Stuck!

An interesting afternoon and evening here today!

But before I get into talking about those events, I wanted to share some other pictures from Easter.
Miss Maya, all decked out in one of her Easter outfits, showing a little of the loot she got in her Easter baskets.
And here's Kurtis, in his Sunday-Go-Meeting apparel, fondly fingering his bounty in the basket.

Saturday afternoon/evening and Sunday afternoon and evening, Mandy and Ken were busy trying to trench out the ditch between our house and the neighbor's place. This is for runoff water from the ditch across the road and it had gotten a bit plugged up at the lower end of our property with grasses, leaves and silt. All those neat things ya know. A big job it was too as they dug it out from the bottom of the alleyway up to where the pipe comes out from under the road.
This shot, taken of about half of the lower end of the yard shows the meandering path the ditch now takes. The distance here is probably well over 100 feet in length that they dug up by hand.
And this is part of the upper portion of the ditch where the water comes through from under the road.

And these are the two little "helpers" who got sent into the house with orders that they get those muddy clothes off and do it now!
Turns out Kurt was the muddiest of the two. Am I surprised? Shucks, NO! Nor was I the least bit shocked to learn he got that way from his sister who took great pride in slopping mud all over him -something that he didn't even raise a single protest or cry over her doing that either. That also came as no shock to me either! The boy can easily qualify as a model for PigPen from the Peanuts comic strip ya know!

Today though, Mandy decided it was time for her to pull her car down in the front yard and hook up the big vacuum cleaner to give it a good once-over. I heard her start the car up when she was done cleaning and I listened too as I heard noises that sounded very much like her car wasn't going or doing quite what she wanted or expected it to do.

If she'd had said something to me in the first place I probably would have told her that this would happen but knowing her, it's probably also doubtful that she would have listened to me anyway.

But what happened was just what I figured would take place. The grass along the side of the house was still a bit damp from all the rains we've had and the sod -very well soaked through too so that even though it was nice, sunny, bright, warm and dry today -all that good stuff, ya know -when she backed the car into the yard there and tried to pull out and up on to the road, guess who was stuck!

Pretty soon I heard her calling out to me to please come outside because she needed me to help her. She wanted me to drive the car and she would push it then to get it out. I had my doubts about the success of that idea but about that time, the neighbor's daughter came outside and Mandy asked her if she would be willing to help get the car unstuck. Kylie went back inside and came back out with her Mom trailing along so I got in the car, backed it down about 3-4 foot more to get away from the slippery grass Mandy had created there and then, when I put it into first gear, with all three of the girls pushing as I slowly fed the gas and with Kurtis contentedly parked in his carseat in the backseat of the car (with a full sippy cup of milk!), we then managed to get the car up the slight grade of a hill in our yard and out onto the road and macadam.

As I pulled the car onto the road and started heading up the street, Kurt piped up, asking me, "Is my Mommy back at my house?" Yes, Baby, that she is. When I pulled into the neighbor's driveway to turn around and head back down to our parking area, he was quite relieved to see that Gram hadn't lied to him as there was Mommy, standing there, all smiles and waiting for us to return.

The picture to the left is from where I backed the car down a little bit and then, the shot on the right shows the entire part of the yard that we had to navigate over and avoid those muddy tire tracks left behind by Mandy as she had tried to get the car out of the yard and up onto the roadway.

Just a little bit closer view of the tire tracks from where Mandy was sitting, spinning her wheels!

Because Maya was spending the day today up at a friend's house (Nick-Nick and Jenn-Jenn's place -also spending the night there too) I thought maybe for supper that I would try to fix a dish my Grandma often fixed when I was a kid -after Easter -and a good way to use up some of the many colored hard-boiled Easter eggs, ya know. Creamed eggs and peas over toast! I ran that idea past Mandy who, as I kind of was afraid she would do, vetoed that suggestion but thought maybe, since we happen to have an abundance of ground sausage in the freezer right now, she thought maybe some sausage gravy and biscuits would be a better idea mainly because the last time I had fixed that for our supper, Kurtis had eaten it like there was no tomorrow and when he finished, had even turned to me and said that it was "good, all mixed together like that, Gram!"

So I took that as a recommendation and fixed a big kettle full of sausage gravy, baked up some flaky biscuits and then, doled out the gravy on a biscuit for the little guy, only to have him turn his nose up at it and throw a major hissy fit, proclaiming quite loudly too, his dislike for this dish! And that's how the war tonight at the dining room table thus began!

Eventually, we did get him to eat maybe 4-5 bites of the stuff but not without a long battle to get him to eat that much. He was tired, crabby too -very! All the time he had spent outside this afternoon, he was also a little sunburned as well which all added up to a very unhappy camper this evening at the supper table.

By 8 p.m., he was ready for bed -and so was I, truth be told! An hour of his whining and crying and fussing around had pretty much worn me down so when Mandy pulled out a pair of pjs for him to put on, he was happy and went off to dreamland then with no further hassles!

And I settled back in my recliner, intending to work on my current embroidery project but in short order, found naptime calling to me then too!

So now, when everyone else is in bed, sleeping soundly, here I am, sitting here writing this lovely little post to detail my day -yesterday and today!

Hopefully tomorrow will be, as Kurtis puts it, "Is a better day!" Only one more day to go till Maya returns to school but he will be off the rest of the week for his spring break vacation. But only having him here, by himself, is not near as stressful as it is if both of them are here together and with Maya usually trying her best to bully and/or befuddle her little brother. Something she is really quite adept at doing too, I might add!

And with that, I'm going back to my recliner, to my movie and my embroidery till the notion to sleep returns to me.

Might not take all that long for that to happen either!

Peace.