Faith

On Speech, Academic DNA, and Celebrities

2011-03-17T19:46:00.003-04:00

Thursday evenings are normally Max's voice lessons and Ben and Milo's speech therapy. Tonight wasn't any different except Max is run down from a cold and wasn't up to going to his lesson, so he brought his homework in and he and I sat in the observation room as the twins got to work with their respective therapists. Usually there's a small crowd of students--I think they're graduate students, but they might be juniors and seniors--observing the sessions through two-way mirrors.

Now lateley even I have been frustrated and unhappy about the twins' disfluencies, since they are numerous at home and no more than normal in therapy. It's a difficult thing, sometimes, to make the leap from what you know you can do in the therapy room and what you believe you can do outside of it. It only gets worse if Mom and Dad start to get impatient about it. So we have been at an impasse, and even I forgot some very important things I know about children in general and my children in particular.

On Monday I vented a bit to the supervisor, a gentleman working on his PhD in the communications department, and he said he would talk to folks this week and maybe get us a plan of what to do at home.

So only, maybe, ten minutes into the session a gentleman came into the room in a manner that implied both importance and intensity. The mike was on Ben and his therapist and the gentleman watched for a few minutes and then went into the room, pulled up a chair and began to talk to Ben.

And Ben was just being, you know, Ben. With all of his funny ways that make him seem like maybe he's a graduate student, too. A charming, ernest, thoughtful, graduate student with an intense interest in others and in Pokemon. And they talked for a good twenty minutes. About Dads and sons. About negotiations (Ben was negotiating, and well) and contracts (Ben responded to the man's question about whether or not he knew what a contract was with a fairly sophisticated definition, actually). And how the man's son is a lawyer in Hollywood who negotiates contracts for a variety of stars (but Ben could not be impressed because he does not really know who J. Lo and Michael Jordon are). But mostly about Ben's speech. Which was not disfluent. Ben bareley managed one part-word repetition the whole time. And when the man confessed that he was the head of the Communications department, a Dr. B, Ben was impressed, but not, you know, too impressed. But I think I got it.

We were being, not told, no, more shown, that the clinic has done all they can for Ben and Milo. That Ben and Milo have met the objectives of the therapy. In session, they recognize their disfluencies, name them, and choose the appropriate method for getting back on track. They are only slightly more disfluent than you and I, and maybe even a little less disfluent than one of my rock star professors, who, like Ben and Milo, does a LOT of thinking while he is talking. The Authority came in, observed, confirmed the reports of the supervisor and the therapist, and as The Authority, engaged Ben and Milo (separately--after talking to Ben, he left Ben's room and went over to Milo's and I listened again to the entire conversation) in a converation about their speech and opened their minds to the possibility that they might not have such big problems with their speech as they think. That maybe they have learned to control their disfluencies and that now, they need to take that control out of the "control room" and into the rest of their lives. And Ben was completely won over, because Dr. B. and he were kindred souls, and they liked each other fantastically, right from the start. And Milo was cautiously optimistic, because Milo can choose a wait-and-see approach, but perhaps most importantly, I suddenly saw their progress. That it was not that the boys were not bringing their disfluency into the room so that it could be worked on but rather that the boys were not bringing their fluency out of the room so it could be celebrated.

And that Chris and I have a role in that. We need to help them bring it home.

It felt, as things have on a regular basis since Chris made the decision to leave Honda, like the timing was more than accidentally perfect. The clinic was asking for 5 minutes of my time each day with each boy and I will have that soon and for a long summer. Implementing a short at-home fluency practice session is something I can do. They'll meet with us, Chris and I, soon and go over what they have in mind. The door at the clinic will be left open. The twins can come back any time they feel they need to--for at least the summer they'll check in every 4 to 6 weeks or so. I only have one weekend-class for the summer. Other than a load of reading I want to do, I have the time.

After Dr. B was done talking with Milo, he sat down with the speech supervisor, M, and I and we talked some more. He told me what great kids I have and I agreed--they are are great, and they were great with him. He marvelled at Ben's ability to express himself. I said, yes, I was listening and thinking, "Shoot, if I'd known they were going to meet this fellow, I'd have told Ben to push for the assistantship NOW!" He laughed and said Ben was certainly ready for graduate school, I said he was chanelling his great-grandfather, a professor in Speech and Hearing. "Oh," he asked politely, "Who was that? Was he here?" Or something along those lines and I said, "John Black, he was at Ohio State." "Oh! He said, Ohi-, wait."

Well, Dr. B. is a graduate of the Ohio State speech program. It's where he and his wife, also Dr. B, did their Masters work. And so to Dr. B, my grandfather was the legendary Dr. John Black. And we both laughed. Oh, yes, it's nice to say you lunched with Russell Crowe, but to say that Dr. Black told you Goldilocks and the Three Bears over and over and never the same way, twice--well, that's really living.

This man who I liked because he clearly genuinely fell for my kids, (that is a trait I really like in others), is very interested in things that my grandfather would have been interested in. He has a grant from the Department of Ed to study how to better provide speech therapy to English Langauge Learners. And so it was one of those small world moments. His wife is at a Speech and Hearing conference right now in Washington, D.C. and he couldn't wait to call her and tell her about his evening.

So it was funny direction the evening went in. Full of rabbit trails and a rather sudden and unexpected graduation from the program for the twins. We'll meet some more and plan the rest of the transition and leave the door open in case they need to go back, but I agree that the rest of the work now needs to be done at home and that Chris and I are just the people to do it. But I wonder for Ben and Milo--if this evening were a movie about their lives, that would have been the intro and we would cut next to Ben and Milo as speech pathology graduate students . . . or something. It just felt . . . well, I have a vivid imagination. so never mind. Unless they DO go into speech research. Then I'm totally claiming I called it first.

This may cut into my knitting time

2011-01-17T17:42:00.002-05:00

So last semester I did some research along side of my student-teacher supervising, and as I would collect data, I would stash it in a few places, like a dog burying a bone it knows it will want later. I had emails and written feedback of written lessons and written feedback of observations and a lot of videos of student-teachers teaching. I had their written reflections and videos that they recorded to exemplify one aspect or another of teaching. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Alaska, why weren't you coding it as you went along?" and my answer is that the design of the project required that I didn't really know which students were participating, so I couldn't code anything until I knew.

But now I now, so I ordered an external hard drive of epic proportions and started to move all of the data on to it in neat, organized folders, thinking this might take 8 or 9 hours, but . . . I was so wrong.

It turns out that a) at least one of the folder bones is just plain gone. Thankfully every attachment sent by email is kept my our campus web mail, and therefore, I have everything back in one form or another, but retrieving them meant going back through over 300 emails to find them all. b) There were issues with mac v. pc and I lost precious time translating files into forms everything on my pc could read. I needed everything on the pc so I could use NVivo 9 to organize it all, but holy cow . . . what a chore.

So, I feel hopelessly behind now in my coding and completely overwhelmed by the amount of data, but I am gritting my teeth and plowing forward. The one good thing--it's forcing me to choose between coding EVERYTHING and finding those items that will reveal the most about what I want (i.e., I found myself going to great pains to record a series of emails about the cultural content of a lesson. This is not unrelated to classroom management, because lessons that do not include material accessible to students (e.g., it's above their heads in some way, they have insufficient background knowledge, it's taught in a language they don't understand) are inevitably classroom management problems waiting to happen. But I really don't need to go that broard. I think I can show what I want to show just looking at teacher response to student misbehavior--and that makes me breathe a sigh of relief because that means I do not need to look back at all the written lesson plans until I suspect that lesson design was the cause of the problem and I need to support that assertion. Does that make sense? (Nod your head, sip your drink, look interested.)

Anyway, this is actually HUGELY helpful to me. It helps me see the wisdom in my advisor's comment that going into the (new) research project for this spring, I might want to focus on only three class periods with these students--versus trying to code every minute of the 16 to 20 sessions that we will meet.

But in the meantime, between teaching two classes, taking three classes, and working with the data monster of my MA Thesis, it's going to be a very, very busy semester. Maybe not so much time for knitting.

Helen Mary Harrington Black Humbarger

2011-01-17T17:22:00.007-05:00

February 11, 1912 - January 16, 2011

We all miss her already, but you couldn't wish for a better exit from the stage of life. This one-time director and college-level teacher of theatre kept us company all day long during our most recent family get-together on the farm. Dozing off as needed, and watching thoughtfully while awake, she seemed to kind of like it when a great-grandchild or grandchild or daughter would take up the spot left at the end of the couch next to her feet. I'm not clear on the events or the time line, but I know that not long after we all left, she stopped wanting any food, sleeping more and more often, and finally refusing water, too. This sort of a goodbye to life is a gentle exit, free from discomfort. It is not a rapid exit, allowing time for her children to return once more to keep her (and each other) company. Her "children" (all grown with children and grandchidren of their own) by her second marriage were also able to come and say goodbye.

Helen was married to my grandfather for over 50 years. She raised a son and three daughters. She did the sort of hosting and traveling expected of the wife of a professor in those days. When I went to Ohio Wesleyan, they were mostly at home in Ohio or at the farm in Indiana, and I have written before about how much they meant to me while I was there.

I will link to an obituary when it is posted. Here it is: Obituary of Grandma Helen

I cannot post about Granma's passing without saying that the peace of mind and care she received in this past decade would not have been possible without the incredible sacrifice of time and energy on the part of her daughter, my youngest Aunt, Charlotte. Charlotte's care meant that Granma had both a trusted confidante and a highly trained personal nurse daily. It meant she could stay in a very nice assisted-living home even when dementia took a toll in the last few years. We didn't have to worry about Grandma with Charlotte at the wheel. I know we are all grateful for that.

I'm Awake

2011-01-13T01:56:00.003-05:00

Tonight our quadrafire pellet stove malfunctioned and the ash box ignited. From the pattern of pellets in the ash box, my best guess is that the cleaning rod at the bottom of the crucible jammed partly open, causing the stove to attempt to light pellets, and feed pellets, continuously into the crucible. Smoldering pellets fell into the ashbox, and eventually there was way more fire in the stove than the stove could handle.

Eventually the whole house would have filled with smoke. I suppose the consequences of that could have been pretty devastating.

But it was okay because both of our smoke alarms have working batteries. I woke up and ran downstairs, took about a minute to assess the problem, followed my instincts or inspiration and got the stove to stop fanning the flames, got Chris up to help me, he opened the basement doors, and using my two best oven mitts, I got the ashbox out the garage doors and tossed the whole thing in the snow. Even with the oven mitts, that thing was hot.

Then I went back inside closed all the doors against the billowing smoke, and going back around out the front door, grabbed a shovel and piled snow on the smoking ash box. We're probably going to need a new ash box.

At this point the whole house still stinks of smoke and that acrid burning plastic smell. I think that's the exterior trim on the stove.

The front door is wide open, the back door wide open, some of the windows wide open.

Here's what I learned: the kids can sleep right through the blaring smoke alarms. I won't stay out past their bedtime without an adult babysitter who is going to stay up.

For years I've worried that in the event of a fire I wouldn't be able to wake my deep sleeping husband. Turns out he wakes right up the moment I say softly to him, in a certain tone of voice, "I need your help." Maybe that's the Spirit. Maybe that's 15 years of marriage. Probably a combination of both. All I know is I've hollared at him when a sick little boy was puking all over the place and he woke not knowing his own name.

Ugh. The smell is awful. I wonder if I should get out fans. It's been an hour now and I definitely want to go to sleep. Think I will go check the perimeter, the ash box, and if everything looks okay, start closing windows and doors and head back to bed.

Heesh

2010-11-16T23:48:00.002-05:00

I just have a hard time making time to blog during the semester. There's so much going on and the day starts so early, goes full speed ahead, and ends with a quiet house and me trying to get a few minutes of quiet time.

Today was exciting. It started out great and it got better.

First, it was Ben and Milo's birthday. So we started the day with hugs and congratulations. They got to take cupcakes to school to celebrate and I managed to dodge the rain and get on the bus before the downpour.

Then I got the better part of an article about teaching math conceptually read before the first World Languages class. This was the first class since their student-teaching experience ended last Thursday, which meant for Michelle and I, a rediscovery of how much of our own classwork we could get done with all the extra time freed up by *not* typing up observation notes and lesson plan feedback. Still, it was good to see them all this morning. Working with undergrads has some things in common with working with fourth-graders. You get attached in no time.

After class we (Michelle and I) headed back to the office to eat lunch (she brought a yummy soup for us both) and to chat and to try to get more reading done. She headed off to her afternoon class and I fetched my car and went to get my mail, hoping for Max's report card. No luck, but we did get a lovely advent calendar from Grandma Donna and Grandpa Richard and the twins got a stack of birthday cards. I put those all aside for the future, triaged the bills, and headed over to the high school to finance Max and a friend who were carbo-loading (that's a joke. They're 14-yr-old boys. They just food load. Any food.) before theater rehearsal started. From there it was back to campus, having passed the magic hour (4 pm) when I no longer have to park in the next county with my student parking pass--I can park for free in the parking garage right next to the building where my evening class is.

Right before class I got an email from one of my advisors saying that an idea I have for a research project is not half bad and we should get together soon to go over it. I need a 1-credit independent study with this fellow to round out my ESL-certification requirements, so I had come up with an idea this weekend. I thought he might say no, because I have to work on my thesis this spring, too, but no, we'll meet and maybe my next research project will be with elementary ELLs. That would rock :)

We had class, it went well, and then I gave Michelle a ride out to her car (it started to rain buckets) and then I headed over to the church where Chris was waiting in the hallway with his reading material. He is the best ward mission leader ever. We hung out and talked and soaked up the happiness of the church building while the twins did cub scouts and ate birthday cupcakes. Then Chris ran over to the high school and got Max and I took Ben and Milo and friend's daughter home. When Chris and Max got home, Max gave Ben and Milo their birthday cards (+ Wii points) and performed for them an original rap he wrote to commemorate the occasion of their 9th birthday. We will try to record it later this week. Right now he needed to get some homework done and then collapse into bed.

There were lots of messages from loving family on the answering machine for the twins and they loved that. There voice mail on my phone for them and they loved that. And there was a call from California from Grandma Donna and Grandpa Richard and they loved that. Tomorrow night we'll have our "official" family party with Grandma Gaye and the rest of their cards and presents, but tonight was good, too.

Then we all went to bed, but when my head got to thinking instead of sleeping and Chris fell asleep listening to me talk about stuff (he gets up an hour earlier than I do to take Max to seminary every morning-trust me, I didn't take it personally) I got up again to go write some thoughts down. Then, just for the heck of it, I checked the high school's website and after signing it I found Max's report card. And lo and behold--it was all manner of As. Regular As, A-'s, and a genuine A+.

Any sleepy feelings I might have had went skidding out the window and I texted Grandpa and Grandma in California (because it was still a decent hour there) to tell them the good news. I'm so proud of all the hard work Max has put into this quarter. He really has made a tremendous effort to do his best, to improve his writing and his homework consistency, and I am ever so proud of him. We don't pay for As or use other "rewards" because we think those suck the intrinsic motivation out of school. We want him to set high standards because he knows he can meet them and it feels good to succeed, not because he'll get a wad of cash for it (and anyway, I can't afford those grades. He's got 8 periods of classes--no lunch. For that I could buy him a new cell phone and have change. I'm not doing that either.)

But we might take him out to lunch. A bottomless pit of french fries and a bacon burger and unlimited peanuts at Five Guys and an embarrassing stream of "We love you"s and "We're so proud of you"s. That's a good lunch, I think.

And now I should really attempt to go to sleep. Probably if I stop playing on the computer (and stop trying to cram for the graduate-school version of a vocabulary quiz) I'll blink and wake up at 7am to the alarm :)

Tomorrow is Wednesday and Wednesdays are my qual methods class, getting ready for the twins' birthday party, an hour of speech therapy for them, dinner, cake, and presents :) Another good day, don't you think?

Only two more days till curtain goes up. They do a school preview of The Winter's Tale at 10 am and then the actual performances Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday matinee. Grandma Gaye and Grandma Judy will each go this weekend with their respective offspring. Then it's full speed ahead into Thanksgiving break. This year we're going to Philly to be with family there :) We're getting a hotel room Wednesday night at some variation of the hotel Marriot chain, and coming back Thursday evening. By this time two weeks from now, we'll have a Christmas tree in the corner. Good times :)

Gratitude

2010-10-20T00:07:00.003-04:00

I don't often think about it anymore, but tonight I did--remembered sitting in our driveway in Minnesota in one of a series of cars that Honda gave Chris to drive around his five-state district--we had just gotten back from a date night, or maybe we were just leaving to go on it, but the topic of conversation was the most recent traumatic conversation I'd had with Max's teacher. We decided then and there, it was just before Christmas, that we would finish out the school year--because the twins were barely one and because we believed that Max should finish what he started--but then we would homeschool him. Max couldn't seem to get a grip on his behavior at school, and the teachers--well it was just one crazy conversation after another. Max hadn't had a truly great teacher since preschool. We were tired of it. We felt "they" were creating a self-fullfilling prophecy with Max. They expected him to misbehave--and he did.

So we homeschooled, and while there was much that was wonderful about it--it was truly the most satisfying teaching I have ever done, and he learned a lot--our family is not ideally designed for homeschooling. There came a time when I felt that the damage had been undone, that Max was ready to give school another shot, and so we tried the Charter school. Since then, each year has been a little better than the one that came before it. And each parent-teacher conference season got a little easier than the one that came before it. At some point he stopped being the gifted chatty kid who couldn't stay in his seat and he started being the gifted outgoing leader who teachers missed when his seat was empty. (Ben and Milo are more like those wolf cubs on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. Even when they're biting the teacher wolf's tail, she's still kind of bemused by them. I've never had a rough p/t conference for them. If you don't know the show I'm talking about, you're too young to be reading this blog anyway.)

Tonight was a choir concert at the high school. I've been to a lot of school choir concerts. I sang in them when I was in high school (in Mass, not in CA), and Max has been in choir in school since 5th grade. None of them prepared me for what I saw tonight. The choir director at State High is unbelievably professional. He is warm, he is brilliant, and he evokes from ordinary kids extraordinary sounds. Only 7 weeks into the school year, I heard the best choir concert of my life tonight. And my kid, my tall, funny, smart guy with the fabulous hair, was there loving it all.

I am so--words are inadequate to express the depth of my gratitude that Max HAS this. He wakes up and goes to morning seminary and rushes to school because when you are a bright kid and someone truly challenges you to learn more, do more, think in new ways, solve a problem worth solving, it's like the best cold spring water on a hot day down a parched throat. It's exciting.

I feel silly gushing like this. Adolescence has proved to me that it's a wild ride with big ups and big downs and there have been periods when I have thought maybe I'm not cut out for it (but, Chris is pretty good at the big-kid part, and he wouldn't let me give notice), and so I get that we've got a long way yet to go with this whole project.

But when you're building something as important as the mind, body, and soul of a young man, it's an incredible advantage to have good tools to do it with. I'm so grateful that he's at a place where when he chooses to stretch, to learn, to grow, that he has so many good options. Great options. I am so grateful.

Wednesday Night

2010-10-13T23:22:00.003-04:00

I am soooo tired and I want nothing more than to go to sleep, but I've a wicked case of heartburn tonight and laying down only makes it worse, so while I wait for the zantac to do its thing, I thought I would try to post a quick blog entry.

We're having a good fall here in the Hults household. Max has taken to State High like Emily takes to a bucket of brand new tennis balls, and State High seems to like him back. After emphasizing to all the freshpeople that they SHOULD try out for the fall play, but they would NOT get cast--they ended up casting three freshpeople--including Max, who got a great part. Although morning seminary at church starts at still dark o'clock, he (and his trusted driver, Chris) haven't missed a morning yet. They have a dedicated teacher who is far more chipper at that hour than I am. (I get to drive if Chris is out of town on business.) He's doing well in his classes, especially Geometry, and we are just so proud of him we can hardly stand it.

School for me is crazy busy. There's a lot to do as both a Graduate Assistant and for my classes. I honestly don't know how I'd do my research for the Master's Thesis I need to write if I weren't also taking the Qualitative Methods course this fall. Everything I'm learning in there I have to immediately turn around and apply to my research project.

Ben and Milo are rolling along in third grade. They're still doing speech with Penn State, and that's been the hardest part to fit in the schedule. I can get them to their therapy appointments, but I keep forgetting to have them do homework for it when we are doing the rest of their homework.

Emily hates being alone during the day while we're all gone. I totally get that. I hate that she can't come with me to school, too.

Chris has two trips coming up and I'm so grateful to have Gaye's help while he is gone. I did one week when both Chris and Gaye were out of town and it was really all just too much--and that was before Max's play rehearsals started.

I'll try to post more soon. It's late and time to try again to go to sleep :)

Beginnings

2010-09-01T08:52:00.005-04:00

There is something about the start of a school year that flips all of my cookies. I love the new school supplies, those few weeks when you can find a pen in the first place you look, and the chatter from the kids about new friends, new teachers, new challenges. Max likes all of his new teachers but is sufficiently awed by their apparent zero tolerance policy for missing homework.

If you haven't seen the back-to-school pictures Chris took this year, log onto facebook and go look in his photos. Charming. We'll order prints of those and skip the school pictures (well, the kids will still go dressed to look good so they show up nice in the yearbook or whatever, but that's it. They just cost too much to put up with the poor results. Ben and Milo are at that age where sitting in front of a backdrop cloth makes them bare their teeth like preteen wolves and Max is at that age where he knows Chris just takes a better picture.)

Oh my heck. I see that smile and it's all I can do not to just pull down the moon for that boy.

What was I talking about? Oh, yeah. Here's the shot of the shawl as artfully displayed by the fair staff. (Okay, yeah, that's a wire hanger, but I think it's a BLUE wire hanger. So there's that.)

At least the color is more true.

So I'm midway through the second week of the semester and I realize it could all go to heck, but sometimes good things happen to decent people, and so I am just going to go ahead and say it: this may be the best semester ever.

I have this silly little course I have to take as part of a graduation requirement. It only meets two Monday evenings a month, and instead of being just a check off box, I have learned something new and quite useful in the two classes I've attended so far. It's just a one-credit course, so there's next-to-nothing in the way of homework and yet--it's taught by a truly talented instructor. I know, right?

Tuesday evenings is my Vygotsky in Education class. Taught by a professor really incredibly adept at guiding discussion, it's a great group. LOTS of class participation. In it's sister course last fall I found a truly compelling theory through which to explore more ideas in education and I'm looking forward to that kind of growth again. It's a ton of reading, but it's so worth it.

Wednesday mid-day is a Qualitative Methods course that the professor tried to get me to drop because it's not supposed to be for Master's students. It's for second year doctoral students. I resisted and she let me stay. I'm so glad! I wanted it for guiding me in how to do the research I want to do for my master's thesis and that seems to be exactly what I'm going to learn to do. Plus out of thirty of us (HUGE class for this level. We'll break out into two groups for 2 out of 3 hours of the class.) there are two other Masters students.

The students I'll be observing this semester are a smart and talented bunch. They're young, but most aspiring teachers are. I'm really enjoying observing their classes.

_______________

When I came back to my knitting this summer, I rediscovered all the projects I'd abandoned and the general feeling I have about them is "Wow, THIS is great yarn! And what a great pattern!" It's very satisfying to finish unfinished business. Here are fingerless mittens for me:

Milo

Ben

Am I not blessed beyond all that I deserve? I am.

When the phone rings after 10pm, I answer it.

2010-08-27T23:02:00.005-04:00

Emily called me from the tractor pull (that could be the first sentence of a novel, don't you think? And it's Emily R. Not Emily-the-model/poodle.)

and told me the shawl has a first place AND Best of Show ribbon (for the Needlecraft sections). Judging was this morning. I didn't even know there was a Best of Show ribbon. I admit to kind of hoping for the Best Hand Knitted, which carries with it a $10 gift certificate to Knitters Underground, but Best in Show seems a little over the top for someone who couldn't even figure out the right entrance to the fair on Thursday (I did a lot of walking. Let's leave it at that.) I admit to a certain amount of disbelief, which might be a first for me. Emily is no stranger to a fair and I don't think she would have mixed up the ribbons, but I admit to a feeling like, "Now I gotta get over to the fair and see it for myself." I'm not going till Monday though.

So my purpose in entering the shawl in the fair was this--it's pretty. Everywhere I went knitting on this thing this summer, people would come up and want to talk about the shawl. What are you doing? Is that knitting? How are you putting the beads on it? Prettttyyyyy . . . .

And I started to want a souvenier of the shawl. I took some pictures, of course.

But they don't really represent the shawl. You can't see that the shawl is soft, even with the beads in it. You can't see that it is has a sheen to it. And the color--the color is completely wrong. It's a deep juniper green--like pine needles, really. Not nearly-teal blue.

So I thought, well, I'll enter it in the fair, and maybe I'll get a ribbon. And I'll have the ribbon and Grandma will get the shawl (because it was always supposed to be for her, and because, I already have a feathery-soft silk/wool blend shawl with tiny beads, and because I don't usually win anything beyond "most improved" and I thought that maybe this time I might).

It's only $1 to enter an exhibit in the Grange Fair. That sounds like a deal. First prize wins $4, so you make a $3 profit--only I didn't realize that they charge you full entrance fee and parking fee the day you go turn in the entry, and again when you go pick it up. Add in the day Gaye and I actually take the kids to the fair, and it's soon $27 just for ME and the car. The ladies at the exhibit explained to me my options and I went back and got the weekly pass, saving me $2. So now my total output to enter the shawl is $26.

If Emily is right (and again, she is likely to be, I just have this disbelief thing going on), then I get two ribbons and $4 for first class and $20 for Best in Show. How cool is that? Charlotte says I should donate the $4 back to the fair, but she didn't say anything about the Best in Show. If I won that, then I am keeping it to cover a fraction of what I will probably spend on funnel cakes and lemonade.

But you know what? If I really did get a First Place and a Best in Show ribbon? I'm going to totally smile for the rest of the day. I will walk the two miles back to the Handicapped Parking spots with Grandma Gaye ('cause, you know, why put the HP near the food and exhibits? At least the scooter rental is right there next to the HP.) and I will smile.

And I would be totally hooked. It would be September 2 and I would already be planning what to knit for next year's fair.

Hindsight is 20-20

2010-08-13T19:09:00.003-04:00

So the very next morning (after the last post) I proceeded to miss the twins flight. I have flown about as often as a flight attendant at various points in my life, and I have never missed a flight. But I did. I couldn't get the in-room alarm clock to work (I figured it out Saturday night. Let's just say the cheap piece of plastic isn't user friendly. I'm 42. I know how to work an alarm clock.), and I have never tried to use my cell phone alarm, so I scheduled a wake-up call with the front desk. And they didn't write down (and they don't use automated wake-up calls at the airport Marriot in Baltimore. Go figure.). So Ben actually woke up first--slightly less than an hour before take off. The amazing thing is that we were at check-in 20 minutes before departure. The bummer is that Saturday morning, 20 minutes before departure with unaccompanied minors, is not sufficient time.

The only blessing was that they gave me credit for trying and rescheduled the twins without additional cost. (And at the other end, they refunded Mom and Dad their money for an expensive tour in Sacramento that they would now miss.) Okay, okay, there was one other blessing--Emily's dogsitter was wonderful and cheerfully charged me more than State College's GNP to keep her another day. (Her prices were totally reasonable for Baltimore. They're just way out of my budget and triple what I pay for dogsitting in State College.) Again, I whine about the cost, but she was magnificent and I did get to have Emily with me for the rest of the week.

Everything else about it sucked. I felt like poo on the bottom of a debutante's shoe, that's how low I felt. The kids needed a nonstop or a "direct" (direct means you can stop 200 times if you want as long as the kids don't get off the plane). Direct sucks, but direct is really all you can get on Southwest, and even then--only once a day from Baltimore to Oakland. So that meant another day and night in a town I really can't afford. Suckville. I took a page from my step-mom's playbook and bought bread and peanutbutter at Target. With the money I saved on breakfast and lunch, I felt I could splurge and take the twins to Five Guys for dinner. (I was wrong, even with me only ordering a little baconburger--no fries, etc., it was still too much, but I didn't figure that out till the order was in, so I just took it in the wallet and we did it anyway.)

I discovered my cell phone charger was at home and all the calls had drained the battery down to zero. My cell phone is Verizon-made and since I'm already in the upgrade-eligible zone, you can guess that they don't even make it anymore. So the Verizon store near the airport had one charger left. In spite of the fact that the saleswoman was standing in front of me holding the charger, us literally three feet apart, she said she couldn't sell it to me because it wasn't in their inventory. And no, she couldn't put it in inventory, only Big Daddy Verizon could do that, and that happens like once a month or something. Whatever. I went to two other stores, they didn't have one, I drove back to the store and started talking in tongues to the store manager (something I don't ordinarily do, but this was soooooo not an ordinary day). He wouldn't take cash for it, but offered to charge the stupid phone for me in the store.

So the twins and I hung out for 20 minutes to get the phone charged. Now, technically, the battery read full when 20 minutes was up, but either I made so many telephone calls when it was charged again that I drained it in a matter of hours, or it wasn't fully charged, so that also factored into going to Five Guys. It was two doors down from the Verizon store. I gave them the phone to charge again while we went to eat. This time the charge lasted 24 hours. My phone battery is usually better than that, so maybe it's good they didn't sell it to me. Maybe it was a sucky charger. Makes sense. Don't buy a charger when you're spending the day in Suckville, where-ever that may be.

Anyway, like any sensible woman, at this point I called my mother. I was scheduled to see her the following night in Columbus. I turned the charger problem over to her. I knew she'd drive to West Virginia to get it if she had to. Indeed, she had one by noon the next day. It was a car charger, not a wall charger, but it also has a USB port in the bulky thing that sticks in the car charging port. So you can charge your ipod while you charge your phone. It worked really well. Taking only slightly longer than the original charger (which was still at home this whole time), it charged my phone fully enough to last the next three days without recharging. The phone was dead by Thursday, but I was back on the road today, anyway, so only one day was lost.

By 11:30 I was back at the hotel. Chris was handling the issue of how to pay for the extra night at the hotel. They wouldn't comp us the night's stay, but they did cover the cost of all the phone calls I had to make at $1,000/min while the phone was dead after I missed the flight. Ben and Milo, turning water into wine, jumped into their swim trunks, found cute little Estonian girls at the swimming pool and cannon balled their way into the life guard's heart (yeah, totally, in Maryland every pool must have a lifeguard).

That night we all went to bed early. I asked for a wake-up call again and set three different additional alarms. So of course, I woke up 15 minutes before the first one went off. I cancelled three and let the fourth go off just for the principle of the thing. We got to the airport two and a half hours early--it was Sunday morning, so it was only us and everyone else who really HAD to fly. We got through security in 5 minutes. Everyone was polite and on time. Ben and Milo had the crew AND the pilots eating out of their hands before they even walked down the ramp towards the plane (the crew and pilots were boarding at the same time as the three unaccompanied minors. The third kid was a year or two older than Ben and Milo, but their new best friend by the time he got off in Los Angeles.)

After I watched the plane take off, I ran to the car, raced to the dog sitters, and drove at my usual leisurely pace (I don't know why I always beat the Google map estimate by at least an hour. Then again, I don't know why everyone else on the road is driving so slowly.) to Columbus, Ohio.

After I got us all unpacked, Judy (mother), Bill (her tenant), and I went to hear the OSU alumni band, which, at the risk of offending all my fellow Penn Staters, was wonderful. They were funny and talented and had alumni baton twirlers (male and female) as well as band alumni going back 60+ years. One of their pieces is a medley that goes through 11 out of 12 of the "Big Ten" fight songs. Helpfully, two members of the band hold up signs to tell us which school's song they're playing at that time. Alumni from that school stand up at that point and everyone applauds for them. Of course I stood up for Penn State. I was the only one, but I still got the applause. (There were other schools for which only one current or former student was present, too, so I didn't feel badly in the least.) Anyway, I expected to be bored by the concert after all the drama of the past few days, but in part due to the relief of having heard that the boys had landed safely in Oakland, and in part due to the unmistakable zeal and talent of the band, I had a great time.

We went home, Bill cooked steaks, Judy made carrot-slaw (I don't know, but it wasn't bad at all)
and then Emily and I crashed.

The next morning my stomach was bothering me, so after visiting a little longer with Judy, I headed off to Indiana to meet up with Charlotte and Granny. I got there around 1:00 pm, made a simple lunch, and then passed out on the couch to nap some more. Charlotte and Granny arrived around 4pm, and the rest of the week is a happy, happy blur of knitting, visiting, canning, napping, and if the phone's battery gradually died over the course of the week, mine was being fully recharged.

As much as Saturday sucked? (And it did.) That's how awesome the rest of my off-the-grid week was. I never thought to take photos of my awesome Aunt Charlotte and Gracious Grandmother Helen while I was there. In fact, the only photo I took all week was off a bird-shaped tomato, but I finished the Gothic Leaf Shawl (which I will block, enter at the county fair, and then ship back to Grandma after the fair is over), and Charlotte and I canned a bushel and a half of tomatoes into delicious salsa and tomato soup. Whoo-hoo!

The drive home was long today. I left around 8:30 am and got home around 6:15 pm, which means that even though I hit construction in two places and had to crawl along, I still beat the Google time by an hour. Go, me.

And now, it is time for me to go do what I came home to do--pick up my son from Shakespeare rehearsal. Tomorrow evening Chris will bring the twins home, happy and joyous from a week with their grandparents. We will all five be back home, safe and sound. Life is grand.

Better Not Look Down

2010-08-06T21:06:00.003-04:00

Better Not Look Down (As sung by BB King)

I've been around and I've seen some things
People moving faster than the speed of sound
Faster than the speeding bullet
People living like Superman
All day and all night
And I won't say if it's wrong or if it's right
I'm pretty fast myself
But I do have some advice to pass along
Along in the chorus of this song

Better not look down, if you want to keep on flying
Put the hammer down, keep it full speed ahead
Better not look back, or you might just wind up crying
You can keep it moving, if you don't look down

Today we all kept it moving. With the electricity going off last night at around 1:30 am, I was concerned that maybe noone else had noticed yet, so I called Allegheny Power, and while they DID know about the power outage (turns out it was fairly widespread), I learned that they have this service where you can get a wake up call if you electricity goes out in the middle of the night. How cool is that? So I woke up at 7:00 am to my Cell phone singing to me about something. Chris took Emily to the groomer and I ran to Wegman's for cards for Rich and Julie, since this was my last day of regular employment with the Law Office.

I was most of the way there when Max called to let me know the power was back, so that was good.

I got to the law office a few minutes early, so I put stamps on my bills, left money for the stamp fund on Julie's desk, and then wrote cards to Julie and Rich. For me, it's been a great job. You never saw such flexible hours and I rarely had to work with anyone too stressed out. I got the sweet elderly couple who wants to make sure their grandchildren are provided for. It's Julie who had to deal with Wells Fargo's mortgage people.

The day went quickly. Julie had brought in yummy brownies and even though I did have some actual work to do, most of it was done about 90 minutes before I really had to leave. I did a bank run and then the three of us just talked about what I was going to do next and what we'd done together. It was fun. Then it was time to go and we all said, "See you next week!" because in two weeks a group of us are going out to lunch.

After I left though, I started worrying about the second half of the day--getting the kids to Baltimore. And I started thinking about all the driving I need to do over the next few days. And suddenly I wanted Emily to go with me. I was talking to Chris at the time, and when he didn't throw up any immediate resistence, I decided to call Charlotte. She and Granny were okay with me bringing Emily--the farm needs a mouser. So I walked through the week mentally in my mind and immediately saw the biggest problem--1) we hadn't made reservations for the dog at the hotel. This could likely be fixed. 2) The dog couldn't come in the airport. This likely couldn't.

So I called my brother, who lives fairly close to the airport, to see if he could take Emily for the night. No, he's on his way out of town (and later, other more important things came up), but I could call his cat-sitter. So I did. And she was exceptionally helpful. 30 minutes after I started asking questions about Emily, all the problems were solved (I knew Judy wouldn't mind if her grandpoodle came along).

So we finished packing. I don't have an exceptional array of clothing myself. There wasn't much room left in the suitcase after I packed all my knitting, is the thing, and a girl must have priorities. I have enough underwear and yarn and the farm has a washing machine. What can go wrong?

I packed a bag for Emily. Luckily she's up to date on all her shots, even kennel cough, so that was easy enough. Max was a total sweetheart and cleaned out my trunk for me. BLESS THAT BOY. I printed out directions from each leg of the journey to the next. I grabbed two boxes of quart jars, a bag of rings (we'll be canning). Put in the suitcases, the dog's bag, and my bookbag (which passes for a purse). We were ready to go.

We stopped at Gaye's to get goodbye hugs and then the gas station to fill the tank. And then I pointed the car at 322 East and we were on our way.

Three hours later we were threading in and out of traffic in Baltimore until we finally found the dog sitters. They were great. Emily passed her sociability test and got to stay (phew! Not that I had any doubts that she would). We agreed on a pick up time and then Ben and Milo and I flipped to the next page of directions and went in search of the airport hotel. There are some rough spots in Baltimore, and we drove through a few of them, but all was well. Ben and Milo were waving to Baltimore's police force. I told them to put on their seatbelts for crying out loud.

The hotel is really quite nice. We arrived too late to really explore the place, but are enjoying the comfy beds. We have a 4:40 am wakeup call, so I really should try to get some sleep. It was a big day with another big day to follow. Stay tuned.

Congratulations, Alycia!

2010-07-30T17:03:00.001-04:00

Tomorrow my baby sister is graduating with her Master's Degree and starting an exciting new chapter in her life. I'm very happy for her and very proud of her.

To Calendar: When two or more people get together to discuss and coordinate upcoming activities

2010-07-29T21:14:00.003-04:00

Before I left for work this morning, I tossed a family-pack of pork chops in the fridge to defrost. So when I stopped by Gaye's house on the way home, I invited her to have dinner with us. She bought us our new propane Grill after the last one rusted out to the point that the bottom literally fell out. So I wanted her to have the opportunity to appreciate what the grill can do (it heats much more evenly than the old one, and it's also much easier to clean the grate). She accepted, so Chris and I ran home with Ben (Milo stayed behind to help feed the cats) to pick up the living room and run the vaccuum once. Then we all ate dinner.

After dinner Chris ran Coco back to his home (he'd been over having a playdate with Emily all day) and Gaye and I got to talking about all the stuff coming up in August and next thing you know, I'd printed out two copies of the month of August and we were sketching out when she'd babysit, when Max would babysit, and exactly what Max's Shakespeare rehearsals and performances look like. (Did I mention that we got the most wonderful thank-you note from one of the summer drama academy organizers? It praised Max as a wonderful young man, and I just can't get enough of that kind of thing.) By the time Chris got back, we'd figured out the first week and the last full week of August.

Then Chris sat down with HIS computer and we brought HIM up to speed. Somewhere in there I got out my computer and looked up the Nittany Valley Shakespeare Festival in order to check on the locations of the performances--they're all over the place, depending on the day--and in the process discovered an additional performance and some variations in the times from the schedule I originally was given. So that was all good. We wrote down the new information and discovered, for example, that Chris was already going to be in Baltimore the day that the twins come home from California, so I'll drive from Indiana to State College the previous day and let him pick up the twins from the airport. This is good news for me, even if it means I have to wait an additional 3 to 4 hours to see them that day.

In the end, we spent about an hour coordinating child care and child activities and who is driving where and when (e.g., Grandma will probably end up picking up the twins at the end of their school days on the first few days of school, since Extended Day doesn't usually start until the second week of school. But I'm getting ahead of myself. That's September for us.) and I felt MUCH better about the whole month by the time we were done, because now we're all on the same page, and it's all down on paper and the kids will get to their activities and have another full and wonderful month of summer.

_______________________________

I'm trying to lose weight by eating less and tracking what I eat so that the calories fall within the guidelines that helped me lose so much weight over the course of two years before. I regained it when taking a medicine that isn't supposed to cause weight-gain, but totally did with me. I had kept the weight off for a little over a year prior to that. About 15 months. After I hit my previous (non pregnancy) high weight, I went off the med, and have hovered around that number ever since. It was hard to find myself back at that weight and therefore hard to find the determination to lose it. I concentrated on school instead.

But I've been nudging myself back in that direction and I think my head is in the right place to make some progress. I'll lose the weight again, all of it, just the same way I did before. It will probably take me about the same amount of time as it did before, although I might be able to shave off 6 to 9 months because I don't intend to move across the country in the middle of it this time.

And now I am off to knit, knit like the wind, for it's only one month till the Grange fair, and I have many repeats of lace left to go.

(But omigosh, what a summer it has been for the garden. This is the first summer, ever, that I can remember the hot peppers being ripe in July. Usually the first jalapenos come in around mid-August, and everything else in late August. It's not unusual for me to have to buy hot peppers for the first batch of salsa, because not enough of the rest are ripe.

But this summer I already have two different kinds of peppers starting to produce huge, ripe hot peppers. The sweet peppers are turning orange. They'll be ready to be picked before I go to Indiana. The three pickling cucumber plants are producing 8 to 12 ripe cucumbers a week right now. I was planning one more batch of relish--a dill relish--after that I'm not sure what to do. I haven't tried the Ball Canning Dill pickle recipe and I'm not sure what kind of pickles they produce. Are they any good? I don't know, so I was only going to can a few batches on a trial basis this summer--but I can see that the vines will keep producing for a few more weeks and I have to do something with all those cucumbers.

The tomatoes are starting to ripen. I can't really remember when my tomatoes usually come in. I usually have more plants and then I have a variety of middle and late season tomatoes. This spring I didn't grow plants from seeds, I just grabbed a few pots from Lowe's. So I haven't even checked when they're supposed to come in. But the cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes have produced two lunches worth of ripe tomatoes and the first Big Boy is turning red. Neither of the beefsteak tomato varieties are producing a lot of fruit. They're more lush and green and healthy, than some previous year, but not especially abundant. I hear that can happen when the plant isn't at all stressed--plenty of good soil and rain? The plant isn't so worried about producing seeds to replicate itself.

And now I really am off to knit a few rows before turning in.)

Unfinished Business

2010-07-25T23:11:00.002-04:00

I have it in my mind this school year not to start any new big projects, but rather to finish projects begun in this past year, or even earlier. I include in this a project I haven't actually cast on for yet, but purchased awhile ago when I saw it, loved it, and knew for whom I wanted to knit it. Since the person hadn't actually been conceived at that point, the project has been just sitting there, out of sunlight, waiting. Today I found a beautiful picture of it on Ravelry and decided that when I finish Grandma Helen's Stole and the Diamond Fantasy Shawl it will be time to launch that project. Hopefully I'll finish it before said person graduates from college and has his or her own babies. It's an heirloom project, with little practical value, so I'll have to knit up a baby sweater or something to go with it.

In addition to unfinished knitting projects, I have a master's thesis to finish. I've begun in the sense that I'm reading background knowledge books, but I've a long way to go on it.

Chris and I have launched a project to bring our family's eating habits more in line with what we think is healthy. We went out to dinner tonight for our anniversary dinner on grandma Judy's dime, and talked about the kinds of changes we want to make. We're going to start by getting rid of "seconds" but set fruit out at every dinner and allow unlimited servings of that. So we might still have chicken noodle casserole, but only one serving of it, and then any kid still hungry can fill up on grapes or apples or what have you. The second thing we're doing is identifying the three "worst offenders" on our regular rotation (they tend to be convenience foods I buy for the nights I'm not home to cook) and we'll replace them with healthier fare that Chris and the boys feel confident they can cook. We're not saying we'll never have hot dogs again, but we'll take them out of "Tuesday nights when Mom's in class," so the frequency with which we eat them is more in alignment with their nutritional contribution (e.g., not very often). We will not limit how much the boys can eat--I just think that sets the kids up for sneaking food and having weird issues with food--we'll just encourage healthier snacking. I don't think anyone ever ate themselves into a 35 bmi on grapes.

Finally, I'm, reluctantly, reading up on dairy allergies. Ben has had tummy troubles since birth and he often goes to bed with a bloated tummy you could flip coins on. He gets gas during the day and created a scene more than once in second grade. When Ben was entering kindergarten, I had the twins tested for allergies since their Dad and brother both have plenty (Chris way more than Max, though). On a hunch, I mentioned the milk allergy to the allergist then and he added that as a skin test.

I've never heard of testing milk issues with a skin test, but hey, it's his specialty. So the boys didn't react to ANYTHING . . . except Ben got an inconclusive with the dairy. His skin got red in that area, but there wasn't a full-on welt. The allergist said, well, they were still young. They should be retested at age 8 or so--and definitely to keep an eye on Ben and see what happens with the dairy.

Well, I'm not good at that stuff. I can only stay focused on so much at a time, so I basically shelved it. But with school only a month away, I'm hearing from Ben that he'd like to give dairy elimination a try. In part this is because he is seduced by lactaide commercials, but also because I think he is old enough to not want to be laughed at in class. So that's going on the list of things to do in September. We'll try eliminating dairy for Ben and see . . . if there's anything different or better about that. If there is, we'll trot back to the allergist and see what we can learn about that. Dairy allergies are pretty rare. Lactose intollerance is really very common, and it usually is something that develops in preteens and teens or young adults. It's less common in anglo saxons, but I'm convinced there's some Latino or Native American in Chris's genetic makeup anyway, and there's plenty of dairy intolerance in those blood lines.

Other projects we'll pursue include Ben and Milo's speech therapy. They're going to the same clinic at Penn State that Max went to when he was stuttering. He doesn't stutter/stammer any more at all, so we're very hopeful that this will bring success to the twins, too.

I'd better be off to bed now. It's been a great day, but I guess I've stretched it out long enough. Tomorrow is Scout Camp for Max and swim practice for the twins and work for Chris and me. Another good day, I'll bet.

Blueberries and Sweet Relish

2010-07-17T22:53:00.002-04:00

I knew what I didn't want to do today was be out running errands all day in it. We had one optional swim meet on the calendar and a Shakespeare rehearsal and that was it. I decided against the swim meet in favor of sleeping in, since occasionally when Chris is out of town I just can't get to sleep. He came home Friday night, and in spite the heat, I fell asleep just fine, and slept till 10:00 am. When I finally got up, I checked on some pickling cucumbers I'd picked earlier, and decided they were still fresh enough to work with. I also wanted to get some blueberries canned into jam. Also, the sister missionaries were coming for dinner and I had promised Ben quiche. So I made a grocery list consisting mostly of dish detergent and stuff for pickling, and after a few false starts, finally got out of the house a little after noon. We dropped Max at the art gallery where they rehearse, and went to Wegman's. After some discussion, we settled on corn on the cob and red potatoes to go with the quiche.

When we got back home, Chris was the first to the door, and he was greeted by an overzealous paper wasp, who won the battle (Chris's middle finger swelling to three times its natural size), but lost the war (Chris googled how to get rid of wasps and took out the fledging nest a little after dark). I started on my various cooking and canning projects, while Chris went out to get Max from practice and whatever that huge spray bottle was that he used on the nests. Around 4pm he passed out on the couch (a combination of the benedryl I'd given him and a very long week behind him) and I started to focus more seriously on dinner.

By 6pm, the missionaries had arrived, and with the help of the boys, we were ready. The quiche was perfect, the potatoes perfect, the corn was boiling, the table set. We prayed, we ate, we had a great time. Then Chris and the missionaries met (he's ward missionary leader right now) and I made us all blueberry cobbler. It turned out great, but not before dropping big globs on the floor of the oven. I'd like to use the self-cleaning feature of the oven, but really--can I stand a 500 degree oven for a few hours in this heat? I don't honestly know if I can.

When the cobbler was done, I did the fastest batch of blueberry jam ever--mostly because I did all the prep before I'd started on dinner. Then we played a quick game of Apples-to-Apples, calling it Family Home Evening. At this point we said goodnight to the Missionaries.

Now it was 9:00 pm and I had to decide if I could really do a batch of relish before bedtime. I decided I could if I used the food processesor. When you do sweet pickle relish, you basically dice onions, pickling cucumbers, and sweet peppers. Then you toss them in a big bowl, sprinkle with salt, and cover in cold water. Then you let it sit for two hours. So here I am at 11:30, watching the minutes tick off the clock. Everyone else fell asleep awhile ago (well, except Milo who had trouble sleeping till I sat by him and gently rubbed his back for a couple of minutes). Actually, I'm not really watching the minutes tick off the clock. I'm feeling pretty good about getting 11 jars of 12-oz blueberry jam done and being about an hour away from having a double batch of sweet pickle relish processing. The jars are simmering on the stove. I just need the relish to finish doing whatever it is doing in the brine.

I'm hoping tomorrow evening to get a batch of dill pickles done in quart jars. I haven't ever done dill pickles before, and I'm not sure how many I'll do in the end, but I think it'll be a few more weeks before the cucumber vines stop producing, so I'll give it a shot. I think I picked about three or four quarts worth today, and I've got plenty of vinegar, so why not?

Saturday, in The Park . . .

2010-07-10T17:56:00.002-04:00

It's been the most amazing week. We started off with the Fourth of July. Gaye agreed to tag along to church with us and we had a great Sunday afternoon as a family. From there we headed home to prepare a BBQ and get ready for a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Black. They were in Baltimore with my brother, J, and his family. They arrived around 6pm, and we all had dinner at 6:30. After more than a week of waffling, we agreed to skip the big fireworks display at Penn State and blow up the store-bought ones in the street in front of our house instead. So that's what we did. We blew up the fireworks and admired the fire flies and called it a good time. Then the grandparents went home to sleep and the kids went to bed. In the morning, the heat wave had arrived and we looked for quiet, indoorsy things to do. I guess I won't do a play by play of the whole week, but it was full and delicious. Among other things we:

all went swimming at Park Forest pool. It was soooooooo hot that even I, at my heaviest weight ever, put on my best bathing suit and got in the water. The water was wonderful and I felt instantly reengergized. Grandma Donna and I played with the kids and then we went off the board together. It was a blast and made gettting through the rest of the hot, humid day easier.

visited the Palmer Museum of Art, which turned out to be a smallish, but very nice museum, worth going back to.

had lunch at the Creamery. We ate lunch and then ice cream. They got to see the education building from the outside.

played Apples to Apples, with much laughter.

attempted gluten-free chinese dumplings, with some success, and spam musabi, with much more success.

picked up 190 lbs of blueberries from the Kiwanis club and got it all delivered to everyone who placed an order by noon the next day.

took Ben's mild earache complaints seriously because we knew we were going camping and wouldn't have easy access to a health clinic in the next state, only to find that he had a raging ear infection going on--we left with ear drops, lessons in managing swimmer's ear, and amoxicicillin.

Then Mom and Dad had to go back to California. We all said goodbye, and then realized we had some serious packing to do. I squeezed in two 5-hr days of work before we left, and a lot of packing, and then suddenly it was Thursday at 3:02 pm, and we were rolling out of the driveway.

It has been a wild and wonderful camping experience. First, it's hardly Muir on an iceburg. It's a KOA camp ground, and I paid the extra few bucks for one of the tent sites with water and electricity (unfortunately, what this really means is that I have a good-sized RV site, on which to pitch the tent). It had wifi, as long as the weather is good anyway, hot water showers, clean toilet stalls, a chlorinated pool, and dozens of other activities we could do if I would spend the money.

Second, the weather has been every manner of extreme except exceedingly cold. We arrived on day five of a major heatwave, all of soaked to the skin with sweat after 20 minutes of unpacking--and since our tent (Taj Mahal model. Sleeps 8--or 5 if you're sleeping on two queen size and one twin-size air mattresses) takes a bit of unpacking, we were at it for longer than that. Still, I got dinner cooked before the sun set and we all collapsed happy, if incredibly hot, sometime around 11pm, when we simply couldn't take the mosquitos for one moment longer.

Since there was electricity to the site, not only could we use a regular mattress inflator (instead of the weak battery powered things that sometimes come with them) but frankly--we'd brought a 100 foot extension chord and a large air mover fan. I pointed it at the ceiling, for which the other four were mostly resentful--but it was the best way to circulate the most amount of air in the tent so everyone got at least some small amount of breeze.

On Friday we had breakfast, prepared the tent for the thunderstorm that was supposed to arrive at 7pm and then clear up in time for the 9:15 pm pageant, and then left for LDS tourist places as soon as possible. It was already unbearably hot and it wasn't even 10 am yet. We hit the Visitor's center at the Hill Comorough first. They were predicting 9,000 in attendance on the first night of the pageant (which was that night). Then we visited the Sacred Grove. It was as beautiful as you might expect (and shady enough to not be miserably hot). I think that was my favorite spot of the day.

By now it was after noon, so we decided to get out of the heat for a bit--we went to see a matinee of Desipicable Me. The kids and I loved it, although Ben and Milo are not eager movie goers (well, neither am I frankly--we all find the movies just plain TOO LOUD). But we thought there was definitely something for everyone in the movie, and use of the 3D was magnificent--definitely a movie intended for 3D, not tacked on as a gimic.

When we got out, the skies were gray, there was a wind, and there were drops falling from the sky. The big, heavy ones that seem to come ahead of the real storm. We hurried to the car and went to the grocery store to get food for dinner. The twins need to each plan, prepare, and cook and outdoor meal under adult guidance, and so this camping trip seemed like a good way to get that done.

Ben decided to go first. He chose hamburgers. We got goodies for smores, too. Then we ran home, still expecting the storm to come in quick after dinner and leave again--the first storm had already come and gone while we were in Wegman's. But when we got back to the campgrounds, instead of getting lighter and clearing up, it got darker and darker again. The tent had leaked a little, so we used the Shamwow we got for Christmas to dry out the wet spots and we made a few adjustments to the fit of the rain fly, and one wall of the tent. I started preparing things for a run into the tent. About 20 minutes after we got back, a little before 4 pm, it started raining again. We all piled into the tent and listened to the deluge. And listened, and listened, and listened. We played electronic games. Chris fretted over every drip into the tent. I tried to keep everyone calm. And on and on it poured and poured. I couldn't stay connected to the internet long enough to get a forecast. I just saw the flood warning that wasn't there the day before and the mention of 2-4 inches of rain over a matter of hours--before we were going to get less than an inch over the course of half a day. So it had all changed, and we couldn't seem to get the specifics.

At 6:20 pm, all of the boys were getting fussy and desperate, so I moved us to the nearest covered picnic table, and supervised Ben's preparation for dinner. We were mostly done when Bishop called--his whole family is in the pageant this year--to see if we were still coming. We were surprised, but when he reassured us that the show would go on (the website DOES say it's never been called on account of rain. It just doesn't say that it hasn't ever rained--they're supposed to cancel in the event of LIGHTNING--and sure enough though it certainly rained last night, there was no thunder or lightning during the show.

So we bought ponchos, and cleaned up dinner, threw ourselves back in the car, and drove over to the pageant. One plus with the rain--the anti-Mormons were thin in number. The rain was heavy and then light and then heavy again. We were happy to see friends there and it was a welcome distraction from the tent leaks. The show was well done and we all enjoyed it. Then it was a hike in flip flops (no one wanted to ruin their sneakers) back through the mud and back out to the road. Miraculously, no one seemed to get stuck in the mud.

Back in the tents we again mopped up, put down fresh bedding, and fell into an exhausted slumber. I woke briefly when the rain started up again, but this time it wasn't heavy enough to leak into the tent.

In the morning the air was cool and breezy. The kids played (KOA campgrounds lend themselves to young pups like ours banding together into wandering groups. Since so many people are here for the pageant, they're largely Mormon puppies, and we ran into a few of them during our daytime travels :) and I made more pancakes and bacon. We pulled everything wet out of the tent and ran into town. Chris and Max did a load of laundry and two loads of drying. Ben and Milo and I went back to the grocery store for more groceries. Today it's Milo's turn to plan, prepare, and cook--so he's doing pork chops and pot stickers.

Back at the campsite, we had sandwiches for lunch, and then we all went swimming at the pool. Sooooo much fun. Chris and the boys laughed their heads off. Wonderful.

We squandered a couple of hours doing nothing (waiting for the sun to set a bit) and now it is just shy of 7 pm, and the boys are all back looking hopeful, so Milo and I will get to work making dinner.

Tomorrow we'll strike camp, pack up the car, and head off. I will head back home with the kids and Chris will go to Canada on business. It's a full week of graduate assistantship training for me, with a little bit of work here or there. Theatre for Max. Swimming and time with grandma Gaye for the twins. Canadians for Chris.

But right now it's an evening of good food, a fire, s'mores, and potentially the best night yet in the tent. It's really been a magnificent week. Magnificent. Many thanks to all who made it possible.

August in Grandview--A Memory

2010-06-27T23:22:00.003-04:00

Tonight is one of those hot, humid east coast nights where you put all the kids to bed on top of their covers and point a separate fan at each hot body, then retire to your own bed, only to lay awake in the prickly heat, listening to the hum of the fans, feeling the air brush across you like waves from an oven. My husband, who was up early for a church meeting, falls asleep anyway, but my mind drifts back to a summer night in ‘86 or ‘87, I’m not sure which.

It would have been late August in Grandview, Ohio. I was a sophomore at Ohio Wesleyan, and I think it must have been ’87, because I have a memory of being glad to be back at Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I might have some of the details wrong. This memory might be more of a compilation of memories from various visits, but the memory of the incoming storm is clear tonight. I’m sure of that much.

I didn’t understand yet just exactly how sick Grandpa was. I didn’t understand yet that this would go fast, and by the week of finals, in late December, I would lose Grandpa John Black. On this late summer afternoon, I just knew he was sick with cancer, very sick, but I think I still thought then that he would get well.

It wasn’t yet evening, I don’t think. Maybe 4:00 pm, and I was laying in the guest room with the large bed. I loved that room and I loved the bed, with it’s clean, crisp white sheets, and the white bed cover, and the many small windows that swept around the room. The windows were all open and there was a fan in one, held in place by the weight of the heavy glass window. I lay on top of the covers, not even trying to nap, just trying not to move, letting the air from the fan lift the sweat off my neck.

I always felt so welcome, so special at Grandma Helen’s and Grandpa John’s house. Grandma would have me go around with her once each weekend and help her change the sheets on any beds that had been slept in. I liked this. I liked how smooth she got the sheets, and I found her system of moving top sheets to the bottom, and then putting a fresh top sheet on the bed charmingly economical. I never adopted the system. My own children twist and turn in bed like little blind tornados, and I have to use special elastic hooks just to keep the fitted sheets on. I can’t imagine top sheets lasting two hours under the boys, but it worked at Helen’s house.

When she knew I was coming Helen would buy orange soda and French vanilla ice cream, because once she had had those items on hand and I made an orange soda and loved it so much—after that she made sure we had those ingredients for every visit. Back then I swam on OWU’s swim team, and I could that without any harm. We ate whatever I wanted for dinner, so long as Grandpa would eat it, too. We talked about my classes, and John Black would read over my papers after the professor returned them graded. He would add two more grades to the paper—what he thought I deserved and what he thought the professor deserved for his or her job in grading the paper and giving me feedback. I always fared better than the professor. Grandpa told me I’d get Phi Beta Kappa and I said I’d never had a 4.0 semester, and he said I would soon. So I did. I did that for him the last semester he was alive, although he would die the day before my last finals. But having done it once, I knew I could do it again, and so in the end the Phi Beta Kappa was mine. Ours, really. I had needed someone to say I could do it. Someone who believed it.

All of this, their way of treating me like a special guest, like they had been waiting for me, thinking I would be visiting soon, making the trip to the grocery store and thinking, “Oh, Heather will be visiting soon, I’d better get some more orange soda,” the huge bed that made me feel like a princess, that’s all wrapped up in the memory of laying on the bed in front of the fan on that hot August afternoon.

And then there was thunder in the distance, faint at first, hard to hear over the box fan in the window, and then louder so you knew it was definitely thunder, followed soon after by the first gusts of cool air blowing in ahead of the storm, and I shivered in happy anticipation of the coming cold front and the potential drama of an afternoon thunderstorm in central Ohio. Only moments after the first cool air blew in, the rain began to fall, fat, slow drops that splattered on the roof and on the driveway outside the windows. The smell of the hot asphalt was the next sensation, and then suddenly the air was full of fat, pelting rain drops. I heard windows slamming shut down stairs and the quiet time on the bed was over. I ran around the house with Grandma closing the windows, leaving a few open a crack at the bottom to let in the cool air, but not the rain.

I was wide awake now. Grandma was making drinks for herself and Grandpa. I made an orange soda. The news came on and I abandoned the guest room to watch the news with them. The storm was soon over and we walked around again, opening the windows wide to let in the cool air. I put the box fan back in the window. Later that night I would stay up too late, reading a good book, stretching out the visit by putting off sleep. Later I would realize that this worried Grandma, my not sleeping, but at the time I took her comments about my late bedtimes in stride. It didn’t sound like worry or complaining, so I didn’t think to reassure her that I ordinarily kept fairly normal hours. I wasn’t one of those college students who never slept.

I knew how lucky I was, to be at college at a distance far enough from my parents that I felt all grown up, but close enough to my grandparents that I could call them on a Thursday and they would come get me on a Friday, always returning me to school feeling well rested, well loved, well fed, cherished, and with $20 in my pocket. I knew how lucky I was to have such a clever and charming Grandmother in Helen Harrington Black now Humbarger. I knew how lucky I was to have a Grandfather who saw in me potential I couldn’t yet see in myself.

I don’t mind the heat tonight. I can’t sleep, but it’s alright. The memories are like having them visit again for a short while. I walk around the house in Grandview in my mind, revisiting the details I remember from each room. The old bathtub. The laundry chute. The shower in the basement. Grandpa's books in the shelves on the stairs that led up to the attic. The big red chairs. The old tv. The breakfast nook. The cupboard where Grandma kept at least a decade of grooming products. The drawer with the twist ties from bread bags and the knob that dripped with rubber bands. Going further back in time, chasing fire flies with my cousins on the front lawn. Collecting them all in glass jars with nail holes in the metal tops. Somewhere around this memory I finally doze off. The heat has let up some and if I were the sort to dream, I think I would have gone on remembering. I know how lucky I was.

Pool Blogging

2010-06-23T18:56:00.004-04:00

It might be overkill, but even our local community pool has free wifi now. It's inarguably uncomfortably hot and humid today, so I promised the kids we'd go early to swim practice and Max could come, too. One of his friends lives in a house that backs up to the pool, so Max called J and they're happily conquering the water slides now. Oh, here, look. I can take a picture from my cell phone, send it to my email address, upload it to my computer and kerpow:

So, yeah, that's Park Forest Pool as the sun is setting, and now you, too, will want to move to State College.

To complete my wiredness, I have iPod earphones in my ears and at this very moment I am listening to Boomshackalak. It's on some kind of shuffle setting. Just a moment ago I was listening to Handels Messiah: A Soulful Celebration, and the song before that was a Bassoon piece from Vivaldi called Bassoon Concerto in A Mino, R. 498: III Allegro--and now it's the Mighty Fine Blues by Eel, whoever they are. The refrain is "Feelin' mighty fine, feelin' mighty fine at this time," and I am. Wait. :::counts her children::: All accounted for. Yes. Feeling mighty fine. Even if my arms are sticking to the picnic table as I write. Hee Hee :)

So Max had a good day. He auditioned in the morning and by the time they left for the day, he already knew his roles. He scored two top male roles and the director has offered him a small adult role (for all we know, it's non-speaking) in Much Ado About Nothing, which she is working on for some other performance. This is all Max could tell me. Using the magic of google I found the performance. It's the Nittany Valley Shakespeare Festival and the good news is that there are like six performances. The bad news is that they start right after I was going to take Max to Indiana for a week to see my grandmother and Aunt. I'm guessing he couldn't miss rehearsals that week. hrm. Chris will go speak to the director tomorrow.

Wow. There are a lot of kids here for evening swim practice tonight. Way more than on Monday. There are a bunch of high school kids and Ben and Milo are a little freaked. I don't blame them. The man-cubs look like they could eat Ben and Milo for lunch. Milo is practicing his starts. This looks like him leaping off the blocks with wild abandon--no actual diving involved, LOL. It's good to be 8. Ben is getting coached on his freestyle. Max is checking to make sure we rolled up the windows to the car since it's starting to rain. "A Lovely Day" comes on my iPod and I smile again :) It's not raining here under the pavillion, and I go on typing . . . skyping now with Chris at home.

All My Worlds

2010-06-22T19:21:00.003-04:00

I never really got into soap operas. For one, they air at a time slot when I am rarely watching tv, and then there's the fact that the story lines and acting never really appealed to me. My only exposure to soap operas was when I was home sick (and you had to really be sick to get to stay home in my house growing up) or whatever I saw on the cover of a magazine in a checkout line. That said, the constantly changing vignette style of the soap opera isn't a bad metaphor for my summer schedule. There is the family breakfast and morning chores vignette, followed by a drive in the car, followed by the children at swim practice vignette, followed by a drive in the car, followed by anything from "run errands" to "do laundry at home" to "Penn State" (for any number of reasons), followed by another drive in the car and kids to grandma's and me to work, followed by another drive in the car, then the family dinner vignette, an evening activity which requires more driving about 50% of the time, and finally, the put everyone to bed vignette, followed by adult interaction, and finally, the pass out cold in bed scene. It's been fun, a little heavy on gas usage, and actually rather satisfying. After three semesters of feeling pulled between school, kids, and work (pretty much in that order), it's nice to only feel pulled between kids and work--and because Gaye is so great about watching the kids, and because a long day at work is only 4 hours--not really feeling that pulled. We're getting scouting done, the kids are getting excercise, the family is getting our scripture study and family prayer in there, and we're nearly caught up on the dishes. So life feels kind of soap opera-ish, cutting to different camera angles and different backdrops frequently--except the scenery isn't fake, the tans on the kids are real (and there are no tans on the grownups--I burn. I hide in the shade unless I'm timing at a meet.), and the only dog hasn't been groomed in a month. Oh, and the carpet. The gross, icky, carpet. Oh, well. I guess you knew I wasn't going to take the soap opera metaphor too far.

____

So we just had Father's day. It was low key in this house. It's always low key. Gaye took us all out to a great dinner at Applebee's, and we all gave Chris cards. Gaye bought Chris a little helicopter. I gave him free kisses. It was good.

Tonight is an ordinary Tuesday and Chris is coaching Max through his monologue for tomorrow's summer theatre audition. Max is already in the program, and they have already offered him a full scholarship, but the performance has not been cast yet, so tomorrow are auditions for that. I am sitting in another room listening to Max and Chris talk, their voices rising and falling. Max has a deeper voice now. Sometimes this year if I was working at my desk and he came down the basement stairs and make a noise it would startle me. He would make "strange man" noises. The noises of a man I didn't know. It would about put me out of my skin, honestly. Gradually, I got used to his man-noises. I recognize them now as him. But I . . . it saddens me that I can't remember his boy voice anymore. I don't have that kind of memory. I recall the gist of things, the big picture, the message--I'm not good at word-for-word, or what color it was, or exactly how it sounded. So I keep listening to my man-cub talking, hearing that it is still a little strange to me (for one, I think it keeps changing little by little as he keeps stretching for his father's height, little by little), but unable to put my finger on exactly how it is different.

Chris on the other hand, Chris sounds as he has sounded for over 20 years. We're a couple weeks away from our fifteenth anniversary and I am grateful to him for all the ways he has changed and most of the ways he has not. I am grateful for his metamorphosis into a complete hands-on Dad. I am grateful for his willingness to first, follow me on a journey of Faith, and then to take the lead. I am grateful that everyday he goes to a job that, as the Dirty Jobs guy says, he is not passionate about, but to which he brings his passion for life, anyway. It makes him good at what he does, and with that I can pay the mortgage, which is way more important than I thought it was 20 years ago.

Right now he is making Gorilla noises. It's part of the monologue. I smile. He made me laugh out loud when I was 15. He is still making me laugh 27 years later. I am grateful for that, too.

So Hot, Even the Squirrels Need a Siesta

2010-06-19T19:08:00.002-04:00

This little guy was litterally flattened by the heat earlier this week. At first I thought he might be dead (although I couldn't for the life of me figure how he'd ended up dead on top of the swing set), but every few minutes he would lift his head and look around. Just his head. The rest of him remained splayed out over the swing set. He saw Max and I snapping pictures. Didn't faze him. I don't know when he finally left.

It was a busy week. Max finished up 8th grade on Tuesday. The twins had finished school the previous Wednesday. Wednesday morning swim team started for Ben and Milo and Max slept in. It may be the only day all summer he really has to do that. After swim team we ran home for Ben and Milo to quick change into real clothes and then it was over to Penn State for a new speech therapy evaluation. Max was about this age when he worked with them on ending his stammering, and it worked. So we're back in the hopes that Ben and Milo can learn and apply those tricks, too. The graduate students there are always a little nervous and eager when meeting new students, but in this case, the supervisors were convincingly enthusiastic. Ben and Milo went to the speech preschool they have there as part of the graduate student training, and here they were, a few years later, parading around their generous vocabulary and their love of interacting with other humans. They've grown an awful lot in the four years that have passed since they were there, and it was exciting for the supervisors to see them. At any rate, we spent two hours there and the time flew by--felt like maybe 40 minutes. I go back next Wednesday to get the results, and hopefully, to sketch out a plan for helping them.

From there we ran home, grabbed a bite to eat, grabbed Max, who had been doing laundry and packing for his upcoming camping trip, and dropped Max off at a friends house, dropped the twins off with Grandma Gaye, and I ran to work for three hours. Then everyone went home, we had a nice dinner, Dad went out to do some stuff for his church calling, and the rest of us played games on the computer or Wii.

Thursday Chris ran a bunch of the boys out to Zion's camp (church camp) and left him there for three days. He worked from home while Ben and Milo and I filled the rest of the week with more swimming, working, and spending time with Grandma. I had my first-ever mammogram. The technician was really quick--I'll give her that.

Today Ben and Milo's swim team had a mock meet. This sets initial times for all the kids, teaches them the flow of a meet (and a race), and lets the coaches see what individual kids will do in an actual race. Ben and Milo, who have done an awful lot of clinging to the lane lines so far this summer, both did great--in particular, they improved a LOT between their first 25 free race and when they swam it again an hour later for the relay. Ben displayed some natural competitiveness in his final race--where his new understanding of how races work and his observations of the older kids gelled together--and for the first time ever, he stopped "stopping" to breathe and started breathing on alternating sides, every third stroke. I was floored and mighty proud.

I was a timer during the practice meet, so I was pretty hot and tired by the time it was all over. In the last few races, someone else took over timing my lane, so I bought Ben and Milo and I some breakfast from the "snack" booth. We left there and headed home for an hour, and then it was over to the YMCA for their last swim lesson. After that we went to Grandma Gaye's. Ben and Milo changed out of swim trunks for the first time since 7:00 am and then we all went shopping. Grandma Gaye bought Ben and Milo summer swim passes at the pool (thanks so much, Grandma!) and then we found a game she was looking for at Target. From there it was on to Wegman's where we not only found all the groceries we were looking for, but also the UltraSwim shampoo I desperately need to turn Ben and Milo's straw hair back into something you can run a comb through.

And then Max was back home and we were all a family again. A hot, tired, happy family. The End (of today. More tomorrow :)

Go, Max!

2010-06-10T20:46:00.002-04:00

Max had a two-day Algebra final this week. This evening I got an e-mail. His Algebra teacher is the fastest grader EVER. He consistently got his test scores posted the same day he took a test. Her dedication to getting work back to him (and their grades posted online where I could see them) was a huge help in improving Max's consistency with getting his work done.

Anyway, he got an A on his final, which means he can officially go on to Geometry as a freshman in the fall. I'm very proud of him :)

Summer in Central PA, Or, I Show Off My Lovely Family

2010-06-05T17:09:00.009-04:00

I guess I don't need to tell you that it isn't technically summer yet, but this past week has all the hallmarks of summer:

1. three day weekend

2. out-of-state visitors
3. every fan in the house plugged in and running

4. in desperation--the airconditioner run for portions of the day (mostly while we had visitors)

5. happy, sweaty boys
6. bicycles

7. bathing suits

8. an ant invasion

9. birthday cakes

My other brother, Jake, and his lovely wife, Karen, and their adorable children, my niece and nephew. She is one this week. He is four next week.

Seriously, I'm related to that handsome guy and that angel baby.

This is Alex's lovely wife. She is exceptionally good a posing for photos because my brother takes a million photos everywhere he goes, so she thinks she's being silly in this picture, but I think it captures her innate humor and beauty:

In honor of Max's 14th birthday, Jake let Max take his scooter for a spin (he did not go on the street--stayed in the alley), and so nephew O and Ben and Milo needed to take O's battery car for a spin, too. Here is a picture he captured that makes me smile. That's Milo at the wheel. (If you haven't seen Max in a photo recently--yes, he's grown. I'm not sure. 5' 9"? 10"?)

This week I think I finally stopped gritting my teeth to get through all of each day. My reward was a heavenly visit from my baby brother and sister-in-law. They were only here two days, but we got long car rides on either side of those two days to talk. We all, including the kids, really enjoyed their gracious visit. It was a long way to come--they just got back to the states after 10.5 months traveling various exotic locations of the world--and we're so glad they took the time and spent the money (that they really didn't have) to do so.

We canned strawberries. Max and I picked 15 lbs of u-pick strawberries last Saturday and then we acquired another 7 or 8 lbs of berries. Jess and I canned one batch of mixed berries (black berries, strawberries, and raspberries) and this came out wonderfully. We then did a double batch of regular strawberry jam, finishing finally with a batch of splenda strawberry jam. I always think this will take only a few hours and it ends up taking all day.

Alex and the boys playing with swords made by Max. They entertained themselves while I made Jess stay in the hot kitchen with me.

Tuesday Max had to go to school (big kids can't miss school before the Algebra final is over) and Chris had to go to work (family providers can't take vacation days when the Japanese clients are in town), but Ben and Milo are days from the end of their school year so they played hookey. We walked around Penn State--there are more photos of this, but I don't think I have those. I picked up a book I'd requested at the library and then we went to the creamery for ice cream. Emily came with us and enjoyed the attention.

We ran home and made pizza because it was our turn to feed the Sister Missionaries and Chris had invited one of the Japanese gentleman to our home for dinner. It was a total team effort with Ben and Milo helping with toppings, Jess rolled out the dough and watched over Ben and Milo's efforts. I ran around and put things where the cooks could reach them. Alex shredded the mozzarella. Oh--before this, Alex and Jess led a big cleaning effort, and so the place looked great. My brother MOPPED MY KITCHEN FLOOR. Seriously, I almost cried.

But I didn't have time, so I ran out the door to go get the Sister Missionaries and arrived moments after the pizza was pulled out of the oven and Chris and the kids got the extra table set up.

We had a blast.

Then after dinner I ran the twins over to cub scouts, Max worked on his Duty to God requirements so he could be done before turning 14 . . .

and then it was Thursday and Alex and Jess were safely in Arizona, Max was 14 and it was time for more cake.

And then it was today, the kind of Saturday you think every Summer Saturday will be--beautiful, but not overly hot, a little rain early in the morning for the tomatoes--Ben and Milo had their first summer swim team practice--and that went great. Then we ran to Target for new flip flops. The twins showed me how negligent a mother I am by moving up two shoes sizes. Jeez. I got summer flip flops, too. Yay, me! Then it was home for a quick stop and off to the YMCA for swim lessons.

I've spent all afternoon working on a baby sweater that is turning out lovely and listening to my iPod.

My. heart. is. so. full.

I know not every week can be so wonderful, but a wonderful week like this every so often really goes far to strengthen your heart. Tomorrow is fast and testimony Sunday and I think I'll use the opportunity tonight, after I start my fast, to plan Monday's FHE lesson instead of waiting until 20 minutes before like I usually do :) Now that Max is 14, I'm thinking it could be fun to do a lesson on Patriarchal Blessings.

Planning Ahead

2010-05-19T16:55:00.002-04:00

I really love planning because I really hate surprises. Chris will back me up there.

So today I worked a couple of hours at the law office and then headed over to campus to chase down beurocratic rabbit trails in search of a form I'm not entirely sure exists. (It wouldn't be the last time today.) Then I went to a planning meeting for the fall's Assistantship.

I'm so excited about this project, actually. I think the professor in charge of it is terrific--organized and reasonable. I really admire those qualities in anyone, and in academia, especially. I think the other graduate student I'm working with is terrific. She's smart and experienced with this project, and, thank heavens, taking the lead in teaching the class. I'll be doing more of the supervising. I'm very excited about that.

After we had penciled in many of the logistical details about all of that, I talked with the professor about my Master's Thesis project, because he's my advisor for that. We talked some more about what it would and would not be and came away with a clearer picture--and I was able to cut down my list of summer reading considerably. I still have a bunch to read, but it's not so all over the map as before. This is good.

I also got to drop two of the five classes I'd signed up for (over scheduling to avoid being shut out of something I wanted later).

I only have one night course for the fall, and it doesn't go as late as the night classes usually do. It's on scout night, of course, but in a way that's good as it means we'll only need a sitter every other week.

I'll be very busy during the day, but should be able to be home and make dinner four of the week nights and that's a huge improvement over previous semesters.

Also, we think we can combine my supervising with my thesis research and that's a huge, huge, huge time savor. Watch the teachers-in-training, take notes, give feedback, keep notes for my own research. All good.

Only thing is--I think I'm going to start taping my talks with this professor. He says soooo much, quickly, and I can't remember it all later. I take notes, but it doesn't seem to capture everything. Would be good to have the digital recording to listen to again later and make sure I got it all. (I'm totally serious.)

Off They Go

2010-05-14T16:53:00.002-04:00

A brief rainstorm blew through here about 3:45, soaking the items in the back of the pickup truck, which I was driving at the time. I knew about the wheelbarrow and the gas thingy, but I didn't realize there were a few boy scout tents in the back, getting soaked. I rounded up Ben and Milo after talking to my friends for a bit, and then headed home, blissfully unaware that Chris was back at the house having a conniption fit.

Upon arrival, Max dashed out of the house to inspect the tents while I worried about the silver car, whose windows had been left down. Max reported the soaking of the tents to Chris and Chris had a baby cow in the living room. moo.

Then, he recovered his composure. They finished gathering their things. They headed out to pick up the rest of the troop, hoping they could squeeze all those big kids into that tiny truck and maybe the tents would air out on the way up to the mountain trail. The storm hadn't lasted more than 15 minutes. As long as the wet spots didn't end up being on the bottom of the tents, it was all probably salvageable.

Since then, the sun has come out. I'm thinking good thoughts for Troop 40's campout tonight. May they find plenty of dry wood for the smores and hotdog roasting.

I'm also thinking of my friend whose husband is graduating from college tonight with a degree in chemical engineering that they all, the whole family, earned together (but, you know, kudos to Eric who cracked the books, wrote the papers, studied and passed the tests, and did a million group projects--which can try an older student's patience). Ben and Milo and I will be babysitting their two youngest children while everyone else goes to the ceremonies. It's a good day in Central PA.

Me? My PA teaching credential and my final "child abuse" clearance arrived in the mail today. This has no immediate impact on anything. I'll still be returning to school in the fall to finish my master's. But it means I can sub here or there for a friend, just to get my proverbial feet wet again, and it means if something happens while I'm supervising undergrads (like, all the other adults in the room suddenly have to run to the bathroom or something--it could happen) then I'm legally allowed to supervise the kids left behind. This seems good, too. More good to the day.

Poodle on My Foot

2010-05-11T18:32:00.002-04:00

Emily had a very difficult year, too. The fact is, we brought her home when the twins were toddlers and Max was still being homeschooled. She was raised to believe that her pack would be with her most hours of the day. It wasn't an unreasonable expectation, based on how things went for the first few years of her life. Then Max went off to school during weekdays three years ago. Ben and Milo were gone for the morning three days a week. It was worrisome, but I was still working from home, so she took up residence under my desk while I wrote and she trusted me to go get the puppies and bring them home again.

When I first started at the law office, I worked up to 30 hours in a week, but those weeks were fewer than you might think. If I picked up a freelance writing project, then I subtracted the hours from the law office. It wasn't unusual for me to only be gone 15 hours in a week. All three boys were in all-day school now, but at least I was still there. And then Chris's job stuff went south and he was around, too. This pleased Emily, frankly.

Then in June, Chris was gone all day again. And the combination of school and work for me suddenly meant I was pretty much gone all day during the week, too.

And Emily has not been happy about it. I'm embarrassed to admit that it took most of the last 10 months for me to finally ask the vet about Emily's gradually worsening behavior. Turns out she likely has separation anxiety. Right now she's happy because she's sleeping on my feet. She gets my feet and a corner of the warm, wool blanket my aunt knit for Chris and I. It's a good life, but it's not like it was.

I totally get it. Some days I have separation anxiety, too. I know Chris does. If it was up to him, we'd meet every weekday for lunch at one of downtown State College's many fun places to eat and plot and plan and marvel again at how much more mentally challenging it is to parent a teenager than a baby. I mean, assuming you're trying to give the kid every possible shot at good outcomes. I'm not talking about getting the kid into the right extracurriculars so he'll get into a good college. I'm talking about providing input, while he's still talking to us, in the hopes that when he makes decisions without consulting us, they'll be ones that move him in positive directions.

It's an incredibly wet week. I'm kind of grateful for it because I really need to do a LOT of yard work and garden prep, and I also need to get some work done on a project for one of the professors I work with, and the downpour scheduled for tomorrow makes the decision for me. Still, I wish I had already gotten the dirt spread out in the areas sinking in our lawn and put down the new seed. This would have been great for that.

Chris should be home from playing raquetball soon. I'm going to go start dinner and then try to make some progress on a knitted lace shawl. My goal is to either fall asleep (hopefully without dropping stitches) and let Chris put the kids to be while I grab and extra-long night of sleep, or to finish 20 rows. I'd be okay with it going either way.

I Got a Little Busy, Is All

2010-05-10T18:02:00.003-04:00

I was just going to show up on my blog today, as if I hadn't been gone for 10 months, and type up a nice post and just see if I could keep going like that.

But I honestly had no CLUE there were responses to the last post, and so now I feel a little badly. I hate being ignored and I certainly had no intention of doing so to anyone else.

So here's a brief recap of the last ten months:

July/August: I spent every waking moment desperately trying to pass my math classes, keep up with the intense schedule of the summer online education classes, work at the law office, and keep an eye on the kids. I didn't do a very good job with the last part, but I didn't actually know that until months later. In the end, it was fixable, and for that, I'm so grateful.

However, when I say I passed my Calculus class, that's all I mean. There's no hyperbole there. I would do fine on homework, althought it took me three times as long to finish as my classmates. I did fine on quizzes, averaging a B or B+. But I would nearly fail every timed exam. I just didn't have enough committed to memory anymore to finish every problem.

There was, the way I recall it, only a week-long break between the end of the summer semester and the start of the fall semester, and it flew by. I started again the last week of August and dropped my Calculus II class in the second week of September. I wasn't going to pass it and I knew it. I am a very hardworking student and a very dedicated one, but I know when the class has moved past me to the point where I won't catch up. Dropping the class then meant I got a tiny amount of my tuition back. In the meantime, I carried on taking three other master's of education courses. After a few weeks of discussion with various advisors, I moved back into Elementary Education, which is what my B.A. was in, where I taught, and for which I spent most of the last ten years writing curriculum. I took adolescent psych (before I switched back to El. Ed.), a class on Lev Vygotsy's theories, and a class on teaching reading and writing to ELLs.

We were, all of us, sick for most of the fall semester. I couldn't keep any of the kids in school more than ten days without someone getting ill--and we never did get H1N1. There were just vicious colds and the occasional stomach flu. It was exhausting and when you combined the illness and working at the law office and taking a full-load of Ma.Ed. classses--I cried a lot. Chris was gone often on business (for which I was grateful--the work, not the being gone), once for three weeks at a time. I didn't blog.

Initially we thought that I'd take Spring semester off but at some point I did the math (ha!) and realized that I'd be done with the degree in Spring of 2011 if I didn't take spring 2010 off. So even though it meant taking out another semester's worth of loans, we soldiered forth.

Christmas break was a nice break, if only because we finally got out from under the thumb of all the illness. My sister visited and Max auditioned for his spring play. School started again and it was different all over again. Two out of three of the classes felt useful and generated fairly interesting dialogue. One was a required course that did not feel useful and which was taught in a style I didn't really appreciate. January and February are always tough for me, and this was no exception. Still, time passes in a predictable manner, and soon it was March. I developed an idea for my Master's Thesis, switched over to the M.S. in Ed. degree, found an advisor for the thesis, and found some comfort in seeing that we (master's students) were all struggling around Spring break. We were tired. Time passed. Term papers were written. Presentations given. Final grades assigned.

Ironically, none of my math grades count. Because they were less than 400 level courses, they don't count as graduate classes and that means they don't count towards my GPA. Since my non-math courses were a better match for my education and background, I've earned fairly decent grades. There were a few close calls, but in general, I've hung in there. I'll apply for the doctoral program next year.

As of today's post, I have a nice long summer stretch ahead of me. I report back to school on August 16th for a week of orientation for my assistantship--I'll be teaching a few classes and/or doing some supervision of undergraduate teacher trainees. In exchange, I get free tuition, health insurance, and a stipend. My last week at the law office will be in early August. I'm not counting the days. I like the law office.

Max is finishing up 8th grade and will be taking a whack of challenging classes next fall in high school. Spanish 2 and Geometry and the like. Ben and Milo had a great 2nd grade year with a terrific teacher. This is a possibility they'll have her again in third grade. Either way, they'll probably stay at the charter school for another year.

Tonight we're sitting down as a family and going over the calendar for the next few months and getting on the same page with that. With all the stuff the kids do, Chris's travels for work, and my just wanting to get the twins through all the Wolf Cub achievements before I go back to school in August, there's a lot to coordinate.

My plan is to blog regularly through the summer. We'll see how that goes :)

I Sailed My Ship of Safety Till I Sank It - Indigo Girls

2009-07-15T22:21:00.003-04:00

Death by derivative. It's not far from a possibility.

I just got off the phone with my Mom and Dad which is the only reason I have the fortitude to attempt a blogging post.

I *have* been paper blogging, but there is. no. freaking. time to get back on the computer. It's not enough to say that I'll post after I finish a few more problems, because the math is winning most of the battles and all I can say is that I haven't missed a single homework assignment yet, but I *have* missed a lot of sleep to be able to say that.

Sometimes after Calculus/Matrices I feel so unbelievably alone. I just feel completely lost. It's all I can do not to cry the whole stupid way back to the car. It makes me feel so ANGRY to be so completely slayed by a math class that I once found a virtual cakewalk. I find myself marveling that a math class can reduce a 40-yr-old woman to tears (today I turned 41, but I didn't cry today after Matrices).

I got a 67% on the Calculus mid-term. It's 17% above the class average (for the test), but that doesn't actually help what it did to my over-all grade. I've gone from feeling miserable about not getting an A to praying that I can win the race of falling grades and have the class end before the cumulative grade falls below 70%--the lowest it can fall and still count towards my math education major.

I did slightly better on the linear algebra mid-term--I got a 70% on that one (but the class average was slightly higher than mine). It gives me a cumulative grade of 78%. I'm not holding out hope I can get that back up to a B-. I'm holding out hope I can keep it right where it is.

The Education classes are going fine. I hate the online format. No. I mean, I *loathe* it. The actual content of the class--well, once we get out of the history of behaviorism, I really find Edpsych interesting. I like the others in my discussion group, although we're an opinionated group and sometimes there is a little bit of an edge in the last day or two as we put together a group response.

But the Curriculum & Instruction class makes me gag. I think it's partly just having worked in the industry for ten years--I am sooooo jaded and then also, it's such a hugely political topic--to try to cram it all into a 6.5 week course robs it of all subtlety and it seems to me to veer wildly around a variety of bleeding-heart topics. The field of curriculum work is a political/social/cultural one and you can't make everyone happy--ever. Not until the millennium, at any rate. Since my time is so crammed full of math problems and reading and quizzes and mid-terms and written responses to discussion questions--I find myself incredibly impatient with the -- never mind. Rant aborted. We'll stick with the original pith: I loathe the online format.

[Chris gave me an ipod for my birthday. I realize I'm years late to the party, but it's very pretty and he's filled it with music that is aimed to keep me from throwing myself off the Atherton Street overpass (it would actually be very difficult to do that since the bridge is really a big building with a bridge that goes through it from one side of campus to the graduate student housing--which is a block from where I park at the law office). ANYWAY, I'm listening to this music for the first time tonight and being as un-cool as I am, I have to keep stopping what I'm doing now to go, "WHAT is THIS? Nickelback? Hey, I really like Nickelback. Are they still a band or what?" LOL. You know what I find really touching though? He put all his spending money and most of his gas money for the whole month into this player. He's riding his bike to work most of the rest of this month to pay for it :)]

Anyway, I had planned to do my reading for C&I tonight, but people kept calling to sing me happy birthday and I felt, it being my birthday, that blowing a full hour playing Zynga games on Facebook, was well-deserved. Chris was loading up the ipod and I was sitting next to him watching the Carleton on Youtube when we suddenly realized that it was 9:00 pm. We put the kids to bed, my parents called--Chris started a load of laundry and headed to bed while I was talking to them, and then I agree to stay up and put the laundry in the dryer. I briefly debated trying to get the first two C&I articles read, (they're short) but decided to blog instead.

So here I am listening to music and blogging (and laundry. I'm out of clean underwear or I'd totally be in bed). It's such a pleasant way to spend an evening, even if I'm not sure where I'm going to get back the hours.

Chris has good taste in music. I keep having an urge to write down the lyrics for you that he has picked out for me his wife. Here are a few of the things he says to me in the music:

"Speak to me, when all you got to keep is strong
Move along, move along like I know you do
And even when your hope is gone
Move along, move along just to make it through
Move along
(Go on, go on, go on, go on)" -All-American Rejects

"From underneath the trees, we watch the sky
Confusing stars for satellites
I never dreamed that you'd be mine
But here we are, we're here tonight

Singing Amen, I, I'm alive
Singing Amen, I, I'm alive" - Nickelback

"feeling mighty fine at this time
yes I am
feeling mighty fine at this time
yes indeed
walk down any street
past the people you meet
what is it about this place that keeps you on your feet?" -- Eels

He loves me. He'll love me even if I fail Calculus I. That's reassuring.

Many Posts

2009-06-23T15:35:00.001-04:00

That will be my Native American name today because I hope to get caught up a bit on the posting. I also have Much Homework, so I am rewarding myself by inputting a blog post every time I finish a section.

To keep this post from screwing up the order, I'm also pretending I wrote this two weeks ago instead of today (July 5, 2009).

Stand by. 4 more problems before I can input the first post.

Those Grading Graphs

2009-06-21T13:59:00.004-04:00

So I figured out how to take a screen shot of the grading graphs that ~~plague me,~~ ~~rule my life,~~ motivate me to work harder in the class.

This is the first one that I encountered. It doesn't ~~slay me,~~ ~~cause suicidal thoughts,~~ bother me as much as you might think because I'm able to ignore the huge 25% at the top (which would mean I was getting so much less than an F. That's like an F minus minus minus.) for another couple of weeks until all my catch-up work is done. But I am still easily panicked by the quiz bar, since it's legit.

84%. In EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY. I should be Acing this class. It's killing me.

Anyway.

This is the Calculus graph I've been waiting for since Friday. If it had a spot to show how often I checked to see if the darn thing was there it would show like 200 refreshes.

And on the one hand, I'm bummed because--clearly--I got 70% on the quiz, but the two homeworks balanced it out and there I am--8 out of freakin' 10. Now we all know how much 8 out of freakin' 10 has been KILLING ME since this semester began (what, 2 weeks ago? Time flies when you're me.) but I kid you not--I saw the 80% and I thought, "YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'M STILL IN THE GAME!!" (See? I can be reasonable.)

Because, you know, fundamentally, I'm a math education student and that means I have to pass the math classes.

Frankly, after the can't-reduce-a-fraction fiasco, I was starting to wonder.

And even though I know this was just the first week, and I can still totally crash and burn, I also know (I think Sarah referenced this in her comment below) that the longer I can stay in the game, the more the moth-eaten-carpet of my math memory will mend, and the better my chances of eventually kicking some butt.

[And since my last post I've done my Matrices homework, some laundry, a lesson for Relief Society, bathed all three boys, my EdPsych homework, and the first half of the work project due tomorrow. I admit I'll have to do the second half as soon as I'm done blogging here, but really--not bad for a Saturday, and the lesson went pretty well this morning, I think.]

Father's Day
Happy Father's Day, Chris!!! Love, us.

Friday, Calculus Quiz #1

2009-06-19T20:26:00.002-04:00

This morning Calculus begins by going over some of the math homework and the first thing that happens is that I realize that I somehow missed the last part of the second-to-last problem. Oh, well. He's going over it on the board and I scramble to write my answer before he can write it on the board so that I'm still checking my work as I go. I don't want to upset anyone though, so I write next to it on the homework "done in class." That's how I roll.

True to form, Amine then launches into the next section of the Calculus book. We are blazing a trail through this book. I get that the summer classes are shorter than the other semesters, so they have to cover the material faster, but it's breathtaking, this pace. I keep writing notes, even when we get into sines and cosines and I have to admit we're getting sketchy. He asks a question about a trig function and I guess--I get it right.

I feel like all this math stuff--it's still in my head. It's still in the drawers where I originally filed it away 22 years ago, just waiting for the drawers to be opened again. But the labels are gone to the drawers and the first time I have to pull something out again--I'm not at all sure I have it right.

And sometimes I don't. Sometimes it's plain wrong.

I had hoped that by the end of the first week of Calculus I would feel a little less anxious about it all because I would know how it was going to go. I would have a feeling for whether or not I could do this.

But I don't. It's much worse. I'm thrown by finding the "harder" math class easier and the "easier" math class harder. (I think it's because the focus of the Linear Algebra class is soooo much more narrow.) I'm thrown by the completely unpredictable way the failures show up. I go along feeling pretty good for awhile and then get stuck at a negative exponent.

We're 20 minutes away from the end of class and Amine collects the homework and distributes the quiz. It's only worth 10 points. There are only two problems, but the first problem has three parts and the second problem has two parts. I pray that each PART is worth two points.

I hope so because I can't solve the second half of the second problem. I can't get the fraction to reduce properly. I keep ending up with a zero in the denominator--which COULD be the answer. The answer COULD be that the limit for this function does not exist. But my gut tells me that's just not the case. I work out different variations on simplifying the fraction on the back of the paper and I think if I'd had another 30-40 minutes, I would have stumbled across the operation that properly simplified the fraction. But I didn't. It was just a quiz. We weren't really being tested on the ability to simplify the function--we were trying to find the limit of the function. And I couldn't.

I wasn't the only one. Amine kept collecting papers, glancing at the last problem, and then offering the student the chance to go back and give it another shot. Most of them did try. I don't know how many figured it out. (I was still working on mine at this point.)

Frustrated. I waited till most of the other students left and then asked him to show me how to solve the problem. One of the other students did the same. Amine demonstrated on the board, and then went off to help another student. The one guy who watched the demonstration with me said, "Oh, jeez. Pre-algebra. I should have known that," and then he left. And I thought, "Pre-algrebra. Well, that was 1983 for me. So at least it's understandable that I might have forgotten that one." But it didn't immediately illuminate the result for me, that thought, and I stood there for another whole minute tracing through the steps of the problem over and over until the light bulb DID finally go on.

It will be sheer stubborness that wins this battle for me. I'm going to start including Amine in my prayers. "Dear God, please don't let this young man give up on me. Please help him to continue to know when I need a hint and please help me to continue to retain what I've learned and if at all possible, help me to remember a lot of the stuff I've forgotten. Please keep Amine healthy and help him stay rested and patient at 8 in the morning every weekday. Amen."

But I wasn't feeling very stubborn when I left class this morning. I was feeling defeated. The best I could hope for was 8 out of 10. AGAIN. (And then, when that wasn't enough, I beat myself up about not letting 8 out of 10 be enough for my first full-time semester back in school, but that wasn't successful. You know, you are what you are. I'm not happy with 8 out of 10.) And anyway, it could be worse. Maybe something else on that quiz was wrong, too.

Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

I went to Matrices. I asked Allan from Scranton about problem #11 and we looked at it and discovered I'd made a wrong turn right out of the starting gate. My negative should have been a positive. From there the problem wound itself up like a small skein of handspun merino and I finished very pleased with myself. Which is good because it's nearly 9pm on a Friday night and I'm going to try to do the Linear Algebra homework before going to bed. There's no room left to shoe-horn it into tomorrow's schedule.

I still have to prepare a Relief Society lesson for Sunday, too. Hrm.

Anyway. Matrices sped by with a first lesson on vectors, which I kind of like. I like graphing vectors, actually. And Allan had lots of examples and lots of graphing and I was happy, taking notes, and drawing little arrows on cartesian planes in my graph-paper notebook.

And then class was over and I needed to get to the law office to take care of that file that I had neglected the day before. But once out of the Matrices classroom, I couldn't stop thinking of the Calculus quiz and wondering, you know, if it was EVER going to feel like it used to--like it was easy, and fun, and something I was just naturally good at.

Emotionally, I was stuck, and there was noone to distract me with talk about, say, what Bella Cullen might major in when she and Edward and Renesmee finally made it to Dartmouth. (Twilight series reference.) Something silly like that would have been a nice distraction.

I tried texting Chris, but he was WORKING (go figure) and I called Petco and apologized for missing Emily's grooming appointment (because it was this morning--and I had not only forgotten, but had forgotten ever having made the appointment. Maybe I should cut back on the Lorazepam.) and I called my mother, Judy, and told her she could come by this Sunday afternoon on her way through from Baltimore, because she'd left a message on my voicemail, probably about the time I was trying to figure out how to simplify that darn fraction. And then finally, I texted my sister--who started grad school in Spanish Literature last summer and is everybit as emotional about things as I am and who would totally understand why a person might get hysterical over the idea of having TWO 8 out of 10 quizzes in one week.

But I think it was 8 am in California AND I don't think they're out of school yet. I think she's still working (high school Spanish teacher).

So at this point in my trek back to the law office I was passing through the Greyhound station and there were some benches. So I sat and closed my eyes and talked to God again, the only Diety who seemed to be home to talk to at this point, and I came away feeling much the same as I did last night. That I don't get to peek at the back of the book for this one. It will turn out however it turns out. My job is to show up each day and take notes and think as hard as I can about all of it and work as carefully as possible on the quizzes, and just. trust. Him.

(And some people walked by, but none of them said a thing or put quarters in my hand or anything, so maybe I looked normal, meditating on the Greyhound Station bench.)

And then I got up and walked to the law office and worked until 2:30. I mailed my Dad his Father's Day card (he should have it in time for his birthday in September) and I drove to Grandma Gaye's house and picked up her and Ben and Milo and we did some shopping at Target and the grocery store. Once back home I made dinner and tried to tell Chris about the quiz and Amine-the-instructor and fixing problem #11 in Matrices. And he told me about work and did a load of dishes while I shucked corn and then the four of us ate. (Max is at camp.)

Now I've spent two hours blogging about the week. I don't know if that was productive or not, but I think I'll keep it up for as long as that feels helpful. I don't know if it's been clear, but there are no classes I want to drop. I really enjoyed the Vygotsky reading from EdPsych this week (just not the obscurely written quiz that went with it) and most of the time when I'm actually working on a math problem--that's what I want to be doing. It sure beats laundry.

If I could just get past the overwhelming panic I feel when I consider the possibility--and I do it all freakin' day long--that I'm not going to get A's in any of these classes, I think I could be really happy doing what I'm doing. I just have a very, very, very deep-seated belief that there are really only two grades in college-level work. An "A" and a "not-A". And as my 3.78 undergrad GPA will tell you, I'm cool with the occasional "not-A." But the possibility of getting straight not-A's--maybe even a not-even-a-B in one of the classes--well, that's what's driving this feeling like I can't breath, and I can't sleep. (Maybe if I couldn't eat, that wouldn't be so bad. But so far that hasn't been a side-effect.)

It seems incredible to me that God would send me back to school at this point in life JUST to work on my humility issues (although I'm open to the fact that it's an important side trip for Him), because I don't think He'd pick something so incredibly expensive for just that lesson. Honestly, just throwing me in a tennis game--or any public sport--would have the same effect. But I do think that in the middle of all the forgotten algebra--that angle will be part of it. And while I have ALWAYS taken the position that a child struggling in school is just an opportunity to get to know him/her better while we solve that problem, it hasn't escaped me that I'm getting a LOT more insight into just how confusing it feels while it's happening to you.

It's no fun wondering if you're the only one who didn't get what the instructor just told the class, wondering if you should raise your hand and ask because maybe you're NOT the only one, wondering if you should raise your hand and ask because you're paying too much for the class to NOT GET IT even if you ARE the only one, and then wondering if the moment has passed because Amine's pause was very short and you just spent it wondering whether or not to raise your hand.

And now I'm going to put my 7-yr-olds to bed (because I *totally* know how to do that) and then I'm going to do some vector problems, because that is what I am doing this summer.

(You truly must love me if you have made it through all of this week's rambling posts. Sorry 'bout that.)

Thursday

2009-06-18T19:51:00.001-04:00

Tuesdays and Thursdays are Calculus only. I've found a chair I really like. It's in the second row on the very end near the door. It's not being near the door that I like about it, it's that the row has one more seat than the row in front of it, so I have a clear view of Amine and the board.

The downside is that the front of the classroom is popular, so there's always someone new sitting next to me. They always smell like coffee. I always wonder, again, if I smell like kids and a dog and a mortgage. I hope I smell like shampoo and toothpaste, but regardless, it makes me uncomfortable to think that I smell like anything to these kids.

I don't wonder any more if I look old to them. It doesn't matter. I know I stick out in a Sesame Street, "One of these things is not like the other" kind of way (which is probably such an old sketch that these kids wouldn't even know the cultural reference). I know this because it is clear to me now that whereEVER I sit, Amine will come by when it's time to work independently on a problem and make sure that I am on the right track. He helps the kids who ask for it and he hovers a little over the group in the front row--but that trip to the back of the classroom yesterday? That's because that's where I was sitting.

And I am a little embarrassed, but mostly, I am profoundly grateful. Because I need the help and I need the "Good job!" and I need the unspoken, "I noticed you came to class today." And I don't know why he's taken an interest in me. I don't know if it's because the instructors are taught to help the "nontraditional" students not fall through the cracks or if it's because on his attendance list it says I was born in 1968 which, for all I know, is his birthday with the last two digits reversed, or if it's because on his attendance list it says I'm a math ed. major and maybe the math majors and the math ed. majors look out for each other. Or if it's just that I do try to answer his questions and participate enough in class that's it's probably not hard to see how my comprehension fades in and out like analog reception. I really. have. no. clue.

But I am worried that if he STOPS taking this interest, that I am doomed. Because right now when he comes by and whispers a hint, it is the hint I need to finish the rest of the problem on my own. And I want to be able to do that. To finish the problem on my own.

It is insanely trying to sit there, stumped, not by the limits or the theorem, but by the fact that for the life of me I can't figure out how to simplify this fraction with the square root symbol in the numerator so that I can get rid of the variable in the denominator so that it won't be a fraction with zero in the denominator (multiply the numerator and the denominator by the same square root expression).

I want desperately to spend time everyday on ALEKS.com reviewing the rest of the algebra I've forgotten, but I CAN'T because of the other classes and the law office and the grammar project.

I go to the law office today and leave early because the day is slow and I have so much math homework. I get home, exhausted, and debate taking a nap first, but then Julie e-mails me from the office. I forgot to set up an important file before I left and they have to cancel the appointment with the client because of that. She reassures me that it's no big deal, the client is happy because it was a bad time for her anyway. Next week is better. But it doesn't help. I don't feel better.

I skip the nap and go straight into Calculus, hoping to drown my guilt in correct answers. It works pretty well actually, and half my homework is done before dinner time. I cook us something for dinner, although I can't remember what, and finish the Calculus. There's a quiz tomorrow, but I don't have time to do more than the homework. I put down the Calculus book and pick up the Linear Algebra book. I do all the Matrices homework, spending 40 minutes on a problem I can't solve. The rest of it goes smoothly though, and I finally decide to put problem #11 away and just ask Allan from Scranton about it in the morning.

I look at the EdPsych homework and realize I'm going to do it Saturday morning (it's due Saturday evening) before launching into the grammar assignment. I am still upset about the 8/10 on the most recent EdPsych quiz.

It's only 10 pm, but I can't think anymore. At least, not in a helpful way. I take 2 mg of lorazepam again and then stay awake for another hour, curled up against Chris--who is, improbably, out cold at this early hour of the night. I wish for once that my talkative, night-owl, husband would wake up and talk to me about something other than school. Or at least wake up enough to toss his arm over my shoulder and pull me in closer to him, but uncharacteristically, he sleeps on. The dog and I get back out of bed and I have a long talk with God about things. The dog gets tired of waiting for me and curls up next to my knees on the floor. Finally, I crawl back under the blankets and fall asleep.

Wednesday

2009-06-17T19:20:00.001-04:00

On the third day I arrive just as class is starting and have to sit in the back. In the back there is whispered mutiny as Amine whizzes through new material for the first half hour. I don't say anything--just trying to keep one eye on the board and one in the book to see what he's just repeating from the book and what I'm not going to find anywhere else. I'm frustrated and it is somewhat satisfying to hear the mild explatives from the row behind me. Eventually Amine gets to two class examples, and using a similar problem in the book as a guide for the steps, I correctly complete the two problems.

Amine circulates and makes it to my back corner of the room. He says, "Good job!" and moves on. I don't say anything, but I put that "Good Job" in my back pocket to spend on the homework.

Funny, I don't FEEL 40 (turning 41 in less than a month) in the class. I feel at times confused, hopeful, relived, satisfied, and angry (I'm an emotional girl), but I don't feel two decades older than the other students (or Amine for that matter). Only when I walk into the classroom and walk out of it do I have a flash of self-consciousness. I wonder where the fitness center is and if I'll EVER have time to exercise. And I remember why I took up drinking coffee in college even though it didn't taste all that great--8 am classes and EVERYONE else drinking the stuff. It's a potent mix.

So after Calculus is Matrices again--and there's a long break again--Amine lets us out early again and since the two classrooms are so close--opposite sides of the same floor in the same building--that leaves me with time to kill again.

I text Chris. Then the compassionate service coordinator calls and I help her get a telephone number. I do more paper blogging.

The instructor, gosh, what's his name . . . Allan. Allan from Scranton. Anyway, Allan looks and sounds for all the world like a younger version of my youngest brother, Alex. This is Alex, maybe 10 years ago, a little more shy--with a trim blond mustache. He wears the button-down plaid shirts that you can find everywhere now. Chris has some for his job and Max wears some to school. So Allan arrives and starts writing notes on the board before class begins. He paces. Writes some more.

A boy arrives and sits down directly next to me. He has no book and no notebook. What he has is the crossword puzzle page of USA Today. A pretty blond girl sits down next to him on his other side. He smells, predictably, of Coffee, but not cigarettes. Throughout the entire class he works the crossword puzzle, takes no notes, but participates completely in the dialogue of the class.

One thing I notice, if it's possible to draw distinctions at this point, is that the Matrices class--either in temperament or in class size--is much more involved. When Allan asks a question, he usually gets more than one response. When we're confused, we don't sit and stew (oh we do, back in Calculus, we stew), but we raise our hand and ask for clarification.

I think the class size is a large part of it. Also, I think the students in Matrices/Linear Algebra are there mostly for their major and Calculus I--well, at Penn State, it would see that most of the undergrads have to take Calculus I.

By the end of today's class it dawns on me that I probably have this backwards. Matrices/Linear Algebra is going to be do-able. It's Calculus I that will be the proving ground. This is, frankly, a bitter pill for me to swallow. A big FAT slice of humble pie. I took Calculus in highschool and got an A. I took it as a freshman at OWU and hardly tried--and got a B. (I took Statistics, too, put more effort into it, got an A). It is TIME that has stripped away the ease of the class for me. What trips me up over and over with the problems is NOT the material in the book or the material from the lecture but the assumed knowledge of algebra II/trig behind it. I forget for a moment what 3^-1 means. I figure it out, but I am not SURE I really have it. I sit there with my pencil hovering over my paper, not wanting to write it incorrectly. Amine shows up at my elbow and I tentively write my guess. He says, "That's right," approvingly and I am so reassured.

But it frightens me--the moth-eaten holes in my memory of how to do math--and I know if there are too many holes, that I'm in big trouble.

I walk back to the law office this morning feeling uneasy. I have a LOT of calculus due the next morning and new Matrices assigned and new EdPsych assigned and I've had the work due for my next Grammar (work) assignment for five days now and still haven't even printed it out to look at it. I think it's due Monday.

I get home by 4pm and I work on Calculus until it's time to go out to eat with Gaye's sister and brother-in-law. When we get home from dinner (a very nice dinner at Mad Mex with the relatives) I work on the rest of Calculus for another three hours. Then we go to bed. I don't touch the Matrices or EdPych stuff. My brain is fried.

I go to bed anxious. 2 mg of lorazepam and I still take 45 minutes to fall asleep.

Tuesday. Just Calculus and Ed Psych and the Law Office.

2009-06-16T19:07:00.000-04:00

In the second class of Calculus, the girls arrive a smidge earlier or the guys arrive a smidge later. Either way, the girls have creeped up to the front of the class.

There was Matrices/Linear Algebra homework, but that class doesn't meet on Tuesday. There was no Calculus homework, so today feels like "the start of Calculus, part II."

Amine is fast. He throws up new information on the board at a speed that makes it hard to think much about what we're copying down. I do recognize some of it from the book though, and I skootch my textbook over so the girl next to me can see the Example he's working from. She's young--maybe less than half my age--and she smells like coffee and cigarettes. I wonder for a moment if I smell like church, credit cards, a mortgage, three kids, a husband, and a dog.

I try to answer the questions I can and not fall behind. Sometimes I totally get what he's saying and sometimes I have no clue how he got the answer he got. I worry because between the extra classes and two jobs, I don't know when I'll have time to go back and review anything.

For the second half of the class he asks everyone to use their calculators to figure out the answers to some problems. Starfish-and-Coffee girl and I don't have calculators and the answers aren't in the book. We take notes. Afterwards, I ask Amine-the-instructor what kind of calculator to get. He tells me.

When class is over I walk back to the law office to work, I have a list of things to do for homework including Calculus problems, about 40 pages of reading for Ed Psych, the online quiz for the reading, and an ongoing discussion with the EdPsych instructor on how to make up the rest of the three weeks of work I missed.

But I feel basically okay about things. Work is fine. The kids are fine. I call the financial aid office and they front me enough of my loan to get the rest of my curriculum & instruction textbooks and the calculator. It's all done online. They deposit the money for the books and calculator straight into my checking account. I find this a little spookey.

Tuesday night I spend five hours on EdPsych. I get 8/10 on the quiz and do not throw anything breakable. But it's very stressful, watching my overall average on the quizzes drop to 84%. I try sooooo hard to shoot for "just pass all four classes this summer" but my emotional reaction to any grade is divided into "A" and "not A." And there aren't enough "A"s. I have no confidence this is going to get significantly better.

The rest of the week supports this theory.

First day of 12 units of classes

2009-06-15T17:33:00.001-04:00

[The following was written on this stuff called PAPER, using an instrument called a PENCIL. I'm only now, Friday evening, getting this all recorded into the blog, but I will be cheating by backdating the publishing.]

Calculus is at 8:00 am, which means getting up at 6 o'something. I went for 6:15 this morning, but I think if I had everything ready to go the night before--I could push it back to 6:45 am. (Update: I can, but it really makes things tight, especially if I'm dropping the kids off at their grandmother's house on the way.)

One problem with Chris and I getting up that early is that it triggers Milo's early-rising instinct--one that has been nearly extinguished in Max, now that he's spending all his free time growing taller.

So Chris is wandering around looking through baskets of clean clothes for a matching pair of socks and waiting for the right time to pounce and ask me to make his lunch for him (because, I don't know, learned helpless or something--I must have growled at him on this particular morning though, because he hasn't done so since) and I'm trying to find a bag big enough to carry spare shoes for the office, my lunch, two math textbooks, and various other paraphanalia I think I'll need before I get home again. All the while, Milo wanders anxiously around wondering how much longer Max will sleep so he can ask for permission to use the computer.

It works. I crack--"tell Max I gave you permission to use the computer." Somehow, rooms away, this wakes Ben and he and Milo trot happily off to play computer games. They probably won't stop until well after lunch time when hunger will finally drive them off to scavenge for food. It's all good. The microwave is at their level.

Chris and I leave at the sametime -- he heads off to work and I hit the gas station for a diet mountain Dew first. Then I let myself into the law office, careful to resent the alarms on my way out -- to drop off work shoes and lunch. From there I walk the 5 blocks or so to the math building on campus. I'm 10 minutes early, but the room is already half full.

The instructor is a young math Ph'd candidate with a mild accent. I think he said he was from Morocco, but I wasn't taking notes at this point. His handwriting is very easy to read, but it's definitely not the product of an American education.

He goes over the syllabus and then lectures happily for 45 minutes on the hustory of Calculus, giving only the briefest of attention to anything in the book. The most meaningful thing I learn is that there are quizzes every Friday, homework is assigned nightly, but collected twice a week, and we're skipping Chapter 1. I wonder, skeptically, if I have the time to do Chapter 1 on my own.

And then class is over--almost 20 minutes early. My next class is on the other side of the building on the same floor, so I wander over there, get comfortable and balance my checkbook. Then I sent Chris two texts. Finally someone else arrives--goes into the class, and sits. So I do, too. He's plugged into an iPod. We don't say anything.

Not a minute later two other boys enter. These guys are friendly. One is Will. Will is impossibly tall and skinny. He's amused by my name. The room fills. It's a much smaller classroom than the Calculus classroom.

The instructor arrives. He's shy and reluctant to begin. He went to Bucknell. He's from Scranton. He's beyond easy to understand, even when he talks to the board. Which he does fairly frequently. He digs right into the first lesson and I stop "blogging" and start taking notes.

A Girl Can Dream

2009-06-10T21:05:00.001-04:00

If my math teachers can sing like this, I'll be good to go:

T-minus one week to Calc/Matrices

2009-06-08T09:46:00.002-04:00

You ever wonder what a class in matrices is about? Yeah, me, too. I'm still not sure. It has something to do with linear algebra. I skimmed through the wikipedia article on it, but it's not any more clear to me.

Yesterday I went to Baltimore with the kids to meet their newest cousin, Naomi. She's a doll and my brother and sister-in-law seemed calm, even with a house full of visitors, young boys (it seemed like all of Oliver's cousins were there--and they're all boys, too), and a new baby. They're going to be busy for awhile, those two.

Today it's more EdPsych.

June 6

2009-06-06T10:34:00.001-04:00

The first thing I realized last night when I sat down to do the first lesson in my new Ed Psych book, was that textbook makers have gotten cheap since 1986. The font size is ridiculously small to begin with, and then when they make those little indented quote boxes, the font size drops to something subatomic.

I reluctantly pulled out my reading glasses. I realized I was probably going to have to wear these in my math classes, too--only there I’d be surrounded by 18 and 19 year olds. I made a mental note to color my hair again in the morning.

The second thing I realized as I tried to read 26 pages of size 10 font print, all written in a tone I usually associate with students who are trying to take up extra space in a term paper by using big words, was that there is no way I can do all my studying at home. Max’s cell phone kept going off as all of his friends who have cell phones gleefully texted the newest kid on the Verizon network (his birthday present from Grandma Gaye and both parents). Emily kept shoving the book out of the way with her nose in hopes of getting more scratches behind the ears. Ben and Milo were up and down the stairs wondering when they could have some ice cream, and Chris--well, it was Friday night. He thought maybe his wife might actually want to pay attention to him. She did, but she has four quizzes to take by Wednesday to catch up AND a grammar lesson due on Monday.

In the end, I did it. I read the first chapter, took the first quiz, and to my horror, scored 8 out of 10 on the quiz.

So this morning I got up, dyed my hair reddish-brown (it’s pretty heavily gray normally), frowned at the very gray parts which took the red more than the brown and hoped those would wash out quickly. Like, maybe tomorrow morning before I go visit my new niece. My brother won’t miss the opportunity to make fun of me if it doesn’t.

Then I dropped the kids off at my mom-in-law’s (Chris has a work meeting somewhere in Unionville) and hurried over to the law office. The IT guy has to install a new server anyway and someone needed to be here while he was doing that, so it’s worked out well. I’ve already got half the grammar assignment done.

Now I just need him to stay long enough for me to finish the grammar project and do another chapter of EdPsych. That would leave me only two more chapters to do at home. I need/want to get 10/10 on the three remaining quizzes. I’m just too competitive to let that 8/10 stand. The setup of the online courses takes complete advantage of this part of my nature. The very second you finish a quiz, it records your total grade for the class on a chart (since I’m 4 weeks behind in the course, I have a mighty 24% for a grade right now). Then, it records your quiz score (which it will average as I take more quizzes) on a graph that breaks down the total into quizzes, written assignments, and group projects (all of which, I suspect, weigh more heavily than these quizzes).

And in the background of the quiz there is a faint shaded area that tells you the average score of ALL the rest of the students in the class. My quiz score is 5 points lower than the average.

“Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” (as Dexter of Dexter’s Laboratory would cry).

Oh. my. hizzle. Do they have my number. I have no choice but to do well in this class. (I wish Calculus was going to be like this, but if I’m reading the syllabus right, the entire score for the class is two midterms and a final. How’s that for sudden death?)

I will say this though. Yesterday afternoon I was musing over the fact that my normal emotions before the start of a new semester--as a student, back in the 1900’s--was a high level of excitement. I hated Ohio. I hated the rain and the constant cloud cover. I hated being stuck in Delaware, Ohio with no car--and in hindsight--I hated being stuck with my own undiagnosed Seasonal Affective Disorder which meant I was even more angst-ridden and depressed than all the rest of the hormone-riddled students at Ohio Wesleyan. (Well, maybe not Scot. But he’s competitive that way. )

But I loved the start of every new semester. I loved new notebooks, highlighters, and pens. I loved taking notes in the margins of my books. Once I got good at it, I loved turning in papers early for early feedback which would lead to an inevitable A on the paper as the professor got exactly what it was they were looking for (and I didn’t have to work as hard to read their mind to figure out what that was. When you turn the paper in a week early, they just write what they think is missing in the margins. You spend 30 minutes revising the paper to add that and ta-da! an “A”.) I didn't sit in the front row, but I didn't sit in the back, either. Okay, sometimes I sat in the front row.

I’m being carried away by nostalgia. The point is that normally, the start of the semester anticipation is a good thing for me. This time it’s been forcing me to take high-doses of Zantac and Ativan. (srsly)

So I needed to do that first lesson last night in large part because I wanted the anticipation over with. I wanted to just start DOING the work. I wanted to be able to tell myself that I had begun, and lived to tell about it.

It’s kind of cheating because the Ed Psych is NOT where the ass-kicking will take place, but shut up. Don’t kill my buzz.

Okay, so I did. And I got that mediocre quiz score. And saw the class average. And saw that I was below the mark. And all of a sudden I felt great! The damn chart had thrown down the gauntlet and I couldn’t NOT pick it up.

I may still flunk out (of Matrices, most likely) in my first semester, but it won’t be for lack of trying. I think that was my biggest fear. That I would be so scared of going back into the arena that I would freeze and not do my best. So I’m not worried about that any more. The part of me that lives to break the curve is still there. I don’t know if she CAN break the curve any more. But I am vastly reassured that she is still willing to try. and try and try and try. Go me.

UPDATE: Quiz #2. 9/10. Dang!! And the question is so wrong!!! The right answer is right there in the section on contiguous conditioning and that wasn't one of the possible responses! Grrr. (But at least I'm not below class average any more. must keep studying. Must get bar line above grey shadow bar!!!)

Waiting for the Final Shoe to Drop

2009-06-03T19:07:00.003-04:00

I can't possibly go back to the beginning with all this school stuff, so I'll simply start where we are.

It turns out that if you're a graduate student, you can't have access to your federally funded student loans if you're taking fewer than 5 units of graduate level classes. That I have to take a few semesters of undergraduate math classes in order to take the graduate level classes is one of those catch-22's that most people fill with private bank loans. I won't go that route because the interest rates are so much higher.

For every bureaucratic problem there is a bureaucratic solution though. We just add 5 of those units and take them in addition to the undergraduate classes. No problem right?

So here I am with a part-time job at the law office, a contract writing 7th-grade grammar worksheets, and 13 units of classes. One of which I will be 3-weeks late to the party for (it started May 13).

I thought it would all fall apart and I'd concentrate on making money over the summer to just pay cash for the fall's classes, but things AREN'T falling apart. The C&I department is successfully pulling a rabbit out of their hat and it's just up to me to . . . do the homework. I'm ten days away from being in three classes: Calculus I, Matrices, and EdPsych. All three courses will go till mid-August. Then in early July-ish, I'll add a fourth class. I think it's an overview of basic teaching methods. I've HAD three out of four of these classes before--as an undergraduate back in 1986--but the EdPsych class relies heavily on group work (gag) and so --I really do have to "show up" (the non-math classes are online classes).

Anyway. My financial aid won't be approved till I'm officially enrolled in the final course. So it's a waiting game for now. Chris's new job rocks, but we're broke and I'm buying more textbooks. I'm so grateful for the timing of Chris's job. The health insurance kicks in immediately, saving me $350 in having to buy the school's version of graduate student health insurance.

I don't even know if they ever got my shot records. But at least now that I have health insurance, if I have to go back and get every darn shot repeated for lack of any records saying I had them--I can.

All I want is for everything to smooth out so that I can just concentrate on passing the courses.

And figuring out what's for dinner.

And who's going to get the kids to the pool for the summer.

I'll be blogging more. I promised myself I would journal the 40-year-old-goes-back-to-math-class experience. (For a couple of weeks. Then it will be the 41-yr-old.)

I. am. petrified.

But I have this hope that if I can make it through this first semester that the second semester is going to be good.

And then in the third semester they're talking about letting me teach an ESL class to other teacher-candidates. And I think I'll genuinely enjoy that.

So that's why I'm still in this. Because I think it's going to get better.

And because I don't think G-d is giving me a way out. He keeps meeting me insurmountable obstacle by insurmountable obstacle. So I'll just have to trust that He has a plan for me. I know it doesn't have anything to do with insurmountable debt and a nervous breakdown, and that is some small comfort. And he gave me Chris. So it's not like I'm alone in this.

And my sister who is 1/3 of the way through her own graduate program. So she really gets it.

And that is all I have to say about that.

I Have a Niece!

2009-06-02T18:21:00.002-04:00

And she's beautiful. E-mail Jason. He'll send you photos. I won't post any more info as I'm sure Jason would rather give you the information himself.

Felonious Book Borrowing

2009-03-23T20:59:00.002-04:00

Although I don't seem like the criminal type, I am. Sometimes I'm able to forget it for long stretches at a time--mostly by avoiding the scene of the crime. But sooner or later the kids want books and we have to go to the library.

A few months ago Chris went to the library with his mother. He has just sold a custom-painted RC body on eBay and had a little cash, so he inquired about my account. Contrary to my report that there was a huge overdue fine there waiting for me, it was only $3.50. Chris paid it. I was astonished. I was sure it was more.

My biggest overdue fine ever was $196.00 back in the fall of 2007. I usually get into trouble when I'm working on a textbook project and I'm asked to find some great children's literature to suggest for the project. I'm allowed a certain amount of copyright-protected product (mostly means the author, or the author's estate, is still alive and well) and a certain amount of public domain stuff (mostly means it was published loooooooooong before we were born, and most of it is therefore too intense, too Left, too Right, or too SOMEthing for us to use in today's publishing). And while I can go to the library and peruse stuff right there, sooner or later I'm down to the short list and I have to check those books out, take them home, make illegal copies of them, and send them to the client where they then decide what makes the final cut and do the rest of it all on the up-and-up.

Then the books sit on the corner of my desk until I have time to take them back to the library. This can look like 50 books waiting six months until the project ends and I'm cleaning up my office and find the pile and realize that I've done it again. I've kept the books so long it'll take a mortgage payment to get my library card back.

So I take the books back to the library, usually using any outside shutes available, and slink away until the next time I NEED to check out something from the library.

One time, when we were moving from CA to PA, I accidentally BOXED UP all the books ready to go back to the library and moved those out to PA with us. Not only did the overdue fines exceed the rest of our debt combined, (okay, no, but it was $175 for like 8 books) but they sent a collections agency after us and threatened to report us to the credit bureau. I didn't really care about either, but I'd never meant to STEAL the books, and I could see that they must have seriously missed them, so I boxed them all up again and mailed them back to CA in a sort of plea bargain that involved them agreeing to drop all charges if I just paid the $8 replacement charge for the one book I couldn't find. I figured that and the $34 in media mail postage was sufficient punishment.

But I never learn. It was only two years later that I incurred that $196 fee.

I couldn't pay it, of course. It wasn't just that I have a tendency to reason that, for crying out loud, they GOT all the books back. ALL of them! And there wasn't one coffee stain or pencil mark on any of them. A little dust, maybe. And I don't dog-ear the pages. My mother(s) raised me right. I plain old didn't have $200 to give the public library. So I talked the nice teen-aged library aide behind the counter into halving the fee. I paid $98 for my indiscretions. It hurt, but I had it coming to me.

Anyway at the end of last month, we (Gramma Gaye, Max, the twinks, and I) went to the library and checked out a bunch of books. I got mostly Rita Mae Brown mysteries. The kids fare varied. This afternoon we rounded up ALL of the books and even the three VHS movies they'd checked out and took them all back FIVE WHOLE DAYS before they were due.

I felt angelic.

Dummy.

This month the library was switching over to a new card system, so you have to turn in ALL of your old orange and red library cards and trade them in for new green cards--that manage to be incredibly unattractive. It's hard to mess up green. Who approved these? So I let Ben check out his book on his card, and Milo on his, and me on mine, whereas last month we just checked out everything on my card.

And that's how we found out that the LAST time I needed books for one of my work projects I had inadvertantly used BEN'S library card. The poor guy is sadled with $45 in debt because his felonious mother checked out 30 books and kept them for 90 days, give or take a few.

I hadn't even BROUGHT my wallet, much less my checkbook, to the library, and THIS teenage library aide was TOTALLY not going to let me check out any books on that card. But when I asked, "Well, can we check them out on one of the other cards that DOESN'T have any fees on it?" he caved. Ben was tearing up. There were 15 people in line behind us. Milo wasn't paying any attention to the problem and was pestering him to let HIM check out HIS book. "Okay." said the kid. I handed over my card, it was traded in for one of the new ugly green cards, and we checked out the new batch of 25 or so books for Ben, Max, and I. Milo's card was "clean," so he got to check out his book on his card.

We fled with the goods.

Now I just have to find $45 worth of something to sell on eBay to pay Ben's overdue fines so we can clear his good name sometime in the next three weeks. The kid is only 7. I can't have him taking the rap for me. Even a hardened library criminal like me has some ethics.

It's Snowing Again and I Really Do Love Snow

2009-01-27T20:53:00.002-05:00

My Dad gave me a peptalk today. It was a long peptalk, so I can't recreate it here. But the upshot of it was that I am feeling a little better, a little more determined, a little more hopeful.

You can't have too much of that.

My sister sent me this video. She said it made her want to go back to school and get four more degrees (she's in the middle of a master's degree in Spanish Lit).

It's worth watching.

Blogging Nonchantly, As if I Do This Everyday and Haven't Totally Neglected My Blog

2009-01-25T16:11:00.002-05:00

Here's the problem with blogging. I want to be able to say, "Here is how things are. And here is where we are going." But I cannot bring myself to keep writing, "Things are sooo good for us on so many levels, except Chris still needs a job, and he's searching in a terrible climate. We have no definite leads, although good things keep happening, and we DO see the Lord's hand in all of this."

Because I need that to change. I need to be able to write, "Chris got a job," but that doesn't happen.

Today on Google News there was a headline that said, "Republicans Are Resistant to Obama’s Stimulus Plan" and I wanted to click on it in such a way that ALL the politicos who had a hand in where we are today--on both the red and blue sides--so that they could hear me. Heck, so I could grab them by the collective lapels and tell them to get off their high horses and work together because THIS RECESSION IS VERY REAL TO ME. IT HURTS.

Please don't reply in the comments about how some stimulus plan isn't the answer, we need to tighten our belts, blah, blah, blah. My belt is so tight I worry about losing my house. The one that HASN'T lost any value, that WASN'T cost inflated. I *do* still have some debt left but that's after paying down tons of it. I've been cutting corners and doing without since 2004. I don't think the "resistant" republicans can say that.

I did get into Penn State's Curriculum and Instruction Department for a summer start date. I'm supposed to be able to get my master's in math education. But I didn't get the assistantship. (They don't usually give them to Master's candidates, I knew that going in, but it looked for awhile like they might make an exception. They won't. Or can't. I don't know which.) So now I'm waiting to see what the aide package looks like, but I can already feel this opportunity slipping away. I can't pay all our bills as it is. Any attempt to cashflow the degree without Chris in a full-time job would be futile. I have applied for scholarships. Maybe there is an Ace in the hole I don't know about. I keep praying. But I know that others are in worse spots and that they are praying, too.

I am so grateful for all that we have. The kids are in great health, doing well in school, and the support from the church keeps us treading water. I don't know why it feels like the water is rougher this month than before. Maybe because one of my contracts has gone to half-time and I'm not as resiliant--maybe I'll spring back after more of the antibiotics (I have a respiratory infection--either walking pneumonia or early bronchitis. Treatment is the same.)

And that is all I have to say about that.

A Weekend Jaunt

2008-12-21T21:17:00.005-05:00

Maybe pilgrimage would be a better word. We went to Washington D.C. on Friday morning to see the Washington D.C. temple. This was a big deal.

It was a big deal because ever since I was a child, I've really wanted to see the inside of this temple. The temple's ground breaking was when I was six months old and it was dedicated when I was 6.5 years old. I remember driving past it and seeing it out of the back of my Dad's car. It's an awe-inspiring view, even from the freeway.

It's a big deal because if you're LDS, you want to go to the temple for your Endowments and to be Sealed to your family.

So we went, in weather that had cancelled school for the kids (we left them with friends at home and followed Justin & Sarah, our friends from Vermont) and that was so bad I honestly wondered if we'd make it alive to Altoona, but that turned to rain once we were past Tyrone, and we got to the temple right on time.

I know you'll want to know what the interior looks like. No cameras are allowed and the Sacred nature of the place prohibits me going into much detail about the experience, but there are lots of photographs taken of various temples after construction and before dedication or rededication, and this website has done a nice job of scanning them and showing them. Click around and read what this fellow has to say about the Temple. Pictures specific to the Washington D.C. temple are in the bride's room and baptistry section.

I found the first day a little overwhelming. By the time we left for dinner I was exhausted and just wanting to get to bed. We were staying with relatives of our Bishop who lived in Maryland, about 40 minutes from the Temple. We arrived at their house about 9:00 pm and visited with them for awhile. They were VERY nice people and staying with them helped make the trip possible. In the morning, Jolynn made us a fantastic breakfast (a german pancake. I need to google up the recipe.) and then we went back to the temple.

We went to the distribution center, which is in the basement of the temple, and bought more garments. Then we heard there was an LDS bookstore nearby, and since we were running ahead of schedule, we decided to make a run for it. We went, bought Christmas stocking stuffers and a few study guides, and then went back to the temple. It was time for the sealing.

We happened to be in the foyer when the kids arrived with Sherri G and the Bishop and his wife. Some of the women from the ward were there and Mike P and Brandy and Eric H were there, too. It was the perfect number of people. Sarah was my escort again and Justin and the Bishop were witnesses. The Sealer was an older man who gave a very nice talk to us at the start of the session. It was what you'd expect at the start of any marriage ceremony, really. We were sealed first and then the children were sealed to us. That's how it's done when your children are born before you are sealed together. If we were to have children from this point on, they would be born in the covenant and not need to be sealed to us. The ceremony is a lot like a regular marriage ceremony, but more intimate, and honestly--very brief. The ceremony doesn't negate or undo our civil marriage. If you were one of the 80 or so friends and relatives who attended our marriage in Sonoma, we didn't do anything that detracted from that--just added to it.

The day was lovely and before we left I added a few names to the prayer rolls. Just women I've had in my thoughts.

Afterwards we took a few pictures outside the temple. Then we hurried home to be there in time for Becca, Sarah's sister who lives locally, to come over. We had a nice dinner of soup, bread, and salad and cinnamon rolls for dessert.

There were so many people who made the trip possible. Gaye, who paid for gas, The C's, with whom we stayed overnight, Sarah & Justin, the Bishop, Lana and Sherri and their families, who cared for the kids Friday and Friday night and got them to the temple in time, Brandy and Eric, who came all the way down with their kids and went through the endowments and sealing with us, only to get in a fender bender, and so many more who were supportive and enthusiastic for us. We had a great time and we are so grateful.

Gratitude

2008-11-25T19:12:00.002-05:00

You ever look back at a time period and feel even more grateful for something someone did for you then? I often look back at my pregnancy and marvel at the help that I got from Alice. She came over daily to help with Max so I could stay on bedrest, and she was with me the day that they finally said my at-home bedrest was over--and admitted me to full hospital bedrest. She looked after Max like he was her own son and if she found all the helping any kind of a trial, she never let on. She must have, it was a tremendous amount of work. I never found a way to thank her properly except to try to be someone that others can count on to help.

Thanksgiving often takes me back now to Thanksgiving 2001. The twins were 6 days old and my step-mother was visiting. She needed to go home for her own Thanksgiving, and honestly, I wasn't getting a lot of sleep at that point. My c-section recovery wasn't going as well as it could. Well, really, my recovery from 17 weeks of bedrest was just . . . tough. I had no muscles and you need muscles to stand and walk and hold two babies.

And so Donna came out and she really did an amazing job of holding down the fort at home. She visited the hospital, too, but I think she spent a lot of time with Max. That period of time is very blurry. One thing I know for sure was that she made sure we had a Thanksgiving meal before she left. I think it was a Turkey breast and I don't remember the rest, but I was very touched that we had turkey for dinner. She also did most of the shopping for the twins' newborn wardrobe. We hadn't done any of that, so without her doing that, the twins would have been the naked babies in the NICU. Anyway, I'm still thankful for her efforts to care for us all that year. We really needed her.

This year I'm thankful for having Gaye around. I almost said something to her the other day when we were out at lunch and she was feeling so sick, but I didn't. She's been so supportive of us throughout our marriage, and she only grows more so. We lean on her, and I hope she leans on us some, too. I hope I'm a good mom-in-law when the boys grow up. I certainly have a wonderful example of what it looks like to be a great one.

I'm also thankful to my brother, Jason, and my mom, Judy, who are coming up to visit on Friday. I appreciate all the effort they are going to to come visit. We'll have a nice lunch of leftovers and enjoy the nephews--his and mine.

Finally, I'm grateful to my husband who is being so incredibly supportive as I pursue this idea that I could go back to school and get that Master's I've been wanting since forever. I feel strongly that I've found the right program and I am trying to temper my hope, but it would be fantastic if it works out. He has so much faith in me.

Happy Thanksgiving to Me!

2008-11-24T18:33:00.002-05:00

I rocked the Miller Analogies Test today. I couldn't be happier.

My Christmas gift from my MIL arrived today--a new skirt and jacket set to wear to the Interview. It's beautiful AND comfortable, and after the interview I'm totally wearing it to work and to church.

Chris and I are going with friends to the Washington D.C. temple on December 19 and 20. It will be all decorated for Christmas, so hopefully we'll find a tripod and take some good pictures while we're there.

We're supposed to get almost 6 inches of snow over the next three days. Not enough all at once for a snow day though. Bummer.

Thank You to My Sister and BIL, Vlad!!

2008-11-08T15:07:00.002-05:00

A huge public outpouring of gratitude to my sister (and her hubby, Vlad) who braved the San Diego post office for me today not once, but TWICE!! She went once to mail a massive package of goodies to the twins for their birthday and then went back AGAIN after learning that I was taking the GRE later this month--she has the GRE study book and is going to save me the cost of buying it. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!!

I'm off to bed

2008-11-03T23:25:00.002-05:00

In the morning the kids and I will go vote.

After that the day is full of work and meetings and more work.

So just to be safe, first thing in the morning, the kids and I will vote.

And I hope it's the same for you.

Hope Floats

2008-11-01T16:07:00.003-04:00

Anyone see that movie? I never did, but I always loved the title. It's true; hope floats.

Yellow is the color of hope. If I could, I'd go out and buy a whole wardrobe of yellow (winter, long-sleeved) dresses. I'd get yellow fleece tops and yellow cotton skirts (but it's cold out, so I'd probably wear tights on under them). Since that's not in the cards right now, I'm knitting the kindergarten teacher a buttercream yellow scarf in a soft, warm wool. I write a grammar activity, knit a few rows, write another activity, knit another few rows. It makes for some knitting progress and my editor says the grammar is some of my better work.

Wednesday I spoke with the director of the Math Ed program at PSU. The conversation went well and I will be going in December for an interview. There is a possibility of an assistantship.

At first I felt guilty. It is soooo Chris's turn to have something wonderful happen to him. But he's been reassuring and supportive and I can't help it. Hope keeps bubbling up to the surface. A math ed degree would be a dream come true and there are so many opportunities in the field right now, especially in Pennsylvania. When I'm done, there are jobs with BENEFITS.

In the few days since then I've contacted a few people about recommendations for the application. I need five people in all--three for the general graduate school application and two for the program-specific application. Everyone has been so enthusiastic in response.

I keep telling myself that maybe nothing will come of it. That I'd better keep focusing on what's in front of me and not worry too much about the future. It's all true, and very important that I make the deadlines I already have. But just in case, I picked my husband's birthday as a great day to submit the application. And just in case, I registered for the GRE; I will have taken the test before I meet with the faculty.

I keep plugging away at my grammar and my geometry and the wills and whatnot at the attorney's office. But in the quiet spaces in between I knit on the kindergarten teacher's yellow scarf and let hope bubble happily up. It just feels so good.

Trio of Hats #2

2008-10-27T22:35:00.001-04:00

Here's Max. Can you believe that skin? It's good to be 12.

For Educat

2008-10-26T21:26:00.002-04:00

It's called the Clover Yarn Guide and it looks like so:

I got mine for Christmas, but they look pretty easy to find on the Internet and my LYS has them.

Bad New for Vermont Red Heads

2008-10-26T21:10:00.002-04:00

It fits!

Good news for red heads: There's plenty of wool left and a long winter ahead :)

All's Well That Ends Well

2008-10-26T11:12:00.002-04:00

The boys won their championship game 12-0. That's about the narrowest margin they've had so far. Max didn't get to play as much as usual, but he played enough to feel satisfied with the job he did, so that's good. Afterwards they had a nice pizza party. It was cool out, but I'd brought a blanket and the rain stopped right before the game began, which was a tender mercy as far as I'm concerned. I don't think the kids cared, but those of us watching the game did.

Tomorrow will be a day full of geometry and boys' haircuts and school, but today is Sunday and that means worship, time together as a family, some time to relax, and some time to knit. I've got a hat on the needles that I suspect will be too small for its intended recipient, Milo. But it's coming out so cute that I'm going to go ahead and finish it for whatever child it ends up fitting. I also tried this widget that holds multiple strands of yarn on your finger for two-color knitting. I've always done one color in one hand and one in the other--but for the simple patterns in this hat, I decided to give the finger widget a try and it worked beautifully.

Saturday Mania

2008-10-25T14:09:00.002-04:00

It's going to take a lot of caffeine to handle this day properly. It's only 2:00 pm and what I really want to do at this point is bury myself in geometry (No, what I really want to do is turn on the heat, but I won't!) but there is still so much left to this day.

Chris is on the youth temple trip being a chaperone. So he's in Washington D.C., and I suspect when he gets back he's going to gobble something up for dinner and then go to his mother's house to watch the football game.

So Gaye and I are on Max duty. Max would ordinarily have gone on the Youth Temple Trip, too, but he had both a piano recital and the championship football game today, so he stayed home to play football and piano. So far we're one down, one to go. The recital went fine. Max was barely prepared, but played the song well and called it good. Hopefully we'll be getting in more practicing now that football is about to be over.

After he finished his piece (with his teacher's permission) we all left and Gaye went back to her house and I took Max to football practice. In another hour I'll drop the twins at Gaye's and then go get Max and take him over to the big football field across town where the actual game will be played.

It is raining cats and dogs, so even with my new birthday umbrella, I expect to get soaked. Chris cannot watch his darling son play football as it wraps him around the goal posts in emotion. I don't have this problem as after three or four seasons of watching him play football--I still don't have a clue what the heck those boys are doing. Looks like a mess to me and then some kid gets the ball and runs and scores and we all cheer. I do try to only cheer when a kid in a red shirt gets the ball so as not to upset the other moms and dads on our team, but sometimes I slip up. Based on how the game goes the rest of the time, it's pretty impressive when someone gets to score.

Anyway, so that's what I get to do here soon. Since Max will have already been in the rain for over an hour when I pick him up from practice to take him to the game, I'm thinking I might bring the boy a hot chocolate to drink.

After the game, unbelievably, they're going to try to squeeze in a party for the kids back at the Assembly of God church. I say unbelievably because I have a hard time believing I'm the only parent for whom 1:45 pm to 7:00 pm is just. too. much. football. All I can think about is the lesson on locus I'm supposed to be writing. Nevertheless, I can't let Max miss his end-of-the-season party just because I want to write 7 worksheets on loci; so I'll get him to the party and get him in dry clothes and try to socialize and stay off the Bad Mom couch until he says he's ready to go, too.

Then I'll come home and do grilled cheese sandwiches or maybe even peanutbutter and jelly sandwiches, or something equally simple, so that I can say with a straight face that I fed my family dinner. Then send Chris off to watch the game and let the kids play the Wii till bedtime while I try to get a page or two of work done.

I'm glad tomorrow is Sunday. I could really use a Sunday at this point.

And now I think it's time to go make that hot chocolate.

My Glass

2008-10-18T09:55:00.002-04:00

I'm holding on for dear life with the wild ride we're on right now. Life is very much "sweet 'n sour." On the one hand there's the undeniable stress of Chris' unemployment and my over-employment. We're going down in flames financially. That's a huge stress. On the other hand it's a gorgeous, amazing fall; I love my husband so much; my kids are healthy and doing well in school; we're getting lots of help with the financial issues; I'm in a good place spiritually; I love my calling in the Relief Society; the job at the law office is going well; and I have a great dog. (She just came over to say hi and look hopefully through my bag for a treat.)

I keep hoping the geometry project is finally over. But then another assignment arrives in my in-box. It is by far the most challenging project in which I have participated and the time it takes me to complete each page isn't worth the modest pay. But we need the money so badly and it's math--every page is a fight, but I feel so satisfied when each page is done. I can't make the deadlines but my employer must be happy with the final result because they haven't said a THING about it and just keep feeding me more. I prefer writing math to any other content area and having to relearn the advanced geometry concepts is really more satisfying than anything else--it's just that there's so little time for figuring things out.

Living beyond frugally is TIME consuming. It's satisfying, but for example, I need to can up more beans for us to use for meals and that will be time this evening that I should be working on my grammar project. On the other hand, I simply CAN'T work around the clock. I get brain freeze. I need to get up and go knead bread or do a few dishes or lead the family in a whole-house pick up. These things clear out my head and make it possible for me to sit back down and make faster progress. Sweet 'n sour. I feel like I should be working when I'm doing other things. When I'm working I can't concentrate for the other things that are left undone. I'm trying to strike a balance so I can focus just on what's in front of me.

My glass isn't empty at all. As fast as it's being emptied financially, something else comes along to fill it up. God is merciful as long as I'm willing to open my eyes and look up from the checkbook and see the other things. I do have moments when I can't. I get tunnel vision and just see what is unpaid. Or I see how hard this all is on Chris and get to feeling hopeless about my inability to fix that for him. He's such a wonderful husband and father and I struggle with finding ways to show that. But the autumn sun is shining through my window right now and lighting up the quiz on vectors that I just finished and I feel hopeful in this moment and that's what it's about, right? Savoring the sweet and appreciating its contrast to the sour.

Live Blogging the Vice-Presidential Debate

2008-10-02T21:40:00.002-04:00

I can't really Live Blog the debate. It's all I can do to listen to the debate and write a math lesson at the same time (I'm working on the technical art. I couldn't write the text and listen to people talking at the same time.)

But I do think there's a clear winner emerging from the debate--the moderator. Can I vote for her?

Apples and Beans

2008-09-27T13:14:00.002-04:00

If I'm not writing it's because I'm working, if I'm not working and not blogging, then I must be canning--or attending a committee meeting of some sort. Things here in the house are rather "hairball" as Chris would say. The kids are good, the marriage is good, but the astrologists would probably say that Chris' work situation is in the house of "no good." Not being astrologists, Chris and I are fervently praying for it to soon enter the house of "looking up," or even "excellent." Chris was reading through the benefits package of one of the jobs for which he is being considered and when he got to part about dental packages, I stopped him right there. We haven't had dental insurance in 4 years. "I think this job sounds wonderful!" I half-joked. He knows. It would be a good match even without the dental insurance. It could also be another 3 weeks before he hears anything either way.

So today I took to the kitchen. We have some beans left from my last batch, but even I will acknowledge that they are SPICEY. So to help out the kids, I'm doing a batch of "not spicey" black beans. And, Cortland apples are in season here in Central PA, so that means it's time for applesauce. I'll be doing one batch today, one batch later in the week.

And that's all I have time for today. I need to go stir the applesauce and check on the beans, which are in the pressure cooker.

Canning

2008-09-08T22:17:00.003-04:00

Labor Day weekend was Canning Weekend at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Ann Arbor. I went, not so much for the canning this time, as I was already feeling badly overscheduled and had sort of just eased into the idea that I wouldn't put up much for winter this fall. I just couldn't between the Geometry Project and working at the law office and all the Volunteer stuff. But I really wanted to see my Aunts, Uncle, and Grandmother and so when I was invited, I jumped at the chance to go. I took the twins, some pint jars and lids, and we drove the 6.5 hrs to Michigan.

I had a great time. I have great relatives and they were all their usual charming, generous, witty selves. They were far more determined than I was that I go home with some great jars of my favorite things, and so I did. I came home with perfectly seasoned tomato sauce, tomato juice, medium spicey salsa (soooo good), vegetable soup, and the silly idea that maybe I could squeeze in tomato juice between Geometry assignments.

And then the craziest thing happened--the Geometry project hit a snag. I couldn't write this past weekend, but I got two bushels of tomatoes (and people kept bringing me more) and did 14 quarts of tomato soup. Tonight, against all odds, I have another 7 qts in the canner and I'm going to be in bed by 11pm. I didn't even start peeling onions until 5pm, so that was incredible progress in a short period of time. I still have another bushel left (someone else brought me another half-bushel this morning), so if they don't go bad by the weekend, we'll try for more salsa, maybe.

Assuming the Geometry cooperates, of course.

The kids are all back in school as of a week ago tomorrow. So far so good. The first PAC (like PTO) mtg is Thursday and I have my agenda done. I meet tomorrow with the Principal to go over it with him and then we hope for a good turn-out on Thursday.

Chris is enjoying his new job as a cable installer. There are still unanswered questions, but we're trying to be patient during the training phase. We both wish the job didn't involve climbing up on the pole, but it does, and he's dealing with it.

Our love/hate relationship with boys' football in State College, PA continues. It's a massive time-sucking creature that exhausts the boys almost past the point of enjoyment--almost, but most days, not quite. Most days they still enjoy it enough so that we keep going back. I'm a huge proponent of "never quit a sport, once begun, until the season is over." But State College football tests my resolve on a regular basis. Ah, well. I think we're 1/3 of the way through. On we go.

It's THAT time of Year Again

2008-08-23T17:40:00.003-04:00

Football season.

This year we decided to try the Assembly of God program, which isn't a true league--instead they have multiple small teams that play against each other. The focus is on skill building and learning the game--they'll even stop the scrimmages for the flag players and do mini-lessons as they go.

It's still time-consuming. I still feel like all I do is work, laundry, and football. But the kids are definitely enjoying this group and it's not as expensive as the other programs, so I'm calling it worth it.

Life changes so fast around here, it makes my head spin. Chris starts a new job as a cable installer this week--a career change he initiated and which should earn more than his previous job which had a better job title, but we weren't making it on the pay. It may even reimburse him for some of his cell phone costs.

I'm working on a Geometry project. The first two lessons were really kicking my tush, but I'm finally picking up speed and feeling better about the project. I really enjoy the math part of the project, but I'm rusty at 11th grade Geometry, and coming up with pages and pages of additional practice problems is harder than you might think when you're reviewing the math right there along with the imaginary "students."

Last week we spent the whole week in Upstate New York with my parents and two out of three siblings and their spouses. It was a great trip, very relaxing, and we couldn't be more thankful to my parents who made it all happen. And to my siblings who spent their own money coming out to meet us there. There was canoing, swimming, walking, hot tubbing, eating, synchronized Olympics watching, and napping. What more could you ask for?

Next weekend Chris and Max are staying here, but the twins and I are hitting the road to go see Granny (age 97 years young) and two out of three of the Aunts and one Uncle. My mother will kill me as she has been after me to go see her in Columbus with the kids for ages and I've put her off because of the cost of gas, so all I will say is, "Mom, I swear, not right away, but sometime this year, we will make it there." But Granny doesn't travel much (at all) any more and going to Michigan is half the distance that going to the other end of Indiana is from here, so when I got the sudden invite, it really was never a question of not going, but more a question of how to make it happen. Things fell into place. So the twinks and I will be road-tripping with all the drunken Labor Day drivers. Please pray for a safe travel for us. It's the only part I'm worried about.

School won't start for another 10 days here. We haven't back-to-school shopped--that's not true--we got the first grade list done for school supplies. But the boys still need clothes and sneakers. We need to do the seventh-grade list for school supplies and get Max shirts and sneakers. The twins also need new lunch boxes. So sometime this week, we'll get to that.

We couldn't be busier. New work, Chris as Scoutmaster, me in Relief Society (kinda like Women's Sunday school, for the non-LDS out there), school volunteering (Yes, we're both still doing that this year, plus I'm still Chair of the PAC), piano twice a week for Max (for financial reasons, the twins are taking a break for a year with that), and football through the end of October. But this year is our 14th year of marriage. Our fourth year living in the same place. Our third year with the same school. We're feeling hopeful.

And that's all the news around here.

Wrapping Up a Few Loose Ends

2008-07-22T20:52:00.004-04:00

It's been hot and I've been tired, so I'm still just knitting up things that need to be finished. This week I finished a bath mat . . .

and a pair of slipper socks for Milo.

I'm still working on the fingerless gloves for the yarn store sample, but it isn't going well. I reversed the colors on the back of the hand.

Had to rip back 12 rows and start that part over.

Thanks go Grandma Gaye, the boys are all doing fine. They're enjoying their easy-going summer.
Vegetables are growing. We ate our first zucchini this weekend. There are some jack-o-lantern pumpkins growing. I don't know if we'll get any watermelon this year though. There is some corn growing--no tassels yet. That's fine. It's not tall enough yet. And there are some tomatoes, although they looked mighty parched the last time I looked at them. We're due for some rain this week, so hopefully that will help.

Strawberry Jam Day

2008-07-19T19:24:00.002-04:00

I wasn't so sure about this day at points. We're in the middle of a hot and humid heat wave and heat waves make everyone grouchy. But the twinks had a church activity this morning and I had a grocery list--so we went ahead and jumped into the day. Chris went to play raquetball with some friends, Max and I dropped off the twins at church and went grocery shopping, then came home to change into church clothes. Chris came home and showered and changed into church clothes, and we all headed back to church to witness the baptism of one of the 8-yr-old girls. That was a lot of fun.

When we got back home there seemed a mountain of laundry and dishes waiting for me. In the heat, the grass is not growing as fast, but Chris was planning to mow anyway. "Do dishes and laundry with me instead," I begged. And he agreed. So we spent the next three hours doing dishes and laundry (there were baskets and baskets of clean clothes waiting to be put away and then I need to do a few loads of dirty clothes, too. I just didn't get any laundry at all done this week.) and then had dinner (BLTs) and then Chris and Max went off to do a guy thing for a few hours and I canned up the strawberries we bought back on Father's Day weekend. I probably used too much pectin, and I know I tried to do too big of a second batch--but now we'll have strawberry syrup for pancakes tomorrow. Lots of it. Way too much of it. Oh, well :)

So now, in between a few last loads of laundry, I'm going to put my feet up and knit a bit.

Spontaneous Dinner w/ Friends

2008-07-18T22:03:00.002-04:00

Tonight we had a spontaneous dinner party. Last week we got a new Elder in the ward--he's from Arizona and at one point attended the same elementary school at which I had taught a few years before. The kids I taught are 24 and 25 now. Hard to believe. Anyway, I'd signed up to host the missionaries for dinner this week, and when I had met the new missionaries, I decided we needed to have Navajo tacos.

Then this morning Chris decided it could be fun to invite another family from the ward for dinner, too. And I agreed. So he invited and they accepted--but this all happened with a busy Friday happening around it, so it wasn't formalized until 5:30 at night. We didn't sit down to eat until 8:00 pm. But the fry bread turned out and the toppings were a hit and there was enough--it was close--but there was enough to go around. Enough beans and enough meat and enough fry bread. I did the fry bread on the side-burner of the propane grill because even in this heat wave, doing the fry bread in the open air was better than filling the house with the smoke from the hot oil. I did two batches--one with yeast dough and one with baking soda dough. As usual, the yeasted dough turned out better fry bread for me. I don't know why that is. The baking soda dough is more authentic, but I've never really mastered it. The best I can say is that the baking soda dough turned out edible and that's improvement for me.

Anyway, the company was fantastic, even I loved every minute of the little party (Chris will say that's because I spent half of it on the porch watching through the window, but, well, so?) and Elder Norton, the new missionary, gave a lovely lesson at the end that was really quite moving.

I really enjoy feeding the missionaries. We always get so much out of it and tonight was an especially enjoyable example of that. An exceptional Friday evening.

Art and Blueberries

2008-07-12T14:34:00.003-04:00

We started off the day going to the local People's Choice Arts Festival, which is the "local" version of the Central PA Arts Festival--which takes place concurrently, but in downtown State College. The Central PA Arts Festival is collector's art done by people who can get hundreds of dollars or more for their pieces. The People's Choice Arts Festival, mostly, isn't so spendy. I mean, you CAN spend $1,200 on a piece of custom furniture and you can spend the same on a gold ring, but you can also buy a nice $18 piece of pottery. Chris and I mostly just looked this year, but Gaye got herself a ring and a plaque for her wall and she got me one that says, "Laundry today or naked tomorrow" as an early birthday present.

We spent money on lunch and the twins collected free balloons and Max bought two glass beads and then went to Michael's to buy a clasp and he made himself a nice necklace.

Then we headed home. I tried to take a nap but my mind was on the 10 lbs of blueberries that had been in the fridge since Monday. I wanted them canned before they were over ripe or worse. So I got back up and headed for the kitchen. The first batch had some fatal errors and is only good for pancake and ice cream syrup, but it was a small batch and I'm content with that. With the second batch, I ignored the directions and added pectin and although this batch hasn't come out of the canner yet, I'm more optimistic.

The day is winding down. My only plans are to wash the clothes for church tomorrow and knit this evening. I'm making good progress on the fingerless mittens.

I have more photos and will add those later.

Happy Independence Day

2008-07-04T12:10:00.002-04:00

Ben made lunch for his brothers today. He made peanut butter and blueberry jelly sandwiches, making sure not to add jelly to Milo's and giving himself the heel of the bread. How quickly they grow from tiny little demanding infants to independent, generous first-graders.

It's a quiet day here in the Hults household. Chris and I slept in until 9am and then, after deciding it was too wet to mow, Chris went off to run an errand and play raquetball with a friend. I'm trying to catch up on dishes and laundry. Both tasks are Herculean. The first because a friend who is selling his house has been giving me a life-time collection of his canning jars and they all need washing and I . . . well, let's just say I really miss having a dishwasher. The second because I just let it get too far behind. So I'm content to be working on those projects, with a tiny smidge of knitting in between loads.

I am knitting again. Not with my previous fervor, but I'm in the mood to finish the things I have begun over the last year and so, that's what I've been doing. More or less picking one project to focus on until it's done and then moving on to the next one. I say more or less because I do take the occasional detour onto one of the other projects, but mostly I'm working on just one project. Right now it's a baby sweater--it was supposed to be for my cousin Tracy's baby girl, but she's probably too big for it now, so it will wait for another baby girl.

The next unfinished project will be the marvelous mittens pattern because I need samples for the yarn shop. It's the class I'll be teaching in October and November. However, I have a sweater for Milo competing for attention with that one. He may outgrow it before it's done AND cool enough for him to wear it.

The kids are all doing well. Gardening has been . . . weird this year. It's been cool when it's not unseasonably hot, and nothing is growing at my house as fast as normal. At G'ma's house where it gets much more sun, things are growing like gang busters, although we're still not taking the survival of the corn for granted. Interestingly, the variety that did the most poorly last summer is doing the best this summer. If today is "work indoors day," then tomorrow is "work outdoors day" and one of the things that gets done is the lawn gets another application of weed and feed and the corn and the blueberry bushes get fertilizer.

EZ Baby Surprise Jacket

2008-06-23T05:31:00.002-04:00

There. Now I can say I've knit one. I don't have a particular recipient in mind. I can't think of any boy 12-18 mnth I know right now who might like it. It's a smidge on the hippy-fashion side with its rustic organic cotton ridges, and the sleeves are only 3/4 length--which is nice for keeping sleeves out of the dirt, but . . . also gives it a slightly unfinished look to my eye. Nevertheless, it's very, very, very soft and has a nice drape. It's also, unfortunately, handwash only. So off to the gift drawer it goes until the right boy comes along.

And Then All of a Sudden

2008-06-15T19:02:00.002-04:00

At 6pm last night I got a call from a gentleman with a low voice and hesitant interest in the truck. At around 2pm this afternoon, after some bad mixups related to two people who live very far apart trying to find each other . . . he bought the truck. Tomorrow I go to the bank and get a cashier's check and by Tuesday morning the bank will have it and it will be paid off. He gets the title and I get to call the insurance company and cancel coverage on it.

I will honestly miss it. It was a useful truck. But we couldn't afford it any more.

The day was stressful and exhausting though and in hindsight, we wish we hadn't tried to conduct business on a Sunday. Call us crazy, but there it is.

I'm off to bed early tonight because I need to get up early to finish up a work project before going off to my regular job, so I will only add a little more.

The first two days of summer vacation went well. Largely due to Grandma Gaye. We also found a thrift store yesterday and got the twins some summer shirts. Now they just really need shorts. I'm hoping to hit a few garage sales before my knitting class next week. There's no point in spending real money on clothing for people who eat like locusts.

We celebrated Father's Day a day early with a road trip and a nice lunch at a PA Dutch restaurant. It's a good thing since Chris was gone all day with the business of the truck today. I made him a blueberry pie as a thank you, which he appreciated, but might be too tired to eat now.

Friday

2008-06-06T22:45:00.002-04:00

Today was the kids' end-of-year celebration at school. It was also incredibly hot and we were pretty cranky by the end of the day--but after the too-long presentations by the school, the picnic and playtime was fun. Then we hurried home to try to get cool enough, soon enough, to not take off each others' heads.

There was a nibble on the blue truck. Just a nibble, but it's comforting every time someone responds to an ad. Maybe it will develop into something more. Who knows.

My brother called to chat. The air conditioner seems to work. The twins are asleep in front of a fan, as are Max and Chris. I'm the only one who can't sleep right now. I'll try again in a few minutes, here.

Tomorrow we'll try to plant sweet corn. The Bishop says 2 feet apart. I can only make peace with this by assuming he puts three or so kernals in each hole then. I did some reading around though and see that he's right. I probably grew my corn too close together last year. But as much as I'm worried about my corn germination rates, etc., mostly I'm worried about getting us all through tilling up the soil to plant the corn in tomorrow's heat and humidity. We think we can. We think we can.

I'm Doing Better

2008-06-05T18:34:00.002-04:00

Nothing has changed about our financial situation. The blue truck is still for sale. Our income is not quite up to our outgo. I still struggle with feelings of total inadequacy and hopelessness about the situation. It still makes Chris mad that a challenging job in an industry he wouldn't have picked for himself doesn't pay enough to quite put us over that edge.

But I'm feeling better anyway this week. It's probably partly the time of year, partly looking at our finances and feeling that with birthdays and self-imposed pressures behind me for a couple of months, and a new contract (small, not enough, but real, and WAY better than nothing, which is what most industry writers have right now) starting tomorrow, I'm feeling hopeful about maybe getting caught up a little before our August vacation. My parents have rented a place in the Fingerlakes area of N.Y. and we are going to go stay with them. It's just a few hours North of here and we'll be able to bring regular groceries with us. We haven't been on a real vacation in eons. This, and seeing the family there, means a great deal to us and we're really looking forward to it.

I'm grateful that most of what needed to happen for the parent organization at school was complete by May 1st, because I haven't been up for doing anything about it. I'm hosting a short, informal planning session here in June, and then I have declared discussion about it off limits until late August. I will guard my summer vacation carefully :) But I'm looking forward to this meeting and I hope it will be productive.

Ben and Milo will be in first grade next year, going to 2nd grade for reading. I'm begging her to take them for math, too. The second grade teacher is a friend and has so far successfully drawn the line at taking them for math. The kindy teacher would like to see the twins skip 1st and go straight to 2nd, but that definitely isn't happening, LOL. I don't want that anyway. Their class is a sweet group that does well together.

Max's options are unclear to me. I'm meeting with the principal sometime soon to try to get a better picture of what it is that he's trying to accomplish with his current hiring plans. Right now they seem doomed to failure. We're going to get poor quality teachers or have high turnover. He's not offering enough hours for any teacher to live on. :::grumble, grumble growl:::

I have a new calling in church. I've been called to be the 2nd-counselor in the Relief Society Presidency. It won't do anything for my lack of free time, but I didn't turn it down either. It does feel right. Crazy, but right :)

The Party with Friends

2008-05-31T20:45:00.002-04:00

Tonight was Max's party with his friends. He invited four of his good friends over and we had an ice cream cake and they played the Wii and watched about a half-hour portion of Madagascar. That was it. That was the whole party. And they all had a wonderful time. Sometimes keeping things simple really pays off. Plus, it's a wonderful age--this cusp-of-12 age.

I spent the early part of the morning running a few errands and then most of the rest of the day working on bringing the basement up to the standards of the rest of the house. The real challenge was in reclaiming Max's desk. Like mine, it occasionally becomes overwhelmed with stuff. Unlike mine, it goes a lot longer between cleanings. (I start a new contract on Friday, so my desk has to get its cleaning this week, too.)

We sorted toys, found the Thomas the Tank Engine stuff a new home, found some of the Little People stuff new homes (there's three more LP sets to rehome), and got some laundry done. The whole place smelled almost too much of Endust when all was said and done and there's still probably a third total of the basement left to clean and organize. But it looks a lot better.

And it was worth it so that the big boys could have their "pack" meeting in a clean basement.

Fun for $1.25

2008-05-27T17:41:00.003-04:00

For a grand total of $1.25, Ben and Milo picked up the following new friends at garage sales this weekend. They wanted me to take a picture and post it to the blog. So there it is.

Sunny, Breezy, and Pleasant

2008-05-26T17:07:00.002-04:00

It really was a nice day. Chris and I got up early for different reasons. I was being crowded out by Milo and Emily and Chris had an early raquetball game. I decided to go over to Gaye's house and get the yard work done early before it got too warm for that to be much fun. This went well. Gaye and I finished up about the same time Chris did (he'd shown up halfway through to mow the lawn) and the place is really starting to come together. The nearly-dead lawn Gaye inherited is now lush and green and all the birds that the bird feeders attracted are picking off the tent caterpillars that might otherwise eat the young veggie plants down to stubs. I'm a little worried that one of the pumpkin plants already has mosaic disease. I'm going to google it, and if that's the case, then pull it and just do without that plant this year. It's too soon for the squash plants to be fighting off disease. It might just be some damage from some cold nights. I did spray the blueberry bushes again--four out of five are still fighting for their lives against critters. If most of them die, next year I'm buying mature plants for those spots from local nurseries.

I got home just as Chris was finishing our yard. Worked for a bit with Max on his homework and then got to work on some of mine. I sent out some emails looking for contract work and then put together a shopping list. Chris and the twins and I went shopping and then Chris and Max and Gaye went off to see the Indiana Jones movie. With Max's permission, I attacked his room. It was the last hold-out upstairs in the spring-cleaning wars. (Not that the kitchen EVER stays clean for longer than overnight, but at least it's been really, really clean for a few hours this week at one point. Ditto every other room upstairs, but not Max's room.)

So that's what I did this afternoon. I attacked. I reorganized. I did what is probably the last Mom-only cleaning of his room (and is the first of its kind in years), and I had him help me put up all the posters he wanted before he left for the movie. It was really very satisfying.

Now what's next is reorganizing 10 shelves of children's books. It's time for another culling of books, time to make some order out of the chapter books now that they are more than two shelves worth of books, and time to get more magazine holders. The first thing that happened when I got all the magazines off the shelves and into holders was that Ben and Milo sat down and read--for hours straight--all the Cricket Magazine company (ladybug, cricket, and spider, and all the topic-related spinoffs like Ask and Click and Apple Seed) magazines that we've had on a bookshelf buried behind my desk in my office.

It's 5:30 pm and Ben and Milo and I are waiting for the others to come back from their matinee so we can start our BBQ. We're just having burgers and corn, but that's enough, isn't it? Yum :)

I hope you're all having a great Memorial Day weekend.

In Which Max Makes a List

2008-05-26T06:32:00.003-04:00

At the request of some of his relatives, Max made a wish list for his 12th birthday.



Hopefully the button will avoid the whole "stuck in the spam folder" problem.

Thank you!

Saturday

2008-05-24T20:30:00.002-04:00

Today G'ma Gaye, the twins, and I went and did a little yard sale-ing. I came home with some shirts for the boys, some twin sheets for Ben and Milo's beds, and a set of 8 dinner plates that actually match. They're not beautiful, but they look the same and they have some accompanying mugs and bowls. I didn't count the rest. I just wanted enough matching plates that we could have our family, Gaye, and two others (say, the Missionaries, or my brother and sister-in-law) over and we could all have matching plates. (This is not a problem as often as you might think as we usually use paper plates, but sometimes it's a birthday or Thanksgiving or something and you want more.)

Then I installed the final raised-bed, transplanted everything that needed transplanting, planted a few seeds to finish out the beds, and called it done. All the left to do now is the corn and some landscaping. Gaye is doing most of the landscaping herself, but we're working on a slope that needs quite a bit of grass removed first and that's too much for one person to do on their own.

I came home, showered, took a short rest with Chris, and then we drove out to Belleville to pick up the couch. The nice Amish gentleman had repaired it for a fee so reasonable--I couldn't fill my gas tank with that kind of money. We came home, had dinner, and then Chris worked for a couple hours in the kitchen doing dishes and tidying up in there. (It always looks so much better after he's been in there.) and I reorganized and tidied the living room. I still need to go through the bookshelves and find a place for a few dragons, but otherwise, we finally have places for guests to sit. It's a fine thing.

And it's 8:40 pm and I am shooing everyone off to bed early again. It was a busy day. But I feel better with a neater, tidier house.

Angry Poem

2008-05-23T19:56:00.002-04:00

Angry Poem Off Meds

Stuck in here behind hopeless webs--
A hungry tent caterpillar.
Eat your way out, a fat success,
You're torn apart into bird food.

***********************

New Poem After Some Book of Mormon Reading

If my brain or heart had a "service engine" light
mine would be permanently on.
All these years and no cure yet.
"The noise is still there, Doc."
Chris says, "You're not crazy,"
and he would know.

He says, "Get some sleep."
He says, "Go to church."
He says, "I got you some ice cream!"
which isn't part of the cure
but it does taste good
and makes me smile.

Somewhere between the praying
and the scripture reading,
the gardening and three boys,
one loving husband, one goofy dog,
one big family, a few more bills paid,
some luck, and the Holy Spirit . . .

I feel better enough.

Plans

2008-05-23T19:36:00.002-04:00

Our plans for the weekend are pretty simple. Chris and Max went with the rest of the Mormon men and menlings for a father/son campout. This was free and fun, so I gave them my full blessing and sent them off, knowing they'll have gobs of fun.

Then Gaye invited the twinks and I out to dinner at Denny's. The portions were large enough that we'll have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. We had a good time and after picking up some dog food for Emily, headed home.

It's done nothing but rain and we've been nothing but crazy busy between work and church stuff, so there's been no gardening going on. Hence, tomorrow is a catch-up day. I hope to install the final raised-bed, transplant all the plants, and seed everything that I'm seeding except the corn.

I don't know if we'll ever get the strawberries we ordered from Gurney's back in March.

And on that note, I'm encouraging the boys to crawl into their jammies, we'll read for a bit, and go to bed early.

My Apologies

2008-05-15T19:53:00.002-04:00

I know I'm supposed to blog, I do, I just don't seem to have a good post in me and I'm opposed to writing the blog tell-all post that would justify all the silence.

Besides, there have been lots of good moments in with the bad. The new job is challenging, but I enjoy it, and I think it's good for me--getting out of the basement and putting on mascara every day. Especially since I went and bought a fresh tube of the only brand that doesn't make me scratch my eyes out. (Almay. I don't have to go far.)

Max is doing well with tennis and piano. The twinks are doing well in their usual kindergartener ways. I'm behind in my gardening--I'm behind in everything--thanks to the new job. I'm desperate for a new routine and unsure it's going to look like this summer with childcare. I can't get caught up in dishes, laundry, and housecleaning to save my life.

Life isn't bad--it's just really different and the truck--every month it doesn't sell pushes back the date of our personal economic recovery further. It is hard, every day, on Chris and it is hard, every day, on me. We try not to let the strain show and to remember that we are 100% better off than we were this time last year, but we are stuck on a treadmill that goes just a little too fast.

We keep picking activities close to home. No trips to Philly or Harrisburg or Baltimore are in the forecast. I looked into costs for taking the bus to and from work and to and from Max's school. I think it might actually save us about $25/week if we could NOT use the car for those two errands. Neither are far away, but they involve that in-town driving that eats up gas. We're up to almost $4.00/gallon here. I realize it's worse in California and the like, but here in Central PA, that price is killing us.

Blah, blah, blah. This is why I haven't been blogging. I believe things will turn around soon, but with no contracts on the horizon and no buyer for the truck--I don't know when--and it's almost all I can think about.

Saturday Check List

2008-05-03T20:54:00.002-04:00

I got a lot done today, but not everything I wanted to get done. Sometimes my to-do list is so ambitious that even I know it's just not going to happen. The important thing was that today some important things were accomplished. I completed the most recent food storage order for the folks at church. I had some fun with the twinks and Gaye at a bake/plant sale at the local school and then Gaye and I got some important stuff done in the yard. We:

mulched the blueberry bushes
got the rocks from the raised-bed project into a corner of the driveway so that the area around the bird & butterfly garden could be mowed
marked out the area for the third raised-bed so that it can be dug and set
tore out the sod, amended the clay with some potting soil, and planted some sweet peas
watered the infant grass (mostly just to be sure there would be plenty of rain tonight)
tore out the old wood boundary of the front flower garden, increased it by about 10 inches, and installed a new stone boundary in its place
mulched the front flower garden
installed a new bird feeder holder in the front flower garden
filled and installed two new bird feeders there

and then Gaye took a lot of pictures. Chris had mowed well and with the upgrades, the front flower garden looks especially nice. I did rip the peonies back out. I think we may put in peonies at some point, but not right there, and we'll do it in the fall, which is apparently the time for that sort of thing.

Just as we finished up, the beneficial nematodes arrived. Gaye had ordered them in order to combat the gazillion grubs in her sod. It turns out that once they arrive, you have to use them in 48 hours. So that's what I'm doing after church tomorrow.

Then I took the kids and headed home. Chris had been on Max and tennis duty this morning, but spent the afternoon working on getting a scooter running. He can't take this one to work, but he can ride it around town a bit. He was glad to have us all home again.

I've spent the rest of the evening listening to the rain, washing dishes, trying to tidy up the kitchen . . . that sort of thing. I think I'm going to go hunt up my pjs and then try to stay awake until Chris gets back from the store with the staples I sent him to get before we're sideswiped by another fast-moving week.

Thursday Evening

2008-05-01T21:46:00.002-04:00

We had a special meeting of the Parent Advisory Council tonight to elect next year's board. Chris and I had decided awhile ago that I was going to move into the Past Chair position and let someone else take the Chair position.

But then, somewhere in there, I started having second thoughts. Mostly, I felt concerned for all that had been done and all that had not been done and I wanted to keep the good things going and I wanted another chance at getting the other items accomplished.

But Chris felt otherwise and I really, really respected his instincts on the matter. So I made peace with that and as recently as this afternoon explained patiently to someone why I would not be continuing in the position.

Then sometime in the last few days, Chris changed HIS mind. And as I was getting ready to leave for tonight's meeting, said a few times, "Keep your mind open. Do what you have to do."

So at the meeting when I did my best to sell the position to another willing parent and explained how meaningful the position is and . . . noone jumped in . . . and then one of the other 6th-grade Dads started listing his reasons why I should stay in the position . . . I agreed to do it for another year.

And after that, the rest of the meeting went as smoothly as I could have hoped. We even got four members-at-large for a total of 9 executive board members. I couldn't be more pleased. It's going to be a great year next year.

(I gave Sweet Peas to my board members for this year and a Jalapeno plant to the principal "as a reminder that good things are sometimes a little spicy." In exchange, my board members gave me a beautiful hanging basket that is some kind of a pretty flower--like a black-eyed Susan, but they have white petals with a blue center. A blue-eyed Susan? Surrounded--get this--by six Hungarian Hot Pepper plants. :::Sniff::: I love them. And the Administration? They gave me a plate--a hand painted Turkish plate with the YSCP logo in the center. It's gorgeous. I'll take a photo at some point.)

I Don't Want to Do That

2008-04-29T19:01:00.002-04:00

I'm going through some kind of weird knitting period where mostly . . . I don't want to. I'd been motivating myself to finish an EZ baby surprise sweater by telling myself that the store needed a sample so I could get more people to sign up for the class this summer--but then I remembered that they already have a sample of that particular sweater.

I was trying to remember how I got so much knitting done this time last year and in reviewing my blog entries from the time--well, it was because I was largely unemployed. This year I'm working 25 hrs (this week) at a "real" job and when I'm not at work, I'm working on the PAC, doing stuff with the kids, or doing something for church or whatever. Last night we had Family Home Evening and finished our gifts for Mother's Day. Now I have to find the time to get them all in the mail before, well, Mother's Day.

I really like my new job. I'll be glad when training is over, and sometimes I'm self-conscious of the fact that in a place with big personalities, I'm the quiet one. I worry I seem downright brooding next to the other personalities in the office. But I *really* like them, and I'm finding that even after 9 years of working at home, I'm already starting to thaw out a little. I don't know if that's the right term. It's just that I have never been brilliant at "chatting" and all the working at home didn't really refine those skills at all. Anyway, the folks there are not just nice, they're genuinely funny people and I -- I am in a good place to laugh right now.

Normally when I'm not working or cooking or doing all the kid-oriented things, I immediately grab my knitting, but lately--not so much. Again, I got to think about what I'm doing instead (because I'm sure not staring off into space) and why this week I'm feeling so . . . frustrated. I'm in the mood, honestly, for a good temper tantrum. Why is that?

And then I realized that what I've been doing is running out into the yard--either Gaye's or mine--and working on a lawn, garden, or lawn and garden related task. But since I hurt my ankle on Friday, I've had to really take it easy on that kind of thing. Today I felt better enough to mow a small portion of the front yard--just the area where the grass was tallest so that when Chris does the real mowing on Saturday, it won't be too tall to mow properly. Then I started shoveling some of that mulch under the nearest tree.

I couldn't finish the job. I had to admit after I had a smidge over half of the mulch under that tree that my ankle was done. So I came inside to check email and cook dinner and eventually it dawned on me that the reason I felt so grouchy was because of the ankle pain.

It is just not going to heal as quickly as I would like. Especially if I keep cheating and shoveling "just a little" mulch. So I sit down and tell myself to knit a little, but I don't want to. It's April, nearly May, and there is mulch to be placed, a third raised-bed frame to put into place and fill with soil, and the corn bed to plot out and plan. I'm counting down the weeks till I can transplant the peppers, tomatoes, and melons. I'm wondering just how "warm" the soil has to be before I can put out the birds and butterfly seeds. (I was just looking at the plastic "mulch" sheeting I bought a couple of seed orders ago and wondering what the best use of it was, and I think using it to warm the two dirt beds over at Gaye's is my best bet.)

Ironically, tonight we're having a hard frost and all my agricultural pins are holding plastic sheeting in place over the more tender veggies so they're not completely killed by the cold.

So. I'm pooped. I'm going to take my whining ankle to bed. I'm sure at some point my ankle will feel much better, the garden will be full of growing plants (and weeds) and it will be sticky hot and instead of weeding I will . . . suddenly remember how much I love to knit lace :)

Recital Video

2008-04-26T22:32:00.000-04:00

Go to Chris' blog to see the recital pieces :)

Things Growing

2008-04-26T14:59:00.005-04:00

First and foremost, the playground grew. We worked on it all day, although I gave out about two and a half hours before the last guys left. I twisted my ankle early in the day and when Chris called at 6:30 pm to remind me that we had overnight guests, I knew it was time to go home. It was bad enough last night and this morning that I actually caved and went and got it x-rayed.

This turned out to be an easy-peasy experience. We were in-and-out of the weekend clinic in 45-minutes. It's just a bad sprain and this magic gizmo REALLY helps. That and I'm supposed to take 800 mg of ibuprofin every 4 to 6 hours for three days, LOL.

We have flower buds on the cherry trees.

Here's one with the underside of a pollinator.

Last summer's wasp's nest has been renovated and rented out.

Most of the tomatoes and peppers have been transplanted into bigger pots, except for the Jalapenos. There are so many of them that I have to get more peat pots before I can do that.

a peony bud

onions and lettuce

It was an unbelievably exciting day even if I couldn't hardly do anything standing up. I could still take delivery of a LOT of mulch. My tarp is size "massive." I don't know, 10 ft x 12 ft? Something like that.

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

I may be limping along, but by next weekend I'll have spread all that mulch in the appropriate places in the front yard and another pile over at Gaye's house around the blueberry bushes and in her front flower bed. Whoo-hoo!!

Of Playgrounds and Peonies

2008-04-23T11:43:00.002-04:00

First, for Gaye, the bedraggled looking creatures I planted in your front bed this morning will eventually spread out and look something like this:

You have something else growing on the left-hand side, and I wasn't sure what it was, so I planted fewer peonies there and let the other thing live. After watching both for a summer, you can pick which you want me to dig up for good.

Peonies grow into pretty bushes with shiny leaves and massive purple/pink flowers--and then the flowers die and they stay pretty bushes with shiny leaves until the last possible moment in fall. I wasn't enamored of them when we first moved here. I thought they were kind of . . . big. But they have grown on me and I appreciate the fact that they look wonderful all the freakin' time. Too much rain? They're happy. Too little rain? Still happy. First sign of spring? They're peeking out of the ground. Definitely fall? Still hanging in there.

This Friday is the big Build the Playground day at school and a lot of the organizing and phone calling is my job and it's been a heck of a week with big and small problems cropping up and me trying to squash them like bugs. So far so good though.

I still like my new job. It's a heck of a lot to learn though.

When I'm not working on the playground or workwork, then I'm working on my yard or Gaye's. I've been working more on Gaye's this week because I've been imagining that every time she looks out her kitchen window and sees the rocks strewn about and the unfinished boxes she sighs heavily and wonders why she ever agreed to let me do this. I don't think I'll get to the third box until Saturday afternoon, but I did get some of my peonies divided and into her bed and we'll see how that goes. I'm not a "dividing" whiz kid. Maybe you're supposed to trim them or something to get them to work on their roots? I just know they're impossible to actually kill, so the worst that can happen is that they don't look as good as they could for one summer and then next year they look magnificent. I finished raking my back yard to the point where we stop mowing and then did weed and feed for that portion of the back yard.

Gaye's yard needs more weed-killer. I've never seen some of the weeds she has on her lawn. They're more like alien life forms than dandelions. I'm starting from gentlest weed killer to most noxious so as to avoid using something stronger than we need. With a few exceptions (I can't even find a picture of this thing. It looks like a huge, fuzzy, silver/pale green star and it HURTS if you touch it) the weeds are clumped together in certain areas, so I don't need to do the whole lawn at this point. What I do need though is a working hose and we might need to call a plumber to get that :( The inspector apparently didn't notice the spigots leak *inside* the house. Weed Killer #3 is of the sort that fits on the end of your hose and sprays through that way.

Weed Killer #2 is a propane torch. I'm scheduling that one in for tomorrow afternoon. :::evil cackle:::

Alright. I'm off to eat lunch, shower the dirt off me, and go into the office. :::Hums happily:::

Twitter, Twitter, Ka-Boom!! Tweet, Tweet!

2008-04-21T16:41:00.002-04:00

I have to admit that spring and summer weather in PA, except for that heavy heat that settles down, especially at night when you're trying to sleep, is pretty exciting. Once the first robins show up, pretty soon, the neighborhood is full of birds and they ALL have something to say. It's clearly a feathered meat-market--and the guy who moved into the old wasp nest outside our window did pretty well, scoring a wife in just a day or two. I worry the nest will fall apart for good before the eggs hatch and the chicks are raised, but for now, it's a good place to be.

When the sun isn't shining and the weather isn't being magnificent, there's a thunderstorm on the way, or overhead, or just passed. And I love a good thunderstorm (having never been struck by lightening or having had my roof ripped off or anything. These are not newsworthy storms. They're not even as impressive as the ones we saw in Minnesota--but those sometimes went too far and scared the jeebers out of me. These are kinder, gentler thunderstorms.)

OTOH, if I don't get one of the THREE clients who owe me checks to pay me soon, I'm gonna start wishing lightening strikes on someone . . . . I don't think I have any actual authority in that area, so they're safe anyway. But, I'm starting to WISH a little kaboom in their neighborhood. They're making it difficult to observe my naturally-law abiding nature.

I started my new job. It was only three hours of training, and maybe that's just as well. It's a LOT to learn. I felt a little overwhelmed at times just because, well, it's new! But I came home excited about it.

I then jumped into my jeans and ran over and got 2.5 hrs in the garden at Gaye's house. Only 5 blueberry bushes and one raised bed garden left to get into place. I do need more DIRT and I'm trying to figure out where to get that cheaply. You'd think dirt would easier to find.

After picking the kids up from school, I transplanted the tomato plants I knew I wanted to keep into bigger peat pots. Hopefully they won't need transplanting one more time before it's really time to put them in the garden. There are approximately 12 plants, of which I will only plant 9. It will soon be time to get tomato cages. I've used stakes for the past few years, but I am reluctant to use them for anything but kindling because of the disease problems from last year.

It's time for dinner now. I'm pretty worn out. I think tonight will be one of those nights when the object of the game is to not fall asleep before the kids do.

Been There, Done That

2008-04-19T18:00:00.004-04:00

This week was a week like no other. It got off to a bang with a normal Sunday, which was notable mostly in that it was normal. We had a little time for breathing at the end of the day. That was nice.

Monday kicked my keester. I finished all our taxes and the news--the news is never good. It wasn't as horrific as some previous years, but it was still bad. Within minutes of finishing the state taxes, I got an email from Penn State telling me, again (because I've heard it before) that they're sure I'm a wonderful writer and editor, but there are lots of writers and editors out there and I'm simply the wrong kind. A textbook writer at a University is simply not "as qualified" as, oh, pretty much English major. Or so it would seem.

Feeling kicked around, I changed into play clothes and went over to Gaye's house to work in the garden. The bird and butterfly box wasn't going well. I had gotten my measurements astonishingly wrong and was, quite simply, digging a really large hole in the wrong place. Gurney's was having a sale on blueberry bushes. Gaye and I made an on-the-spot decision to get into the blueberry-growing business. Besides, I have a single, lonely blueberry bush that wasn't thriving in its perfect soil in a pot. It really wanted to be in the ground with plenty of access to that acidic clay. So I brought over the blueberry bush and plonked it in the center of the hole--mostly to have a place to put the dirt I was now digging out for the proper location of the box. But then I hit a rock. And suffice to say, that after digging out this rock for nearly an hour, I realized that I was simply NOT going to be able to dig out the rock. The rock was staying.

I went and got Gaye and we pondered the situation, and then reluctantly moved the box AGAIN--6 inches more to the west of the original position. At this point, the box is in place. It needs to be shored up in one spot by some of the many rocks that were dug out during the excavation, and in general, we need something to do with those rocks. We need the rest of the blueberry bushes to arrive, so we can fill in the big hole in the spot where the box didn't go, and so that the one bush we do have, doesn't look so lonely.

That said, I checked on the blueberry bush today and in spite of the fact that it was only transplanted 6 days ago, it's sporting all sorts of new growth. It almost screams, "Acidic clay!! Oh!! I'm so happy!!" It's primary rootball sits in nice organic potting soil, but in the pot it was holding way too much moisture, and with the extra moisture wicked away, I suspect it's also happier for that reason.

Anyway, I got ahead of myself because the re-digging of the box didn't happen until Tuesday. So back to Monday afternoon. I went and got the kids and then headed back home where I found an email from a law office I know.

This post is from May 27, 2007:
"Initially I was looking for temporary work, but then an opportunity for a part-time permanent position came up. It's not in education. I haven't done anything like it in years. The pay can't compare to freelancing--but it would be every week, rain or shine. I met and liked the other person in the office. I met and liked the person who would be my boss. If it doesn't come through, I don't know if I'll keep looking for something else. Freelance work, like it always does, has passed through it's difficult pause and there will soon be plenty of work again. But if offered the position, I believe I'll take it. The work would suit me, and getting a supplemental paycheck regularly would suit me, too. I would continue to freelance, but no more taking on two full-time contracts and one more part-time on the side."

There's a WHOLE lot more to the story that doesn't belong on the blog, but in this case, on Monday evening I got an email, and then a phone call, asking if I was still, possibly, maybe, interested in working there while freelancing on the side. And I said, "yes." And so, getting ahead of myself again, I went in on Wednesday and reinterviewed for the job. We'll get back to that.

I still wasn't done with Monday evening. I had a PAC meeting to go to. I went. I ran it. We had a busy conversation. I came home and crashed.

Tuesday I worked most of the day in Gaye's garden getting that box in place so that I could not think about the part-time job. In the afternoon I supervised piano practicing because the annual April recital was coming up and we needed to be ready. Chris was running a focus group for his work, so I led the 11-year-old scouts in a short lesson at the church and then they played football outside until the sun was gone.

Wednesday. Wednesday I dropped the kids off at school, ran over to Target for new pantyhose and a pair of spring shoes since the ones from last spring/summer were shot. I had about 3o minutes before the interview, so I went and got a drink because I was thirsty. And I SPILLED it on the polyester shirt I was wearing. I tried to dab it up, but it's the kind of top that immediately can't be fixed in that situation. I drove around for a few panicked moments and then felt I should go to the interview as is and look for a solution THERE.

Now, I really hit it off with my office mate/office manager there last year and we've exchanged a few emails since, so I showed her the blouse when I got there--still 10 minutes early. She lent me her white sweater. It was perfect. It completely covered the spots and I wouldn't be doing a reinactment of that Tide commercial from the Superbowl.

The interview went fine. I was offered the job. I accepted it. Friday morning we hammered out a schedule for next week. I'll be working around the schedule of the woman who has the job right now for a few weeks while she trains me. Then I can work during the hours the kids are in school.

So, anyway, the interview was Wednesday morning. I was useless for most of the rest of the day. I already knew I had the job and I was very happy. I wanted to find Gaye and tell her what had happened, but she was over at the ~~Senior Crack House~~ Senior Citizen Center. The State College Senior Citizen Center (SCSCC) turns out to be all kinds of fun, full of Mahjong, Scrabble, and regular trips to here and there. They serve a good, cheap lunch, and Gaye is swiftly making lots of friends. When she goes missing, I call there first. (She has since agreed to start carrying her cell phone again.) So I ran home, found out my phone had gone dead, made an appointment with Verizon to get it fixed on Friday (I wasn't in any hurry--for whatever reason, the DSL still worked), hopped out of interview clothing and into jeans, and went downtown. I found Gaye and she agreed to go to JoAnn's fabrics with me. I told her the whole story of the interview adventure. Next to the SCSCC is a goldsmith. I go in and get my rings cleaned. Oooh, shiney. It was a worthwhile whim.

We went to JoAnn's and found a Gentleman Ship's Captain costume to go with the pirate costumes and bought fabric and a lot of buttons for it. Max's play was on Friday and I knew that Thursday was my only shot at sewing it together.

We headed home, picked up the kids, went to piano lessons, had dinner, and I started to cut out fabric. Around this time I got an email reminding me that some dear friends were coming through town this weekend and were spending the night Friday night. I'd totally neglected to write it down. I confessed, but it was all good, and they still came Friday night.

Thursday. Now the week starts to get interesting. I enlist the help of a friend who can sew much better than I and with her help, I get everything done except a small part along one seam, the lace, and the buttons and button holes. I head over to the school and do Reader's Theater with the 2nd graders, take the twins home, and keep sewing. Chris drops off Max at group piano, then picks him up. I think I order pizza or something. It takes me FOREVER but I finally figure out button holes.

However, button holes is the last thing my machine has sewed properly. It hasn't worked since. It jams every which way. I'm at a loss. I start sewing on seven million buttons.

Friday morning. I keep an eye out for Verizon and keep sewing on buttons. I hate sewing buttons. I keep sewing on buttons. Verizon arrives and fixes the problem. It's on their end, so no charge to me. Yay! I talk to the law office and get the schedule for next week. I finish the costume, grab all the stuff for the play, run over to the school, leave the costumes with the woman in charge of the Extended-Day Extravaganza and check the boys out of school-----to get their hair cuts. It was the only time I could do it before the piano recital!! So I just did. We went to the barber, the downtown was crazy. There was a bomb scare of some sort (turned out later to be an experimental insulin pump thing that someone accidentally left somewhere it didn't belong. It had many wires and it looked scary I guess) so they'd emptied the downtown, including the SCSCC. Gaye and I got hold of each other and we picked her up after the hair cuts and took her home. From there we went over to the church where the recital would be so they could practice on the grand piano.

This turned out to be a huge hassle. I won't go into it, but in the end we did get into the building and each boy got to practice their piece at least once on the piano they'd actually be playing on the next day.

We ran back to the school and I left the boys with Chris who'd just arrived. I went to get Gaye and we came back and were treated to a very nice show on the part of the school and the kids. From there Max and Chris went to church to watch the Lip Synch contest and I took the twins and Grandma downtown and we got her car now that the bomb scare was over.

Then the twins and I went and watched the lip synch contest. WONDERFUL! Until Sarah called to say she was on her way. I grabbed the twins and went home and started cleaning. When Chris got there he helped me with the dishes. The place didn't look great, but it looked liveable by the time they got there.

We all wanted to talk and go to sleep simultaneously. Talking won. In the morning (it is now Saturday) we talked and ate and they left an hour and a half later than they meant to. Max and the twins and I got some groceries, dropped off Max at tennis, ran another errand, picked up Max, ran home, made the kids lunch, supervised showers and recital clothing, got us all off to the recital, picked up Gaye, and then . . .

the kids played. And they each did the best they could possibly do. And it was beautiful. By the end we (Chris and I) were each in tears, even though I prayed through most of Max's pieces that he wouldn't be too nervous. Maybe it worked for he was soooo . . . . great :) Just terrific.

This is Miss Irene with some of her students, including Max, far left. He has played with her for three years now.

Here are Ben and Milo with another tiny musician:

Chris is working on the video. There will be DVD's for the grandparents.

After that we went and celebrated at Meyer's Dairy with sundae's and then stopped off at a local farm on the way home to pick up 5 dozen eggs I'd ordered.

We had Quiche Lorraine and Veggie Quiche for dinner with the missionaries--I'd signed up to feed them many weeks before I completely understood the nature of this week.

And tomorrow? Tomorrow is church, followed by a short break, and then a special "Preparing for Priesthood" get together for Max and one of the other "almost a 12-yr-old" boys.

Which is followed by a week in which I start my new part-time job, do the usual piano lessons and stuff, have the kids off from school on Thursday because of parent-teacher conferences, and then on Friday I supervise the volunteers who will be constructing the new school playground (it's just my job just to keep the volunteers happy--and there). There's a Board of Trustees mtg which I will probably have to miss as Sarah and her gang are coming back through and we really want those few hours with them again.

And a week from today? It's easy peasy! Nothing on the schedule but tennis. Oh yeah, and I teach the Relief Society lesson the next day. Well, I'll get that in there somewhere . . . .

Let's make it my goal to keep it that way. Well, only so I can get some gardening done :) Also, hopefully the lawn mower will be fixed early this week because her lawn needs mowing. She gets so much more rain and sun than we do. She already needs a mowing! We'll still have a week or two before we get there.

Photos

2008-04-14T21:59:00.002-04:00

On Chris' blog are some new pictures of the twins. http://pupdad.blogspot.com/

They desperately need haircuts, but I wanted photos of the boys in the vests that my Aunt Charlotte made them, the vest I made Milo from the yarn my grandmother bought me, and the sweater set I made for the twinks out of the yarn Prairie Silk.

With the exception of the plain blue vest, these sweaters are now up for "hand me down" as the twins have been growing at an alarming rate. To get these photos, I did some serious blocking. They are all about a 4T/5T.

I want them to go to Moms who don't mind hand washing, who will understand that all of these will need the occasional depilling, and who will love them for me in abstentia (sp?). They are all basically wool, and fine wool at that. (The Prairie silk obviously has a high silk content, too.)

I'm willing to split up the sets. You don't have to be a relative. Although for the vests, preference will go to relatives who show interest. (And if you're a relative, you don't have to have a kid or be pregnant yet if you just promise not to make sure the item gets USED when the child is the appropriate age.)

So. Please email me with your choices. These are somewhat high maintenance clothing items by today's standards, but they will last more than one child and they are WARM and so wonderful, they can even be worn to church.

A K i n P A AT v e r i (etc.) DOT net [take out spaces and make it a real email address.]

Saturday and Gardening

2008-04-12T20:24:00.002-04:00

A quick rundown of the day:

Got up, got the family going, took firstborn to sporting good's store. Bought him a new pair of shorts that fit, bringing his total of shorts that fit up to 1. It doesn't seem like he's growing exponentially, but I bought all his clothing last year big, so I know he is. We looked at tennis rackets, with no intention of buying, but trying to get a feel of what is out there so we can compare it to what they have at the Ralleyball lesson.

As it turns out, they have pretty much the same racquets at Ralleyball. I was impressed. These things weigh a fraction of the weight I remember as a kid.

I chased ball and even hucked a few. During the actual Rally's, I kept score. Apparently, I was also getting a really great sunburn, but there was a strong breeze through the whole morning and I had no clue. Next week I go slathered in sunscreen and I look for my straw hat. It's got to be around here somewhere. I didn't know we were at that point in the season yet.

We went home, changed into fresh clothes, picked up the rest of the family at Gaye's house, dropped off Max at the practice recital, and drove out to Tait's farm, which is my source for good vegetable seeds and sometimes, good vegetables.

I bought a six-pack of broccoli and some of the veggies I was looking for.

I went home and worked in the yard. Mostly, I raked. But in the process of raking up the side yard, I decided to add a bunch of the dried grass and leaves to the compost heap. And when I got back to the compost heap . . .

A few years ago I picked up a tumbler compost bin from freecycle. The tumbler part was in good shape, but the bottom was nearly rusted out. It's in pretty much the same condition. I couldn't ever seem to get it to really WORK though. My contents mixed up just fine, but they were composting as near as I could tell. After about 6 months, I gave up. It froze, it thawed, it froze, it thawed. And sometime this winter I decided that when it did thaw again, I would scrape out the contents, hose it down, and see if a scrap metal place might want it. So today as I was adding more "brown" to my compost pile, I decided the time had come to at least scrape out the contents. I had finished raking the front and side yard and when else was I going to do it? I went and got my pitchfork and began scraping.

And discovered to my astonishment the most pitch-black, fully composted, omigosh, you-could-really-grow-something-in-this . . . material. It's very compacted and there are a few signs of dried mildew, so I don't trust it in the vegetable garden. But I have a spot along the side of the front porch where I like to grow climbing, flowering things. I have two big things whose name has escaped me since ten days after I bought them. Last summer I had morning glories and I hope to have those again this year. And this year I'm also planting sweet peas. In the past, I've grown herbs there, too. But I find that mostly I don't use them. So instead I spread out the compost there, will plant the morning glories and sweet peas in them, and then after the plants are up, will pile mulch over the whole thing. There are bulbs there that look pretty all summer (I didn't plant those) and the compost will help them, too.

Then I uprighted the old composting barrel and that's as far as I got with that. I don't have the outside spigot turned on yet and I didn't want to deal with the hose today, so I left the hosing out of it for another day.

I checked the time. Still another hour till the birthday party the twins' were attending, so I worked on my vegetable gardens in the front yard. I planted the broccoli, with some queen anne's lace around them. I left the center section of the raised bed garden empty, just cleaning it out and making note of the onions that had survived the winter (which is all of them. Apparently that's what they do.) I think at this point I just wait till they grow a bit, use them for green onions, and then when we're past the last frost date, I'm planting some beans in that spot. In the last third of the box, I again saved most of the space for beans, but planted two rows of radishes just for the fun of it.

After the raised bed, there is a spot of thinning grass about 2 ft by 4 ft, and then another garden bed where I have heavily amended the soil, but it is not actually a garden box. Early in the summer last year, I let a twink plant some "chocolate mint" in the far corner of this spot and I filled the rest of it with beans. The beans struggled as they were besieged by beetles and it took me awhile to find an organic response that gave them any real respite. But the mint took hold.

A week ago I'd pulled all the mint out of the garden bed so I could use that spot for something else, and I sort of noticed that while this was easy enough in my garden where the soil is very loose and the roots pull up in long strings, at the spot where the roots entered the native PA clay soil--those roots weren't going anywhere.

Well, after planting the radishes today I took the rake and again raked up all the leaves I'd pulled out of the garden while cleaning it up and THAT is when I saw the dozens and dozens of tiny little flowering heads peeking up out of the lawn and I realized that the mint intended to replace the grass. All of it. I was immediately alarmed and impressed. I don't really LIKE our front lawn and I'm not sure I'm completely opposed to a lawn of mint--except that it looks AWFUL over the winter. Smells good when you rake it though.

I discussed the issue with Chris later and he immediately came up with a perfect solution. So now I'm happy and the mint that has spread so far . . . gets to stay.

Then in the smaller bed I planted lettuce, red onion sets, and yellow onion sets.

Except for the beans, nearly everything else is going in the beds over at Grandma Gaye's house. We'll come back to that.

So then I ran in, jumped in the shower, jumped into clean clothes, realized I'd picked up a fantastic sunburn over the course of the day, grabbed the twinkies and went to a very noisy birthday party. I knit through most of the party, which is something because I have not been knitting as much lately.

By the time I got home I plonked the twinkies in bed and finished putting some seeds in a seed-starting mix. These are the last of the seeds I'll start indoors. And it mostly constitutes what we'll be growing this year.

The biggest difference this year is that I'm growing many few varieties of tomatoes (and honestly, fewer plants) and I'm growing more beans and gobs of flowers. The flowers are mostly to attract butterflies and birds to Gaye's yard and because the previous owner succeeded in taking reasonably good care of the least landscaped yard I have ever seen. He must really like taking care of his grass. Gaye would like a little more color. I don't blame her.

There was this big, decaying stump in the back yard, so I built a box to go around it and after I finish getting it installed (it's a big digging job), I'll show it to you. Most of this box will be a random mix of wild flowers from a bag that promises to attract butterflies and birds, but we've got a few things planted on purpose, too.

So, 2008's garden:

Veggies
Hot Peppers: Heavenly Jalapeno Hybrid, Paper Lanterns, Fatali, habaneros
Tomatoes: Mortgage Lifter, Amana Orange, Black Prince, Red German Strawberry, Granny Cantrell's German Pink, Tobolsk, and probably more volunteers from wherever the critters burried tomato seeds last fall.
Corn: I have two SU varieties and two SE varieties and after doing some fancy google-fu, it would seem this means that I *can* plant them at the same time. The SU's are Hybrid Honey & Cream and Hybrid Silver Queen. The SE's are Ruby Queen Hybrid (for which I achieved 0% germination last year, but goshdarnit, I'm going to try again) and the Sugar Pearl Hybrid
Strawberries: I totally forget. I ordered them from Gurney's and 50 plants will be arriving some time later this spring. Max and I will have like 48 hours to get them in the ground at that point.
Lettuce: Black Seeded Simpson and then whatever else I bought on a whim.
Squish: Waltham Butternut, Early Prolific Straightneck, Zucchini, Wyatt's Wonder Giant Pumpkins, New England Pie
Onions: Red and Yellow
Melons: Moon & Stars, muskmelon, Rocky Ford Muskmelon, Sugar Baby Watermelon
Beans: Sugar Sprint, Black Valentine, Trionfo Viletto (Purple Beans?), Scarlet Emperor Runner Bean
And some radishes

Flowers
Ornamental Kale
Bronze Fennel
Asclepias, Silky Formula Mix (milkweed)
Red Cored Chantenay carrots (for Eastern Black Swallowtails)
"Butterfly and Bird Mix"
and there are daffodils and hyacinths already out in Gaye's yard and I expect the daffodils to be up in my yard soon, too. The Idon'tknowwhat's that I love so much around the base of the pear tree and the sour cherry tree are done looking dead and are sending up green shoots.

And I still have about 4 hours of work left to do on raking up the back yard before I can fertilize the lawn and I'm desperate to get the boxes into Gaye's yard so they're not just standing there on top of her lawn, but I will take deep breaths and trust that it will all get done because the next seven days are packed to the gills AND I have to mail off my taxes.

So there you have it.

Friday

2008-04-11T21:03:00.003-04:00

I think what I was supposed to do today was rake the yard at my house in the morning and then go help out at Gaye's in the afternoon, but I got wrapped around the axle in the morning working on job applications and by the time I got back from spending the check I got for teaching those knitting classes back in February, I barely got a quarter of the front yard raked before it started to rain.

So I worked on laundry and dishes and picking up around the house and the next thing I knew it was time to go pick up the kids. I brought them back home and worked on more housework, and then it was dinner time and now suddenly it's 9pm. How does that happen?

Tomorrow Max and I have tennis from 10:30 till noon and then a make-up group piano lesson from 1 to 2pm. After that, I'm not sure. I need to keep on the laundry and the house cleaning before it gets away from me again, but I also need to make more progress raking--and at the same time, it's supposed to rain tomorrow.

I shouldn't worry. I don't have work for Monday and Tuesday and although the rest of the week gets progressively crazier--I don't have workwork then either. There should be enough time to finish Spring Cleaning at both houses and get the lawn raked and fertilized at my house and finish installing the flower box at Gaye's house.

That's what I keep telling myself anyway. What am I racing? I guess part of it is that I want to be ready to jump into a full-time job if it calls. Part of it is . . . I don't know really. It's spring and maybe I secretly believe that if I get all the vegetable beds ready and the lawns growing well that will make it late spring earlier. As I was pondering the fact that I was completely helpless to NOT buy another packet of corn seeds in the face of finding a variety I can never find anywhere else, in spite of the fact that it will mean some complicated timing on the part of corn planting because the four varieties of corn I have now can't be polinating within three weeks of each other (that's better than it sounds. It's two sets of SU corn and two sets of SE(?) corn. Each set can be planted at the same time, but the two sets can't be planted at the same time.

I lost total control of that sentence. My point is that I guess the gardener in me just can't be reasoned with sometimes. I find myself driving along, wondering if I should go ahead and put lime on the lawns this year. You have to do that sometimes with clay soil. I need to get the lawn mowers to the machine shop for sharpening and maintenance. I want to go ahead and put in some onions and I wonder how much longer before Tait farm will have broccoli. It'll probably be awhile yet.

But tomorrow is all about getting Max off to a good start in tennis and then if the weather cooperates, getting more raking done. Chris will head over to Gaye's and help her hand pictures and move a small dresser and mirror from her place to ours so Max's room can, maybe, be a little tidier.

Wish us luck in tennis.

Alright

2008-04-09T21:23:00.003-04:00

Now, I know y'all know I can't spell my way out of a paper sack, but despite that, I do usually manage to catch the most glaring errors before hitting "publish." In the event I accidentally make a typo--such as hitting the U instead of the I (they're right next to each other on the keyboard)--resulting in a word that doesn't exist . . . it's okay to help me out in the comments.

I wanted to blog but now that I'm in front of the keyboard I'm feeling shy. So maybe I'll try to come at the topic from a different angle than I originally pictured. (Chris says, "You're going to try to sneak up on yourself?")

Since Chris started attending church with me, things have changed a lot for me spiritually. It started in some superficial ways. First of all, he's so much better than I am at learning names and relationships. He'll meet a guy and remember his name, match him up to his wife, know which kids are his, and even remember the name of most of the kids. I'm lucky if I remember that I met the guy before. It's not that I'm an idiot. I think it's half character-defect, half genuinely poor memory for names. What I mean by character defect is that ironically I happen to believe that NOT learning the names of the people you meet is basically revealing that at some level you don't care about them. And when I'm really stressed out and in survival mode, I guess that's fair. I can't deal with new people, so I don't. But when Chris started attending and he was learning names left and right, I felt pushed to keep up. I mean, I didn't want him talking about how great so-and-so was and how neat his son was and I didn't have a clue who Chris was talking about. Chris has is a good judge of character. I started coming out of my shell a bit and doing better at learning names.

And that led to me feeling closer to the ward and being less willing to miss the occasional meeting.

And that led to me hearing many more talks and Sunday School lessons and Relief Society lessons.

And that led to me making some changes at home. Finally having regular prayers at dinner. The occasional Family Home Evening. Subscribing to the Ensign and the Friend again.

Actually reading them.

Cracking the scriptures from time to time. Reading the lesson ahead of time more often. Participating a lot in the lessons. Bearing my testimony from time to time. I'd been paying tithing and sticking to the Word of Wisdom since before Chris started attending, but these things got easier.

I really LOVE my church, love my faith. I think being a Latter Day Saint rocks. But I also felt chronically behind and like I would NEVER catch up. I'd never be much GOOD at being LDS. And that feeling of being grateful for being welcomed back into the fold after . . . everything . . . I felt I would always feel in debt.

When Chris decided to get baptized, I didn't think I could feel much more grateful. It was like finding out that I was pregnant with twins again--God's mercy went so far beyond what I deserved.

Then at some point . . . maybe it was February? I missed the actual meeting. The Relief Society set the goal to read the Book of Mormon by October's General Conference meeting. I started three weeks after the kick-off date, but their pace was so reasonable, that by reading ten pages a day for about ten days I was caught up.

I've read the Book of Mormon cover to cover before. I did it before I got baptized and I did it again about a year later. Like, maybe, everyone, I struggled to understand it all. When President Hinkley issued the challenge to read the Book of Mormon a couple years ago, I didn't make it all the way through. I got close, but not all the way through.

But this time is sooo different. Maybe it's just that with Chris' support, I have a better connection with the Spirit and so . . . things make more sense. Maybe it's because it's my fifth time through this section of the book. Maybe it's because I'm older, wiser. Maybe it's because I only have to read a chapter or two a day and I'm finding it less of a problem to make the time to read carefully. Maybe it's because I don't let more than one day go by if I must miss a reading. Maybe it's a combination of all of those things.

But a few key points of doctrine are imbedding themselves in my heart this time in a way they haven't in the past. I am accepting Christ's atonement--with deep gratitude--but not resisting it the way I used to. I used to think, not consciously, but at some level, that maybe I could take back my sins upon myself and suffer for them myself so he wouldn't have to. But that's not the plan of salvation, and to do so is to not understand the nature of the atonement--and the importance of, well, all the details. His innocence, for example. It's my job to repent, but not to get stuck in any particular part of it, either. There's nothing edifying about getting stuck in feeling horrible about something.

It's not just that I'm enjoying the Book of Mormon and that I'm enjoying being able to keep up with the others reading it--I really look forward to that time to read each day. It's not as hard to remember to pray. I do so more reflexively.

Chris gets frustrated because his own spiritual progression--well, it's his. And he's a guy who learns things easily and masters new skills quickly and spiritual matters, they're just different. They're not like that.

But I feel like the distance he has gone--the questions he has asked and the basic things he has done to make sure we all get to church on time every Sunday--these have paid dividends for me that I don't take for granted. There is really something to the FACT that every step he takes on his journey moves us both forward. It's much more powerful than I ever expected. Not the superficial stuff (like me now knowing my own ward soooo much better) but the deep stuff. The places where fundamental change occur. And I'm grateful because I have wanted those changes, but I just couldn't get here without him.

And that is all I have to say about that.

Speaking Out Against Injustice

2008-04-08T10:35:00.004-04:00

I had to do a bunch of Chair of the PAC type things this morning. I sang Happy Birthday to the school secretary, I hung up a sign encouraging people to get involved in the playground construction, I posted the proposed agenda for the April meeting, I gave the school secretary the April meeting notices to go home in backpacks . . .

Max and the twinks were playing in the gym with the other early kids initially, but as I went to the back door where half the parents pick up their kids later in the day (so I have to post all my signs twice) I noticed him hanging out in the hall, in a small space between his locker and the door. He was looking downcast and--well, a mom knows when all is not well.

I asked him what was wrong and he said that another student (one he considers a friend usually) called him a Spaz, which he thinks means the same as Retard. His feelings were deeply hurt and he was deeply discouraged by the fact that since (student name) had come to the class, she'd introduced all kinds of new put downs to the class. Before said student arrived, this small group of sheltered Charter School and post-homeschool kids hadn't known you could hurt each other with names like "gay, retard, faggot," and a few other choice putdowns I can no longer recall in this moment. He said, "I didn't expect to hear words like this until maybe 8th grade or high school!"

Max's teacher is out. She's very sick and apparently anemic, too. But his assistant teacher was there--a man who I can't quite figure out. But I'm pretty sure that at some point in his life, he's been called some of those names, too. (Haven't we all?)

He was right around the corner, so I led Max to the classroom and I said simply, "Say again to Mr. W what you said to me." And Max did, pretty much word-for-word. I emphasized that he (Max) needed to let go of the WHO brought the words in the classroom. If many students were using the words, then the words now belonged to the voice of the classroom. We three talked about how we might speak to the classroom about how hurtful these words are, how small the class is, how long they'll be together until graduation. There's only one class till graduation. There's no shuffling and getting away from another student. The class needs to choose as a group to speak to each other in non-hurtful ways.

And I also gently let Max know that he was going to probably have to develop a slightly thicker skin. "But not too thick," I said to him, giving him a hug. "No," said Mr. W, "We don't want to change the sweet kid you fundamentally are."

So hopefully Mr. W will host that conversation with the kids. And hopefully their hearts will soften and they will hear the words that he says and know in their hearts that they CAN be kinder to each other and that their own happiness lies in choosing positive ways to talk to each other.

Pray for his class. They really are a sweet group with a couple of kids who just entered the Charter school scene this year and arrived a little . . . hardened. Pray that they will have this conversation and that it will bring them closer and that it will help them appreciate Max more--not cause him greater grief.

Where to Start?

2008-04-06T20:37:00.002-04:00

It was General Conference weekend and so Saturday I worked and worked and worked and listened to the talks on my computer. I was supposed to take Ben and Milo to a classmates' birthday party but totally lost track of time. Omigosh, I felt so awful. We got there in time to give him his presents but the boys--all of them, really, were crushed. A friend from church took the twins back to her place so they could play with her daughter for a couple of hours. I went home and had dinner with Chris and Max, went to get the twins, and then came home and worked again until 2am.

That's how it is with this job. You work and work and work and work and then . . . wait 6 to 8 weeks to get paid and then weather ANOTHER work slowdown.

So. The resumes are out. I am slogging my way through my certification paperwork so I can at least sub. I have some good leads and a few people in my corner to help me this time around. I have loved having the flexibility of my job the last 9 years and I was/am good at it. But I think I've come to the point with it where it's not worth it and I just want something more. I'm happier doing Reader's Theater on Thursday afternoons for nothing--and that's with second graders. I'm not notoriously at my best with the 3rd grade and under crowd.

After talking to the wrong people at Penn State, I happened to mention to the Vice-Principal at the charter school that I was hoping to pick up an ESL certificate and she referred me to the local Ed office. I can do this as continuing ed! That makes like $9,000 less. For about $1,000 I finish the course work for it. And I can do a bunch of it online.

This past week for me was a blur of kids activities and canning beans and working and job hunting and I'm expecting more of the same for the upcoming week--except that the weather is supposed to be better, so I'm hoping to get some yard work done.

Today was a very nice watching General Conference at Gaye's house and then having burritos for dinner and then . . . and then it was bedtime. And that is all I get to write tonight for now it is bedtime already for me, too.

So Much to Update

2008-04-06T11:27:00.002-04:00

Well, I thought I'd have time for a quick update here before we head off to Gaye's house to watch the Sunday morning of General Conference, but I really don't have time, so I'll have to do that when I get back. I'm sort of writing this to hold myself accountable.

Tuesday Evening Update

2008-03-25T22:02:00.002-04:00

I'm up to my neck in workwork, so I'll just post that there are two families genuinely interested in the Blue Truck and both would give it a good home. So that's hopeful.

I jotted down this bit earlier today:

Paper Lantern
This tender shoot is bowed double,
both ends buried under the dirt
in which its seed is buried.
Tomorrow one end will have broken free
reaching for the light strung up just inches above it.

This isn’t real summer.
This is a false summer of heating mats
and grow lights and green house plastic
to hold in the humidity.

36 plugs of dirt and this is the first shoot,
the first glowing green rising
just 2 mm above the soil,
but under the lights I couldn’t miss it.

One glimpse and the whole summer stretches before me.
I can suddenly see heavily burdened tomato plants
and wild climbing beans, butterfly bushes,
squash plants run wild, watermelons creeping toward the house.

I feel bent double myself under the weight of a car payment
and work deadlines and a kitchen that never gets clean,
but I see that tender shoot and smile.
She will be free of the dirt and I will be free of the debt.
She’s a Paper Lantern--a 5 out of 5 on the hot pepper scale.
She may be bent double, vulnerable today,
but come September she’ll make one hot taco.

Because I Really Need It to Sell THIS WEEK

2008-03-24T13:11:00.002-04:00

Dear Blue Truck,

I know you don't want to go, and I totally understand why. We made your life meaningful. You seat 8, and I could come up with 8 people to sit in you on a regular basis. You have a removable third-row of seating and I really appreciated how easy that was to remove. I never had any trouble finding things to fit in the back either. You drove all the kids and two dogs from CA to PA and the only ongoing quirk you developed was to insist you didn't have any oil pressure until after you'd warmed up in very cold weather. Your leather seats were easy to clean. Your VHS player--played vhs movies. You entertained my twins when noone else could. You were hard to park--but easy to drive because I could see around and over everything. You pulled trailers and hauled sleds and waited patiently between deep cleanings.

But hon, you're a Ford Expedition and my gas budget can't take it anymore. We bought you used, for a good price, but promptly moved to a part of the country with a much lower cost of living and we've been upside-down ever since. I've made payments on you for over three years and I just can't afford two more years of this, even though I'm pretty sure I've now paid all the interest on the loan. Your monthly payment stands between me and peace of mind. This month, your monthly payment and your brake repair bill stood between me and the mortgage payment.

I'm sorry. You have to go. I'm sure you'll find another family! You'll find someone with more kids--who can't fit in a Taurus no matter what they do. They'll need your leather seats and 23 cup holders just as much as we did. They'll love that their 8-yr-old Blues Clues tapes still play in your machine and entertain the triplets in the way back. They won't love the gas mileage, but just like we did for so long--they'll forgive you for meeting so many other needs.

So please. Keep it together. You've always been such a surprisingly dependable truck. Stand up straight. You're going to get a bath and vacuuming of your carpet. You'll be febreezed within an inch of your life. You'll look good, smell good--show them how great you really are, and try to get yourself sold before your registration is up in ten days. You'll love your new family and they'll love you; Buck up, Trucky Truck. Your future is still ahead of you, but it's not here.

In Like a Lion, Still Pretty Lion Like

2008-03-21T22:42:00.002-04:00

I wanted to do a quick blog entry this evening, but I also want to get to bed pretty soon, so I'm keeping myself honest by blogging with the laptop on battery. It's not a new battery, so that should give me, oh, ten minutes maybe.

I don't have any new photos to add. I'd like to get Max's hair cut in the morning so that Chris can take a portrait of him in his orange sweater--so I can post that. We'll see.

This week was very slow for workwork. I finally picked up a project today that will keep me busy through next week, but in the meantime, I spent the week doing spring cleaning. The kind where you think you'll just put away the clean clothes and then the next thing you know you've reorganized your half of the closet and filled two trash bags for Goodwill. The twins' room is clean, the living room is clean, the kitchen--well, I've kept the kitchen in near constant use and half of it's remaining "free" space is now housing the green house and it's hotpepper seedlings--so it doesn't look much better than normal. But it has moments of looking better.

Last night the twins' kindergarten teacher called and asked if she could do a home visit. Since my house is rarely clean, I jumped at the chance to have her come when it wouldn't totally mortify me. I don't really get why the school pushes the teachers to do home visits. I know they do, and I know the teachers do them, but I don't get them. We didn't sit down and discuss anything. She came and the twins gave her a tour of their bedroom. (Which is pretty sparse. All their toys are downstairs. All their books are on the bookshelves in the living room.) Emily wanted desperately to lick her all over, but I wouldn't let her. The twins invited Kg Teacher out to the back yard to play on their swingset. So they went out there and talked and talked and talked. Emily and I got bored supervising, so I went and found a tennis ball for Emily and I hucked it for her and she brought it back until at last she collapsed happily in a heap of old leaves. Wonder how many fleas she picked up.

Then Kg Teacher said a happy goodbye and I brought the twins over to Gaye's house to color eggs. Too many cooks spoil the broth, even in a kitchen twice the size of mine, so I let Gaye oversee that and the three boys dyed eggs with G'ma while I attacked the WAY overgrown bushes along Gaye's back perimeter with a saw and pruning shears. Two bushes came down altogether. The other two were savagely pruned back. But I think they may look nice when they recover. I'll have to stick a fertilizer stick in the ground near them. And find out when brush collection is. The resulting twigs take up a lot more room than the original bushes ever did.

We get a snowstorm tonight bringing, oh, not a lot of snow. But enough to remind us that winter doesn't give up that easily here at 1,000 ft above sea level. I'm thinking about putting the winter boots in the attic this weekend anyway. Take that, snow.

I spent two hours at another Board of Trustees meeting for the school tonight and I wasn't disappointed. I enjoy them in a really geeky way and I will probably keep attending them occasionally next year when it's not even my job to do so anymore.

And that is the end of my battery.

For Now . . .

2008-03-19T22:18:00.002-04:00

This is just a teaser until Chris can take a photo of Max IN the sweater.

Yarn: Cotton Fleece by Brown Sheep Company
Pattern: Orange Twist by Marie Grace with some modifications including cables from Viking Patterns to Knit
Size 40"

It's a good bit too big on the boy and he loves it that way. It looks pretty good on me, actually. Luckily, it's bright orange. So it's totally his.

Emily and Earl

2008-03-17T10:14:00.003-04:00

Emily has a profound need to chase balls and squirrels. They are, apparently, her reason for living (other than loving us, of course). The very DOGNESS of standard poodles are, I swear, the best kept secret of the pure-bred dog world. Why do people breed poodles and labradors? It is soooo redundant--poodles already HAVE the warm, joyous, ohmigoshiloveyousoooooooooomuch personality of the lab and they're just a tiny bit smarter. I will never, ever have anything other than a standard poodle, ever again. (Unless poor Chris dies, in which case I will have a standard poodle AND some cats. Actually, if he dies, I'll probably get like three standard poodles and three cats and turn into one of those crazy old women who have cats and dogs and never go anywhere because they can't find their keys.)

Chris got Earl the Squirrel for Emily for Christmas. I don't know who makes it but it had dog club sticker on it (you know, the one that does all the papers for breed dogs. I'm blanking on the name right now). It is the most phenomenally resilient stuffed dog toy EVER. They should make houses out of this material. Emily has killed and attempted to gut Earl (because he rhymes with squirrel and because, you know the Dixie Chicks song . . . Earl had to die) a million times, and although he's gotten crusty, he's still in one piece. She likes to bring him to unsuspecting visitors so they can huck Earl for her. I was just uploading a photo of recently finished baby sweater and found this photo on the camera:

I laughed a mighty laugh and then hoarked it for the blog. [from the family glossary: HOARK: v. to swipe, often gleefully]

Here's that baby sweater: size 6-12 months if you're a big, jovial baby. Size 12-18 months if you're a petite little thing. This was knit for a big baby boy.

It is my favorite baby sweater pattern of all time. I have modified it a smidge because I have the pattern memorized, (not that that keeps me from making stupid mistakes. I did have to rip this back clear to the bottom of the neckline because I, apparently, can't count.)

I can't find my keys. I can't keep up with the housework (no, I mean, it's even worse than normal). I drove to New Jersey on my way to Washington D.C. I can't count my stitches for a baby sweater I've knit 5 or 7 or 9 times. I drive places and forget where I'm going on the way. At what point is it time to see a doctor? I've taken to counting the children every 10 minutes or so like I did when the twins were just starting to walk/run, just so I don't lose one in this pathetic excuse for brain activity!

Gardening, Knitting, and Patience

2008-03-15T22:07:00.003-04:00

I knit pretty much anywhere and everywhere. I've knit through school board meetings and classes and seminars and road construction and wedding receptions and conference calls and many, many dinners out and parties and social events. I knit because it calms me down. I knit because it gives me something to do while I wait. I knit because I enjoy it and the good feelings of the knitting fit the good feelings of the social event. I knit because the baby I'm knitting for is having a growth spurt AS I KNIT. I knit for lots of reasons. But I don't knit because I AM a patient person. I knit in spite of being an impatient person.

Today Gaye and I went to Lowe's and bought a few potting and seeding supplies for me so I can start my hot pepper plants. I have written on my gardening calendar for today "start pepper seedlings." Technically, this means both sweet peppers and hot peppers, but I don't get as excited about the sweet peppers. I should, given the grocery store prices, but I didn't have as successful a year with them last year, so I'm still kind of hesitant to get too excited about them.

Anyway, we also got the lumber and screws we needed to start putting together the raised beds we're starting in Gaye's back yard this spring. She gets two veggie gardens and a BIG bird and butterfly garden for her backyard. Her yard is huge and open and sunny and right now is nothing but grass. So we're adding some things to it. She doesn't much care as long as we can make the front yard look green and lush and have lots of pretty things growing there. So my job is to make the front yard look that way and then in exchange, I get to plant corn for Chris and melons for Max and strawberries for Max, and flowers for the butterflies, and tomatoes and hot peppers and probably everything else for me.

We got back to her place and I started assembling boxes. This went quickly and smoothly until the battery in the drill died. We tried charging it for awhile while we took a break, but it didn't charge fast enough and the last box will have to be done Monday afternoon.

So I took the twinks home (Chris and Max had gone to a movie) and they played outside, because they could, while I installed new locks in the front door and main bathroom (long story: short version--they needed them). Then I started gathering items for starting the seeds and realized I was missing one key ingredient: the seeds.

I'd ordered them about ten days ago, but they haven't arrived yet. I went through my old seeds and found a couple packages from last summer that might still be viable this year, but mostly I'm just going to have to wait.

So I'm back to knitting tonight.

I will say this. Every spring I am impatient for more spring. Every spring I start the seeds too soon. This year I have tried very hard not to. Last year I started them on March 2. This year it looks like I'll be running about three weeks later on the peppers and hopefully another week after that before I start tomatoes. And I think that'll end up timing things just about right.

I'm off to finish a baby sweater so I can give it to the Mom at church tomorrow. That'll hopefully make up for the things that were started today but not finished.

Mini-Vacation

2008-03-14T22:27:00.002-04:00

On Tuesday I packed up the Mom-in-law, the twinks, the big kid, some overnight clothes, and a bunch of maps and headed south for Washington D.C.

On four hours of sleep.

Which is probably a large part of why it was that it took us 6 hours to get there.

On account of that detour I took through New Jersey.

New Jersey is NOT on the way to Washington D.C. if you start in State College, PA, but I went there first anyway.

Here is a photo of the twins in their Christmas shirts to distract you from how incredibly stupid that detour was:

We got there and checked into a Best Western by the Beltway and even though it was past it's glory days--it was really a pretty nice hotel. It was CLEAN, it smelled good, the service was good, it had a free continental breakfast, and it was incredibly inexpensive for the area. Lanham, Maryland. There. Now you know where to stay the next time you want to bring your kids to Washington D.C. but can't afford $280 per night or more.

Anyway, we ate, we returned to the hotel, two hours and much giggling later, everyone but me finally fell asleep. I worked. Finished around 1am.

We got up at 7:30 am, took turns taking a shower, ate at the continental breakfast (the twins made fast friends with "Ms. Jo" which is short for Josephine. We learned a lot about Josephine and she learned a lot about us.), and the drove into D.C. We parked at an underground parking garage a block from the place where we were renting an electric scooter for Gaye. The all-day rate was $2 less than me buying metro tickets for us all. And the drive into D.C. wasn't bad at all, honestly. (Although I should have bought gas earlier in the trip. S'okay. Worked out fine.)

We found the scooter place, decided the scooter was pretty cool. Walked and scooted from there the block to the Museum of Natural History.

We saw natural things.

Stuffed, formerly natural things.

and lots of gift shops.

We were there for hours, then ate in the museum cafeteria downstairs, which was far more expensive than . . . well, anything else we did in the whole trip. Don't ask.

From there we walked and scooted over to the air & space museum, but we hit the sculpture garden on the way (not my photo)

and waved at the Merry-Go-Round at the Smithsonian from a distance with a promise to visit it soon. (Photo not mine. I borrowed it from Christopher George at http://christophertgeorge.blogspot.com/2007/03/grab-brass-ring.html. It is his photo and after a few days of linking here so that my loyal readers get a feel for what we saw, I'll unlink because . . . I'm not sure I should even be showing the photo here without permission.) Honestly, we didn't even get close enough to the Merry-go-round to see it this well.

Okay, so we hit the Air & Space Museum and discovered . . . that we were just plain exhausted. So we saw a funny old black and white short and we looked at the exhibit of the planets, and we visited the highlights of the Museum of American History--which are temporarily in the corner of the Air & Space Museum. I took many photos of Mr. Roger's sweater:

Because I hope to knit one like that for all the boys (big and small) some day.

And then we agreed that the Smithsonian is more than our merry band can do in one trip and we'll have to go back soon:

And we drove home, this time, skipping New Jersey and Delaware. It went much faster that way.

We still took longer than we should have.

20 minutes from home we sat for an hour while police cleared the hull of a burnt-out truck. (We don't think anyone was hurt.)

And then, happily, we were back home.

Can't wait to do it again . . . without the New Jersey part.

But why?

2008-03-11T22:15:00.001-04:00

I am a
Lily

What Flower
Are You?

Closing Doors

2008-03-06T13:38:00.002-05:00

Not very long ago I stumbled across this New York Times article about how painful it is for human beings to intentionally "close a door." The study detailed in the article uses virtual doors to stand in for metaphorical doors, but this topic is near and dear to me. Understanding the advantage of intentionally closing some doors was behind my encouraging Chris to leave Honda. It is there when I close paid-off lines of credit. It is upper-most in my mind as I try to decide how I want to earn income for the next decade.

In the article, they briefly touch on how difficult it is to close doors on behalf of our children, too--leaving them over-scheduled.

The timing couldn't be better, as the summer is coming and if we're going to do swim team with the kids, I need to figure out how to cram more swim lessons back into Ben and Milo's schedule so they can make it all the way across the pool this year.

But I am loathe to cram anything else into their schedules. I can't tell you how much I would like for the boys to have . . . summer. They will be 6 and a half this summer. We have a big backyard. Grandma has a big backyard. There is an even mile between us with exactly one bad intersection.

What if we didn't join the swim team? What if we just got a family pass to the pool for the summer and made it a goal to go four times a week for exercise?

What if we went down to the creek they are so enchanted with and looked for a safe place to access it, set up the rules, and let them play?

We'll still have piano practice. Max is doing two weeks of summer "camp." We're going cabin camping with one set of grandparents and possibly some of my siblings. I'll have work to do. I hope to work with the twins on their writing. I hope Max reads a lot. And they will, because I don't mind it in moderation, play lots on the Wii and Game Cube.

They can ride bikes at the school at the end of the block. I'll need their help weeding and watering gardens. They can do butterfly inventories (Gramma Gaye and I bought a mix of butterfly and hummingbird flower seed) and have their friends over for playdates.

How bad would it be if the only place we HAD to be for most of June, July, and August was church and the occasional piano lesson?

I write it out like this and the answer seems obvious. It wouldn't be bad at all. Let the door close. Let the swim lesson sign-ups pass.

++++++++++++

I'm having an odd week, mostly because the schedule for pretty much everything I do was different this week and there were just weird blips. OTOH, I've had a lot of fun with Gaye this week, who has pretty much kept me sane. I just drive her places. We hit a garden nursery yesterday and walked away with some new plants for me and some big plans for her yard. Today at the Waffle Shop we planned out where her new raised-bed gardens will go, where the Chris Hults Corn Garden will go, and what to do with the slope in her backyard that could be pretty and not need mowing if we act son.

I posted some of our questions to the Organic Gardening forum and am awaiting answers.

It's about time for me to head over to the school for the usual Thursday afternoon volunteering. Then we're using the kids' book-reading pizza coupons for dinner and calling it a day.

POW! It's Been a Week

2008-02-29T21:30:00.003-05:00

And what a week it's been.

I got slammed with work. And while I was having to cancel things left and right, there were things I just didn't feel I could and so I did all those things, too. (One was the teacher appreciation breakfast at the school this morning for which the boys and I got up at 6am. But as ready as they all were to go to bed early, they--especially Max--really had fun helping.)

I'm still slammed, but I have to stop and sleep tonight before getting up and starting all over again. It's snowing like the dickens. Max got on the phone and found a friend to go skiing with tomorrow afternoon. This made me happy. Tomorrow afternoon is my last lace knitting class. Mental note: no more doubling up on knitting classes. One knitting class in a month is fun. Two is a job and it doesn't pay nearly enough.

A lot happened this week. We found a treasurer for the PAC. I had a ton of fun reading poems with the second graders. I had the last session of the "Wellness" experiment I've been participating in at Penn State (I know, I haven't blogged about that at all. Ask me later. It was food for thought. Literally.) I got terribly behind in dishes and further behind in laundry. If the propane people don't show up this coming Wednesday I'll have been without a way to dry my clothes for over two weeks. They keep skipping me and saying, "oops." I'd just have them come get my tank and get a new company--but I don't want to pay the horrific deposit on a new tank.

And it's snowing again. So beautiful. I hope it's the snow that comes right before the big warm up and the crocuses.