Dateline S4J - To Catch A Cricket Day 4 Part Deux

Captain's Log: stardate 16 Aug 12:32am; No sooner had I closed transmission on Captain's Log then the offending illusive creature made its presence known. It was as though it was saying, "Can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man." Well folks, I grabbed the closest thing I could find which happened to be clorox cleanup and served that sucker a cocktail. Now it is asleep and maybe I will be asleep too. 1st service comes mighty early.
Happy Sunday all.

Dateline S4J - To Catch A Cricket Day 4

Captain's Log: stardate 16 Aug. 12:21am - There have been no sightings or 'hearings' of the enemy vulcan cricket. Crew thinks the diet coke frightened it straight out of the ship house. I remain skeptical. I will retire to quarters and let the next shift take over.
out.

Dateline S4J - To Catch A Cricket

As our story this evening begins, we find our heroine on night 3 of trying to locate and remove the LOUDEST CRICKET THAT EVER LIVED from her kitchen. In the beginning, she thought that the cricket was outside the kitchen window. But alas, the origin of the sound has moved each night to somewhere else in the kitchen. It knows she is looking for it. You can tell by the dead silence that occurs when she comes within visual range of its hiding place. But alas, attempts thus far to get it to interact with an online decoy have failed. (that was a reference to the OTHER Catch a something show). Desperate and tired - but what's new there - she goes to the trusty world wide web to find recipes for poison that the cricket will eat but the dog will not. Well, maybe she only thought about poison and researched how to catch the cricket instead. She is now trying the first piece of advice. Drink most of the drink - any drink - out of a plastic bottle, leaving just a smidgeon for the cricket to take interest in. It will - according to the wonderful world wide web reference, enter the bottle thirsty and desperate for a drink of what our heroine is willing to share with it and find itself stuck and unable to exit.
We leave our heroine slightly longing for that last swig of diet coke but rubbing her hands together in excited anticipation.
Merry Friday to all and to all a good night.
Well, except the cricket.

Ten On The Tenth - S4J Joins In

School starts on Friday.(Don't ask)
Praise God for mandatory education!
In honor of the closing of Summer, here are

Ten pictures I took throughout the season.


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10.

Whoa Nelly! (I found it!)

Hey! I found the post I had written about where I've been. It was saved as a draft in my photography page. I think maybe the other one was better.......

I have 1900 unread posts in my bloglines! Mercy Sakes! I always think that I am going to have all this time during the Summer months because all the activities go on break. This is NEVER so! There is always something to fill my time. At the end of may we drove up to see our oldest daughter graduate and meet our grandson. We left the second oldest there for the Summer. Then we drove back down and dropped the twins off with their grandparents. My friend and I JUST drove up yesterday and returned with them today.

"But S4J - WHAT have you been doing with ALL that time and no one to take care of but yourself??"

We continue in home destruction construction. We completed gutted the 13 year old girl's room; re-wired, hung new drywall, remade the closet, painted the walls and ceiling, and my husband just today finished installing the flooring. When are finished, I will post pics. And maybe, someday, if our room gets all the details completed, I'll post pics of that.

My photography business has taken off and is keeping me happily busy capturing people's moments.

Also, I am the Matron of Honor in a friend's wedding which will take place on Saturday, but has had lots of details and running to see to. I also will be singing a love song with another of the bridesmaids. Should be a lovely day.

So just a quick update and I am off to edit photos and get to reading! (a little at a time)

It's Not Dominos But It'll Do

Text from S4J to Hubby in the barn: Oven baked sandwich from Dominos?
Hubby's response as he walks in the door: No
Text from S4J to Hubby across the living room: So, no oven baked sandwich from Dominos?

I am starving! And I want an oven baked sandwich from Dominos. Greasy, melty, cheesy, bacony, crispy, clog your arteries but you can't care because you're so happy goodness.

What's a girl still in her pajamas to do when her Husband refuses to retrieve her heart's desire for her? Fend for herself I guess.

This horrible craving is relentless in its pursuit of my tastebuds. I must have garlicy flavor. NOW.
You may already know this, but I am not a cook. I am perfectly capable of cooking and can make a good meal, but I have no love of the art form. I don't enjoy the process or the clean up. In fact, food usually tastes better to me when someone else has cooked it. And when people talk of how they made this wonderful meal from scratch and it was such an enjoyable experience, I'm sure I look at them like they are aliens. Poor aliens.

Today, for lunch, in the grips of intense craving, yet unwilling to go out for myself to retrieve lunch(I'm in my pajamas) I had to do that very thing; provide myself a meal from scratch using only the ingredients we had on hand (pajamas, pajamas - stay with me here.)

I made myself a fantastic meal. I had wheat spaghetti noodles boiled in chicken broth, cajun seasoning and garlic salt. Slathered them with I Can't Believe It's Not butter and grated parmesan cheese. Like Jenster, I forgot to take a picture before I ate it. Well, okay Jenster just takes one bite and then remembers. I was just.so.hungry.

I pulled a loaf of some sort of fancy italian bread that I had gotten on the sale rack at W*mart out of the freezer. I thawed it, then sliced two chunks from it, applied ICBINB, garlic salt, and parmesan cheese which I cooked in a pan with roasted minced onion and finally melted some mozzarella string cheese on the top. Served that with my version of bruschetta with the first harvested tomato of the season from our garden.




That was a super delicious lunch! Made from scratch. By me. AND I have enough noodles left for lunch tomorrow. It wasn't Dominos, but it'll do.

Hubby redeemed himself by running down to the corner to get me a diet coke.

Then my daughter asked, "Why didn't you just have Dominos deliver?" She's grounded.

Adventures In Letterboxing

Guess what??!!?? I finally had that good Mommy day! The twins had their first letterboxing adventure and it was a great success. (If you do not know what letterboxing is, read on. If you DO know, you can skip down to the row of # signs; Letterboxing is an outdoor hobby that combines elements of orienteering, art and puzzle solving. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly-accessible places (like parks) and distribute clues to finding the box in printed catalogs, on one of several web sites, or by word of mouth. Individual letterboxes usually contain a notebook and a rubber stamp. Finders make an imprint of the letterbox's stamp, either on their personal notebook or on a postcard, and leave an impression of their personal stamp on the letterbox's "visitors' book" or "logbook" — as proof of having found the box and letting subsequent letterboxers see who have visited. )

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We also took my friend A on her maiden voyage with letterboxing. Our clues led us to a bird sanctuary in Texas. I didn't see any birds, but I did see a rabbit. And children. Children on a field trip. I made it out okay.

Our adventure took us over bridges and paths



to this tree stump




we were instructed by our thoughtful cluegiver to remember to poke the area with a stick and to even wear gloves before searching around with our hands to find the box in the event that there were snakes or spiders also searching for the treasure.



It was looking a little bleak until A saved the day and found the box! The red areas look to be attempts at entry by wild animals..





Then my son removed the lid to inspect the contents and bunches of bugs proceeded out the top. What happened next is a bit of a blur, but I am certain there was a high-pitched scream coming out of my son. Then I saw this...


Did you notice my daughter wielding the 'sword' at the docile container on the ground?? The notebook and stamp were safely in its water-tight bag. No harm no foul. We all happily stamped in the notebook and used the stamp provided to stamp in our journals, made certain that the container was devoid of all life forms, and then A stealthily and successfully returned the box to its hiding place to be found and treasured another day. All agreed it was an enjoyable activity and would like to do another in the future. *sigh*