Kids Creativity

My first Tuesday without KidZone found me exhausted napping at the Subaru dealership in Capitola as my oil was being changed.

KidZone was definitely a learning experience for me this last year. The biggest challenge was probably coming up with weekly crafts. Yes, you heard right, I, Nicole Alvernaz, had to be crafty once a week. Sometimes the craft was just cool and had nothing to do with the lesson, like when we used tennis balls to make pumpkin puppets. (Thanks Mom). Other times we were so tired and out of ideas the kids got a coloring page and word search. Oddly enough they seemed to enjoy it. Go figure. 

Some days the craft was a show up and make it work, other days well.... I think the picture speaks for itself. I must have spent a good 45 minutes crumpling pieces of paper bags, and wetting them through. By the time I was done I had paper bags drying all over the kitchen. It was ridiculous and made me question my sanity. Doing all of this without a second thought, what kind of a monster had I become?  

That day we were studying the 10 Commandments. The craft, on old looking animal hide/paper right a simplified version of the 10 Commandments and decorate. Which the kids did. However the real creativity came out later as some of the kids decided the 10 Commandments needed some additions. The following photos are what they thought was missing.

 I've got to admit, some of them are brilliant! Particularly the junk food and pizza ones.

Summer Plan aka No More Chicken With Head Hacked Off

To all my avid readers, I apologize in the large amount of time in between posts. Things got extremely hectic in the weeks leading to Mother's Day. They ended with me informing my Mother not to be surprised for the next 100 years or so; something she is quite ok with.

Since then I have been recouping. (Yes it was that crazy. Besides, in my being in the second half of my 20's I'm practically ancient. Working 'til 11 or midnight and then getting up and going again at 6-6:30 am takes it's toll when you're my age). It's been strange to have time to relax after work, and to a certain extent, I haven't known what to do with myself. It's going to be even stranger once KidZone let's out for summer (this is our last week. Yes! I mean....) as I find myself with an actual day off!

Between sleep deprivation and sudden time on my hands, my brain has gone haywire and I find myself, you ready for it? THINKING. I've been thinking about the craziness of the last couple months, what I want to accomplish this summer, and even about tackling Sunday School at Church next fall.

Conclusions, my life is a mess, I keep running from one thing to the next and don't take time to do things like, my dishes, (poor Aunt Judy), or clean my room, or wash my car, or bake/cook, or work on various random projects I have either started or been meaning to get to. So much to do, so little time.

So this summer my goal is to reset my life. Take some time to rest, and actually get stuff done so I don't keep having to run around like a chicken with my head hacked off. The spurting blood is a pain to clean.

That's the plan anyway. Who knows, maybe posting this will make me stick to it for once. 

Compulsive Pastime

My yard inspiration has now become an addiction. Every Tuesday, (my day off), at the very LEAST I mow and water the lawn. Thursday, finds me planting Wednesday's free flowers. So much to do and so little time... Mornings and evenings have either myself or Aunt Judy watering.

And my addiction isn't contained to the Home Ranch. Driven by this new compulsion, I not only got veggies for the garden at the Hill, I kept them alive in my back porch, for WEEKS and delivered them alive and healthy! Of course Mom and Dad were taking too long getting them into the ground causing me to have visions of dried up, neglected plants.  Finally, distraught, I took it upon myself to plant them with the Little Girls.

It was fun, although the girls despaired over the cherry tomatoes, and were confused why in the world I got so many different types of peppers. I took the leftovers. (These, and wild growth, might be the only plants we have in our garden if my experiments with seeds keep failing...) I'm interested to see how things grow, particularly Heidi's strawberries. They were looking a little peckish, but we'll see. Either way, she picked them out and planted them herself.

As to my success rate at keeping plants alive, we'll, it's been mostly good, if I buy pregrown plants. (The seed thing is really not working. I don't know if it's my patience level or what). I have learned some lessons though, like don't keep plants in a closed car on an 80-90 degree day. Especially if they're a tad dry to begin with. And watering the snot out of them later to make up for it doesn't work either.

For the record, this bed now has more flowers in it.

Anyway, yard work is, work. So to make life easier I decided to put in a drip line, how hard can it be? It's actually shockingly simple. I put it together, and it worked. Water flowed. Which was my problem. Flowed, not dripped; I had half a dozen mini Old Faithfuls going off in the flower bed. Those were my 1/2 gallon per hour drippers for the little flowers, meanwhile the 2 gallon per hour drippers on the roses are, dripping, very slowly and steadily. Houston we have a problem.


After consulting the All Knowing Man With the Beard, I discovered I need a water pressure suppressor. To test this theory I got some pressure regulated drippers. Sho' 'nouf, he was right. So now the hunt is on to find the right "thang".