people watching

Yesterday during my shift at the Puyallup Fair Museum, I was approached by a woman who looked like Margaret Thatcher, from her coif to her big bow at her throat, to her elegant pumps.

"You have a nice smile, E_." (obviously she can read my nametag.)

"Thank you." (I smile again; what other response is there?)

"Do you know what the ingredients are for a Honeymoon Salad?"

This question, though a complete non sequitur for an opening salvo, does not faze me. Quirky people amuse me, and I know the answer.

"Lettuce alone."

"Lettuce alone, no dressing!"

I chuckle. She tries once more on me.

"If you're an American in the kitchen, then what are you in the bathroom?"

"European."

She's amazed at me, I can tell.

"How do you know all this?"

"I have a father."



That was all the quizzing I received from her. She'd have to step it up quite a bit to catch me on one of those oldy moldy witticisms.

We'll see who I meet today... it's the weekend, when the weirdos come out to The Fair.

Shirt: "i see dumb people.."

of ants and cryptids

"Mom, can you hand me the can of WD-40?"

"Sure....why?"

"It belongs in the shed. I'll put it away."

That in itself should have roused my suspicions. My son never just puts anything away.


Earlier yesterday afternoon, he had used a magnifying glass to some purpose on the ant colony that lives in the crack of our driveway. A veritable swarm of ants came out to see what was cooking, literally. The ants who successfully navigated their way up his pant leg did not leave him unmarked. Their displeasure at his disturbance resulted in 7 or 8 nice-looking bites on his left knee and thigh.

So when it was time to leave for evening church, I noticed hordes of ants, dead, around the crack in the driveway. Apparently D has discovered that aerosol spray makes a totally awesome flamethrower. A pox on whoever let that gem of knowledge slip to my overactive son. The neighbors should never rest easy now unless there's a fire extinguisher close at hand. Even more disturbing is that I didn't know he was at it until the deed had long been done and over with. (Canning tomatoes is such an engrossing activity, you know.)

Today he has decided, in the spirit of last week's Bigfoot hoax (which, incidentally, was heralded with great grief under this roof), to perpetrate a hoax of his own. Puyallup needs a cryptid of its own, by golly, and he's the one to do it.

The plan involves a baby dragon of some type. Dragons, of course, breathe fire--apparently yesterday's success with the ants gave rise to some further creativity and planning. I, however, will be a total wet blanket to any further flamethrowing activity. This is extremely unpopular with my son, but I am concerned for the Greater Good here.

Now he is looking for stink bombs or smoke bombs left over from July 4.

Not for nothing does he own a t-shirt that says "Every great idea I have gets me in trouble."

i'm not fluffy at heart, really...

Okay, I'm outing myself, because I really need the prayer support, if you feel called to give it.

A few months ago I was asked to be the speaker at a ladies' retreat. My husband felt I should say yes to this opportunity, since he will be speaking at the same retreat, but to the teens. (If we could find someone to watch our children, which we have.)

I write a lot of fluff here, I know that. I find it difficult to speak of things that are close to my heart and/or personal. I'm the one who wants everyone to get along and be happy and share a laugh or two together.

I am intimidated at the thought of this retreat. What can I say in 3 different sessions that these ladies need to hear? I do not want these women to sacrifice their precious time and money to attend this retreat, only for them to leave spiritually hungry and feeling like it was a waste of time.

So would you just pray for me, that I would present Christ to these women, and that I would fade out of the picture?

The theme is "Walk Worthy" - which has many many MANY ways to be approached. I've been doing quite a bit of reading, as well as praying ("HELP!"), but now that there's about one month left, I need to start narrowing it down to the three messages I need to give.

Thanks for reading. And for praying.

the REAL text message I sent:

I am sitting in the van, having just dropped the kids at swim lessons. D has been treating me to a super-size helping of grouse. Naturally, swimming interferes with his ideal plans for what a summer day should be. Should I tell him that we're starting school-lite this week?

I am sitting in the van, having just dropped the kids at swim lessons. D has been treating me to a super-size helping of gr

defenders of the blueberry patch

I'm grateful for the fact that we have 5 lovely blueberry bushes of different varieties and sizes. At this time of year, we spend probably 30 minutes daily harvesting those berries that have passed from pale green, to blush red, to a plump, frosty blue.

We aren't the only ones who enjoy the blueberries, either. Sparrows, chickadees, and cedar waxwings all enjoy swooping in for a few pecks... sometimes even while I'm in the bush, picking!

So we daily defend our harvest against those thieving birds! I realize that they don't get away with all that much, so I don't begrudge them a few nibbles here and there. Plus, when the elderberries come in, they'll be able to gorge themselves, because our bushes produce more elderberries than I can possibly handle or use.


On other fronts:

D went frogging several times this week and brought home Charlie and Twitch. (This is Charlie)

They're now living in the turtle pond in the backyard. I hope they have the wits not to become dinner for the red-eared sliders. I'm fond of frogs and would hate to see that happen.

My kidlet S is very interested in American Girl things. She has the doll that's her namesake, she gets the magazine, she has all the movies.

The magazines always feature kid-friendly recipes and crafts for her to try, and so as a result she's made some "stained glass" cookies (cut out cookies with melted jolly ranchers in the middle), she's made some kind of tempura paint/waterbottle/fish thing--all kinds of neat, girlish things. The most recent magazine featured ice cream sandwiches, which nobody really needs, but she was dying to try them out. So we baked our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, and she prepared them for the family using chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream from Tillamook, and rolled the edges in chocolate chips. Decadent stuff.

Meanwhile, I was "facebooking" (a fabulous time waster I might add) and not really monitoring what was going on. So when it was time for bed, S came groaning and whimpering into my room, "Mooomm, I feeeell siiiiick...."

Upon questioning, I discovered that, FIRST, she'd eaten a whole bowl of ice cream. THEN, because the weather is so hot, and everything was melting so fast... she'd also eaten THREE ice cream sandwiches!!!

She got no sympathy from me, but perhaps she learned a lesson: both about the sin of gluttony, and WHERE YOU CAN PUT THINGS if they're melting and you don't want them to. (smacking head and rolling eyes).

Fishing at the park

D considers any day not spent with some time fishing as a day wasted. So yesterday afternoon, as usual, he packed up his pole and gear and headed off to the park a block away.

He returned around dinnertime, hands full with his catch:



Notice the complete lack of fins and scales there?

The story runs like this: he was fishing off the dock, when a lady walking her dog came by and mentioned she had seen a guinea pig over in the brush nearby. Not only that, but she'd seen it there several weeks previously, so this little guy's been on his own in the wild for a good bit. D, having much experience with our 4 escape-prone guinea pigs, put his trapping skills to work, and soon succeeded in catching the little wheeker and bringing him home.

Now, I'm all for guinea pigs, but we already have four FEMALES. We most certainly cannot keep a male! So tomorrow he'll be going to the Foggy Creek Cavy Rescue up in Auburn, where Lisa will treat him for mites and get him on the road to recovery (he's missing a great deal of fur on his back half) and then adopt him out to another family.

I've been telling the kids not to get attached, but they've already named him Oreo. I call him Shaggy.

The kids were inspired to write about it in their own blog, which they set up yesterday. I'm keeping it private, but if you're really interested to see how my kids think and write, email me and I'll put you on the approved list. :)


So tomorrow might be traumatic for the kids. We'll see. But Oreo has got to go. I do NOT need 12 guinea pigs around here, which is what would surely happen were he to stay.

number one son is 1-1!

Here's some pictures of D and his luau party in our backyard and surrounding environs. I didn't have any Don Ho music to play, drat!

He wanted an island cake:




We made tie-dyed t-shirts - but I made everyone wear trashbags so clothes wouldn't get ruined. N. was visiting from Eastern WA, so we were glad he could join us at the party.... he's pictured here with S, who is MY S's dearest friend. (Lotta "S" names around here!)



SUCH a clever boy... always polite for the camera.




The turtle had the right idea: shaded from the sun, right near the water.

... and the living is easy

Ah, it's been restful... kids away at Church Camp last week... painting the Master bedroom a lurvely sage green color... soaking in the kiddie pool when the temps were in the 90's... actually studying the Word of God for extended periods of time without being interrupted or losing my train of thought... piano lessons only one day per week...

if I believed in Nirvana, this would definitely come close.

Here's a few kidlet pics of our recent Seattle Center trip - D and S and lil' buddy S.


We don't know if we were allowed to play in this fountain or not... but we saw other kids doing it, so we figured why not? Plus an employee drove right by us in his golf cart without hollering at us, so we decided it was okay.




This fountain we KNOW we can play in. It's got a nice sloping pathway for you to walk down to the dome and get squirted. You just might be able to see S there over to the right, wearing her purple swim shirt and trunks.






The obligatory Space Needle shot. :)

More photos to come!

filing away for future blackmail

Today's topic: personal hygiene.

Our subject: 10yo male, firstborn, Type A personality

The circumstances: He failed to use soap/shampoo in the shower he was persuaded (under duress) to take. So he had to take another shower, his father threatening to come in to the shower WITH HIM and scrub his head for him. This did not actually transpire, but the idea of his father coming IN TO THE SHOWER and viewing him in his altogether put the fear of God into the boy so he actually used soap.


His enraged quote (at the top of his lungs, whilst in the shower the second time): "Hygiene stinks! It's pointless! It's disgusting!"


The family's collective mocking did not improve his mood any, but at least the boy is next to godliness now.

"what we did in the month of May"

1) Finished the concert series with South Sound Classical Choir. Yes, the sound tech came to the final concert and he made a good recording. I'm too lazy to go find one of those players right now to put on my blog sidebar so you can hear me-n-Kari playing.

2) Had a great visit with Grandma K from Michigan. We went to the Woodland Park Zoo with her and as part of a school field trip. We also planned to go whale watching up in the San Juan Islands, but alas, one of the Victoria Clipper ferries was having mechanical difficulties, so they had to cancel the whale trip. We got a refund, but that's not as satisfying as seeing orcas up close and personal.

3) I had a battle with boiling caramel for my popcorn, and the caramel won. My middle finger of my left hand will have a lovely, inch-long burn scar on it. The bandage made playing the piano rather interesting for a week or so.

4) Celebrated my 38th birthday and my 17th anniversary! Still deciding how to spend the birthday booty, but pretty sure it involves kitchen gadgetry, or bike things.

5) Snapped a photo with my cell phone at the outrageous price of gasoline on May 9, 2008: $3.79 a gallon! Decided then and there that it was high time to pull out the bikes and leave the car for long trips, or trips up to South Hill. (Price of gasoline yesterday, May 29? $4.19. Now even more determined to make bicycling a way of life.)

6) Spent a lot of time trying to get school completed. Still working toward this end. I told the kids yesterday we could finish school in ten days, IF we do 3 math lessons a day, etc... They are motivated, because we've left long division in the dust (or in S's case, set it aside) - and we've moved on to fractions and decimals (they love these!), and next up is geometry: rays, line segments, angles, graph coordinates, etc. Very visual, very geared to their learning style. Things are looking up.

7) Neglected this blog and all yours as well. I will snoop around and catch up with your postings sometime over the next day or so.



Is anyone out there a serious cyclist? I'm looking at acquiring gear to make it possible to transport groceries via bicycle. I could very easily go to Safeway, and even Fred Meyer or K Mart if I needed to - it's all here in the valley. (Don't think I could make it up South Hill!!) Richard, if you're out there... are you still in to this? Where's a good place to get saddlebags? or panniers or whatever they're called? I don't quite fit into this bicycle subculture I'm just starting to learn about. I just have a cheap, purchased-from-Target bicycle that's functional and fits me. Is there a niche for peeps like me? I'm daunted by these racing people.

grasshoppers, 2; sensei, 1

Ooh, hot off the camera. Two grasshoppers (left and right, above) played a duet tonight - Mozart's Sonata in Bb. The sensei (center) was in the audience, and the grasshoppers were jittery. We pulled it off, though of course we know exactly where the problems were. 98% of the audience, however, did NOT know we flogged a few of Mozart's carefully penned chords at the last, especially since we ended it with a flourish, completely unified. Sensei, not one to waste compliments, was pleased with our performance.

The rest of the South Sound Classical Choir concert went rawther well, also. We listen so much better now, and we don't oversing. Peter, our new director, is extremely good about the human instrument, making sure we don't sing outside our "box of beauty."

I was hoping to be able to post a video/audio of our group, but alas, we were stood up by the sound technician!! He's got two more chances to get this concert, so I hope he gets there tomorrow or next Saturday to do his job! I might have to get irritated with him to get him there, and I dislike doing that.

workin' for the weekend

For several years I have considered Wednesday to be my "Friday."

Saturday is a day of preparation - not necessarily a restful day.
Sunday is the Lord's Day. Imagine how much resting gets done in a pastor's home. Hah.
Monday - the beginning of the school/work week. Tuesday - more school, with the time constraint of piano. Wednesday, more school, and a lot of piano. And usually school AFTER piano too. Gads, do I ever dislike harping on children to finish up schoolwork when it's 8:30 p.m.

So now that the heavy teaching load is done for the week, I'm sitting and knitting in the La-Z-Girl chair. Well, blogging now. I'll have some knitting pictures on Ravelry soon - I finished D's socks, as well as made a pair of Spring Mittens for S. Still chipping away at A's sweater, now nicknamed The Shroud, because that's how long it'll be on the needles...

Did you catch that back there? SPRING mittens. Alaska's been sending their cold air down to Seattle. It snowed last weekend. Snow! In April!! (You high prairie states people just quit your scoffing; I live at sea level and this simply should NOT be--see previous post and consider our blighted hopes... and plants and shrubs...) So anyway, with the bone chilling weather, S. requested a pair of mittens. She dolefully asked, "will these take as long as D's socks?" Fortunately for me, they didn't, because knitting with size 5 needles is much different than size 1's. They were begun Friday night and finished on Tuesday.

Last weekend (the frigid snowy haily rainy one) I worked in the museum at The Fair. Unheated building. I was thinking warm thoughts as I knit that mitten, though, and I had more than one offer of purchase from passersby. My friend Christy ran and got me some hot coffee, so the day wasn't a total freeze out. I informed A. that I would require a HOT meal when my shift was over with, so he lovingly prepared a six-course meal drove me to the Old Country Buffet, where I could warm my hands in the hot macaroni and cheese casserole. Well, I was sorely tempted to, anyway.

Monday we went to a pastors/wives conference up in Gig Harbor. I was not too thrilled about taking the day off from school: WASL testing was last week and we got virtually nothing done school-wise, and I'm feeling rawther behind the 8 ball (did you hear my Eloise accent there?). That said, however - I changed my attitude rapidly once I got there. Not only were Dr. Bob Jones III and his wife Beneth there, but Dr. Jim Berg was also one of the speakers. The overall theme was "Reclaiming Our Teenagers," but for me the shot between the eyeballs was "What is your purpose in life?"

Oh sure, we all know that one from the catechism: To glorify God and to enjoy Him forever, right?

Back in the day when my kids were toddling and non-schooling, I kept a yearly notebook to record observations from sermons and things that God was showing me in my study of the Word. At the front of every notebook, I wrote out that year's mission statement. The wording might change slightly from year to year, but the basic gist was always the same: "By God's grace and power, and for His glory, I purpose to: 1) sit at Jesus' feet, learning of Him by His word, loving Him by my obedience to that Word, and living out my faith in expectation of His coming; 2) be an encouraging wife and mother, creating a haven of peace, order and safety; 3) encourage and equip other women to live for God's glory, sharing a current message from a close relationship to my Lord."

Somewhere along the way, I lost my focus. I'm notoriously forgetful; if I don't see it, I don't remember it. Long story short - I switched notebooks, and because the new notebook was not as user-friendly as my previous notebooks, I fell out of the regular habit of using it...and this mission statement (dated 2004) has been out of sight, out of mind.

SO, the circumstances of my life lately have brought my old yearly mission statements back to mind, and I need to get back to the "This One Thing I Do" mindset. That will help me clear away some of the clutter - not just in my thinking, but also in my scheduling (overbooking?) --even to the point of clarifying which activities/choices are best for our family as a whole - does it help or hinder my purpose? All things are good, but not all things are profitable. :)

That's what's rattling around in my brain lately. Need lots of grace to carry it through. Fortunately I have a Father with an abundant supply.

Speaking of a gracious Father, I'm so excited for both Karen and Kari - both of them moms to be, via adoption!! Makes me get all farklempt, in a good way.

Okay, part of that mission statement involves maintaining an orderly schedule; meaning, I get enough sleep so that I'm not tempted to eat my young tomorrow morning when they invariably act up. Talk amongst yourselves.

gonna be a bright, sunshiny day

Today was the nicest day of the year so far in the greater Seattle area! The weather broadcasters were all nervous, saying "maybe" we'd get to 69 (staying away from the 70 degree mark). When it was all said and done, the high in Seattle was 78 degrees - so Puyallup probably hit 80.

Kids pulled out the Slip-n-Slide, which wreaks havoc on the grass,but I can handle it once a year or so. I prepared early for grilling chicken and made potato salad (I do not possess potato salad skills, but I looked around at allrecipes.com to find something that looked tasty.) I also made an apple pie and some chocolate chip-toffee-pecan cookies. Oh great, two desserts--JUST what I need!

After getting the meals squared away, it was time to play in the dirt outside! I planted my flower baskets and dug up/replanted my strawberries, then sat in a lawn chair to knit whilst the children slipped and slid, creating a mud wallow of the front yard.

Today I also received a call from my credit card company. Apparently they noticed some suspicious activity on my card today, and they were calling to verify everything was okay. Everything was NOT okay, as neither I nor A. had used the credit card at all! Some internet cad attempted to make three separate purchases on my card, totalling somewhere in the vicinity of $140. I thanked the credit card company profusely for their watchfulness. That account is now closed, and we'll be getting new numbers/cards next week. That has me a little paranoid about online purchasing, which is my holiday lifesaver. My Christmas shopping is about 65-70% completed online. The company representative assured me that Paypal is VERY well protected, so no worries there. She said what probably happened is that someone sat down and punched in sequential numbers until they found one that worked - but just to be sure, she wanted to know if both A and I had our credit cards in our possession (which we did, so they weren't physically stolen).

This makes me wonder about sites that don't require the use of the security code on the back of the card - I mean, you have to get all 16 numbers on the card right, and then the 3 on the back, what are the odds, hm?

We'll see what the fallout of this will be in the weeks to come.

It hasn't ruined my bright, sunshiny day, whatever! ;) Tomorrow, though - I won't be seeing so clearly, the rain will be back.

And now that it's sundown, the kids are bathed and ready for church tomorrow, and freaking themselves out by watching a video of Doctor Who -the Third Doctor - hiding behind my green chair so the hissing maggots with fangs and the glowing green stuff doesn't get them.

Bright, sunshiny day - green, glowing night... it's all good.

geek quiz

Quick, name the tv show! (Linnet, you are disqualified from this)



see more crazy cat pics

Potato

A pointless song to enjoy. I need to stop wasting time at YouTube :p

The Lord's Prayer

Cute and a half.

perspectives

Earlier in the week, I sat and drank morning coffee with my husband, who was looking out the window.

"Look at that," he mused, "How long the smoke from the neighbors' chimney lasts."

I turned to look as well, noting the wispy clouds moving and dissolving within feet of their entering the brisk outside air.

What is your life? I said to myself. A vapor... here, then gone.

All the frustrations of school/nonschool homemaking/nonhomemaking - as real and as big as they seem... aren't.

At choir, we've begun singing a song with text by the English poet Christina Rossetti called "All Flesh is Grass." More perspective. :) Here's the poem (with the line that smacked me upside the head this week):

So brief a life, and then an endless life
Or endless death;
So brief a life, then endless peace or
strife:
Whoso considereth
How man but like a flower
Or shoot of grass
Blooms an hour,
Well may sigh "Alas!"

So brief a life, and then an endless grief
Or endless joy;
So brief a life, then ruin or relief:
What solace, what annoy
Of Time needs dwelling on?
It is, it was,
It is done,
While we sigh "Alas!"

Yet saints are singing in a happy hope
Forecasting pleasure,
Bright eyes of faith enlarging all their
scope;
Saints love beyond Time's measure:
Where love is, there is bliss
That will not pass;
Where love is,
Dies away "Alas!"

about me

Yesterday I received a homemade card from my dear 9 yo daughter, and I just now got around to reading it.

There's a heart with a smiley on the front - and when you open to read the inside, it says in wobbly crayon cursive:

"To the
biggest,
grumpiest,
Mom ever!

I(heart)U
UR the
BEST!"

...I think I need to change the "about me" section.

cabcree is so cool

....Look what she did for me!! She redesigned our church web site!

This is still (as crafty people would say) a WIP. Any mistakes in text, etc. would be mine. She took our old site and refrubished it so it's more kewwl with CSS-ey things. Mine looked very 90's old school.

And A. still gets his favorite colors on the web site.


So, props to Raba-baba-caba!

rant. please ignore.

True Confessions:

I am unable to successfully home school (keeping children on task and in harmony with God and fellow man), keep a home clean and running smoothly, manage the family finances, keep everyone fed regularly, and keep the laundry from taking over my garage floor.

Do not bother to read my blog for motherly wisdom and chipper bits of advice, because I do not have any to offer.

That is all.

Slinky cat

see more crazy cats



I enjoy the silliness at ICHC - thanks to Mrs. Blythe and Rebecca for making me aware of the place. :)

indoor water feature, part the second

WOOT! (=general expression of joy and happiness)

We just returned from a mini family vacation. Extremely mini - as in, left yesterday afternoon, back this afternoon.

Just one hour south of us near Chehalis/Centralia, Great Wolf Lodge is now open!

Weeks back when I was in a haze with the flu, I stared at the TV mindlessly until the Great Wolf commercial came on. My mind rallied to one thing: A treat. A RE-treat. We so need this. Immediately I tottered over to the computer and made online reservations... planning ahead for everyone else in the family to get as sick as me, and their approximate recovery times... and decided March 27 was The Day to go, because, Lord willin' - we would all be Over It by then.

As we drove south on the interstate, we saw snow on the sides of the road. (Lovely: Spring is here!!) The kids had no clue what we were doing or where we were going, so it was a nice surprise to pull into the parking lot of what looks like a massive Indian casino and announce we're staying here. Even then, it wasn't until they were in the lobby area that they put it together that GWL is a huge indoor waterpark.

Our rooms weren't ready when we checked in at 1 p.m., so they gave us wristbands and turned us loose on the waterpark anyway (my friend Lori had prepped me to bring a day bag along so we could do this). Wave pools! Waterslides! Arcades! Joy!! I was delighted to be in the waterpark basking in the 84º degree "weather" - watching the spring snow drift down and collect outside.

Around 4 I headed back out to the lobby to see if our room was ready yet, and entered a line that wound around several times and back a good ways. Having been to Disneyland and Magic Mountain many times, I could handle the wait. The staff wandered around serving different kinds of cookies and confections to keep us from becoming disgruntled. With time on my hands, I bonded with the four women surrounding me in line. We weren't about to go buy a pair of pants together or anything, but it was nice to chitchat the time away.

Joy! our room was ready (one of my cronies had to continue to wait for her room). They switched out my first wristband for a techno-cool gadget wristband with a microchip in it. It was my room key AND also contained my credit card information, so I could just swipe the wristband at any establishment at GWL and it would charge my account. (I chose not to do this--too easy to spend too much!)

Rooms clean, beds comfy, towels thick and fluffy - granted, the place has only been open for one week. We'll see what it's like a year or two from now! Food - incredible buffet with "real" food - and also some kid-friendly fare like jello, corn pups, pudding, etc. Service - overall, very good. They're still working out some bugs. A. noticed that the men's lockerroom still had tape up from where they had painted; I got stranded in a women's bathroom because there was no TP - and none in the stalls surrounding it either. This almost happened to me in a different women's bathroom near the arcade, but I hadn't committed myself at that point and hence was able to avert disaster. (Lesson learned: look before you leap.)

We turned the kids loose back into the waterpark after dinner until 9 p.m., and kicked them out of the room at 9 am this morning- back into the waterpark. They are TIRED, which was the goal. We had to be out of the room by 11 a.m., but we were welcome to remain on the grounds until 10 p.m. tonight. We opted to stay until a little after lunch, then headed back north. It was a sad wrench for me to leave 84 degrees for 33 and snowing, but the contrast was enjoyable.

Overall, 4 stars out of 5. They'll work out the TP situation and long check-in lines, I'm sure. Now I'm going to be regularly checking on teh internets for deals. Can't beat this family getaway with it so close by!


Happy Campers, Tired Campers, Content Parents



"Oh the weather outside is frightful..."



"...but inside is so delightful..."

indoor water feature

The must-have thing in today's depressed real estate market is amenities. You know, those cool things that make a potential buyer jump at the chance to place an offer on your home.

D, ever thinking, ever planning, decided to add a water feature to our home yesterday. Taking a handy piece of tape, he covered over the bathroom sink outlet hole - the one near the top of the sink, got it?

He wanted to create a waterfall, and he succeeded.

The water ran over the countertop, filling the drawers, the storage cabinet underneath the sink, and added two inches of water to the (installed just last May) linoleum floor, soaking into the carpet just outside the door to a 6 inch radius.

Things are still drying out. It looks like the top drawer will be permanently warped, though perhaps we managed to save the other drawers, the cabinet bottom, and (I sincerely hope) the linoleum floor/subfloor.

At what age does The Citadel accept new recruits?

rat race

When I was young and actually running to stay in shape, we had a drill for basketball practice that we called a rat race. (Some other people call it "Lines".) Starting on the baseline underneath the hoop, we sprinted to the free-throw line (touching the line on the ground), then back; then to the half-court line and back; to the farther free-throw line, and back; finishing with a full-court sprint to the other side and back to the starting baseline--all under 30 seconds, or Coach made us do it again.

Since Monday, A. has been out of town at a pastors' conference in Eastern WA, so I've been experiencing to a very small degree what single moms do on a daily basis. It's a rat race!

Monday: Clean house @ Dr. J's, get A. packed and ready to leave; bless my own home by cleaning; get kids to piano lessons; do the weekly shopping; feed the kids and take them with me to classical choir practice for 2.5 hours. D has to miss an evening piano class because I can't be in two places at once. Go home, go to bed. (No school accomplished.)

Middle of the night: S has a nightmare and crawls in bed with me, crying. She later leaves and goes back to her own bed and has no memory of it Tuesday morning.

Tuesday: D wakes up at 0-dark-hundred to watch Jurassic Park 3 so I won't bother him about doing school first. 10 minutes before class begins I remember that D needs to get dressed and ready for band at school. He makes it on time! We have one hour between band finishing and leaving for swimming lessons, so we review long division (with much disgust and disdain from D). Then swimming lessons - and a trip to Costco while the kids backstroke and front crawl. Home for a late lunch and a little more school. Must clean bathroom, living room and piano/dining room of kid and school clutter before students arrive. Make arrangements to practice with flute player for offertory on Sunday. Teach 2.5 hours, finishing at 6. S has piano class at 6:45 so we have time to run to Pizza Hut (where we must needs go whenever A is out of town!) Realize at 6:25 that I had made arrangements to meet the FLUTE PLAYER AT 6:30 and I am sitting at Pizza Hut!!! (DOH!) Call frantically and apologize for my airheadedness and make other arrangements. Get S to evening piano; take D home to practice baritone and piano. Pick up S from evening piano @ 7:45 ("this was the worst night of my LIFE!!!") and return Jurassic Park 3 to the library so we don't have late fines. Rescheduled flute player comes over from 9:20-9:45 pm. Husband calls a little before 10 and I am still dressed to shoes, wishing devoutly I were in pajamas.

Tuesday night: Man, it's cold without A sleeping next to me! I shiver until 12:30 a.m., when I finally get a clue that another blanket will probably help me relax and actually fall asleep. It does.

Wednesday morning: Need I go on? I bailed out on my monthly music teachers' meeting. How can I possibly take the morning off from school, two kids attending the meeting with me - and then teach piano from 1:15 to 5:15? So this morning is an intensive makeup day.

Augh. I am so wimpy, I want a vacation. Yet single moms do this every day, not just for a paltry 3 or 4. So I'll shut up and keep running the rat race.

too early for a battle of wits

This morning I awakened to the sound of thumping at 0-dark-hundred. I grabbed my glasses from the nightstand and shuffled out to find my son in the bathroom, running cold water. The toilet was covered with saran wrap.

He was not pleased to see me. "Go back to bed!!" he hissed.

Even at 6 in the morning, I can put two and two together. I made him remove the saran wrap and empty the water from the sink.

What ensued was a protracted argument from him about how we never have any fun around here, how we are all boring, and how he is the only one who likes to have a laugh, etc. My response to him involved the inconvenience of practical jokes, how they're only funny to the person doing the joke, and how the world does not revolve around entertaining him and making him laugh.

He remained unconvinced. I wrapped up in a blanket and sat and watched the early morning news, because there was no way I was going back to bed while these thoughts were running through his mind. Sure enough, a few minutes later he was sneaking back to S's room. I waylaid him, and gave him a tongue lashing that NOBODY is to be disturbed during their regular sleeping hours just for another person's selfish amusement.

I think I'll start school now. Clearly this child has too much time on his hands.

What I want to know is, when does this kid SLEEP? He's awake until 11p, up at 5a? I just don't get it.

blessed

Some random thoughts on my recent illness:

I am blessed with a loving husband who cared for me and made sure the kids were fed and clothed while I was in bed for 10 days. As I sorted through receipts to balance the checkbook, I noted how many times he ran out to the store to get me popsicles, gatorade, tylenol, a strawberry milkshake, wonton soup--anything to tempt me to eat something or make me feel somewhat better in my delirium.

My children are actually very considerate people, despite their occasional lapses into selfishness. They were very helpful and thoughtful, asking and trying to anticipate my needs.

I composed a beautiful choral octavo and wrote a witty play all in my head. It remains trapped there. I was stuck in my head for several days, hearing snatches of conversations that didn't exist apart from my brain; hearing beautiful music; enjoying characters that danced across the stage, spouting humor and pathos. It was as if some veil were snatched aside that allowed me to glimpse my inner creativity. I don't wonder now at some artists who experiment with mind-altering drugs. It's all there, trapped in your head, if you can but get the curtain to move.

Flu shots are wonderful things - for other people, apparently. :)

Everything is currently reduced to the basics for me: rest, eat, teach. Rest more. It's nice to have everything reduced to the lowest common denominator. Everything else is just extra. Doesn't need to be done. Today my goal is to pick up the living room. And I will have the help of my family to do it! :)

I am very blessed.

It's my turn now. I sound like jerome hines and clutch at my aching chest every time i need to cough. Cheerio and be well.

delirium

Thursday A.M. around 6:30, I heard S. thumping around. Turns out she was sick, poor kid, so there went her WAVA field trip to the bowling alley. D and I went instead, leaving A to take care of his daughter.

Along with the sickness came a tidy fever - 103.8 at its highest. This set off some alarming memories in my skull: 1) kidney infection when she was 3, or 2) Influenza, from 2 years ago when the entire household save myself was laid up in bed for a week (and longer in A's case). The influenza swab at the Dr's office came back negative, but she decided to treat S. as if it were, so we got a prescription of Tamiflu. Unfortunately, we discovered that the Tamiflu makes her sicker. After 3 doses, I gave up. I'd rather have her hydrated and able to keep SOMETHING down.

She slept all day Thursday and on into the night. At 3 am she was wide awake, so I put her (bad mommy, but she needed SOMETHING to do) on the couch in the living room to watch Ratatouille. We were awakened at 6 am on Friday morning with her loud, gutteral sobs emanating from the living room (i can't even find the vowels to reproduce the sound for you, so just imagine it as loud and primal). A and I stumble/run to the living room, to find her kneeling in front of the telly screen, where the DVD main menu for Ratatouille was running. "AUauuauahhhhhh! I CAN'T MAKE WEISS!" she sobbed. (Weiss? huh?) A. reassured her it was okay. She was still pretty upset that she and D were trying to wipe off the laundry and couldn't do it. Finally got her calmed down and back to sleep.


That's been the pattern around here since Thursday. Her temp has consistently been 102 or higher, and she hallucinates when she's sleeping. Her pupils are dilated, and she looks through you, rather than at you. So far she's been rather insistent that there's a robot in the house; that she can "go on top of her head"; something involving a "waterstump" - and other things that I haven't taken the time to write down to remember, but just as whacked out. Then 5 minutes later, she'll truly wake up and have no memory of what has just occurred.

Just now (Sunday night), she woke up crying from her sleep that her neck hurts and she needed help. I helped her sit up, rubbed her neck (she's been coughing a lot), and invited her to take sips of magic cordial (a citric acid based "lemonade" without salicylates that I make for them.) She then proceeded to tell me that her mommy makes magic cordial, and sometimes her daddy lets her dilute it with some sparkling water so it's like 7Up--and did I want some? The beaker was next to the microwave, and did I know where to find the cups in the cupboard? I thanked her for her help.

She's very entertaining when she's delirious.

Now I am watching D. with eagle eyes to see if his turn is next. And I am very thankful that both A and I got flu shots this year.

chef and sous-chef

Our annual Valentine's Banquet was tonight at the church. It's SO NICE to be home before 9 p.m!! In years past we haven't gotten home until 10:30 or later.

Oh, not because the banquet lasts so long... it's because A. and I make all the food. It's our Valentine to the church family. So what with preparing, serving, and cleaning up afterward, it used to take quite a bit of time.

Enter the local fire department. (NOT because I set the food on fire!) No, they recently determined that the huge kitchen stocked with 4 ovens, 2 ranges, and 3 microwaves can only be used for reheating precooked food.

So I prepared the garlic mashed potatoes yesterday and bunged them in some aluminum pans. Chopped up 6 chickens and baked them today. Cheated a bit and cooked the sauce at the church. :) And some of the lovely church family stepped in and did things just to be helpful (and I am not one to scoff at kitchen help)... so we're home early!

And dear Rachel, who's a freshman at Green River, dropped in before heading over to her Grandma's house, and stayed on to be my Saucier and sous-chef!

Here she is. She felt left out with no toque, so she used a crocheted trivet instead.





And voila! Moi, in chef role. And if you don't get the thumb thing, you really need to see Ratatouille.

charity suffers long

My dear daughter S had piano class at Dr. J's last night. Dr. J just called me up a few minutes ago on her way back from Bible study. She wanted to share a moment S had last evening, so this is secondhand.

Apparently Master Evan had forgotten to provide treats, as he was supposed to do. After a few moments of the young class commiserating over their collective loss, Master Evan piped up, "That's okay... I wasn't really hungry anyway."

S stood up and announced to the class: "Let's all kick him!"


Dr. J just had to tell me what the pastor's daughter said during class.

It appears we have much work to do.

hmm, should I be proud or humiliated?

Which Character From The Office Are You?

Created by BuddyTV

trying to hold the reins

Ever since my son misread "caterpillar" as "caterpiddle," it's been mayhem around here.

They will certainly remember THIS lesson on arthropods, although not for the right reasons, perhaps.

I will take what I can get. Adieu.

email conference

Quick and easy update: I'm sharing with you, my friends, the email I just sent to the kids' teacher. State law mandates that we have biweekly communication with our supervisory teacher; and this week we're doing an email conference. So, clever me, thinks, "why reinvent the wheel?" and I'm reposting here what I sent to her two minutes ago.


The following is our email conference to Mrs. Shaw, the week of February 4, 2008:

From E: We are VERY TIRED of long division and are looking forward with great enthusiasm to doing Something (ANYTHING) Else. The kids forget the algorithm (Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Pull down) if the dividend gets too large. This is a concept that we'll have to go back to, or just keep reinforcing at the lower levels before trying the 4 (or more) digit dividends. We've already had to make corrections just to pass several lesson assessments. (How frustrated they get when they have to do something over!) On the plus side, just about everything else is VERY interesting right now. History (the Age of Imperialism) and science (invertebrates) are great; spelling, vocab and GUM are usually "no-brainers", and the kids just finished their 2nd novel of the year. Da wants to go directly to choosing a new novel, so I will go ahead and let him do that.

Field trip ideas... hard to say. I pick and choose which field trips to attend, depending on how the school %'s are going for that month. I have a love/hate relationship with the monthly requirements--but since you tell me it's not only %'s, but also hours total, that makes it a little easier. (Did I mention we are VERY TIRED of long division?)

Elluminate classes-- is it too soon for them to learn to begin taking notes? They do enjoy the online interaction and using the board to draw, type, etc.

Also - question regarding Power Glide/k12 partnership.... I checked into it, and I would have to purchase a separate language curriculum for each child. It's still a pretty good deal, though I am wondering - is this something that WAVA will be offering in the future as part of the basic education package? (IOW, should I save up my money, or just be patient?)

Sa chimes in: "I just finished reading Pippi Longstocking. It was the funniest book I remember reading! I would enjoy knowing Pippi as a friend. The next book I plan on starting is a Nancy Drew book."

Da's input: "I am writing a book right now called Children: Adorable Little People or Savage Bloodthirsty Monsters? We're going to be discussing whether we little people are almost perfectly harmless, or savage monsters who raid the kitchen during holiday time. I just finished reading Catherine, Called Birdy. She tries to drive away any suitor that her father brings in. I liked the book because it had many funny parts. I am also writing another book called A Child's Guide to Adults, which will be placed in the library."

(Erin comments: He really is writing that book. It's quite funny.)

Well, that's about it from here. Sounds pretty normal for us, doesn't it?

Cheers and blessings,
E

FOs and WIPs

FO: Aunt Rose's chemo cap, made from a super soft 100% merino wool by Water Lily . Ann Nordling pattern, but just knitted in the round with no fancy stitches, because according to chemocaps.com, many cancer patients prefer hats without a lot of "texture" on their heads.



WIP: A chain link pattern scarf in "La Boheme" - a double-stranded yarn that didn't photograph well here. The color is African Violet - so there's a pale green, a violet, and a gold color that shows up as a rather unfortunate orange here. This is for me. :)


FO: My Step-MIL wanted PENS for Christmas. Ball point pens. :\ She also told me she likes butterflies. So in addition to ball point pens, I knitted her a butterfly dishcloth. Here it is while being blocked out with jars of elderberry jam. :)
I also made her a dishcloth called "Bobbles the Sheep" because they raise sheep out there in New York, but alas, I failed to snap a photo before shipping it.


Other things in the works: D's pair of socks (just about finished with sock #1) and A's Christmas sweater (an unspecified Christmas). But I haven't snapped photos of those yet. :)

And my SIL Penny gave me some SUPERCOOL sock yarn for Christmas, but I feel dutybound to finish my poor son's socks first, and make some serious headway on A's sweater.

And my other SIL Ruth actually SPUN me some yarn from the sheep at the O family farm in upstate NY! How cool is that? Now I have to figure out how much is there, and what to do with it. Hats and scarves come to mind. ;)

So I'd better get knitting.

christmas unwrapped

Continuing to empty my camera:

We had a Christmas tree so symmetrical it looked fake. I was sick, so the kids did EVERYTHING, lights, decor and all. I weakly waved my hands in the general direction of the tree, mumbling things about not putting all the ornaments in one place, be sure to put the lights both at the edge and deep into the tree, statements which largely went unheeded. They did a pretty good job, actually. Can you find the mole skin on the tree?


I always get a little brave around Christmas and decide to try cutout cookies. I let the kids do the work, because that's what it's all about anyway. (Making kids work. yeah. lol) S. has trouble getting out that stupid bell:



D. finds some sprinkles that are of unknown date and origin and slathers a Christmas tree cookie. I later remember that these sprinkles are leftovers from a gingerbread house making thing I did with my fifth grade students. In 1992. I threw the jar away.


On Christmas Day:
Daddy gets "coal" from D and S



"Samantha," meet S!



D is overjoyed with The Dangerous Book for Boys


Grandma Sandy, recovering from FOOD POISONING from Costco's samples (ghastly! Both she and my husband got it!) - her Christmas dinner consisted of red jello from Safeway.



Grandpa Larry, perpetual occupant of the green chair, opens a gift. Notice the Chairman Mao mug to the left? I knew it would come in handy someday.


Coming up: FO and WIP's!

better late than never

FINALLY I am sitting at the desktop computer and taking the time to unload 3 months worth of pictures! Do you want to see all 121 of them?

Okay, okay, I will be selective.

First, a LONG overdue acknowledgement and THANK YOU to my dear Rebecca, who saw this item, thought of me, and sent it to me from Wiscaaansin:

A "Box of Boogers," picked especially for me! Thank you! The kids have been pestering me to let them EAT them. Sounds just charming when you are out in public: "Mooooommm, can I eat the Boogers now??" :)

Second, it's not every day that we can get together, so here's a photo of moi, Rebecca, Crystal (pre-kidlet), and Lavonne outside Goldberg's Deli at the Factoria Mall (this is from uhh, October, ahem..)


And a tres cute picture of Crystal's and my kids, minus one kid:


Of course, other things happened in October, too, such as the annual Pumpkin Brains Scooping:


And then, The Big Event Itself: Trick or Treating in downtown Puyallup. And I would have you all know that I USED A SEWING MACHINE (yes i did!) and I MADE THAT PIRATE COSTUME. This was a major deal, I assure you. And nobody knew who D. was supposed to be---UNTIL he went to the assisted living place, Merrill Gardens - where of course, all the residents knew he was Harpo Marx!


In November I made a lovely cake for a woman who was marrying a guy she met online...guy being from HOLLAND. He had a cake topper specially made just for the occasion and was very thrilled to be able to have it on the cake.

Here is the simple, elegant design on the cake I made:



And here it is with the topper he brought from Holland. there are no words. none.



December deserves its own post. ciao for niao.

Bookviews

Ah, it's been a great start to 2008! I've already been able to polish off five books. I grant you, most of them were on the light side. A. always encourages me to toss in some non-fiction so I will have better character, and he provided My Grandfather's Son by Clarence Thomas for me to begin the year properly. It was an easy, entertaining read - not in the sense of being light-hearted or fluffy - quite the contrary. But it was thoughtful and well-written. The path Justice Thomas took from backwoods Georgia, to segregated Savannah, to his experiences as the "token" black student at Yale (he has nothing good to say about the so-called prestigious university) - to life in Washington D.C. and the lies and liars that hold that town together. He tells his story humbly and with dignity. And he wrote it himself, not using a ghost writer. I recommend!

Next I settled into The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, which was charming and very quotable. I loved the voice of the character Mma Ramotswe, and the very African flavor to the book. I plan to read more in the series.

At the same time, I checked out another book by Alexander McCall Smith, The Sunday Philosophy Club. I didn't care for Isabel Dalhousie as much as Mma Ramotswe...the main character was always sloshing around with some moral/ethical dilemma or another, pontificating on and on in paragraphs which I considered distracting. That was the point of the whole book, though--it being a novel about a philosopher-turned-amateur detective, I suppose there needed to be a fair amount of what I call "verbalrrhea."

And...still chipping away at the Newbery Project...I found a blog today that does what I've been doing! So I'll be checking in over there from time to time. At any rate, two nights ago I read the 2007 winner, The Higher Power of Lucky, by Susan Patron. I wasn't overly impressed. Lucky eavesdrops on various 12-step meetings and keeps hearing about attenders' "Higher Power" - and she's looking for one herself, because her mom's dead, her dad abandoned her, and she's being raised by her dad's first, ex-wife, who is French. The stepmonster is a good person, but Lucky is convinced that Brigitte is just taking care of her out of duty, and is really planning to catch the first flight back to France. I never figured out quite what Lucky's Higher Power turned out to be. Brigitte staying? Lucky herself, because of her survival skills in the Mojave Desert? Anyway, 2007 must have been a "meh" year for children's literature, because that's about how I felt when I put the book down on Tuesday night. Meh. That was number one? Meh.

Last night, Missing May by Cynthia Rylant. This had the same basic element as the previous book-- orphan raised by distant relatives - but this one grabbed me a bit more than Lucky did. Perhaps because I've witnessed how lost some people become when they lose a spouse - how they just literally give up hope and die of a broken heart - this book had a larger impact on me. Made me sniffle a bit at the end, but maybe that was the migraine headache I had.

I'm out of books. Better get online and reserve some!

School has been an absolute wash today. Nobody wants to do anything except stay at home and lie around, like those VeggieTales Pirates. I have just given the edict: NO DINNER UNTIL YOUR SCHOOL IS DONE. Dinner is going to be beef stirfry with rice, too, so there will be some sad little halflings if they don't get on the stick.

updating and archiving...no need to notice this post :)

What I read in 2007 - I know this isn't an exhaustive list, because I don't always take the time to upgrade my template each time I finish a book. :)
Adding a few more that I know I didn't post on the sidebar:
The Beloved Dearly, Doug Cooney
Veronica Ganz (and) Peter and Veronica, Marilyn Sachs
Nancy Drew: The Secret of the Old Clock (#1), Carolyn Keene
Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception, Eoin Colfer
Trickster's Choice (and)
Trickster's Queen, Tamora Pierce

The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury

My Side of the Mountain*, Jean Craighead George

The Tale of Despereaux*, Kate DiCamillo

The Slave Dancer*, Paula Fox

The Bronze Bow,* Elizabeth George Speare

It's Like This, Cat,* Emily Neville

The View From Saturday*, E.L. Konigsburg

Maniac Magee*, Jerry Spinelli

Babe, the Gallant Pig, Dick King-Smith

M.C. Higgins, the Great*, Virginia Hamilton

Invincible Louisa: The Story of the Author of Little Women*, Cornelia Meigs

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Jo Rowling

Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight, Norman Wirzba

The Seventh Dragon: The Riddle of Equal Temperament, Anita T. Sullivan

Abram's Daughters:

The Covenant

The Betrayal

The Sacrifice

The Prodigal

The Revelation, by Beverly Lewis

Created to be His Helpmeet, Debi Pearl

The Bromeliad Trilogy:

Truckers

Diggers

Wings
, Terry Pratchett

I, Robot, Isaac Asimov

2010: Odyssey Two, Arthur C. Clarke

Kidnapped! Robert Louis Stevenson

The Princess Bride, William Goldman

The Inner Game of Music, Barry Green with W. Timothy Gallwey

2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke

Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years, 1848-1861, Alan Walker

A Soprano On Her Head, Eloise Ristad

Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy, Robert Jourdain

Ramona Forever, Cleary

Call It Courage, Armstrong Sperry

Henry Huggins, Beverly Cleary

The Curate's Awakening, George MacDonald

The Lady's Confession, George MacDonald

Pride and Prejudice (yes, again), Jane Austen

Emily of New Moon

Emily Climbs

Emily's Quest, L.M. Montgomery

Ramona Quimby, Age 8

Ramona's World, Beverly Cleary

regarding Christmas cards

Great Scott, it's December 21st and I'm just now starting to think about this.

You see, I have this self-imposed pressure to yearly come up with a witty, newsy newsletter of all the O family doings for the previous year. People have commented to me in past years about how clever/funny/charming the Christmas letter was. However, this year I have discovered that I am only sporadically clever, occasionally funny, and infrequently charming.

Plus them there card things ain't cheap to buy OR send.


So this afternoon, having an extended period to sit at the desktop computer (ooh, the one with a PRINTER), I made an unclever, nonfunny, semi-charming (if snowflakes are your thing)... POSTCARD, with absolutely no family news on it. A simple "Merry Christmas," with John 1:14.

And what is more, I am not sending it to everyone on my list. Simplify, simplify. Please don't feel snubbed. If you're reading this, I probably keep in contact with you more than the other people on my list. Rest assured, I am thinking of you. And you probably already know all the news I would share anyway, because you read this thing.

A simple "Merry Christmas" to you all.

John 1:14 - "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

sowing and reaping

What do you get when you combine a cup of hot cocoa and a thermometer?

A little girl with a 101.1 fever who is too sick to do school, watching Ratatouille and Felicity, An American Girl on the mini DVD player, while being pampered by all and sundry.

I wondered, later, as to why her temperature suddenly became 98.6. An angel must have touched her on the head and said "go out and play."

So, now that it's 8:30 pm, confession has been made, discipline has been meted out, and she is now doing her school, and will stay up until it is done.

And the letter "c" is growing increasingly difficult to type on my laptop. What would the world be like without the letter c?

sage advice

from my son, who spent yesterday recovering from stomach flu:

"Mom....bananas and quesadillas do not mix."

from one adventure to the next

Tuesday was the usual whirlwind of activity: get the kid ready for school and out the door to band; sit on the second kid to make sure she did some work while first kid was at band; sit on both kids to make sure they got their school completed...

Interrupting this was the weekly trip to the library. Usually the kids blithely go their way with dad, no mean mom coming along. But right now in Composition studies we are working on The Report. So mean mom joined said children at the library today. The textbook discussed card catalogues (what library still has those?!) as well as computer catalogues - so off we went to the library computer to find references for their chosen topics: S wants to do a report on baseball; D wants to do something involving cartooning, Jim Davis, and Garfield.

I had to leave them there to finish up checking out sources and references in order to teach piano. They arrived home as blithely as they left - no sources checked out. They "forgot."

After teaching, I had a meeting for choir to do some admin restructuring. We're in the market for a new director. Any offers? :) At the conclusion of the meeting, the soprano section leader backed out of the driveway, but missed the turn at the end and sank up to her axles in mud/grass the consistency of bread pudding. So I and two other men were up past the ankles in mud getting this dear woman out of the field and back to Tacoma. By this time it was 10 p.m!

Came home, cleaned up, bathed - went straight to bed. A tapping at the door awoke me. S entered to inform us that D had just thrown up. Clock time: 1:12 am. Always, ALWAYS, these things happen when the entire world is asleep, except yourself! I told A to stay in bed and went to assess the damage. (Here comes the TMI part, so you can stop here if you want. This is my therapy; I don't want to be responsible for yours.)

The kid perfectly targeted an inside corner between the bathroom and the linen closet, nailed the bathroom door and doorknob (apparently it was shut as he made his frantic dash), and finished the bulk of the event immediately inside the door on the linoleum. Oh, and a little bit in the intended receptacle.

Notice the time of this post? :) My therapy. Got things scraped up, mopped up, saved the carpet, wiped and washed walls, doors, baseboards and knobs several times (paranoia; MUST DO THIS AGAIN...and again...yet again...) and in general used enough good-smelling detergents and cleansers to eradicate the smell. But I still smell it. Coincidence? Maybe.

The boy told me he was feeling fine now. I popped him into the tub and left him there while I did my work. I finally realized the poor child was too embarrassed to get out of the tub while I was there, but he was too polite to ask me to look the other way, and too tired to stay in the tub. I'm not the quickest on the draw, especially at the disadvantage of two hours of sleep. So the boy, armed with bowl this time, is back in his bed, dry, unsmelly, and warm-- hopefully to sleep the remainder of the night.

The clock just chimed two. Maybe I can relax enough to go back to bed and get some sleep myself.

random thoughts

I have, as those knitty people put it, a FO! Aunt Rose's chemo cap is ready to go. I would love to post a picture for you, but the charger gremlins have invaded my house, apparently, and I need to recharge my camera---but I can't find the charger to do so, etc. So there it is. It looks great. :p I need to turn this task over to my dear husband A, who can find anything in short order. As I was puzzling over my misplaced charger last night, he smugly said, "I haven't looked for it yet. Don't worry."

And he still hasn't looked for it yet, so no charged camera.

There's a bit of snow in the forecast, and that sends D and S running to the window every so often to check for flakes. D. was sitting at his window last night, blinds tilted open, just in case. So far, disappointment.

Because of the cold, the guinea pigs have temporarily been moved from the covered back porch and taken up residence between the love seat and the bookcases. They are so funny to listen to, and even funnier to watch. They're so greedy and selfish, it's like watching fuzzy little toddlers as they grab carrots and run away to hide to eat them...stealing lettuce bits from each other...playing "king of the igloo" and not allowing any other pigs to sleep in the hidey-holes. The whistling and squeaking that accompanies these activities is rather charming.

I stayed up WAY too late watching a movie the other night (1 AM). Idiot me: I am not a twenty-something anymore who can shake this off by the next day. My reason, though, was for my dear son, who loves loves loves King Kong (1933). He wanted to see Peter Jackson's 2005 version; therefore, A and I had to "proof" it first. THREE HOURS LONG. They make mighty free with the names of God, and the Kong ritual by the natives is rather freakish, so we're limiting access to just the really cool scenes once Ann gets past the wall on Skull Island and Kong takes her. And skipping the Valley of Insects part, where Andy Serkis's character gets eaten headfirst slowly by a leech...ugh. I really liked Kong in this movie, though. Very cool gorilla.

And the carrot that gets D this Kong privilege: finish your November school requirements. So he's counting up how many of this and that lessons he has left to accomplish and occasionally despairing of EVER being able to watch King Kong...I am firm, however. He and his sister have taken a few days off school, taking advantage of my being occupied teaching other students. THIS is why I only teach piano part time.

Okay. School awaits. Kids must put guinea pigs away to do their work. I will let them read aloud to the pigs, but the pigs are counterproductive when it comes to accomplishing math, vocabulary, or just about any other subject.

Be well.

you never can tell with bees

Today I sat in the van while my kids were in swimming lessons. It was quiet, sunny, warm. I'm knitting a chemo cap for Aunt Rose of a lovely, soft merino wool the shade of plum. As the van--and I!-- basked in the sun, I heard a buzz from the rear of the cabin. Turning around, sure enough, I saw a fat yellow jacket bipping against the window, trying to escape to the outside. Sighing, I put down my knitting, opened the window on the sliding door, and shooed him outside to where he belonged.

I resumed my knitting and basking in the sun...when I heard that sound again. "Bzzzzz...bip...bip...bipbip....bzzzzzz." I turned around again. Another one! I popped the hatch, slid the door, and opened the front side door to give him all possible avenues of escape. I flapped him out the back hatch, and he promptly flew around to the side panel door and landed... on the inside. If I closed the door, he'd be right back where he started! I grabbed a newspaper and went to work, guiding him to freedom and Life Outdoors. He was having none of it. He flew back into the cabin, landing on a wreath of fall leaves I had in the back. I set the wreath outside. Go, little bee, go. And indeed, he left the wreath... and flew back into the cabin of the van. AUGH!

Finally he landed on the open passenger door, at the opening for the latch. He crawled inside the hole. I waited for a few minutes to see if he'd come out... then figured I could probably kill him if I slammed the door shut. I'd already tried to rescue him enough, and he was keeping me from my knitting, after all, so , WHAM!

Peace and quiet once again.

I'd been sitting and knitting for maybe 5 minutes when I heard another low buzzing sound. Feeling rather like I was in some Candid Camera show at this point, I jumped up and out of my seat, whipped open my door, and whisked that sucker out of the van. I slammed the door behind the bee, and wouldn't you know, it turned around and landed on the window of the van, clearly seeming to want back IN?

I'm sure the other people sitting in the parking lot waiting for THEIR kids to be done swimming were amused at my antics: jumping out, running around the van, opening and slamming doors, waving a newspaper (the comics page, of course) around my head, talking to unseen creatures. I was rather amused myself... but it was getting old, and I wanted to sit and knit and be warm, not have to deal with buzzing critters that sting.

Eventually the bee on the window flew off, presumably to join its sisters for a laugh at this stupid human. D and S returned from swimming, and we started home. We were about halfway there when I heard a quavering "Mooooommm....there's a hornet back here..."

I rolled my eyes. I can't win!

We opened the windows. It sufficed to keep the bee blown to the back of the van until we pulled into the driveway, where I popped the hatch, and shooed yet another bee to freedom.

So now I'm a little paranoid about whether the bees have built a hive in the van, or if they were merely hitchhikers on the wreath that Mr. Jones gave me at church Sunday. You never can tell with bees.

well, duh.

Note to self re: Science labs: When separating ink colors using paper chromatography, do NOT use a Sharpie waterproof pen. Because it doesn't work. Waterproof, and all that.


sigh.

it's here!

....the rainy season!

We are under a High Wind Warning from now until about 4 p.m.

There's nothing quite like November in Puget Sound. Gusty winds; heavy, persistent rain; leaves clinging desperately to increasingly bare limbs, then whirling forlornly around the street, clumping up in sodden masses in the gutters; puddles that grow to touch fingers and eventually become one with the puddles across the street.

Hot chocolate, apple cider, and popcorn. Knitting socks (for D), warm, soft caps (for my Aunt Rose, who starts chemo tomorrow) and scarves (for me!).

It's a GREAT DAY, people.

Praising the Lord that we have heat and power! :)

the (positive) influence of Hollywood

The movie Ratatouille just came out on DVD, as most of you probably know. We had not seen it yet, so I purchased it at my local Costco and brought it home for a night of popcorn and enjoyment.

This movie has paid off in a lovely way: for the past two mornings, S. has been in the kitchen, whipping out omelettes for the family dining experience! Yesterday it was cheese; today it was turkey pepperoni, ham and cheese. D. has also gotten in on the act at the dinner scene, donning my toque and apron and speaking in a French accent. I put him to work slicing potatoes and monitoring the overall cooking progress of fried potatoes and Aidell's chicken apple sausages.

No, that's not really a gourmet meal, apologies to Remy and Co.. I continue to be plagued by this cold, which keeps me awake much of the night (I just can't sleep if I'm mouth breathing). So I'm not really "overthinking" on meals right now. I can't taste them anyway. Basic food with good texture is good enough to sustain my family for a few days. We'll get fancy with the spices when I can smell again.

Meanwhile, a-caking I must go. I am so paranoid about cross-contamination with dairy products that I'm washing and wiping things down a couple of times. I want Micah's 5th birthday party to be memorable for fun things, not that Crystal had to epi-pen him because of my dairy poisoning him. :p

To the kitchen!

not wounded, but dead, sire!

Crystal is such a thoughtful friend. I feel so.... loved! By all means, spam my email account! or just post comments on the blog, because those make it to my email as well. >:) I'm always watching.

Yes, I AM alive! Wifehood, mommyhood, teacherhood--all these make great demands on Life, as you all know so well, since you have similar demands on your time.

And my children have thoughtfully shared their cold with me, so I have the first sniffles of the cold and flu season. I must be well by Friday when I bake cakes. (They're gonna be great, folks, stay tuned for pictures.)

So as I was driving in the car the other day, frustrated at my seeming inability to have any quality time in the Bible, I was singing the line from "If I Were a Rich Man" (from Fiddler on the Roof, for any Philistine readers I may have) - where Tevye sings, "If I were rich, I'd have the time that I lack to sit in the synagogue and pray..." and nodding my head in sympathy. Yesssssss, if only I didn't have all these responsibilities, I'd be SO SPIRITUAL.

Then, of course, Reality Check set in. I DO have these responsibilities. And God, in His divine power, has provided every single thing that I need to live this life in a godly way--by the knowledge of Him Who called us. (2 Peter 1:3, E's version) AND even better, He knows my frame, that I am but dust. So, I don't have to be perfect. (Of course, I can't be.) He knows that I am doing the best I can with what I can. And yes, there is room for improvement. But I can't go around mentally chastising myself that I am not like those mom bloggers (whom I really do admire, how DO they do it?) who manage to be crafty, prepare a hot meal every night, keep their homes immaculate, and are always sweet and cheerful with their dear hubbies and dear children.

No, my reality is not like that. I yell. I think bad words (because of course that's so much more spiritual than actually saying them, right? /sarcasm font) . I stomp my feet and toss papers around. Sometimes we have to eat at McDonald's because of swimming lessons followed by piano lessons followed by choir practice. And I clean... oh gads... I clean all the time but it never stays that way. Even when channeling Flylady. And I have two knitting projects that are not going to be ready for Christmas, I'm sure.

So life is pretty much normal around here. I'm just not talking about it. Sorry I'm so behind on your lives. I do think about you all often and even PRAY FOR YOU. Now I just need to get caught up on your lives by reading your blogs!

So can anyone tell me the name and author of the poem to which my title alludes? *evil laugh*

William Tell Overture for Moms

I wrote this song, I think!

Either that or it's just that moms all share a brainwave.

Whatever. I'm laughing so hard I'm crying.