Petunia rambles on and on….

Kate bought an amazing wading pool for the boys today.  This was made immediately necessary because the lawn care service that I use apparently weed-whacked the former pool to shreds AND also cut our garden hose.  Sadly, the boys were already in their bathing suits, ready for a swim when Kate discovered this.  She brought two dour-faced little fellows back inside, changed their clothes, went out to the store and came back with this!!

The boys love the pool.  The way to keep the water squirting out of the top of the shark’s head is to keep the garden hose on.  The guys also like turning the water off and on and off and on and off and on. 

He’s a handsome fellow, isn’t he?   Bet my oldest would sit in this pool, too.

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On Saturday evening, we attended a benefit event held at a local fire hall.  A young boy in that community has been diagnosed with cancer and is undergoing treatment at A. I. duPont Hospital for Children.   The boy’s uncle works in the same building as i do.  We are fortunate to have two top-notch pediatric hospital facilities within a relatively close distance – A.I. and CHOP, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  Still, it takes an hour or so to drive up to A.I., and the family has made many, many trips.  Available vacation time for the parents has long since been used up, and they lose pay with each trip now.   The medical bills must be overwhelming.

There is no way to ease the emotional burden this family carries, but the community came together last night to help ease some of the financial burden.  Tickets were sold in advance for the dinner and dancing.  So very many items were donated to be auctioned off.  There was a 50/50 raffle and a wheelbarrow filled with “beverages.”  Tickets for sporting events, Phillies baseball, Dover Downs NASCAR tickets with pit passes for the September race.  Craft items, hand-stitched Amish quilts, locally made in our Amish community.  Homemade wine, autographed baseballs.  Something for everyone.  The auctioning started right after dinner – the prices went up and up, and much money was raised.  When the winning number was called for the Wheelbarrow of Beverages, the winner picked out the Coors beer, and gave the rest over to be auctioned!   The winner of the 50/50 raffle donated the cash prize.  Bills would have to be paid for the event, for the hall and the food and such.  But then the butcher who had provided the meat said there was No Charge.   And the fellow who prepared, cooked it said, No Charge.  And the Hartly Fire Hall said No Charge for the hall.   And the Ladies’ Auxillary said No Charge for their services.

I’m sure a tidy sum was raised to help offset some of the expenses this family has incurred.  They also know that a whole lot of people care.  Thoughts and prayers go out to this family

My internet connection/network went all to hell for a few days.  And I discovered that an ethernet cable was broken.  The little prong thingie on one end went missing.  So we couldn’t hook up the laptop to the router to try and correct it.

Foolish me went to Best Buy to get a new ethernet cable without a babysitter to watch me and slap my hand when I began touching things that didn’t belong to me.  (See, this spending that I do – it’s not my fault.  It’s the way I was raised)  So after I found 25 feet of ethernet, which was all the way in the back of the store, I had to walk past everything else they had, just to get out.  They do that on purpose, put all the good shit at the back, the way they always put the milk at the very back of grocery stores.

So of course, I look around in the iPod department, because that’s one of my very favorite toys.  And like a dependant child, you have to keep buying stuff for it, or so it seems.   I’m only moderately happy with the case that I have, red leather, plastic cover over it’s control parts, clip on the top so you can hang it on purse or belt loop.  The plastic surface does protect, but it also makes the controls less sensitive and wonky at times.  No access to the little slider/lock part.  I should have said, “It’s red; I love it” and left the store, but I didn’t.

I found a Pelican.  They make cases for everything.  I think you can drive your car over a Pelican.  Drop your house on a Pelican.  Survive a nuclear attack in a Pelican case, if you can find one large enough to get into.  (Make sure the lid is shut tight)   The military uses Pelicans; they even had a show on the Discovery Channel (or one of those channels that Pop watches all the time) about Pelicans, how they’re made, how they test their strength.  I had to buy it because I’m a freak about stuff like this.  I have no other excuse.

Note clear locking clasp along that front side, and black receptacle for plugging in earphones/buds on this model, the i1010.

Inside, it has a pocket to store the earbuds, something I didn’t have with the old case.  I just wrapped them around the case and threw it all into my purse – really not a great way of storing the device.  They came unwrapped, and got all tangled up with everything else in there.  There’s also room for my iTalk recorder.  See earbud connector inside?   Connect that to the iPod, close it up, and connect the buds to the jack on the outside.  Black rubber gasket/liner will hold several models of iPod securely, and give some protection against water and dust.  Note that it is not advertised as water-proof or submersible.

Pop says, often, that if some idiot nailed two old boards together, and wrote “SALE” on one of them, I would buy it.  There is little available evidence to dispute this.

I often read Claudia’s Blog, and got way behind while I was away sitting in the woods. Gradually, I’m catching up, between chores and the job and that stuff.

Today I read one of her posts that set me to thinking. She wrote of priorities. Of how we say, Well, I haven’t got time for that – and then wonder how others manage to find the time. She wrote that many people seem to be spending lots of time watching TV or surfing the internet, and not finding time for other things. Oh, my, that hit a nerve here. Not the TV part, oh, no. I haven’t intentionally watched 10 hours of TV this whole year!!! But wasting time on the computer? Gotcha!! (Got me, rather) And for me, it’s the sort of thing that doesn’t permit me to do anything else. I can’t surf and cook, or clean the bathroom, or fold laundry. And these are things that really should be boosted a bit higher on the Priority list than I’ve had them.

I’ve recently joined a gym, because I gained a bit (hahaha) of weight after I quit smoking. Having little success on my own trying to get rid of the extra upholstery I was carrying around, I thought this was the right way to go. But one of my greatest concerns was How will I find the time??

Like Claudia says, we’re all dealing with 24-hour days, and I still work full-time outside the home. That does make scheduling stuff a bit more difficult. But ya know – it’s the priority thing. This has to do with how I feel about ME, and it’s a health issue. I’ll carve the time out of other areas. Because it’s important that I do so.

(Hate for it to take over my knitting time, though. I need the relaxation!)