Wednesday, July 16, 2014

First Steps in our New Home

This morning I was ready to head to the grocery store for our weekly run, and Hambone said "Why are you doing that when we move in less than a week?" So I take that to be very, very good news. I spent the day packing up the rest of our house instead of grocery shopping -- I packed everything that would fit in boxes until I ran out of boxes. My excitement knew no bounds.

To fill you in a little on the construction, the last few weeks have involved large teams of laborers, all digging and moving furniture and lifting and drinking Gatorade by the gallon. My job throughout construction has been to provide lunch for all the guys. During the winter months this was easy because there were only about three people working most Saturdays, so a few pizzas or a quick trip to McDonalds did the trick. 

Lately with the crews so big, Hambone decided it would be a good idea to buy a cheap gas grill and serve everybody fresh burgers and hotdogs. He said it would be about half as expensive and the food would be better quality, so why not?

To put this into perspective, this means making lunch for 10 to 15 workers, and they were big, hungry laborers. Did I mention big? And the house is not, shall we say, entertainment ready. For instance, we have no plates. I bought plates, but by Saturday they were invariably gone. Nobody knows where. There are also no tables, and for the first cookout, there was also no spatula. Being an improvisor, I made 20 burgers and 16 hotdogs using a putty knife.

But the guys were all jovial and they line up for their burgers served on paper towels like they are at the Taj Mahal. I will always be grateful for their attitude.

One of them, referred to simply as "Big O" (apparently the father of another laborer named Orin) is my favorite. He only spoke to me with ancient animal like sounds, but he makes everything sound like a celebration. MMMmmMMmmmmm  oooeaaaahh brimmme sommeda'. I look forward to seeing him in line, and usually he passes through the line more than once. The first weekend he ate five burgers and two hotdogs. Last weekend I grilled corn and he seemed to like that pretty good too.

Our own little family had a celebratory first meal of "food cooked inside my brand new gourmet kitchen" which consisted of microwaved hotdogs. Hambone had a good laugh about that.

We are so excited to try this new lifestyle out. Hopefully fewer hotdogs and more outdoor time are in store for us. Stay tuned.

Friday, July 11, 2014

The Summer of the Move

We are starting to pack up and move things to the new house, which is incredibly exciting. Our original move date was April, then June, then July 4 weekend, and it seems that now we are looking at the completion date as August. But I keep telling Hambone it has to be sooner!

I planned the summer activities for Hamslice and me to include living at the new house, which meant I scheduled camps for him up there, and took weeks off of camp with the idea that we would go hiking together and exploring around the pond and fishing. However, with the move date so late, I am commuting for all of the camps, and Hamslice is watching a lot of TV. Again.

But we are getting there!

This summer Hamslice wants to learn how to catch and throw a baseball, and that is tough to do here in the city but we have that on the list of first things to tackle when we move. He has regaled me on the drive up to camp (one hour each way! AAHHH) with every known fact about superheros. Some of them I believe are embellishments by Hamslice which make me so proud. He gets that from his mom.

One of his camps this summer is at Puh'tok which is a non-academic camp. He sincerely hates this camp because there is no real curriculum so the kids spend their energy conducting intense social experiments on each other. Hamslice and I have had tearful, heart to heart talks about how learning to deal with these kids now is as much a skill as learning math or reading, and that he can't survive as an adult without learning how to handle it. He grudgingly accepts this explanation and patiently counts the days until camp is over.

He has three weeks at Club Scientific, which after Puh'Tok, seems like a wonderland to him.

Last week I registered him for the new school in Sparks and he received a MONSTER load of "skills maintenance" homework. He has been plowing through the pile two pages at a time, laughing and saying how easy it is. I have high hopes for him for next year.

I will note however, that Hamslice does like the songs he's learning at Puh'tok. There is one about a moose with juice on the loose, and a song about butts, and one about Bazooka bubble gum which mercifully has replaced some of the superhero talk. At least for this week.