A Jen Too Many

The picture for this puzzle is mine, taken a few years ago, when the girls were much younger and we lived in a different state - one where we had a ton of azalea bushes lining the front of the house!

We have a couple of azalea bushes in front of our current house, but they barely flower and look wildly ill. Azalea fertilizer hasn't helped. I think it's just not warm enough here.

We have a breakthrough, and Oldest Girl Child couldn't be more excited.

She has learned to tie her shoes!

Right now she is sitting in the middle of the living room, in her pajamas, wearing her new shoes (black with hot pink detailing), carefully double-knotting the new laces. They are beautiful laces, black with pink and sparkly white stripes. She is tying them, then untying them, then practicing tying them again.

When she goes back to school next week (after spring break) she will be one of the circle of Kids Who Can Tie Their Shoelaces. I am informed that the Kids Who Can Tie help out the kids who haven't yet learned, by tying their shoes. She is very excited to do that.

I wasn't planning to buy her new shoes yesterday. We went to the store because Youngest Girl Child needed new shoes. I'd put it off as long as possible, but she started growing a rather nice hole in the toe of her right shoe, and, well...

OGC pointed out to me, as we headed for the back of the store where they keep the shoes, that she needed new shoes, too. It turns out the sole of her shoes was about 1/3 detached from the top.

Yeah. That was a definite problem. I told her she made a good argument, she asked me what I meant, and I told her it meant she was getting new shoes. So there was much excitement from both girls.

We got what were probably the last two pair of practical shoes there* and left the store much the lighter in pocket, but happy and proud. OGC put on her new shoes in the car on the way home and has hardly had them off since.
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*Why, oh why, are most little girl athletic shoes made in white? White. For small, active, mud collectors. The people who come up with these ideas don't have children, do they?

I have been fighting a long term battle with the girls over food in their bedroom. I forbid; they ignore. I tell them, "No,"; they sneak the food in when I'm not looking.

I have a huge problem with it because they cannot eat without getting crumbs everywhere. Neither does the food that goes into the bedroom come out of the bedroom. And I really get uptight about finding half-rotted apples anywhere in the vicinity of light blue carpet.*

But! I am able to announce that today I finally found the solution!

Food in the room = bugs who come to eat the food.

And bugs in the room = SPIDERS who come to eat the bugs.

The girls are deathly, deathly afraid of spiders. We have them sometimes in the basement. They saw two last summer. The basement used to be a favored play area; now it's the Haunt of Monster Spiders Who Lie In Wait To Eat Little Girls.

I think I've had my last problem with moldy bread crusts under the bed.
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*I also get uptight about finding used adhesive bandages stuck to the floor of the bathroom, but that's another post.

Evidently, I am channeling Princess Leia.