Susiej

Once, when I was a freshman in high school, a college band came to perform at our school. This was a big deal; real college musicians in my little town. There were few of us who even expected to make it to college, as most of our parents had never been there. But musicians — people who expected to make a living from music by spending money on it at college — were a novelty.

The band was spending the night; but there was no hotel in our one-horse town. So, the high school band members were asked to offer up our homes. To this day, I don’t know how we managed to bunk four college boys in our tiny house, but we did.

My Mom served them spaghetti, and they loved it. My parents really hit it off with these guys, and I just watched in rapt awe as a “grown-up” conversation flowed between these kids and my parents. Then, they got out their instruments, my Mom played the organ, and they started jamming. These guys LOVED my parents; thought they were cool.

Still, I couldn’t wait for them to wrap up this show and get to the highlight of the evening. It was Saturday night, and it was “tradition” in our family that we got to stay up late to watch the Carol Burnett Show. So, when they all stood up for bed, I said, “Are you guys ready! The Carol Burnett Show is on tonight, and we have a TV!”

The looked at me as if I had just offered them a dog biscuit. Never in my life, until that day, did it occur to me that maybe Carol Burnett wasn’t cool. Or maybe even TV wasn’t cool. Maybe, perhaps, people were so busy living their lives that they didn’t have time to watch TV. After that, I became a “closet fan.”

Still Tim Conway was never funnier than when he was with Harvey Korman. He always messed up his lines, laughed when he wasn’t supposed to, and through those giggles, showed us all how much he loved the cast of that beloved show.

Harvey, it’s time to look up some of your episodes on You Tube to share with my kids. How could I let them grow up without laughing at you? My heart goes out to his family. Which one was your favorite?

Harvey Herschel Korman, Feb. 15, 1927 – May 29, 2008

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Filed under: Laugh, Life, memories by SusieJ - 12 Comments →

This is by far the ugliest fort I’ve ever seen
But like my son says, “At least we have a fort.”

Since my oldest son began to walk as a baby, I’ve had this dream of building/growing a fort out of beans for him. Lack of sun and space has always stood in the way. Funny. Now that I have the space and the sun, he’s old enough to help me design the fort… and perhaps, he’s now too tall to stand inside.
Using whatever tall sticks, old wood and broken furniture the previous owners left behind at the lake house garage, we built the fort. This bothered my Father quite a bit. He would have preferred that I buy a $45 aluminum rose trellis, so that the fort would “look nice.” This would have given the structure the “curves” it needs to give the fort that cozy feel. Based on how ugly this fort turned out, I’m sure my Father may have been right. Yet, something about the pristine rose trellis didn’t feel right… too pristine? I felt compelled to use the materials that were readily available… it seemed more “green.” Still, my 9-year-old said it best, “At least we have a fort.”

I’m counting on the beauty of the beans to grow right around this lattice, hiding the fort’s humble beginnings, and turn this pile of mismatched lumber into a showpiece. And the beans! They’re actually called, Jack and the Beanstalk, and grow to 20 feet. I hope Mother Nature lets me see that.

With my son’s great eye for design, I let him decide where the lattice pieces should go, the size of the fort, and the general layout. After my Dad taught me the proper way to lift the sod, I quickly heeded the developing blisters in my hands and made the fort about half the size of my original intentions. Dad actually did most of the sod removal… he’s strong for a 68-year-old. I was no match for him. He took me to the hardware store and showed me the claw, which really helped to work in the peat moss we poured into the sandy soil to help it hold the water better. I spent more time working while my Dad was here than entertaining him. I feel a bit bad about that, but there was really no way around it. Truly, he does prefer to sit and talk while he’s here, which I did, but honestly, I think he was relieved when my brother offered a 3:00 round of golf.

Inspiration and a little more research into a garden book I bought along brought me the idea of using large plastic garden bags as mulch. Not only will these help keep the weeds down, but the black will hold in the heat to help the plants grow better, and hold the water in the soil. Perfect for the long absences I’ll have when I’m unable to water the plants.

Adding plastic to the soil created much more prep work than I anticipated. The first problem is that there was no trowel anywhere to be found. So, once the plastic was down, (I cut up contractor’s garbage bags), I used the claw end of a hammer to tear a hole in the garbage bag that was big enough to fit the developing seedlings through. The claw of the hammer had too much of a curve in it to dig the hole, so I tried a screwdriver – not enough of a curve. My fingers worked the best. Using my hands, I dug the sandy-peat soil for just about every plant. This seemed to take forever. While digging, I continually asked the boys to bring up rocks from the lake to hold down the plastic. Still, I felt like the Little Red Hen.

So now I’m 3 hours away from the fort, unable to water the seedlings. I’m counting on the black plastic to keep them from drying out. Farmers do this all the time… they can’t water their seedlings, and their crops turn out fine, usually. I know this fort is ugly; but hopefully, that’s temporary. I also know the lake neighbors are driving by saying, “What in the world….” But, they just don’t know the whole story, and it’s just too hard to explain. Still, I’m proud that it’s come this far.

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Filed under: Life, boy, gardening, the lake house, try this by SusieJ - 24 Comments →

The good thing about MP3 players is that now many of them come free with cell phones, giving you the power of the 2GB Ipod Nano with your phone in one single device. The bad news is that Itunes does not recognize most MP3 players and won’t sync the music to the device. Here, I’ll show you how to work around that quirk, and load songs from Itunes onto any MP3 Player in just a few minutes, probably seconds. How do I know this? Verizon gave me a $100 credit toward a new phone, so I picked up The Juke, primarily because it works like an I-Pod Nano. Then, my awesome babysitter showed me how, in 13 steps, to sync your phone to Itunes.

Before you start, you will need to clear up space on your MP3 player.  You can do this by formating your phone when you plug it into your computer.  Deleting the songs will not really delete the songs, and you’ll have out of memory space. So, just format your phone, following the instructions in your manual. work.  know that if you want to clear the tunes memory in your phone, to make room for all the new songs you’re loading, you’ll need to format your phone.  Deleting them manually doesn’t work. I’ll show you how to do that below.

First, plug in your phone, or your MP3 player using the USB cable that comes with your device.

The message will pop up on your screen that says new device connected. Then, a window will appear asking you “sync digital media files to this device.”

Ignore this, and click instead, the folder above that line that says, “Open Device to view files with Windows Explorer.” Click OK.

Then you will see a gray box that says “Internal Storage.”

To format your phone (and delete the existing music files on the phone) right click the gray picture and click format.

Once complete, click this gray box to open the file.

Now you will see a folder named “music.” Click the “music” folder to open this folder.

If your device already has music loaded, it will appear here, otherwise, the folder will be blank. Leave this open, you’ll need it in just a few seconds.

Now, on your desktop, create a new folder named “MP3″. Leave this open.

Now, open I-Tunes.

Select the tunes you want to import, and physically drag them with your mouse to the new folder you just created, “MP3.”

While it’s copying these files, you will see that familiar windows graphic of papers flying out of a folder. Wait for this to complete.

Once the files are all in the “MP3 folder”, drag them to the “Music” that goes to the “music folder” of your MP3 player. Again, that familiar little windows icon of papers flying will appear. Once it’s done, the songs are now loaded on your MP3 player.

There’s something about creating that “extra folder” that acts like a buffer, so that the MP3 player no longer thinks they’re coming from Itunes, but simply from files on your computer … which they are!
Simple.

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Filed under: Life, Thursday 13, try this by SusieJ - 17 Comments →

In the winter…

and again in the summer, when it’s too cold to swim.

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Filed under: boy, the lake house, wordless wednesday by SusieJ - 15 Comments →

The lake is lovely, what I saw of it anyway. I had hoped to escape the mad-rush of school, homework, and sports schedules by taking off with everyone for an extended stay at the lake. Instead, it was work, work, work. Some of it I created myself by deciding to build this bean fort, which was much more complicated than I imagined. More on that ugly contraption later this week. Yes, the ducks are lovely, but much work to the lakehouse owner who must work to keep the ducks away with red plastic tape, so that we’ll have a clean place to walk.

Much of the work we did this weekend was unplanned, unexpected and unwelcome. The shower head broke, spewing water everywhere in the house, with its accompanying endless trips to the hardware store for new parts. The toilet seat broke. There were over 120 bags of leaves to burn. The deck looks like it needs refinished again… already, but we didn’t touch that this weekend. Apparently, we need a new road to the lake, so there was a “lake resident meeting” to discuss the $500 we must all pitch in; each.

There were meals to cook, and meals to clean up without the dishwasher. The water is too high to put the dock in, so boating was out— but seriously, who had time for that? There was a bit of fishing, and they did catch a huge bullfrog and let him go.

We searched for mushrooms in all the hot spots, and found none, except for the one that was just lying in our yard that my son ate without sharing a single drop wtih anyone after my husband fried it up.

The air was actually a little too cool for frolicking and swimming in the water, yet the boys got in and played a bit and froze afterwards. So, we’re packing up soon, and heading back home, ready to relax in what’s left of the routine of school and homework. More work at the lake next weekend.

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Filed under: Life, the lake house by SusieJ - 7 Comments →

There’s no way to describe the feeling that comes when I crawl into bed with my husband, and I feel those silky, yet muscular, legs between the sheets. This is the part I dislike the most when he’s training for an Ironman Race. The race that is a swim 2.4 miles, 112 miles on the bike, and then to run a marathon, 26.2 miles.

People assume the reason triathletes shave their legs is because it makes them more aerodynamic. This is not true. The real reason for the shave is that not having hair makes it less painful when they have an injury (their average speed on the bike is 25-30 mph) and the lack of hair makes the injury easier to clean.

The absence of hair means that race day is getting precariously close. My heart and stomach are take a leap whenever I think of this. This time, he’ll be sitting on the airplane by himself as he travels to Idaho. There will be no little boy climbing all over the airplane seats, looking out the window, and when he sees the city, saying “Look at that GOTHAM city,” when it sounds like God Damn city, as we bury our heads, and the passenger erupts in giggles, while his brothers say, “Say that again!” And the little boy DOES say it again… and again… and again.

The impending date of this race is causing me to think and to remember. Last time, there was lots of heat. Ninety-seven degrees. Very hot for Idaho. Racers were collapsing on their bikes out of exhaustion, and crashing.

I’m remembering now all the little things that we did for him… not that I don’t think he can’t do the race without us. He will finish, but will it won’t be the same. Things like having someone to eat his oatmeal with at 5 in the morning. Tucking little boys in bed while you’re too nervous and jittery to sleep. Hearing little boys yell “Go Daddy!” Putting sunscreen on his back. Still, of course, he’ll have the team there with him.

The boys were so clever last time, as we tried to manuever our way around the race as novices. We found it impossible to find our Daddy/Husband in the crowd when they all came out of the water from the swim. I frantically searched the crowed of wetsuits climbing out of the lake, dripping, running to transition to the bike, peeling off their suits. I realized there, sadly, that we probably wouldn’t see him for the rest of the day. He would be a blur in this wet suit crowd, a blur on the bike, and maybe, we’d see him briefly on the run. No chance to cheer, “Go Daddy!”

My son had a flash of insight — a brilliant idea. The night before, we had stood along the fence to see his bike and gear — standing, waiting and ready to go. Guarded, by watchful volunteers, all night long. And his bike was close to the end, right by the path for spectators. So, following my son’s great idea, we rushed as quickly as a Mom can when she’s pushing a stroller with three other boys behind, through the crowd, and found the spot and waited. I hoped we weren’t too late. Nope. Bike still there. So, we waited with the crowd and watched other swimmers file in to jump on their bike.

Then, he appeared. Of course, the boys saw him first. We called out his name, knowing, and rightly so, that this would probably be the only cheer he would hear from us for the rest of the day. We startled him. He didn’t expect to see us here, in this “perfect spot.” Not only would we see him, but while he was putting on his shoes, we could spend at least 1.52 minutes with him. Still, the excitement of seeing us flubbed him up a bit, and he forgot which row his back was in, as he stared at us. My son, of course, directed him to the right bike. “Dad, you’re bike’s right there,” he says on the video, while the crowd laughs.

So, I’m crawling into bed with my husband tonight. Hairless legs. While I think about his big race, what happened before, and not yet knowing what’s going to happen this time.

I’m at the lake, enjoy yourselves this weekend. Yesterday was our 15th year anniversary. And check out my review on a great game, that we’re probably actually playing right now, here.

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Filed under: Life, love stories, memories by SusieJ - 13 Comments →