SAVING ENERGY

Aloha!

Another Friday and an especially good one since it is a long holiday weekend. I am hoping all of you will get to enjoy your Labor Day.

So my Question:
Who is the "ENERGY POLICE" in your house?
What I mean is who is always patrolling the lights, doors, running water in your home to keep the utility costs down?

Unfortunately I have assumed that role in my house. So I get to be the mean person who yells because the door is standing wide open and we are cooling the outside. Or someone left the light on in the bathroom. Who am I kidding, they leave every light on in this house.

I believe I inherited this "Energy Police" role from my father. When I was a kid all I could ever remember was hearing things like

"Close that door, were you born in a bar?"
"Turn that light off."
"You don't need these lights on."

All things I hated hearing as a kid and yet I am saying them all the time.

I was really hoping my husband would assume this role because he is as bad as the kids. I have been making him pay the electric bill in hopes that he would see it has lots of room for improvement. I guess he doesn't see what I see. Nothing has changed!!!

Oh well off to deal with light switches and open doors. LOL.....

Play along at An Island Life for Aloha Friday. If you’d like to participate, just post your own question on your blog and leave your link at An Island Life.

THE HORNETS NEST

Recently we had a swarm of hornets decide to make a nest in our wall above our kitchen door. Not sure how they got into the wall but it is an old house and their are cracks and crevices everywhere. At first they weren't an issue and then my husband decided he did not like that they have decided to make a nest in our wall.

First go around, the crazy man bangs on the wall from the kitchen. The plan was to get the to come out so that he could spray them. Fool!!! He got stung because they didn't like us bothering them.

Attempt number two: same thing and he ends up stung again. All I can say is better him than me.

Well now because he has decided to bother them they have become aggressive. Anytime you open the back door to let the dogs out to potty, who by the way have to potty all the time, they come flying out of their nest.

For about a week we would end up with a bee/hornet (all look the same to me) in the house. Poor Eric, still getting stung.

We decided to put our ear to the wall. Oh my.... this is not good because their is a lot of buzzing taking place inside my wall. I am thinking a hundred or so bees are in my wall.

So my wonderful hubby has had enough and plots a plan to get rid of them once and for all. Let me tell you his planned sent me into a tail spin.

• Step stool, check
• Drill, check
• Hornet spray, check
  

Now wait a minute, what is he doing with a step stool in the kitchen at the door and a drill. He is going to drill holes into my wall from the kitchen so he can spray the bees from the inside with the killer.

HAS HE LOST HIS MIND???

My vision, holes drilled and angry bees filling my kitchen. Not my idea of a good idea.

ME: Honey, why don't we have my dad who is a bee keeper suit up can come down and take care of this.

HUSBAND: I can do this don't worry. They wont get in.

Well I think I ranted enough to make him a little nervous about his method. Didn't stop him but he added a couple steps to his plan. He taped a bag to the wall and drilled from the bag. Yeah, like a plastic bag is going to stop a mob of angry bees (can you see my eyes rolling). He also got out a can of expandable foam. If you have every used this stuff it is super sticky and expands really fast.

The moment comes, he drills his holes, sprays a small amount of hornet spray before I think he got nervous and decided to fill the holes with foam. He sprayed so much foam that it shot out the cracks on the other side and ran down my 2 year new screen door. This stuff does not come off easy at all so he has ruined my screen door.

He is so proud of himself for handling the hornets nest. Now the end result is I have holes in my kitchen wall above the door. Good news is we have not remodeled the kitchen to our house yet but the bad news is my kitchen door will probably look like this for a long time.

Beautiful!!!

Playing Hooky

ALOHA FRIDAY Question:

Have you ever called yourself in sick to work but were not really sick?

If & when you do this do you go off for the day and play or do you just hang around the house?

I am a person who is such a big chicken that I have never called myself in sick to have a play day. I am just convinced that I would get caught so it is out of the question for me. Plus I would have such a guilty conscious that it would eat me up.

I have however called myself in sick for a much needed day of rest. I may not be truly ill but if I am run down and see no signs for rest in the future, I will take a day, send the kids off daycare/school and I will crawl back in bad. I then spend the rest of the day either vegetating on the couch or resting in my bed.

I know this is a bad thing but who’s not to say this day of rest that I take (maybe once or twice a year) isn’t keeping me from missing several days because I run myself so down I end up very sick. I know my body and I see the signs and I know when it is telling me it needs a break.

Play along at An Island Life for Aloha Friday. If you’d like to participate, just post your own question on your blog and leave your link at An Island Life.

A Few Things

A few random things that I have been doing here recently. First to catch everyone up, I have decided to leave my two half days of work as half days. I love these days and feel so good when I can make a lot happen.

I take my 1/2 day on Wednesday as a day for me. I leave Thomas at the sitters and when I get off at noon I go home and do what ever I feel needs to be done until 3:30 when I pick Luke up at school and then pick up Thomas. On Friday's I will pick Thomas up at noon and make that time just for me and him.

The past two weeks I have been clearing out lots stuff. Last week it was a couple bags of toys, stuffed animals and books that the boys just don't use anymore. I took them all to Goodwill and they rolled out one of those big basket things and I filled it up. This week I cleared out a big built in cabinet in my kitchen. It has been the collect all since we bought this house 8 years ago. I through 4 bags of trash away today.

Now I am praying that my husband doesn't look in this cabinet before the trash goes out on Friday. It is very empty now and he will want to know what happen to all the stuff. He is the type that will keep everything, I am the opposite and I get rid of everything. If he sees I threw stuff out he will be digging in the trash.

Now another funny! Remember my dream I wrote about last Friday that I had last week. Went to the Fair in my hometown on Friday with my kids. On Saturday I got on my Facebook and posted some of the photo's from our trip. I also saw that the person I had my dream about had posted about being at the fair on Friday also.

We never ran into each other but I thought it was pretty funny that I first had a dream and then we were that close in proximity to each other and didn't know it. It has been so long since we have seen each other I am not sure we would have recognized each other any.

THE FAIR

Friday we went to the Fair. Let me just say, I love doing this every summer.

Thomas was so excited as we walked into the fair.
His face was lit up by all that was going on.
He just kept pointing at everything.

His first ride was on the cars.
We rode them over and over again.
Then I put him on here.
His cousin was supposed to ride but backed out last minute.
Thomas was not getting off.

So here is where I got nervous as he would go up high by himself.
It wasn't really that high but for a little guy this is big.

Like I said we rode these a lot.

However he did start acting bad & wanting to wiggle out of the seat belt and stand up.

The slide was exhausting. Up & down 100 plus times.
Even the carny people were picking on me.

Dad arrives and it is his turn. I am done!

The dragon coaster.
Remember I said Luke hated it until last year.
Well he must have forgotten the fun he had last year
because he didn't come off with this big smile.

I loved the two of them riding together.

Thomas didn't like the merry-go-round.
He wanted off so he could go ride these trucks.

Luke will be my happy merry-go-round kid.

Lots of laughs and giggles on this one.

Time to ride the pony's.
Wasn't sure if Thomas would do this but he loved it.

Luke has always loved the pony's.

Time to see the animals.

OK, Luke got to see the animals.
Thomas was worn out.

The big finish was checking out all the tractors.

Luke just couldn't believe this tire was bigger than him.

From 12:00 PM until 10:00 PM we enjoyed the fair.

I could not imagine not doing this every year, no matter how exhausting it is.