wife (whom I love as my own sister), or his kids (whom I think he exploits to screen his phone calls). He texted his phone number to me, and I believe as his younger sister it is my right no, my duty, to frequently call his cell phone and leave harassing messages. The variety of which I have already left, as of yesterday.

If you would like to participate in the leaving of obnoxious voicemails, you can reach him at...

really? Did you really think I was going to post his number?
whew! I feel better! I feel cleansed, I have scratched the itch. I blogged about my brother. Now if you will excuse me I need to go play some laser tag... only this time I get to use the guns.

This morning I woke up to the sound of the garbage truck driving down our street. Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, and actually isn't all that uncommon, but it just so happened that Everette and I forgot to take the trash out to the curb. Which again, has happened before, but when you have a kid in diapers... you don't want to forget the trash. It is serious bad news. Serious bad news. To make matters worse, the Tuesday I cleaned out the fridge and the freezer, and things I normally would have tossed down the drain, but since "tomorrow is trash day" I tossed them in the trash.  Whoops! I think some of the delightful matter include ice cream, a few scattered rotten peaches and tomatoes, I was too lazy to take to the compost, and several unidentified items growing mold. It's a long time until next Wednesday.
Also in other news... apparently my son isn't perfect.  Who knew?
With his third birthday only a few weeks away, it seems we won't escape the "terrible two's" after all. It sort of happened slowly and snuck up on us.  Until now, Jonathan has been pretty compliant, and not that he never got in trouble, but most often simply the threat of discipline was enough to help him "want" to obey.
Jonathan has learned to exert his will. He simply sits down and says "no".  What's worse, is when I came to the realization, that I am making things worse. So I'm not bragging, but I am pretty patient (at least compared to the rest of the my household), but my patience has stealthily morphed into coercion, and unnecessary repeated instructions.  Basically, my kid is pretty cute, and he managed to dupe me... briefly.
So the past few days the we have been in our own "Back-to-School SMACKDOWN!"
It has resulted in a lot of time-outs and more than one spanking, not to mention our first Someone-else's-bathroom spank.  We have also, for the first time since our first time-out,  attempted escape from the time-out chair, which in my opinion is generously comfy and well-lit. Lot's of fun times.Who wants to visit.

Trying to retrain my kid's brain also results in threat's that are punishment for me to follow-through.
"If you do that one more time, we are going home."
oh and... he officially ripped the "I" key off of my laptop, and for all I know, ate it, as I have yet find it.
So to sum up, we have rotten stinky garbage, and a rotten stinky kiddo.
On a positive note, Jonathan learned to tell jokes this weekend.
He only has one and here's how it goes...

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Apple.
Apple Who?
Apple scratch (says in a high squeaky voice, while scratching himself, and laughing hysterically).
I will try to get it on video, but he is pretty particular about his audience and who knows when I will actually post a video.

Peaches

Hello...
Hi...
It's me.
Do you remember me?
I used to write on this blog, and then I stopped, and then I started writing posts about promises to write more posts. But never writing them.
Remember?
Summer is over, and I am depressed. Everyone is going back to school and the pool is going to close.
My garden is kicking my butt currently.
Yeah, yeah, I know. I promised to write about my garden. But I still haven't loaded the pictures... so you just have to read.

So Everette and I started EVERYTHING from seeds this year...
broccoli, lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, chinese cabbage,a kajillion herbs etc.
We started them in our basement, in peat pots, with grow lights. Everything started off great. We had sprouts growing out of almost every pot. We were happy. we watered and watched. We were proud. We were self-sufficient, we were earthy, we were saving money!
And then..
BAM!
Out of nowhere, for no reason, things started dying. Just fallng over, and those that didn't die, they just stopped growing. Our dwarfy cucumber sprouts had blossoms. Our tomatoes stalled out. They didn't die, but they refused to grow. Blight. pestilence. plague.
We were sad, we were depressed, we were down. But we were NOT OUT! We were out a bunch of money, however.
So spring came and Bennetts and they had plants.. and we had a gift card!
We bought tomato plants, pepper plants, watermelon plants, and katatoes (Jonathan speak for potatoes).
We planted salvaged broccoli, and reseeded some lettuce, and more herbs and we watered. and we waited, and we weeded, and we watched, and we weeded some more.
And they grew! and they grew!!! and grew!
We planted 9 tomato plants, and  a bunch of cucumbers. Green beans, sugar snap peas, lettuce and swiss chard and spinach, the afore mentioned broccoli, onion, strawberries, peppers:sweet and hot, zucchini (died), watermelon, and a large variety of herbs.
We are also experimenting with a small patch of potatoes and carrots at my grandmothers house. Since those crops tend to be lower maintenance.
and so far things have been pretty good.
I have done some canning (can we talk about stressful-too many irons in the fire): tomatoes, apple jelly, and today... peaches!!
There is a local place Annie's Orchard that grows u-pick strawberries, blueberries, peaches, and grapes (and maybe even more). I haven't made it this year until the peaches.
I went today and picked two varieties of peaches. I picked over 60 lbs of peaches. alone. in less than 30 minutes. I also drug 60 lbs of peaches to the cashier and to my car... alone.  Then I spent the next several hours blanching and cutting, and packing, and canning large quantities of peaches. And I still have two more boxes!
I am tired.
Tomorrow I am helping my sister work on her new totally awesome house. Then Tuesday I am headed to IKEA in Chicago.
Then I am guessing I will be dealing with peaches again after that. Hopefully going to get another trip into the swimming pool.