Beetle juice works

The following is an update on the results after applying beetle juice to the wart on my son’s thumb. 

The beetle juice, a very aggressive treatment, was a success though I had never witnessed something so grotesque in my entire life.  The blister the beetle juice created was absolutely disgusting.  The whole process from application to the blister releasing from the skin lasted about 6 days.  My son peeled off the blister a few days ago to reveal a white, raw area underneath.  Remarkably, the area healed over within a day or so. 

We are both very pleased with the results.

Home for sale, part 2

It seems our home selling adventure has taken a different turn.  We lost the contingency offer on the house we wanted.  Another buyer came along, made an offer, and the seller accepted it.  We could have given another offer or walked away.  We decided to not make another offer.  Shewww!  That was a close one.  Why? After watching a few episodes of House Hunters on HGTV (thanks to our new satellite service), I quickly started to regret the offer I had made on the other house.  It weighed on my mind, but there was nothing I could do except to wait it out and see what happened.  If it was meant to be, then we would be able to afford it.  Although we prequalified for the other home, I wasn’t comfortable with our offer and what we were getting into.   

As a result, we are free from the contingency contract.   We can look for other houses and hopefully be able to take our time.  There have been many prospective buyers for our house, but no offers yet.  Should someone make us an offer, then we will have to start narrowing down our choices.  

We have been down this road before when we had our house on the market about 5 years ago…and we ended up staying here.  If we cannot sell our house that will be fine because I really enjoy our backyard.  However, a bigger house would be very beneficial.

Here are a few photos of some other flowers I have growing.

This is a cleome, also known as a spider flower. It is one of my favorite plants.  I do not recommend this flower as a cut flower because it has a strong musk fragrance.  The seeds are inside long, thin, green pods.  They are black and tiny, similar to poppy seeds but larger.  In the late summer, the pods open up and the seeds drop everywhere and reseed.  Small plants will sprout up and grow without any problems the following year.  This plant was about 6 inches tall a few weeks ago. 

 

This is a kwanso or kwanzo lily.  It is the only known triploid day lily.  They came from my husband’s grandmother.

Camping

Last week, my family and I went camping for a few days.  We like to camp and hike and do all of those other “outdoorsy” kind of things.  Yes, I can sleep in a tent as long as I am warm (if it is cold outside). I can also brush my teeth outside, cook over an open fire, and tolerate the bugs. 

I have some really sissy girlfriends. 

 

Here is a photo essay of our mini vacation of camping and hiking. (be sure to scroll over each picture)

The Mountain: Pilot Mountain State Park

 

The Campground:  Campsite #7

 

Hiking:  The Grindstone Trail- 2.0 miles, moderate. (Yeah right!)

 

After a long walk back down to the bottom, we made it back just in time for this…

and this.

July 4th

Happy Independence Day!!

 

Our essential offspring

Ian is our offspring, but he is very much his father’s son.  They both are nerds.  There, I said it!  It is a fact that Ian can accept, but his dad cannot.  They both love science, science fiction, Star Wars, astronomy, planets, and space.  Those interests classify as nerd interests.  Are they not?  They are also both messy individuals, which can really be a chore for me, being as that I am a neat freak. 

Both my husband and son are very finicky eaters, but with opposite tastes.  Here is where Ian begins to show more signs that I actually gave birth to him.  We both love to eat watermelon, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, and pancakes.  We also like to ride roller coasters, enjoy nature and birding, and read Calvin and Hobbes.  

Back in 1989, I purchased a Calvin and Hobbes book called The Essential Calvin and Hobbes.  I have always liked Calvin, his mischievous intellect and his stuffed tiger, Hobbes, which came to life and joined him in all of his adventures and daily endeavors.  The Essential was the only Calvin book I owned and held on to it for sentimental reasons.  When Ian was seven or eight years old, I introduced him to Calvin and that is where it all began.  Little did I know that he would relate to Calvin and even go as far as to mimic some of the scenes from the comic.  He became so interested in the books that he was on a mission to collect every book.  As of yesterday, his collection was completed.  He now has all the books with exception of maybe two, but he explained to me that those books are contained in the ones he owns.  He obviously knows what he is doing because he said we no longer need to look for Calvin and Hobbes books anymore.  

Thank goodness!

  **GROSS ALERT**                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            If you are susceptible to being grossed out from seeing a hideous sore on a thumb, stop reading here.              

*Wart Removal Update*

We are only on day two of dealing with the effects of beetle juice that was applied to Ian’s thumb on Monday.  Beetle juice, from the blister beetle, is dangerous stuff.  Ian’s thumb actually looks worse than the wart itself.  After he peeled off the wart from the duct tape therapy last Friday, his thumb looked better than it had in a long time.  I’m wondering now if we should have just left it alone.  The blister popped yesterday and it is painful.  At some point, the blister should dry out and peel off with healthy skin underneath.  The wait continues…

The things we do for our children!

 

Warts, fish and flowers

“Releasing the Eggnog Day” has come and gone, June is almost over, and the July 4th holiday weekend is right around the corner.  Our Independence Day is usually uneventful, but we usually take in a fireworks display in a nearby town.  In the south, it is normally very hot and humid on July 4th, and we are big wimps on being outdoors.  I always dread the summer heat and humidity.  July, August and September are my least favorite months in the year. 

I wonder how much longer I can stay with walking outside until I resort to using my treadmill.

Summer is really flying by and I am trying to make the most of it.  I have gotten accustomed to exercising at home.  Each day, I have three activities I choose to focus on, walking, lifting weights or Pilates.  I try to do at least one activity everyday.  Sometimes, I get to do two or even all three. 

Yesterday, I did not get to do any of them. 

My day consisted of running errands from 11:00 am until 4:30pm.  Here are a couple of interesting observations from yesterday that I thought I would share.

Wart removal: Covering the wart with duct tape works.  Actually, in my son’s case and his sweaty boy hands, the duct tape kept slipping off so we changed and used white bandage tape.  We did not follow the instructions exactly as the doctor said, mostly due to “sweaty boy hands.”  After about eight days of covering the area with tape, the wart peeled off.   We visited the dermatologist to confirm if the wart was completely gone.  The doctor applied beetle juice to the area to take care of anything that was left behind.  Now we wait.

Fish can be trained:  The fish in the pond at the dermatologist’s office could see my son and me.   A natural bank and an iron fence surrounded the pond, and we were about 15 feet away from the water’s edge.  As we walked along the fence, we looked at the turtles and noticed a large school of fish swim to the edge of the pond.  They swam over to where we were and then they all turned to face us.  I decided to test what they would do and so we walked a little further to our right.  Sure enough, the fish swam and followed us then turned again to face us when we stopped.  I had never seen fish in a pond do that.  We walked along the fence in the other direction and they followed us again. When we stopped, they stopped and would turn and face us. Too bad we did not have any bread to feed them.  Obviously, the fish recognized when people were nearby because they fed them.  We were not very close to the pond yet they could still see us.  I thought that was amazing. 

Below is a photo of some lilies and hydrangeas from my garden.  I like this arrangement because blue and orange are complimentary colors.  

I cannot let the summer go by without a mention of the flowers in my garden.

 

Traditions

We have a tradition around my house that takes place on June 25.  I can’t recall how long we have been participating in this unusual observance, but it has been for several years. 

My husband loves Christmas.  He loves Christmas so much that he celebrates it six months into the year on June 25 with the an observance that he calls “releasing the eggnog.”  It is silly, I know, but how many people actually do this anyway?  I have heard of Christmas in July festivals, but I’ve never met nor heard of anyone who thaws frozen eggnog and drinks it to celebrate Christmas half way through the year.  Perhaps it is just an excuse to drink eggnog in June. 

The tradition begins every Christmas season when my husband purchases an extra quart of commercial eggnog and freezes it in the freezer downstairs in our basement.  A few days before June 25, he announces that it’s almost time to release the eggnog.  Oh joy!  When our son was younger, he would say, “Release the aggnob.”  Yesterday, he brought the quart of eggnog upstairs so it could thaw in our refrigerator. 

So here you have it…a peek into just one of the quirky things we do in my home.  Releasing the aggnob!

Happy Releasing the Eggnog Day!

A few subjects

While at the library today, I loaded up on a few subjects that I have recently become interested in.  Julia Child and Pilates.

This morning,  I caught up on some blog posts and was intrigued by some comments about Julia Child’s book My Life in France from Epicurienne’s blog.  I always enjoyed anything with Julia Child, especially when she and Jacques Pépin would cook together.   With that being said, how can I read about Julia Child and not check out one or two of her cookbooks?   And how can I read about Julia Child and not get at least one book by Martha/MSO? Yes, the truth is out.  I am a fan of Martha Stewart.   I enjoyed her pre-prison television series, Martha Stewart Living,  but I do not like her post-prison television show, The Martha Stewart Show.  The post-prison show has a live audience and celebrity guests.  Everybody does that.  I liked her and her show much better when it was shot on location from Turkey Hill.  It made me want to move to Connecticut.  I can deal with the scandal with the sale of her shares and her brief imprisonment, but I cannot handle Martha turning into Rachel Ray.  The format and production of  Everyday Food is as close as it gets to a “pre-prison Martha” show.  The Everyday Food  show is clean, detailed, and precise.  It is very graceful and calming to watch.  

For the next few weeks, I will be reading about Julia’s life and her cooking.  I also plan to read and educate myself more about Pilates.  Pilates is my current fitness obsession.  I absolutely love it!  The Pilates books are by two recognizable women in fitness, Denise Austin and Mari Winsor.  I also checked out the Pilates Workout for Dummies DVD, which I have seen before.   The DVD gives excellent instructions, but I find the instructor a little annoying.  That’s just me though. 

Whether or not I will experiment with any recipes is TBD, but I will be working on hip circles and kneeling side kicks.

What is important

This is Susie, my old college friend.  I wrote about her here on my blog back in October.  She recently came back to North Carolina to visit after living in South Korea where she was employed as an ESL Teacher.  Since her return at the end of May, she has been busy visiting many people throughout the eastern part of North Carolina.  Recently, I drove to a nearby town where she was visiting another college friend and I was able to spend the day with her.  She always brings home interesting gifts for her friends and family.  Magnets, stickers, and bookmarks from her visits to China and Japan and cute South Korean socks with weird little characters.   One of the items she gave to me was a tea bag of chrysanthemum tea. Yum!  I still have the tube of pine flavored toothpaste she gave to me when she was last here.  I haven’t used any of the toothpaste yet because I am not so sure about anything that is pine flavored.  During my visit with her, we went to Target so she could buy things that she couldn’t buy in South Korea.  Later that evening, she and the other college friend and I went out for dinner to a very nice Indian Cuisine restaurant. 

Our table at the Indian restaurant

At present, Susie is on her way to Ottawa, Ontario in Canada to visit with more friends for a few weeks and then her next stop is Ecuador.  She plans to return to South Korea to teach in the fall. 

A brief history:  My memory fails me a little, but I think it was the summer of 1991.  It was my first day of working a summer job at the college library on  campus.  The air conditioner in the library had gone haywire and many of the books had become moldy.  The students who worked in the library would roll cart after cart of books outside to lay out in the sun to dry out.  That is where I remember meeting Susie and her long red hair.  She was outside with a cart of books, kneeling on the ground and laying them out in the sun. 

We became friends while we worked at the library that summer.  She lived off campus and I spent a lot of time hanging out with her at her house.  She didn’t have a car, and I would take her grocery shopping.  In return, I’d ask her to make lentils and rice for me; a native dish from Ecuador that she learned to make when she lived there.  I learned a lot about her during those years visiting her at her house.  Our friendship was formed off campus as I didn’t see her on campus except at the library. 

During our friendship, there have been long gaps when we didn’t hear from each other, but somehow we would always reconnect and catch up on what we had been doing.  We have been able to keep in touch steadily for the past two years now. 

I just thought I’d write a post about her.  She is the closest thing I have to a sister.  I don’t have any siblings and it is just nice to stay connected with someone who feels like family.  Sometimes, friends are better than family anyway. 

All the other stuff I have going on just doesn’t seem as important right now.  

 

Peanuts

“One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.”

Peanuts bed sheet

Instant happiness!  I found this sheet at a thrift store and grabbed it just as soon as I saw it.  I went to the thrift store to search for a dust ruffle for my son’s bed.  I needed another dust ruffle because the new quilt I bought for his bed did not match the current one.   These things are important, you know.

The copyright date on the sheet is 1971, the year I was born.  I am not sure if that is the age of the sheet or just the copyright for the drawings.  The sheet is in excellent condition.

I love the Peanuts!  I have always been a fan since childhood and collect anything that I find with Peanuts on it.  I just wish the sheet were a queen size rather than a twin. 

Maybe I can make an excuse to sleep in my son’s bed.