craziness

Leaving the Bright Lights & Big City to Play Amish

First let me start off by telling you that I am not a deadbeat, my problem is

I only have half a brain. And its not the good half, its the “I would

probably forget the rest of my brain if it wasn’t attached to my head half.”

As you all know I left on July 19th for a fantastic vacation. We drove

straight through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and part of Missouri

to get to our friends’ house. We had an excellent time.

I took a bus (not recommended) from St. Louis to Chicago so I could

spend 36 hours of fun with 1400 of my closest friends to have my

husband loose a grip when coming to pick me up. It was great with a terrible

crash at the end with hubs, but that is a story for another day.

We drove straight through Illinois, Indiana and Ohio to get home at 4:00

in the morning on Saturday to find a nice letter from the electric company

on our door. It started out with the words “Attention Occupant”

Let me tell you that when letters are started

out with “Attention Occupant” things are never good.

Who knew when you didn’t pay the electric bill because they had signed

you up for some crazed program that sends your electric bill to your junk

mail folder that they might get snippy and cut off your electric not caring

that no one is home and you have a freezer full of meat. And because

all of this craziness happened on a Saturday we had to wait until Monday

to get our power turned back on. Even though I paid them on Saturday.

All’s I can say is thank goodness for awesome neighbors and 5 day

coolers and mom’s who make you roast beef in a crock pot so you have

a hot meal that doesn’t include a drive thru.

So while you all have been doing this or that, our family has been busy

playing Amish for the past 3 days and well, if I was ever unsure of whether

or not I would cut it as an Amish person I can say with utmost confidence.

I. WOULD. NOT.

So, while I would love to tell you the glory of our vacation, the screw up with

my business cards, the awesomeness of slightly attending BlogHer, or the awesome

giveaway I should have posted aboutalready; I can’t. I have to attend to

the laundryand refill the now cleaned out fridge and freezer.

I guess there is an upside to this, my appliances are now

show room fresh, just don’t sniff to deeply.

I think I am losing my cookie flipping mind!

Well, I don’t think I know I am losing my mind. I can say that it happened many years ago (maybe 11, I don’t think I lost my mind when we had Giggles, it was when we thought that another kid would be dandy)

Right now my sitting room looks like this……

And that’s after at least 20 cases of those cookies have been taken out of it by those kind loving parents, whom know what it is like to have to wade around one’s sitting area and look at 184 cases of girl scout cookies (which is 2208 boxes of cookies, and approx. 35,328 individual cookies in my sitting area)

I know that I have lost my mind because instead of sorting the cookies like any sane cookie mom would do, I am here telling you about how they are everywhere in my house. I fear I will have nightmares of them breeding and cases of cookies will start turning up everywhere you look in the house. Thankfully only about 160 of these boxes of cookies (roughly 13 cases) belong to Chicken. I just have to get them to my step mom and my sister so they can distribute the cookies. Because you know how much selling Chicken did for 168 boxes of cookies…none! When my sister and my step mom found out it was cookie time they begged the Chicken to let them take forms to work. Okay, begged is a strong word, but they were pretty insistant. So she gleefully handed over her order forms. Then my mom found out it was cookie time and she bought 10 boxes. My surrogate mom also bought 10 boxes from cute little Chicken. So what was Chicken’s line when asking others to buy cookies?

“Both my Grandma’s bought TEN boxes each, exactly how many are you going to buy?”

Some people just chuckled and ordered less (okay 2 people from church…remember she didn’t really sell these cookies my family did it for her) But my hubby’s buddy from the Navy was only going to order 7 boxes. I know, I said only….but chicken saw this and said “Dad’s Navy buddy, I know you think you want to order 7 boxes but I think you are wrong. My grandma’s each ordered 10 boxes. You love me as much as my grandma’s right?”

He chuckled at her, we left for a birthday party for one of Chicken’s friends. When we get back Chicken races to her form to see what Navy Buddy bought. Yup, you guessed it…..10 boxes!

You see the cookie delivery is only the beginning. Then you have to collect said cookie money. Now, that is never fun. You always have a couple who wait until last minute and are shocked that you want the money. And it is always the ones that you least expect. I would give you examples but those people may be reading and I know they know who they are….but I don’t want to shove it in their face and be all obvious about it. Not yet, maybe after March 12th when I need the money to turn in. Still others are shocked that the troop won’t take their check or 900 plus dollars in cash (which is in the form of ones and quarters)

Yes, it is quite clear that I have lost my cookie flipping mind….but while the co leader of our troop has her younger daughters troop, this will be my fate during cookie season.

And what about knitting content (altho to my defense this isn’t strictly a knitting blog)I am almost done test knitting a shrug from Simona, and …. Ugh…..I happen to be crocheting~so please shoot me now! More on that another day.