Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Holes. Oh So Scary

stupid hole! 

 Here's an odd coincidence for you. (Or coinkydink as we often say referring back to Toad Boy's early reading days.) 

One of my high school buddies is a current co-worker who also happens to be named Kelly but with an I not Y. 

Not too long ago another co-worker was headed out to a local grocery store to use her free $10.00 gift card that came in the mail. That was a sore point for me, but I didn't say anything until other Kelli spoke up. You see, I have a hole in my wall and like an IDIOT I put important things on a little metal box that is near the hole. When I say hole I mean there is no drywall covering a small stud post. The kitchen counter butts right up to it and there are working lights within this column but there is no drywall. But there is on the other side. Finished drywall that is painted. And since my talented husband is building custom cabinets the cabinets under the countertop are sealed boxes. So anything that would slide down the hole is pretty much there for life. One day while looking through my important papers on top of my cute little metal box I heard a sliding sound followed by a plasticy wooden thunk. Immediately, I knew. 

Here's something you might not know about me. I'm, like, kinda cheap. Like a $10.00 free grocery card was, like, a big deal. A big deal. That's why it was in the spot where I keep all my important things by the hole. You might be wondering if a) I'm some sort of danger junky or b) an idiot. I would have to vote b. For reals. But enough backstory. 

So Kelli says. "Hey, I got one of those. But I lost it and I'm so p________ about it!" 

I looked at her, I suppose like the duh-duh-duuuuhhhh prairie dog on Youtube, "No way! Me, too. I was so angry. But it was my fault. What happened?" 

"It fell in a hole in my wall! I was carrying it with a bunch of papers down to the car and it slipped off and fell into a stupid hole in my basement wall. I was so p____________!" Kelli may suffer from being a wee bit cheap, too. 

"Mine, too. Mine fell in a hole in my kitchen, and I was so p__________, too!" 

What are the odds? Right? Sigh. Here's to whole walls and cheap groceries for all. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Campalong

Friday night we loaded up the pups and met Toad-Boy and & for a night out among the stars. 

& wanted the kids to get a camping experience and boy did they get one. Nearly every camping condition I've ever had was condensed into one 14 hour trip. 

Case in point? Boy tent, girl tent. The girl tent was bigger so the two little girls, & and I also had the company of all four canine girls. Cozy. 

First camping issue. We all descended at nearly the same time coming from three locations and we were all running a bit late. Not almost dark late but late enough that by the time the tents were up and the fire roaring it was way past dinner time. 

Then the mosquitoes. Whoa baby. The mosquitoes. They have been so bad this year because of all the rain we've gotten. Friday was brutal. The smoke took some of the edge off and and then we had a lovely breeze blow in. The rain tarps started flapping and the mosquitoes disappeared. 

We had a lovely time around the blazing fire pit and enjoying some fun drop in company (the neighbors, aka my parents,  and my brother and almost sister-in-law and their cutie 4 year old joined us later.) We camped in my folk's pasture just a tall grass hop, skip and quarter mile to the bathroom.  & prepped the meals veggie dogs, chips, fruit and carrots and celery sticks for dinner, vegan marshmallows and dark chocolate smores for treats and veggie sausage, hash browns and cinnamon coffee cake for breakfast. The easiest camping trip I've ever been on. In the middle of the evening & leaned over and said. "Thanks for all those years I had no clue how involved the mom things like camping and vacations were." 

The sky was so clear we got some stargazing in. Lovely evening.

We finally got to bed around 11:15 p.m. My 4 year old nephew chose the comfort of Grandma and Pas house. (Wise child  : )) I regretted immediately not accepting the blow up mattress that was offered to me. After all the pups got settled, and I almost found a comfortable spot to sleep on we started drifting off at 11:45. The settling took a little time and there were some moments of frustration. Like Gladys kept getting crazy feet and leaping about the tent. &'s oldest got her face puppy stomped and there was some weeping. Also, the day had been a hot one so the tent with all those bodies was warm. Very warm. 

At what was maybe 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 the thunder started. We've been having this weird rumbly thunder this year. It just goes on and on. So I exited from my semi-sleep to rumbling, knowing that rain was a 50% possibility.  Flashes lit up the distant sky. Maybe we'd miss the storm. 

Then the rain came. So much rain. For about a half hour it poured. So heavy that it penetrated the rain fly a bit and my sleeping bag got soaked from the side of the tent. Oh and so glad there was a tarp between us and the ground because water rushed under the tent. 

When it stopped we drifted back off to sleep. Mostly. 

The pups had a great time and they were excellent. I was uber impressed. They ran around like crazies but not too far and came back when we called them. And they slept well. I mean a few face stomps is minimal. Zero accidents occurred unless you consider face stomping an accident. No doubt we will repeat this little adventure. Because the ability to forget things like ugh and pain and work because of the payoff of fun and family makes us able to romanticize things like childbirth, road trips and camping. Ha. Ha. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Month of

I have mixed feelings about not participating in Vegan MoFo this year. (Vegan Month of Food). It's not like it's ubertaxing to post 20 times in a month. I do that regularly. But I didn't plan ahead like I should have in order to do it up right. 

So, September won't have a theme. 

I think November might promise a little NaNoWriMo, though. I haven't mentioned this yet, but Out of the Frying Pan has received another offer from a house we'd love to be part of. One comments was that there would be some interest in our series ideas. 

We have the basic plot ideas, but I've been thinking about the nuts and bolts lately. And I have a couple scenes in my head that probably should find their way into a document. So. There's that. 

My long weekend was the best. Super low-key. I didn't even leave the house on Saturday. The best. And Monday included a long walk with &, her kids and Lily and Lola. Beautiful morning. And though there were a few moments of weeping on the trail it was lovely none-the-less. Those weeping were the under 6 crowd and I believe most of those issues had to do with the word "no."

Sunday evening Rob and I packed the three kids up and drove them to an epic kids/family event. &'s boss's bakery/coffee house was providing cupcakes and treats and & needed to work the event. One problem. Weather. As we arrived big, fat raindrops were just beginning to fall out of the sky. Scads of people left and scads more hauled all the outdoor items into the church. The kids got to do a bouncy house obstacle course that took up half the large church's foyer. And they each got balloon sculptures. A pink hat with a bumblebee, (the 3 year old insisted she'd seen one there), a parrot that actually perched on a shoulder, and a stripey unicorn hat that ended up becoming a weapon used against me. 

The rain finally stopped and they church was able to set off the planned firework show. The best part was the distant lightning that punctuated the event. And the occasional boom that set off a car alarm in the parking lot. Ha. Ha. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Yeah. More. Sorry.

Not really. Brainless fun at Cartoon Photo.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ What I Do When I Should Be Doing 5,000 Other Things

I was inspired by Michelle's Infographic free site. And I thought, how fun. Maybe I can make one and use my own pictures in it. And I should find a free site that lets me cartoonize my pictures for extra fun on my Infographic. 

Well, I did find a site. And I did cartoonize some of my pictures. HERE is that site. But I wasn't able to use them in the Infographic that I am working on. Oh, well, cartoonizing pics is way fun.  

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ So...Hope You Aren't Expecting Brilliance...Oh, Wait, You Probably Are NOT...

after all, you are here.

And in the total random style of my blog you probably never expect brilliance.

You will not be disappointed. No brilliance here, just keep on moving down the road, kids.

There was a long babysitting session on Saturday. My daughter is amazing and young. A good combination because, dang, as great as the kids were, the energy level was OFF the CHARTS. Not mine, mind you. 

A crazy thing....the puppies, with three kiddos and their huge nieces, Lily and Lola around for the majority of the day, had a PERFECT accident free day. Woot! Woot!

And the puppies were plenty pepped up, too. As evidenced by the fly-by crazy half face photo bomb. 

And since I haven't shopped for games lately, I was amused to see these two on the shelf. Doggie Doo and Pop the Pig! I may have to put those on my list. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Til the Cows Come Home

I'm sure you've heard that phrase before. Well. I got to experience it. 

Near the organic farm where we do a gig here and there is an organic cow set-up. Being a little sad about the fact that these "little" guys are raised for meat, I hesitated when I was invited to go on a walk through the cow pasture. 

I've seen some horrible scenes of cows up to their knees in mud in Texas feedlots, but this in not the case here. They have acres and acres of green grass, alfalfa and tasty weeds. There were about a dozen nursing babies hanging with moms scattered throughout. 

Our walk was a long one and the cows gave us lots of room.  But then came a desire for change from Pasture A to Pasture B, or coming home time. 

We had the opportunity to wait and watch until they all made the transition. We chose to, anyway. Had we kept to our agenda they would've scattered and gotten stressed. No one wants to see a stressed cow, right? So we just watched the very organized move. 

There are guard cows.  Seriously. Four mature females stood watch while we entered the pasture. And when it was time to move from one large section to another they started the process, guided the others and waited until the last cow was where it was supposed to be. Then and only then did we get the green light to pass.  

Another interesting fact: cows have nurseries. We didn't see one, but an adult or two watches several calves while the other mothers get breaks. 

A pretty cool experience that makes me glad I don't eat em, that's for sure. And glad that there are places that treat their animals with kindness during their lives. 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Connectivity and Stuff...

The connectivity of social media and the ability to reach out and touch just about any one in the world is freaking me out a bit. 

I bought a tiny kitchen appliance to make my life easier with some Amazon sweet deals and gift cards and etc. The darn thing worked twice, half worked twice and then, well, didn't. Color me annoyed! Are you like me? When something needs to be shipped back do you do anything you can to avoid that process? I'm so cheap. I use Amazon for loads of things because I can get free shipping most of the time. But I don't know how their return policy works. So, I contacted the manufacturing company asking if there was a local place I could trade this sucker in. I mean, the cost of the item was $30.00. If I have to spend $8.00 to ship it somewhere I'm just going to be really crabby. (Imagine that if you dare!)

I did this customer service request via email because that's an option. (Oh, bunny trail, I also did this with a company recently that shorted me on an order...one I had placed with a Groupon and got way more than I wanted to get free shipping....do you see a common theme? They answered back and mailed me the missing items plus a few more. Uh. Okay. I'm good with that.) Back to the appliance snafu... the customer service people asked a few questions. I provided answers. They then had me cut the cord (ha,ha I love this, they did tell me to unplug it from the wall first) off the unit, take a picture of the disabled unit and email it to them. Then they will ship out a replacement. 

SWEET! I'll reveal the company name when the replacement comes and works consistently. (Also, did you guess that I ordered this one because it's red?  Ding, ding, ding, what do we have for them, Johnny?) 

The one that shorted me items and made good on that was Go Picnic. I can honestly recommend them. They run sales frequently and the stuff I've had of theirs is great. They have vegan and gluten free options and I've begun taking one or two any time I travel because they are easy to pack and way tastier than an iceberg lettuce salad with a slice of cucumber and a mealy tomato. Yo. They sell them at Target, too. 

The other random connectivity issue is over the past week two people have told me or someone else that they read my blog regularly. 

Weird. 

I know I put it out there for the whole world to see, but honestly, writing it feels anonymous to me on some level. And it's one of my resources to find my recipes when I need them. And to get up on a soap box now and again, or just play around and have a good laugh, ya know? 

So. If you read my blog and you know me, a big hi, and a sorry for not knowing you hang out with me in cyberspace. I also hope I've never used you as an example ever. Ha. Ha. Just kidding, I don't ever use real people in my stories and examples. :  )  To my friends, coworkers, former coworkers and ???,  thanks for reading my thoughts about life and stuff. (Bonus take away...your vocabulary word for the day, stuff, use it at least four times to impress those around you. It will, trust me.) 

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Furry Fun

Cute Animal Alert

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ Fun with Photos!

 http://photofunia.com

My friend posted some photos she'd tweaked on a photo website. So. You know me...I had to try. Here are some of my photos tweaked into coolness. 

Yep. It's a lot of funia.