What's That? A Hat!!!*

*Wondering where the title comes from?

So here's my hat trick for the boys' Halloween costumes.  We were fortunate to have a green ball cap in the house (from when Dave was on the crew of the New Hope Valley RR in North Carolina) and we have several red NC State ballcaps, so it was 50 cents at Michael's to pick up some felt and make new fronts.

No, they aren't perfect.  And no, they aren't the same floppy plumbers hats that the animated characters have.  But for 50 cents for both hats...and the ability to bring the hats back to its original form by pulling the thread holding it in place...this will work well.  Besides, these are adult ball caps, they're pretty roomy on my boys' heads.

Before:

From 2010 10 16 Halloween Mario & Luigi Costumes

After:

From 2010 10 16 Halloween Mario & Luigi Costumes

And here's Luigi:

From 2010 10 16 Halloween Mario & Luigi Costumes

I hope to have the 2nd pair of overalls finished by the end of this weekend.  Then the only thing left will be the mustaches, which I haven't figured out quite yet.  The boys have two Halloween events next weekend.

Volunteerism

Today I'm going to talk to you about "volunteers".

"Oooo...what kind of volunteers?"

Well, not this kind (although he sure is cute!):

Smokey is the University of Tennessee's mascot.  There's a real one and a costumed one. 

"Are you going to talk about your military service?"

Nope, not that kind either. Although an essay about volunteerism in America would be nice...I won't be writing it though.

But here's a New Oxford Dictionary definition for you.

volunteer |ˌvälənˈtir|
noun
• a person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task.
• a person who works for an organization without being paid.
• a person who freely enrolls for military service rather than being conscripted, esp. a member of a force formed by voluntary enrollment and distinct from the regular army.
• a plant that has not been deliberately planted.
• Law: a person to whom a voluntary conveyance or deposition is made.

Today I'm going to discuss the 4th definition, the one related to plants.  This season I was overwhelmed with "volunteer" plants because of all the seeds that I let into my compost bin.  I have a nice household-sized compost bin that easily disassembles, so we can move around with it.  My composting ambitions are a bit frustrated from the moving around, since it takes about 2 years before I have a good enough batch to really impact my gardening.

Anyway, when I have a summer garden, I will "side dress" my plants with several handfuls of compost about every 6 weeks.  Often, that's all the fertilizer my plants need, and all is well with the world.  Tomato seedlings will commonly pop up all over the place, and every few days I'd just pluck them out and pitch them right back into the compost bin.  No guilt.

This year, I had a lot of blank spots in my garden so I let some of the tomato plants persist starting in late August and I have some nice green fruits.

From 2010 10 15 Garden Volunteers

But this was a nice surprise -- cantaloupe!  When this seedling came up back in August, I had no idea whether this would be watermelon, cantaloupe, pumpkin or cucumber.  Seeds from all those veggies were somewhere in the compost.  For fun, I decided to let it ride and see what happened.  I have counted SEVEN little melons on this vine.

From 2010 10 15 Garden Volunteers

From 2010 10 15 Garden Volunteers

I thought I'd share the fun before I cut down the volunteers, our first frost is due here any day now, and I also need to retreive the tomato and pepper cages before the movers come in 4 weeks.

Here's are the other items I'll be harvesting soon. I'm trying to milk this mild weather for as long as I can -- lows around 40, highs in the mid-70s.

Peppers!

From 2010 10 15 Garden Volunteers

And WATERMELON! Four of them ready to harvest!

From 2010 10 15 Garden Volunteers

I think this one is about 8-10 lbs.!

From 2010 10 15 Garden Volunteers

From 2010 10 15 Garden Volunteers

From 2010 10 15 Garden Volunteers

3 Times in 26 Months!

Okay, let's all sing along (to the tune of Gene Autry's "Back in the Saddle Again"):

I'm back in the O.R. again

Out under anesthesia, which I dread....

Where doctors take their knives

On what remains of my G.I.

Back in the O.R. again

I'm writing this corny little song from the surgery waiting room at University of Nebraska Medical Center near downtown Omaha.  Dave is in the middle of a basic hernia repair. This is a pretty common procedure, and for the most part I'm feeling pretty confident that everything's going to be all right.

It's worth discussing that there's something about Nebraska that's been driving Dave into the operating room every 13 months. First, there was his emergency appendectomy about 3 weeks after we moved here in August 2008. Then, in September 2009, Dave's gall bladder removal. Which apparently I didn't write much about, I was in a blogging drought in late 2009. Don't know why.  I just looked at my blog posts from August/September 2009 and there wasn't much at all.

Anyway, here we are, back again, for Dave's 3rd surgery in 26 months. All of these procedures are pretty routine, and Dave recovers pretty nicely. You can't even see his laproscopy scars from the first two procedures anymore. This one is an open procedure, so he'll have a no-kidding incision on his lower abdomen, but that's okay.

Dave's health has been an absolute nightmare since we moved to Nebraska. We aren't sure if it's the air here, that our house is haunted, or the stresses of Dave's job. Or just that his gastro-intestinal system was due to take a nosedive right about when we moved here. We don't know for sure. It's certainly frustrating, especially for a guy who didn't really have any big medical issues right through age 30! The occasional twisted ankle, bout of the flu, etc.

We're glad he's getting this taken care of quickly, but it still takes away from the normalcy of our lives. But our life is anything but normal, right? Dave's convalescent leave will take him right up to his trip to Florida to pick out a new house, then my Reserve 2 week tour in early November, and then we go right into the movers coming to pack up our house for our move!

We aren't sure if we'll be contracting with the "Big Orange Truck" company again for this upcoming move.  We'll probably know this week.  They did a good enough job between NC and NE.

From 2008 07 10 Moving Pictures

In the meantime, I'm in "get 'er done" mode at the house, wrapping up some projects so I can start preparing for the move. This is stuff I can do while Dave's recovering at home. First off, finishing the boys' Halloween costumes, then finishing up my HAP crochet projects so I can put away my sewing/knitting/crochet supplies with my other craft supplies. Then, I can get started on the garden: I have to disassemble our compost bin and dig up Dave's hops. We plan to take rhizomes with us and get them in the ground as soon as we get to FL. I have to do it before Nebraska's first hard freeze.

I'm dreading tackling the battery removal again.  Ugh...

So Far...So Good

I still need to fit the side buttons and hem the legs, but here's the first set of overalls.