Twitchy McScatterbritches

Currently, there are THREE blog posts in the holding pen, waiting for me to give them life or at the very least, you know, finish them beyond four sentences.  But I can't seem to get my brain pointed in the right direction.  And right now there are three little boys in my house who I love with a love that is greater than love, but who are not, as little boys are wont not to be, conducive to writing ONE complete sentence, let alone FIVE.  Because I cannot even imagine my Twitchy McScatterbritches self managing to finish any of the blogs any time soon and because the noise level emanating from Jeffrey's room is starting to peel the paint off the walls (and the skin from my ears), I'm gonna do a list and wrap it all up.

Mkay?  Mkay

1. I have decided that I just can't be a crazy coupon lady.  A of all, I do not have four hours in my day to which I can devote anything, much less clipping coupons and toodling through the interwebs to find the best deals.  I also do not have any desire to stock up on seventy-two bottles of mustard, even if I can buy the lot for twelve cents.  I cannot imagine a world in which seventy-two bottles of mustard make it into my shopping cart at one time, nor one in which I stock a closet solely with soda.  I mean, I would give up soda for life if I could figure out an appropriate storage solution for my craft avalanche, so the idea of giving up an entirely good closet for soda makes my head explode.  Plus, I have a sneaking suspicion that all the crazy coupon ladies are going to totally ruin it for the rest of us sane people who just want to take a few cents off our cereal price.  I depend on coupons to allow me to buy my organic stuff (even if I don't have coupons for it, the savings on "regular" food means I don't feel remotely guilty for spending three dollars on frozen organic blueberries.)  So don't mess it up for me, crazy coupon ladies, mkay?  
2. On a weirdly related note that kind of makes it seem like I AM a crazy coupon lady, I discovered Recipe.com a few days ago and it kind of rocks.  It matches up items you enter into your shopping list not only with recipes, but also with specials in your area (to which, one assumes, you can match your coupons.)  I always do a "big buy" at the beginning of every month, but it's nice to be able to see how deals come up in the middle of the month on random items that you might have forgotten, like bread.  (I know.   How do you forget fricking bread?)
3. So, the other day I was remarking to Will that Americans talk about being free all the time, but in reality we are fricking shackled to grocery stores, electric companies, and our governments for every damn thing we have.  (Pardon the language, but I'm reading The Long Winter again with the fams and the Ingalls' definition of "hard times" involves burning hay for heat and eating flour made by grinding seed wheat in a coffee grinder, so it makes my "Wahhhh, I can't buy as many books as I want any more" nonsense seem particularly stupid.)  And Will goes, "Yeah, I have three ideas about that." 
4. His first idea was that he's going to rig up a manual pump to our well.  We're on city water, but because the neighborhood is so relatively far out of town proper, most houses have wells.  I'm pretty sure nobody uses theirs now;  it's just not as conveeeeeeeenient.  We had somebody out a few years ago to look at the thing, and he said he'd charge us what we considered a ridiculous amount of money to fix the pump so we could draw water from it.  We said, "Erm.  Thanks.  No."  And that was that.  Turns out Will has been getting on the interwebs and finding out that one can fiddle with one's well and some PVC pipe and make a pump of sorts that would allow you to draw water from your well that you can use in an emergency.  Will's idea is to use this pump as a chore for the children:  they'll draw the water and carry it in the house for us to drink and to the garden for us to water it.  
5. Speaking of gardens, during this conversation, I also mentioned the Julie versus Oak Park fiasco.  In case you haven't heard about this, there's a lady in Oak Park, Michigan who had the audacity to plant a vegetable garden in her front yard.  And then the city sued her.  It's insanity of the highest level, and you can read about it here from Julie's point of view.  Anyway, I talked about how we sit on an acre of land and how it was crazy that we didn't grow as much food as we could on it, because there are folks who have much less than we do and who are being sued because of it.  And he said, "I want to redo the garden."  The garden this year sucks.  I'll be honest.  It got abominably hot really early this year and I'm afraid of brown widows and I just didn't get around to doing anything with it.  I'm a loser.  The only things really producing right now are my herb beds, which are putting forth a multitude of stuff.  I made an attempt to weed out the beds last week, and in the course of doing so, uncovered a BLACK widow that had made a web between the side of the bed and the dirt.  I killed her (extra points because she had racing stripes down her side!) and went inside and had the shakes.  Because it was just one more (potentially lethal) point against boxed beds.  Now, I love the tidiness of boxed beds, but to be honest, I have to say that I find them inconvenient and in many cases, inefficient.  Unless you use pressure-treated wood (which risks chemical leaching) or stone (which would be cost prohibitive and labor-intense), you're going to risk termite infestation (check--luckily our termite protection covers the house, and our termite guy said we were safe) AND the need to redo the beds every few years.  Our boards are now rotted and need to be replaced.  Plus, the width of the beds made it hard for me to harvest things in the middle of the beds.  PLUS, watering a boxed bed garden requires either inefficient overhead watering or a (cost and time-prohibitive) tube system.  I DID have a tube system, but Frodo chewed it up.  Sigh.  
6. This isn't actually a new list item, but whew, that was getting to be a longggg paragraph.  Anyway, I figured Will would be all, "We need to gut the garden and plant grass."  But nooooo.  Instead, he said, "We need to dismantle the boxes and put a fence around it and get some compost and add some space to it and plant it and lay down some irrigation for it and use it as a chore for the kids."  Blink.  Blink blink.  Y'all, this man does not LIKE vegetables.  He has hated the garden this year because of the weeds and untidiness, so I can't imagine why all of a sudden he's all, "Let's plant some shit, yo."  But he IS.  Far be it for me to deny him his veggies and the kids their chores.  We're making plans and he's going to help me dismantle the boxes soon.  (I will be wearing chain mail and carrying a can of spider spray, because I can't help but think that we'll find more spiders.  Like the one we killed yesterday hanging from our dining room window.  I'd show you pictures, but I have not the energy to load it from my camera.)
7. Now here's where things get truly bizarre.  Will goes, "My third thing is...I want to build a chicken coop.  And get chickens.  Two of them."  Um.  WHAT?  I mean, yay, chickens!  But also...WHAT?  I don't know when the spirit of Wendell Berry possessed my husband (and, no, Berry isn't dead, but work with me here), but all I have to say is, it's hot.  Like, come over here and talk tomato varieties, big boy.  Pump that well, baby.  PUMP IT.
8. Ahahahahahahaa!
9. Sorry.
10. I couldn't help myself.
11. (But seriously, isn't it weird that Will's all Greeny O'Homesteadface?  AND--he's started coupon shopping for me occasionally.)  Bi to the zarre. 
12. Sexy, but bizarre.
13. I think it's best I stop here, don't you?