Thursday evening last week was Lilly's Dance Recital Rehearsal. It was at a place we'd never been before, but the GPS led us to it all right. It totally seemed like we were lost at first, but we secretly weren't.
Backstage of the theater was really weird. The 'little' girls were supposed to use a dressing room 'downstairs', but there were like, a million 'downstairs'! It was so weird and confusing back there! There were numerous sets of stairs going up and down all over the place! It made me feel like I was in one of those weird M. C. Escher pictures:
"WHERE THE HELL ARE WE?!?"
Me and Lilly ended up so hopelessly confused (plus, I couldn't get Lilly to hurry fast enough for her costume change), that we ended up completely missing one of Lilly's dances. Good thing it was just a rehearsal! Lilly's teacher said that during the actual show, they would allow the 'little' girls to change in the area backstage (which is actually just off the side of the stage) that the 'big' girls use, so they could make sure they could all hurry and make sure to be ready in time. Whew.
A couple days later, Saturday, was the day of the Recital! Everything went pretty well. I got Lilly's hair and makeup done at home, and I was driving us up the road, when after we had driven a couple of miles, I realized that I had forgotten our tickets back home! I whirled the car around and sped back home to retrieve them. Crisis narrowly averted. My mind was just so busy trying to remember everything and make sure everything was covered, but I can't always remember everything! At least I remembered the tickets before it was too late!
Here's a montage of some video and pictures of the rehearsal and recital combined. My silly little camera is a pile of garbage, so some of the video starts out blurry before it eventually comes into focus. Stupid camera.
For Mother's Day yesterday, Lilly surprised me with breakfast in bed! (Which consisted of 2 pop-tarts on a plate). Hey, I'm not complaining! Lilly told me "Sorry; I don't know how to make coffee!" I laughed and told her that was fine. Then I laughed again when she generously offered to take one of the pop-tarts off my hands! You know, 'cause two might be too much! I laughed and told Lilly to go ahead; I would be glad to share one of my pop-tarts with her!
I had told Lilly the night before NOT to wake me up the next morning. I relish getting to sleep as long as I need to on the weekend mornings, and allow my body to wake up naturally when it's ready to on its own, for once. But Lilly almost always wakes me up, begging for breakfast. (Or if she doesn't wake me up directly, she wakes up her daddy, and all the racket they make clunking around the house ends up waking me up in the end). So I asked Lilly to PLEASE NOT wake me (or her daddy) up on Mother's Day morning...as a Happy Mother's Day treat for me! I told Lilly that if she woke up and was hungry, to just grab herself a pop-tart. So thankfully, she actually granted me my Mother's Day wish, and let me sleep for once. So that was nice.
At school, Lilly had made me a really cute Mother's Day card, and a little glass vase kind-of-thing that she had decoupaged with different colored/patterned scraps of cloth. It was super-cute!
Yesterday afternoon, Jamie and Lilly went out galavanting like they always do every weekend, and on their way back home later, Jamie picked us all up sandwiches from Subway for supper as a Mother's Day treat, so I wouldn't have to worry about fixing anything! They also stopped by Walmart so Lilly could pick me out another Mother's Day present -- a nice plastic drinking bottle in my favorite color -- green! So that was really sweet.
While Jamie and Lilly were out, I decided to mow the grass. Let me say that it turned out NOT to be a 'good grass-mowing day' for me. First of all, I made the mistake of not putting the dogs back in their pen before I started. If our dogs are not in their pen, then we have them tied outside on long leads so they can get some exercise and have some freedom for a while. Well, they immediately got all in the way of my attempt to mow the grass. Maddie in particular likes to get in front of the lawnmower and stay there like a dumb@$$. So there I was, just taking off with the lawnmower and starting to mow, when Maddie got in front of the lawnmower a couple yards ahead of me and sat down. I realized that she was not going to move. So I stopped the mower as fast as I could, to keep from mowing her lead line in two. Well, I didn't cut her lead in two with the lawnmower, but the lead line was mashed under the front wheel of the mower. So Maddie was trapped. If I could have gotten her to move to the left, I could've easily kept on going. But of course stupid Maddie only wanted to keep on going around the right side of the mower, but she couldn't, because her lead line was hung under the front wheel, holding her in place. Well, I got pissed, turned off the lawnmower, and put both of the stupid dogs back in their pen so they wouldn't be in my way. Stupid dogs. >:{ I knew I should've put them back in the pen before I started mowing, but I assumed they'd stay away from the noisy ol' scary-sounding lawnmower. Guess again. Dummies! Uhh!!! >:{
Anyway, I hopped back on the lawnmower, cranked it up, and took off again. I mowed a couple of laps, but the lawnmower sounded and acted funny. I knew the lawnmower was full of gas, so that couldn't have been the problem. Then I wondered if maybe I had forgotten to actually turn on the gas. But I knew I had, and the lawnmower surely would've stopped before I had mowed a couple of laps if that was the case. Finally, I stopped the lawnmower again to try to see what the problem was, and it only took me a few seconds to realize that I still had the stupid lawnmower set on CHOKE! Duh!!! So I put the lawnmower on the proper mowing setting, and started mowing some more. Then I noticed that the grass wasn't being cut as low as I usually cut it. I remembered that Jamie had used the lawnmower a few days before to mow the area down below the house next to the lake. Realizing that Jamie must've tampered with the height of the mowing deck (and of course didn't return it back to the position I originally had it in), I stopped the lawnmower again to lower the mowing deck. I couldn't remember what setting I had it on, so I just set it lower and went on mowing. After another lap (and subsequently hitting every clump, bump, and basically plowing up the ground instead of mowing the grass), I realized that I had obviously set the mowing deck way too low. That fact became even more evident when I discovered the 'crop circle' I had accidentally made during my feeble attempt to adjust the height of the mowing deck:
So I raised the mowing deck up some, and it turned out to finally be just right. After all those mishaps, I mowed pretty good --for a while. I was mowing alongside the road a little bit, when some stupid truck pulling a boat started to go by, so I abandoned my roadside mowing mission. Then I decided to mow the actual front yard (which hasn't been mowed at all yet this year). Our front yard won't grow grass, but what weeds will grow in it were starting to get really tall and scraggly. I've never tried to mow the front yard before. But I felt like I could manage it.
Guess again. It was HORRIBLE. Our little front yard should actually be mowed with a push-mower, but Jamie broke the handle on our push-mower last year, and of course has never bothered to get it fixed. >:{ So there I was, trying to maneuver the clunker-tron riding mower around all the stupid obstacles in the yard (Lilly's playset, the flowerbeds, and the stupid sticking-up septic tank pipe). That wasn't so bad. But the part that was bad was when I rode the mower to the top of the driveway (which is on a little bit of a steep-ish hill). I kept the mower in 1st gear the whole time so it would go really slow, but somehow, as I was riding the mower downhill, down the side of the driveway, it got away from me. I apparently wasn't mashing the brake good enough or something (I guess)? Because the mower went ZOOM full-blast down the yard, with me on it! I stayed calm, and in the few seconds that felt like an eternity that I was zooming down the lawn with the speed of an F1 racer, all I could think of was FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T TEAR UP THE MOWER. And I didn't tear up the mower. Or myself. I ended up finally stopping about halfway down the side of the driveway in the field. O__o (Actually, come to think of it, I don't have a very good lifetime track record when it comes to Stopping. The Go-Kart, Bicycle, Sleds, Motorcycle...and now Lawnmower. I don't know why. It's like sometimes the area of my brain that controls the 'Knowing How To Stop' just gets a fart stuck cross-ways inside of it and blanks out, so I don't do anything but keep ZOOMING until I hit something, which makes me stop.) So anyway, after all those awful Mower Mishaps, I decided that I'd had enough, and parked the mower immediately. I backed it into our little metal storage building and decided to sit down on the porch and rest for a while. On my walk back up to the house, I discovered what had happened as the mower was ZOOMING away with me. I had somehow managed to turn over and crush an old metal bucket that I had some flowers planted in:
During my lawnmower ZOOMING mishap, I also ripped out several of the large rocks that we have outlining the flowerbed on the side of our house. I hadn't even realized any of that had happened as the lawnmower was ZOOMING away with me. (I made Jamie put the rocks back into place later after he came home).
Stupid yard. I vowed that I will NEVER EVER do that again.
Anyway, after eating my lovely Subway sandwich, it started looking like it might rain (even though the weather forecast said it was only a 10% chance), but I really wanted to take my first paddleboat ride of the year for Mother's Day, even if it was only for a few minutes. The lake has finally come up just enough for the paddleboat to be back in the water again, and I'm really happy about it!
Lilly refused to come with us (as usual), so me and Jamie abandoned her up at the house, and we went for a short little paddleboat jaunt for a few minutes. I documented it, and here's the video:
I had told Lilly the night before NOT to wake me up the next morning. I relish getting to sleep as long as I need to on the weekend mornings, and allow my body to wake up naturally when it's ready to on its own, for once. But Lilly almost always wakes me up, begging for breakfast. (Or if she doesn't wake me up directly, she wakes up her daddy, and all the racket they make clunking around the house ends up waking me up in the end). So I asked Lilly to PLEASE NOT wake me (or her daddy) up on Mother's Day morning...as a Happy Mother's Day treat for me! I told Lilly that if she woke up and was hungry, to just grab herself a pop-tart. So thankfully, she actually granted me my Mother's Day wish, and let me sleep for once. So that was nice.
At school, Lilly had made me a really cute Mother's Day card, and a little glass vase kind-of-thing that she had decoupaged with different colored/patterned scraps of cloth. It was super-cute!
Yesterday afternoon, Jamie and Lilly went out galavanting like they always do every weekend, and on their way back home later, Jamie picked us all up sandwiches from Subway for supper as a Mother's Day treat, so I wouldn't have to worry about fixing anything! They also stopped by Walmart so Lilly could pick me out another Mother's Day present -- a nice plastic drinking bottle in my favorite color -- green! So that was really sweet.
While Jamie and Lilly were out, I decided to mow the grass. Let me say that it turned out NOT to be a 'good grass-mowing day' for me. First of all, I made the mistake of not putting the dogs back in their pen before I started. If our dogs are not in their pen, then we have them tied outside on long leads so they can get some exercise and have some freedom for a while. Well, they immediately got all in the way of my attempt to mow the grass. Maddie in particular likes to get in front of the lawnmower and stay there like a dumb@$$. So there I was, just taking off with the lawnmower and starting to mow, when Maddie got in front of the lawnmower a couple yards ahead of me and sat down. I realized that she was not going to move. So I stopped the mower as fast as I could, to keep from mowing her lead line in two. Well, I didn't cut her lead in two with the lawnmower, but the lead line was mashed under the front wheel of the mower. So Maddie was trapped. If I could have gotten her to move to the left, I could've easily kept on going. But of course stupid Maddie only wanted to keep on going around the right side of the mower, but she couldn't, because her lead line was hung under the front wheel, holding her in place. Well, I got pissed, turned off the lawnmower, and put both of the stupid dogs back in their pen so they wouldn't be in my way. Stupid dogs. >:{ I knew I should've put them back in the pen before I started mowing, but I assumed they'd stay away from the noisy ol' scary-sounding lawnmower. Guess again. Dummies! Uhh!!! >:{
Anyway, I hopped back on the lawnmower, cranked it up, and took off again. I mowed a couple of laps, but the lawnmower sounded and acted funny. I knew the lawnmower was full of gas, so that couldn't have been the problem. Then I wondered if maybe I had forgotten to actually turn on the gas. But I knew I had, and the lawnmower surely would've stopped before I had mowed a couple of laps if that was the case. Finally, I stopped the lawnmower again to try to see what the problem was, and it only took me a few seconds to realize that I still had the stupid lawnmower set on CHOKE! Duh!!! So I put the lawnmower on the proper mowing setting, and started mowing some more. Then I noticed that the grass wasn't being cut as low as I usually cut it. I remembered that Jamie had used the lawnmower a few days before to mow the area down below the house next to the lake. Realizing that Jamie must've tampered with the height of the mowing deck (and of course didn't return it back to the position I originally had it in), I stopped the lawnmower again to lower the mowing deck. I couldn't remember what setting I had it on, so I just set it lower and went on mowing. After another lap (and subsequently hitting every clump, bump, and basically plowing up the ground instead of mowing the grass), I realized that I had obviously set the mowing deck way too low. That fact became even more evident when I discovered the 'crop circle' I had accidentally made during my feeble attempt to adjust the height of the mowing deck:
DAMMIT!!! >:{
So I raised the mowing deck up some, and it turned out to finally be just right. After all those mishaps, I mowed pretty good --for a while. I was mowing alongside the road a little bit, when some stupid truck pulling a boat started to go by, so I abandoned my roadside mowing mission. Then I decided to mow the actual front yard (which hasn't been mowed at all yet this year). Our front yard won't grow grass, but what weeds will grow in it were starting to get really tall and scraggly. I've never tried to mow the front yard before. But I felt like I could manage it.
Guess again. It was HORRIBLE. Our little front yard should actually be mowed with a push-mower, but Jamie broke the handle on our push-mower last year, and of course has never bothered to get it fixed. >:{ So there I was, trying to maneuver the clunker-tron riding mower around all the stupid obstacles in the yard (Lilly's playset, the flowerbeds, and the stupid sticking-up septic tank pipe). That wasn't so bad. But the part that was bad was when I rode the mower to the top of the driveway (which is on a little bit of a steep-ish hill). I kept the mower in 1st gear the whole time so it would go really slow, but somehow, as I was riding the mower downhill, down the side of the driveway, it got away from me. I apparently wasn't mashing the brake good enough or something (I guess)? Because the mower went ZOOM full-blast down the yard, with me on it! I stayed calm, and in the few seconds that felt like an eternity that I was zooming down the lawn with the speed of an F1 racer, all I could think of was FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T TEAR UP THE MOWER. And I didn't tear up the mower. Or myself. I ended up finally stopping about halfway down the side of the driveway in the field. O__o (Actually, come to think of it, I don't have a very good lifetime track record when it comes to Stopping. The Go-Kart, Bicycle, Sleds, Motorcycle...and now Lawnmower. I don't know why. It's like sometimes the area of my brain that controls the 'Knowing How To Stop' just gets a fart stuck cross-ways inside of it and blanks out, so I don't do anything but keep ZOOMING until I hit something, which makes me stop.) So anyway, after all those awful Mower Mishaps, I decided that I'd had enough, and parked the mower immediately. I backed it into our little metal storage building and decided to sit down on the porch and rest for a while. On my walk back up to the house, I discovered what had happened as the mower was ZOOMING away with me. I had somehow managed to turn over and crush an old metal bucket that I had some flowers planted in:
(Luckily, I was able to bend the bucket back into shape, as you can see in the picture above). And because this mishap occurred, I discovered that the dirt in the bucket that had flowers in it was COMPLETELY FILLED with a gross ant nest, so I'm not too upset about losing one measly plant. Yuck! :P
Stupid yard. I vowed that I will NEVER EVER do that again.
Anyway, after eating my lovely Subway sandwich, it started looking like it might rain (even though the weather forecast said it was only a 10% chance), but I really wanted to take my first paddleboat ride of the year for Mother's Day, even if it was only for a few minutes. The lake has finally come up just enough for the paddleboat to be back in the water again, and I'm really happy about it!
Lilly refused to come with us (as usual), so me and Jamie abandoned her up at the house, and we went for a short little paddleboat jaunt for a few minutes. I documented it, and here's the video:
So that was my Mother's Day Weekend. Sheesh! Oh, well...at least I survived to tell the tale! :P
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