A little of this and a little of that

How do you like my little mud monster? After he did his homework after school yesterday (did you have any idea they taught "carrying" in first grade math? I sure didn't) Austin asked if he could play outside. "Sure", I said. Out he ran with all the enthusiasm that first graders have. About 15 minutes later he comes back and yells in to me from the front door, "Mommy, I might get a little muddy out here". (We've had a lot of rain lately) "That's OK", I say, the way mothers do when they don't use the good sense God gave them. An hour later as I was fixin' supper I hear this little knock on the garage door (it's in the kitchen). I opened the door expecting to see my neighbor. Imagine my surprise when this mud sculpture greets my eyes, saying, "I told you I might get a little muddy". A little muddy? A LITTLE MUDDY? This child had mud in his pockets! His shoes were totally saturated with mud. He coat was heavy and dripping with mud. And his pants, well his pants were unrecognizable (they were camouflage print)! Now, the Mommy I used to be to the first litter would have thrown a fit. The old broken in Mommy that I am now laughed at him and grabbed the camera. (it's more fun being a broken in Mommy!) The hard part was to get Mr. Modest to strip down completely right there in the kitchen. It was war, but I won. No way was he walking through the house to the shower with the amount of mud that was dripping off of him. While he was in the shower, I was in the basement laundry room rinsing and squeezing enough mud out of his clothes and shoes to host a mud wrestling contest. I went up to check on the progress of his shower and had another laugh. I asked him as I walked into the bathroom if he was clean yet. He assured me he was. "Did you wash your hair good?" He assured me he had. "Did you wash your body good?" He assured me he had. "Are you ready to get out?" He informed me he was. So, I grabbed the towel and pulled the shower curtain back ready to receive my clean little guy. His face was still muddy! How in the world could he wash his hair and everything else on his body and still have his face look exactly the same as it had when he walked in the door? I would have taken a picture of that, but Mr. Modest wouldn't hear of it. I washed his coat and shoes and clothes (Using lots of Oxy-clean spray). He went out after school again today. I stressed over and over again that they were NOT to go mud diving. I can't stress enough here how much I stressed it! He assured me he wouldn't. He didn't. He didn't go mud diving. But he rode his bicycle through every bit of standing muddy water that he could find. Guess where his coat is right now? I love little boys. Even muddy little boys. Maybe even especially muddy little boys!

We own a wholesale/retail nursery and landscaping business. My husband and son designed and installed a landscaping package for a local McDonald's in 2004. Today, we got a phone call from the insurance company. It seems a man was walking along the sidewalk at said McDonalds and turned his head to talk to someone behind him and when he did that, he walked off the sidewalk into the landscaping bed and turned his ankle making him fall on the sidewalk and hit his head. Poor guy. I'm sure it hurt and I'm sure he was embarrassed. But please, pray tell, how in the world are we liable for that? He wants his medical bills paid and he's contacted our insurance company to have it done. I don't know if they will have to pay it or not, but does anyone else think that this is absolutely ridiculous? I look at it like this: It was his fault that he fell. He didn't trip on anything in the middle of the sidewalk. He fell because he turned his head to talk to someone behind him and walked into the landscaping bed. I think no one is liable but him. However, realizing that we live in a litigious society I'm not at all surprised that someone wants someone else to pay for it. BUT, if someone was going to be held responsible for it wouldn't you think it would be McDonalds? This job was finished over a year ago. How long are we liable? I'm just in shock.

I've had two days off and I've worked harder in those two days than I would have if I'd worked at the hospital. I'm doing a major cleaning and reorganizing. Namely the basement and my craft room. I'm a saver. I save everything. I know it's not very "Zen", but I just hate to part with things. I've been very proud of what I've been able to part with the last two days. I'd list some of them here, but if I did it would remind me of them and I might be forced to go out to the garbage and retrieve them. I can't wait to go back to work tomorrow.