Anan's (not-so) Randomness!

I shall start with the morning after I last posted… <shrug>

            I woke up, worked on last minute packing, and then realized it was my birthday. The phone rang and soon after Mom told me that Maggie had a fever and she couldn’t come. I finished getting stuff together and then sat in the van crying and feeling sorry for myself and Maggie. I hadn’t forgotten to pack sock puppet Maggie so on the way to the UP I took many silly pictures of her and my siblings.

                                    We got to the camp grounds before the Hubbards and after we set up I took more silly pictures of Maggie. She helped stir the chili and wash eggs.

            The Hubbards got there two hours after us and we all got eaten alive be mosquitoes. Have you ever eaten fried mosquito? Well I have.

            Friday morning we dawdled around the campsite and took hours to get ready. Around 11a.m. we started what was supposed to be a 4 mile hike but we’re pretty sure it was at least 5. Us girls got way ahead of everybody else so we sat down on a bridge and gorged ourselves on trail mix. I did my best to drive peeple crazy by singing along to silly songs on “Fuss Budget” the MP3 player. (It isn’t called Fuss Budget because it’s fussy but because the name sounds weird.) Suddenly I heard Dad yelling at me about how we shouldn’t have gotten so far ahead (mainly because poor Mrs. Hubbard wasn’t doing well and was far behind.) He soon arrived with a gaggle of crazy little kids and we were sent off with instructions to stay close together and hold onto the littlest ones. I ended up carrying Benjamin for what seemed like a mile but I bet it was less.

            Then we went back to the campsite and got eaten alive by mosquitoes again. Oooo goody!

Saturday we went on a short hike and were eaten alive by mosquitoes. That night I burned Peeps in the campfire. Stephen Hubbard thought I was crazy because I was “wasting” the Peeps. #1 do I really need to eat more Peeps? No. #2 it’s more fun to burn them than to eat them. #3 it drives Stephen crazy so why wouldn’t I do it?

            Sunday morning we went to church. I really wish we hadn’t. Since it was Pentecost there was a hokey emphasis on the whole “power of the Holy Spirit”. Like this… “We confess the sin of denying ourselves the power of the Holy Spirit” and then we said the same thing in different ways. I started fading out toward the end… There was a luke-warm sermon that didn’t have real gospel and didn’t have any law unless you count saying “it would be nice if you did……” as law. The pianist interrupted the blessing because the pastor had forgotten to let her give out announcements before the service was over… ‘Nuff said.

            In the afternoon we drove around the UP on various dirt roads and highways and looked at tons of trees. We all looked for meese but we never saw any. We listened to a Canadian country music station. It was pretty funny to hear someone with a French accent on a country station. For dinner us scandalous Horners ate out at the “Bear Trap” and watched the pathetic end of the Indy 500.

            Then we all went back to the campsite and were eaten alive by mosquitoes.

            Monday morning we packed up and left. On our way home we stopped at a couple little scenic view thingies and weren’t eaten alive by mosquitoes.

            At home we weren’t eaten alive by mosquitoes and had fun smirking at the Lucky Charms on our counter.

            <<RANDOM>>Oly’anna Stuckwisch’s “God family”(Ish can’t speel their last name) stayed here while we were gone and they *NEEDED* those lucky charms. Aaaaawwww!

            Yesterday Nicolai wouldn’t stop talking about all the stuphph Matt said. I haven’t even met Matt and he’s already driving me insane!!!! What talent. <rolls eyes>

            On Wednesday I played Evening Prayer at church and as I was playing the intro to the Magnificat the organ started screaming at me!!! We think it was overheated…

            At some point during the trip we visited the park gift store and saw a freaky rat in overalls. I still haven’t recovered from the scariness of it.  <shudder> Also throughout the trip we worked our way through “Anan’s Random Access Box of Interpretations and Expressions”. I feel like a CD millionaire! Now I don’t have to listen to “High Maintenance Woman” and the Turnip Greens song over and over again any more!!! Woot!

Why go at all? I thought that church and the Rheins being back was worth making a new dress (also the fact  that I have the pattern pictured below in my clutches).  So I stayed up 'till midnight last night making a new dress. Mom posted a picture of me on her blog. <sigh> http://karinschickens.blogspot.com/ (Note: the surprise was un-surprised by Nick S. after church today...) Maybe she'll post pictures of the actuall thing. I've tried posting pictures but it still doesn't work.

Yesterday I also made a cake for someone's chello recital, cleaned out the flower beds around the gate, and put down mulch. Only because of all this activity was I hungry enough to eat two pieces of salty Bruno's pizza.

I "watched" my siblings this evening. They can all be so irrational and crazy! Of course I think, "When and if *I* have children... They'll *NEVER* act like this!". Haha. Haha. One of them whined and groaned because I closed the Ketchup lid before I passed it and earlier today another siblin' cried because I took the leg (if you can call those two bites of meat a "leg" or a "thigh") off of a porta-pit chicken. Oh the sad life these children lead. Of course I never would have dreamed of crying about irrational things. Especially if it had anything to do with peas touching mashed potatoes. ;-p

Random and boring stuphph that should be in lots of mini paragraphs and is instead squeezed into one: Our computer fan is still being all hyper and e-vile. It's hard to convince a computer that it *isn't* being murdered. Have you ever tried? I didn't think so. Cecilia just put the witch hat on my head. Apparently it fits me well in more than one sense. Oh how flattering. My fingers are way too long. I can't find dress gloves that fit. Of course I haven't looked hard or in the right places but still. Be gratefull fro short stubby fingers. Just looking at mine creeps me out. <shudders> Stefan loves fans. Erik has taken to standing under the kitchen fan while holding Goo goo and they both stare up at the spinning blades. Maybe it's a boy thing. A whole weekend has almost passed and the only sewing I did was fixing the tie on Cecilia's dress this morning. I'll blame it on dirt. If there wasn't dirt (and dust) we wouldn't have to clean the house or church and I could sit around sewing all the time.

Yesterday Dad and I were trying to walk through the same door in different directions at the same time. Dad: "This house is too narrow!" <Dad arrives in kitchen and I enter living room> Dad: "Benjamin! No more eating! I don't want you eating anything else!"  I found this humorous. Perhaps y'all won't get the joke by I don't dare explain it.

Hmmmm... Well I went skating the first Friday in March... The music was worse than usual and was enough to make me want to stop coming. By "worse than usual" I mean that not only was it the usual Hokey 80's Music fare but it was the worst Hokey 80's Music EVER! At least it was the worst I've ever heard.

On the 10th and 11th there was our local homeschool convention. La de da. The Gehlbachs were in town the 11th and 12th and that was fun. Expecially since Maggie started writing "Paul Dies, A Series of Fortunate Events". <giggle>  We left for PA the 15th and hung out at various peeple's houses and just missed the maple sugar water "run". The taps started dripping the morning we left. Hmph.

Today I got my braces off!!! Woot! I forgot to ask if I could keep them to put in the braces museum. After my appointment Mom and I went to Panera bread, 'twas really weird to eat without all the food getting stuck to the front of my teeth. This time I'm being non-adventurous and going with the clear retainer. I don't want to be stuck with a green one forever.

Just now I went outside in the dark to swing on our playground. It wasn't actually dark because the moon is very bright... It was strangely quite and peaceful to be able to just sit on the swings watching the bats fly overheard and listening to the frogs out in the pond.

Now I'm just listening to the computer fan go haywire... Yes, I hear you! We all know it's your bedtime mister e-vile computer. You'll just have to get over it because I'm going to satisfy my addiction to vintage clothes websites. Nyaa!

Ok... So my loony brother Erik just scraped some skin off his foot, causing it to bleed. Martin(8 yo) took said scraped skin and rubbed it on everyone to show them how thick it was. Then Erik showed me the length of tissue paper stained with blood. "Look at all this blood!!!!"~Erik  "Save me!!!"~Anna

Yesterday I ran through the house and took 70 some pictures of all the messes I could find. The goal in this was to show our assistant pastor that we are not perfect housekeepers by any stretch of the imagination. The problem is that once Mom saw the pictures she was terrified and declared that Pastor could never see them. ::shudder:: "Anan and the Case of the Mess that Never Ends." We sent a sampling of the worst mess pictures to Dad at work and he promptly emailed back asking us to stop. I believe he said something like "ouch".

I just finished an awesome gored skirt http://www.simplicity.com/designFrame.cfm?dvPage=designFrontBack.cfm&design=4188 mine being view C in a red, yellow, and green floral print on a black background. I would make more such skirts but alas I have stuff to make so as to sell... ::sigh::

We (the Horners, Hubbards, and yes, the Rheins) went sledding today. It was loads of fun. I especially liked watching brothers going head over heels... When Nat went down he looked like he could have been reading a book. Someone had left a kiddie swimmming pool there and I got Matthew to go down in it. He got stuck and I tried to "help" him by ramming him with my sled. Instead I managed to hit his leg really hard. Oops. To make up for it I went over "the big bump" backwards and landed face first. Oh the joys of sledding. Or "tobaganing" (s/p?) as Dad would say.

I know I had tons o' stuphph to say but I can't remember most of it. I'm sure some will come back to me.

Oh yeah! (that was fast...) Little Gerhart (Uh oh... Speelling...) Stuckwisch was born by C-section on Thursday. I'm sure peeples already know that but it was one of the landmarks of this week. I'm glad I didn't hear about Mrs. S. leaving for the hospital 'cuz I would have been totally feaked out.

I got a checking account yesterday. It was *so* exciting... ::sarcasm alert!::

I should have written about this ages ago... When the little Swedes Saga and Axel were visiting we introduced them to lightsabers! Axel tended toward useing it as a jack-hammer but Saga got the point and would swing around in circles "killing" peeple. Their parents, Cecilia and Tommy told us that they had never seen a gun but one day Axel pointed his finger at saga and made gun noises. Apparently guns sneaked into their cute little lives somewhere...

To refresh your memory: remember about the man that had 275 or some such number of years in prison? I mentioned it to Stephen {Maria's big brother}and added that I thought it would be so much more sensible to say “life sentence.” And do you know what he said?

“Technically, a “life” sentence is 20 years.” 20 years is for life? So we get a murderer with a life sentence, convicted at age say 34, and at 55 he is out on the streets again. I do not claim to be good at solutions but it sounds scary to me.

Then, the bit about 275 years. Stephen says if he behaves himself, does community work, etc, he can get years taken off so it could go down a lot.

But will wonders never cease?

This confirms my notion that our Criminal Justice organizing needs to be reorganized. To illustrate, one guy got released from prison because his papers were mixed around, and now they are out having a manhunt looking for him. I suppose that could be a fluke but the idea!

Oh, and this reminds me…in last Sunday’s “How He/She Does It” column, they featured a bounty hunter. That man had nothing interesting to say. It could be condensed to: I left the police force because of employer conflicts. I go and break into houses because I don’t need a permit. It is dangerous but exciting because it is unpredictable.” The questions were very “I don’t know what to ask you and you don’t know how to answer.”

Bleh! Still, it does not compare to the time they interviewed a bum. “How he Does It.” I’ll tell you how he does it! He does it because he is a drunk who can’t hold a job at a simple thing like McDonalds, so he raids trash cans, resells the junk, and uses the money to buy potato chips, pop, Twinkies, Wonderbread, and pay taxes for his house, which is doubtlessly in ill repair and an eyesore. What can we learn from a bum? What is inspiring about a bum? Moral: “Be a hobo and get your picture in the paper because you raid garbage cans. It’s a cool job and you don’t need a education, so go ahead and drop out of highschool. You can get drunk whenever you feel like it. Bums contribute to society too, you know.” It is SO INCREDIBLY POINTLESS. The only thing we can learn from it is compassion for a man with a totally messed up life who isn’t contributing anything, and is instead getting money for being financially dependent even though nothing is keeping him from getting a job beside his lack of self control."

Notice the reference to twinkies... Hmmmm...  

Some strange and random thoughts while dealing with siblingage: "I think I'll name my children StopIt, BeQuiet, GetOverHere, WhateverYourNameIs, CleanThatUp, NO, HeyYou, StopRunning, HoldStill, and EatYourFood." That doesn't mean I'll have ten kids. Those are just some options. I can use leftovers as middle names. Any suggestions would be most welcome. "ShutUp" was the original idea but I decided that would be too mean.

Also... I am feeling rather like a twinkie. Or just plain deranged. I can't seem to handle accepting help. It must be my e-vile Country Girl up-bringin'. I get all awkward and then I feel like everything that is said to me is teasing. I know it isn't but I feel that way anyway. Forget the "Country Girl" idea, blame it on 9-11! Or the Feminists!! Or little brothers! Or sinful nature... You pick.