bored, sick holli has the best/worst ideas

Friends, I've been sick for what feels like forever. I got a nasty stomach bug over Christmas, followed by a terrible cold and lingering effects of the stomach upset, and now a kidney infection. Luckily, the doctor was able to get me in Friday to get tested, whereupon they discovered that it was bad enough that they gave me a shot of antibiotics right then and there, plus a prescription for a full course of antibiotics, plus an appointment to come back the next morning (on a Saturday!) to make sure I wasn't getting worse. For the record, I wasn't super alarmed until the doctors were. Anyway, I'm slowly getting better, but I'm not strong enough to do too much right now except think ... which is where Mike comes in.

I have two Fiesta flowerpots, but they're both small and in use on the kitchen windowsill. One of our little goals when we moved was to have lots more houseplants (we didn't have them at the old house because the cats would find them and dig them up, no matter where we put them, and after the cats were gone, we knew we would be moving eventually so it just didn't seem worth it), and I was thinking about how much I would like to have those plants in Fiesta planters. They don't actually make large planters, so I did some research and figured out a way to drill holes in some extra pieces I have (you've seen my collection, right? I've got Fiesta to spare). Mike was kind enough to do the work for me, and he experimented on a teacup first before moving on to the bigger pieces. I'm really happy with the results! (And possibly already planning what other pieces we can turn into planters.)

merry christmas!

I caught the Christmas spirit (aka some kind of nasty flu bug) from my darling nephews last weekend, so I'm staying home instead of going to Gramps's house for the afternoon. The boys are definitely ready to go, though! Anyway, Merry Christmas from CFHQ. We hope it's a lovely day spent with your important people (and pets).

hawk-eyed

Henry was eating breakfast this morning, and I was in the living room drinking coffee. Suddenly he starts yelling. "Hawk! It's a hawk! ... Or an eagle! Some kind of big bird!" He comes flying into the living room, grabs my phone, and goes off to take a picture. Luckily for all of us, the bird was nice enough to wait while I ran to the office, grabbed my camera, and headed out the back door. I about froze my poor (bare) feet off, but look at this! Pretty sure it's a broad-winged hawk, but if any of you are better at bird identification, please let me know if it's something else.

Update: A lady at the fabric store tells me this is a juvenile male red-tailed hawk, and I think she’s probably right.

farewell to M's

We've been putting off doing anything to the basement. "It's a winter project, for sure," we told each other. Well, winter's here, so it's time to get started. It's *such* a big project, though, that it's hard to focus on any single step without despairing at ever finishing the whole. But today, we made some serious progress. Step 1: Scrape off all the decals, starting with the M&M's and then moving on to the forest decals all over the workshop area. So now every last M has been removed, and the basement looks like a chocolately crime scene. Behold:

Someday, friends, that basement will be an oasis. But sadly, that day is not today. On we go!

these kids!

Found on my door just now. “Hey Mom/Dad, Why do we selibrate thanksgiving when it was one of the greatest injusteces in history? [space for answer] P.S. When you write leave note on the inside of my door preferably by morning. Henry”

shoveling out

For the record, I wanted to go for a hike today since it's Black Friday, we all have the day off, and the weather is good. The boys, however, decided they would rather fight, so instead of hitting up a state park, we all trudged out to the barn to start making some kind of sense of what's out there. We found lots of shit (literal) that the boys hauled out to the back of the pasture, where Max also found a whole bunch of spiky brambles. We also found a truly astounding number of empty alcohol bottles, and one full bottle of schnapps. I'm going to assume it was some kind of teenage rebellion in the family of the former owners, otherwise we might have the first archaeological evidence of horses with drinking problems.

There's still a loooong way to go, but two of the four stalls are now cleared out (well, one of them is holding my collection of blow molds, but at least they're neat and organized). The rest might have to wait for spring, because there is a ton of trash out there, and we only have so much room in the bin each week. It's a start, though!

random pics from my phone, volume 2

many moons have passed since the last time i dumped a bunch of pics from my phone (over a year, actually), and since then, not much has changed. we only moved to a new house with a huge yard, rescued a dog, fought against militaristic aliens in a post-apocalyptic war zone, and had a kid enter high school (liam is 2" taller than me now. how did that happen?). so without further ado, some random pics.

here's a sunset from the skyland lodge in shenandoah national park. wonderful park, but the wifi was spotty at best, so despite all the bears we saw everywhere we looked, the kids hated it. sigh.

shortly after that, we were on ocracoke, and we ordered thai food for dinner one evening. the restaurant (thai moon) had some options regarding spicyness, and i thought the sign explaining said options was amusing.

back at home, finally. turns out we had a huge garden spider (other names: banana spider, writing spider, zigzag spider, corn spider, mckinley spider) living in a hosta in the front yard. after further review, there were garden spiders all over the place. i've never seen them around here, although they were plentiful in the south when my folks went on vacation to North and South Carolina, back in the day.

while henry and i were picking tomatoes, i spotted a walking stick. it took a lot of convincing to make H believe that a walking stick was a real thing, despite all the evidence in front of him. he became a fan (sorta?) once i set it loose on him (with his permission, of course) and it crawled up his face. the horror! also, i am very freckled.

 H fed the neighbor's cows.

we got a new dog. his name is thunder, and he's a good boy. T and P are best friends. go rescue a dog. right now.

i saw this car here in plymouth. it's a right-hand drive, R32 Nissan Skyline. kinda a legend in american automotive circles, especially due to the 25-year import rule. whatever, when i win the lottery, i'm gonna think about importing one of these, then buy a new GT-R or Supra instead.

in the florida keys, we fed some tarpon (holli wrote about it in a previous post). i took some pics of the tarpons up close, and they were all thinking about eating my phone. THESE FISH HAVE NO SOULS.

and finally, in everglades national park, beware of the vultures.

adventures in furniture assembly

I was putting this table together today, and one of the legs fell down and made a clatter that scared poor Thunder, who leaped like a cat up onto the couch and then couldn't figure out how to get down. I eventually got him down and finished up with the table, which I think looks good although I will probably see if I can get Mike to shorten the legs for me.

Of note: The typewriter came from Gramps's house. It was the typewriter they used at Jeffirs Motor Company, so it was used by Gramps, Gram, Grandpa Jeff, and even my mom (who remembers helping type up invoices on it). It doesn't work anymore, but it means so much to me to have it.

dry tortugas national park

When we were planning what to do for fall break, we thought we would be conservative and drive somewhere and visit a national park. We thought, hmmm, maybe we'll drive to New Orleans, and along the way we can go to Hot Springs National Park. And then I got a wild hair and looked to see how many credit card points we had for flights, and realized it would be about the same cost to fly to Florida and do something extraordinary. We did the research, and then we debated and talked and researched some more because the whole idea seemed crazy. And eventually, we decided: We would fly to Fort Lauderdale, drive to Key West, and take a ferry to Dry Tortugas National Park.

Just to give you an idea of the scale of this trip, take a look at this map. You'll see Fort Lauderdale at the top, and Key West sort of in the middle, and Dry Tortugas kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Cuba is there for reference too.

Anyway, Mike has wanted to visit Dry Tortugas for as long as he can remember, but he never really thought about it being an actual possibility because of the difficulty and expense of getting there. It wasn't really on my radar as much — I thought it would probably be an amazing place to visit, but it was in the same category for me as Alaska and Hawaii: a dream for someday.

Well, today was the day. We got up bright and early and boarded the Yankee Freedom III for the 2.5-hour trip to Port Jefferson. They served breakfast along the way, and the boys definitely got their fill. During the trip, we made our plan for the time we would have there: first tour the fort, then eat lunch on the ship, then go snorkeling.

The fort tour was pretty amazing. It's hard to believe anybody thought building a massive fort on a remote coastal island with no fresh water was a good idea, but apparently some people did because here it is. The fort was never actually used in a war, but it was used as an extremely remote jail, mostly for deserters from the U.S. Army during the Civil War. After the war, one of the prisoners was the doctor who treated John Wilkes Booth when he broke his leg jumping from the balcony after assassinating Abraham Lincoln. It's not super clear whether Dr. Samuel Mudd was actually a co-conspirator or not, but he was convicted of being one and was sent to Fort Jefferson. He tried to escape as a stowaway, and when that didn't work, he was confined to the dungeon for a while. About two years into his sentence, there was an outbreak of yellow fever, and the prison doctor died; Mudd took over and treated everyone on the island, and afterward, the soldiers stationed there petitioned for Mudd to be pardoned because of his lifesaving work. Two years after that, President Johnson granted Mudd the pardon, though his conviction was never overturned.

What a story, right?

We took our time exploring the deserted rooms, climbing up and down spiral stone staircases, and checking out the remaining battlements. It was pretty windy up top, but the views were amazing.

Back on the boat, we had some lunch, and then it was time to get our gear (which, happily, was part of the ferry fee) and head to the snorkeling area. We really wanted to see the reefs this time since we missed out on them at Biscayne. But like I said, it was really windy, so the currents were not in our favor. It was particularly hard on poor Henry, who gave up on snorkeling entirely after he kept getting pushed around by big waves. So Henry went up to the beach and splashed around at the water's edge while the rest of us soldiered on. Eventually, Max and Liam got tired and decided to join Henry, and right about that time I found the reef. And it was completely and totally worth all the effort. Mike and I probably stayed out in the water for another hour exploring and being amazed by every single thing we saw. The boys, meanwhile, didn't seem to have any problem at all entertaining themselves up on the beach (happily for us because we really didn't want to stop snorkeling).

Alas, all amazing trips must end, and the boat pulled out around 3:00 to head back to Key West. The boys were wiped out from all the day's adventures, and they put their heads down and slept the entire trip back. Tomorrow morning, we're driving back up the Keys and to Fort Lauderdale, and tomorrow night we fly back to Chicago. It's been a truly superlative trip, but we're all ready to go back home and see the pups and sleep in our own beds. We'll leave you on a high note, though: Henry earned his Junior Park Ranger badge, and we saw a funny bird.