Daily Reason for Why YOU Should Move to State College, PA, too.

This view is one mile from our house. And free.


This view is six miles from our house. And parking and swimming and everything but the Spongebob Squarepants popscicles is free.


This kid is not for sale, but if you move here and become my friend then the view of him is FREE.


More free swimming. Sunshine included as available. Available a lot actually.


Knitting a shawl is not free, but the sunburn is :)


Grandma and grandson are NOT for sale, but the fun swim meet is and (soda) pop is only 50 cents.


This house is NOT free, but it is for sale, and it's on the national registry of historic houses or something like that. Great backyard. Open house tomorrow!

Sister Hults! Will you have some time tomorrow . . .

Ah, that phone call. I've been expecting it since moving into the ward. Not that I have any free time, but if I had some, I have a feeling it's soon to be gone. The question is: what calling will it be? Working with the young women for activity night? That's two evenings a month and while it doesn't sound like much, two evenings a month is tough when I don't get to pick the evenings (because of work). Still, I'll bet working with the young women is fun. mostly. Okay, no, the thought petrifies me. Anyway. The other possibility is being the emergency preparedness person -- AKA the bulk food and materials ordering coordinator type person. I'm REALLY hoping it's that one. I'm all out of potato pearls.

I give up!

Proper term or not, I'm shocking myself every time I go to look at my own blog. wimp.

This is Alaska, and this is her, um, female dog, Emily

Yesterday I heard that word more frequently than I have, I think, in my previous 37 years on the planet. I was, of course, at a dog show. Emily and I went over there to meet with a breeder who lives a few hours away and knows a thing or two about red/apricot poodles. I'd been doing my homework into what it would involve to breed Emily and after many emails and much Internet surfing, I'd contacted Terry. Terry had, by chance, planned to be here in State College this weekend for the dog show, and he agreed to take a look at Emily and evaluate her. You're not supposed to breed a female who would not "further the breed." Now that Emily is older, I thought I'd better have someone tell me if she really was of breeding stock.

So we went over to the fairgrounds and walked around looking at the RVs, the dogs in their pens, the puppies in their pens, the 60-year-old men and women sitting in folding chairs under their RV awnings. Emily was beside herself there was just so much to SMELL. I liked looking at all the dogs. The whole place was surprisingly quiet.

Eventually with the help of a cell phone I found Terry's RV. He was friendly, smart, and had that air of one who has been through the wringer in life and came out on the other side of it sure of himself, content with the life he has carved out, and independent of the opinion of the others. In short, I liked him immediately. His partner was busy doing I'm not sure what, but it had the air of chores and we said polite hellos but didn't talk much beyond that. He seemed maybe a little shy.

We spent a little over an hour talking and most of it was Terry giving me a crash course on poodle conformation (what a "perfect" poodle would have in the way of physical characteristics) and where Emily stood in all of that. (She's got great feet, but her head is too "wide".) [Chris has been walking around the house for the last day snuggling her up and then telling her in his Emily-dog voice that she's an ugly poodle and it's a shame she's so darn long but at least she has all her teeth.] He went over the tests she should have and there are more than twice as many as the ones her sire and dam have -- but two of them are adrenal system related and since I lost my absolute favorite cat ever, an Abyssinian, to a breed-related kidney problem, I don't have any problem doing more than Emily's breeder did. Losing her was devastating and I gather the increase in kidney problems in apricot poodles is relatively recent.

Are you yawning yet?

Well anyway, Terry went in to his RV at one point to get one of his other dogs to illustrate a point he was making and I looked at my cell phone and realized with horror that it was MUCH later than I thought and Max's swim meet had already started. So I choked out some thanks and then we ran the entire way back to the truck. There was nothing to be done for it. Emily had to come to the swim meet.

Well, Emily may have to come to all the fall football games, too because she was a HUGE hit with the other kids. Oh the petting and the attention and the celebrity-like status she had! She occasionally looked at me with a plea for peace, but in general, she knew it was only what she deserved. After Max's third race Chris and Gaye and the twins went home and they took Emily with her. I got a little knitting done and then it was Max's final race. We packed up and headed home.

Today Gaye went back to Northern California. We decided she'd come back for Halloween and the twins' birthday as she was getting in the truck to go to the airport. Then I went back in the house and sat down to work and most of the rest of the day was a quiet one. I worked on getting information for Max's football league because for some reason I wasn't getting league email. Max went to a friend's house to play and I took Emily and we went back to the fairgrounds for a bit.

Terry had said he'd introduce me to the groomer who works at the very place I took Emily to last week -- she actually lives an hour away and only works there twice a week, but she has her own poodles and she is, apparently, a well-known breeder. He must've already told her about our conversation because the introductions were about two minutes long. I had walked this time into a picnic he was having with his friends and while I didn't feel that I had annoyed him, I suffered a sudden attack of shyness and I stammered my thanks for the introduction, promised to call her at the time she'd requested and left.

From there Emily and I went over to the vendor area where we found a bottle of mildly medicated shampoo for Thor's itchy skin. A funny: when I walked up to one booth the vendor smiled and said, "What can I get for you squirt?" Indeed, among this crowd I'm just a kid. But I MUST be getting old because what they were doing looked like a heck of a lot of fun to me. Drive around in a big, fancy RV eating fried chicken and BBQd corn and talking about your dogs. I tried to imagine Chris and I pouring over maps and magazines trying to figure out a way to make the most national RC car races and dog shows. It doesn't seem like a big stretch of the imagination. We like road trips, he's balding, I'm plump, I think of my dogs as an honest-to-goodness child substitute, he's the kind of guy who will camp anywhere -- as long as there's hot water and a fridge involved. Yep. I see an RV lifestyle in our distant future. That our RV will be the only one blasting 80's rap is a topic for another blog ;)

We headed home and I tossed Thor in the sink. He put on a long-suffering expression and let me soap him down and rinse him off, but he broke down and let himself openly enjoy being brushed out afterwards. He's such a funny dog -- and so much more fun to cuddle and pet after a bath :)

Emily lay around and looked happy while I made dinner. Now I'm reclining in bed with a few of the pages of the book I'm supposed to be editing and keeping every puppy but Max company while they fall asleep. Max and Chris are watching Star Wars. I have the anniversary CD playing at lowest volume on the laptop. Life is good.

Snort, Choke, Gasp, Chortle, Snort

We were at Barnes and Noble the other afternoon for no good reason other than to spend money we hadn't budgeted for. I wanted some new blood in my "healthy recipes" cookbook collection as I was feeling burnt out and bored with all the good stuff I'd been making for my kids to turn their collective noses up at. I needed something new for them to reject. And a coffee wouldn't hurt. So we went to B&N and I found two new Moosewood cookbooks and the twins found some paperbacks and Max bought a mammoth hardcover that has the first four books in the Bionicle series all under one binding. We haven't seen much of him since. Chris looked for a book that Sarah Poppins had recommended and Gaye, my mother-in-law, looked for some new fun fiction. She bought Chris his book and then bought me this one:



Now I admit at first I didn't know what to make of this. As I have a tendency to do, I missed any signs of humor in the cover and it registered as one of those "Xxx who do too much" books that are overwrought on most days and but can still make me cry if I'm PMSing. Nevertheless, the gift of a book is the gift of a book and I said "Thank you" and meant it. Later, when we were home, I picked it up and started to thumb through it. This was followed by me annoying the pants off both Gaye and Chris by bursting out into guffaws once or twice EACH minute and insisting on reading them the HILARIOUS knitting in-jokes. After about ten minutes of this it was clear even to me, the social incompetent, that I'd worn out my welcome. I took the book back with me to the bedroom, as well as the kids, and tried to put them to bed. But the twins weren't remotely tired and Max is well beyond the age of napping. So I lay there and told them to shush every three seconds and kept reading and laughing and reading and laughing. It drove Max nuts so he got up and left. Soon the twins did, too. I fell asleep still giggling.

Here is a thought for today :)

Just think of all those women on the Titanic who said, "No, thank you," to dessert that night. And for what! --Erma Bombeck

When I was frustrated that my baby daughter wouldn't sleep through the night, my mother urged me to be patient. "This could be the last night she gets up, " she told me. "How do you want your last nighttime feeding to be?" I've applied this attitude to my yarn-buying activity. This could be the last yarn I buy. What would I want the last yarn I buy to be? What if tomorrow . . . I can't buy yarn anymore?

I will remember that this attitude, although it increases the quality of yarn that I buy and my willingness to treat myself, can hamper my ability to pay the mortgage.

IF you are a knitter and you need a giggle, GO to www.B&N.com and buy the book (so Stephanie Pearl-McPhee doesn't sue me for copyright infringment). It's the funniest $10 you'll spend this year. If you're so broke you can only barely feed your family and you have to knit Micheal's yarn, then go to her blog. It's free and it's even more irreverent and funny. I want to quit my job and just knit and read her blog (but I can't because Chris, well Godblesshim, but he can't cook).

Statistic

Cruel, Crazy, Beautiful World

We got up shortly before 7am and started ironing the clothes we wanted to wear to our re-wedding. I don't want to call it a re-comittment ceremony because we never uncomitted. We just wanted to get married again :) We didn't go with anything too formal or casual. Aimed for somewhere in between and hit it well enough. It was slightly overcast, hazy, hot, and humid -- but not nearly as hot and humid as it would get later. Two hours sped by and we were soon giving hurried instructions to the sitter and dashing out to the truck. We went to church and picked up the Bishop who was tired but cheerful after a night up with his daughter and her friend at the Harry Potter party at B&N. From there we drove out to this spot that Chris had found. It was private enough -- I saw a few people here and there later but didn't notice anyone while we were having the actual ceremony. Oddly, there was a diesal truck there with a huge load but he cheerfully turned off his motor during the ceremony at Chris' request. You couldn't see it from where we were and I completely forgot about it as soon as the engine was shut off. The spot was beautiful.

It didn't matter though. Honestly, it could have been (as my mother-in-law kept humorously suggesting) the public fountain in front of Target. The spirit was there. The Bishop was fantastic, reading a few paragraphs that he's CLEARLY spent some time and prayer preparing. I *loved, loved, loved* it. I can't say that about any of the stuff the minister at our "first" wedding said before our vows.

The vows themselves were totally normal and perfect and I was just so FULL of the RIGHTNESS of it all. You go hoping this won't be totally goofy or cheesy and it turns out that it's just exactly what God had in mind for that morning. You KNOW this because the whole forest melts away and the words of the Bishop is all you hear and your husband is all you see and you're just there completely locked in the moment.



I was surprised and elated when the ceremony was over. We took some pictures, smiling, and chatting happily about how well that went. Then we dropped the Bishop back at the church and headed home. Chris and Gaye went to the store to pick up some items and I started picking up around the house after sending the sitter home.





Everything sort of chugged along. Veggies were chopped, salads assembled, rice steamed, pita slices baked . . . there was a deluge shortly before everyone got here and then not again during the rest of the party. It was, for me, the best party we have ever, ever thrown. I got to cook my heart out (that's how I throw a party -- I feed you to death, while Chris pours you drinks (non-alcoholic or alcoholic, your choice) and happily talks all that great party talk.) The timing was just perfect for everything. There were tons of kids, and Emily got to participate without making everyone nuts by staying on a five foot lead tied to my waist. (She's sleeping under my chair right now and her idea of heaven is sleeping under my bed at night -- so being tethered to my waist is no torture -- she's FAR more miserable in the kennel for the party.) Thor was a Good Dog, so he got to wander freely and help keep the floor clear.

I was just so thrilled to have everyone there. I kept turning around and thinking, "Oh! I'm so glad (person's name) is here! This is just perfect!" But I do have to give two kudos in particular for my A, A's wife, B, Aunt G, Uncle T, and Karen who all drove over three hours to come. Karen has a really busy life and came even without my brother -- so she had every excuse to stay home and not drive through all that rain. It was so great having her here and it wouldn't have been the same without her. My Aunt, Uncle, their kids, and one spouse -- I just don't have the words to explain how much it meant to me to have them here. They are each of them some of the best people I know. Just GOOD people. But our families have not often been able to get together and I haven't seen most of them (except my cousin who came by when we first moved here) in about two years. I was supposed to get the boys out there last month but finances got snug and my cousin's baby came a little earlier than predicted (oh my, that is one beautiful baby. I over bounced him though and shook him up like a milk shake. BAD me. Oh but I was so grateful for the chance to hold him and he cheesed me good, so it's not like he didn't get his revenge.) Anyway, their visit was one of those wonderful things that sometimes just happen like a surprise baby (that you were secretly hoping for) or winning the lottery or getting a letter from an old friend telling you where to move your family to so you never, ever have to move again. Yes, it was that good.



It was a magical, delicious, nothing-bad-about-it day. Were there goof ups? Sure, I forgot the corn-on-the-cob and pasta salad in the basement. We'll be eating corn and pasta all week :) But jeez, we didn't even have the obligatory child-spills-something moment! Absoluely everyone we know in State College (on a first name basis) came and I it served to remind me again how very much I LIKE these people. I found myself begging more than one to come back soon under quieter circumstances.



I highly recommend the "get married again" anniversary experience. As mortal experiences go, it was one of the best. Right up there with the births of my babies. And yes, it really was better than the first wedding. Although one thing was the same. At the first wedding I said the vows with this strange feeling like I wanted simultaneously for this moment to last forever while also wanting to FASTFORWARD to the point where we were pronounced husband and wife and all while wanting to close the gap between us to hold this man tight because he was/is so, so right. You know, we're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. If you think we're not over here squabbling about whose job it is to do the dishes now that we've switched "roles" you're giving us way too much credit. We've had some tough moments since settling in here as we pursue that happy ending/living we so stubbornly want. But today standing there in the grove I had all those feelings in exactly the same doses. Squabble all we want there's still only one man I want to share the toilet paper with. Still only one guy who motivates me to continue to slay my own demons, to dump my own "garbage", to not settle for mediocrity. I loved listening to the words of the ceremony. At the same time, I was poised with anticipation for the chance to say "I do!" And at the end of it all, I wanted so much to get to that kiss -- even if I held back a little because, you know, I was two feet from my Bishop and my mother-in-law ;)

Chris wanted to give everyone a party favor. So I suggested one of his wonderful music mixes. His choices were perfect. Email him if you want one. He made a few extra.

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful

Before:





After:

GROOMER: She's all done! (with some surprise) She's got a REALLY pretty face under all that hair!

Twin Boys

The twins did not want to co-sleep. They were okay with falling asleep on you, but they had reflux and they wanted to sleep on an incline. A crib and a big foam wedge was perfect for that. So in the morning I would hear them in their room and go in to get the day started. They didn't usually start up fussing. They woke up happy and chatty. But they were, you know, very young babies and didn't really do much.

Then one morning I woke up and walked in their room and they broke simultaneously into this full body happy dance. And I felt, in that moment, that the best thing that could ever happen to a woman is to have twins. I still feel that way. There are LOTS of horrible things that can happen to people, but having twins is not one of them. The pregnancy, I won't sugar coat that. It is hard on a woman's body -- even if you're 6 feet tall and skinny, and I was neither. The first six months after their birth -- that's hard on your brain. You don't sleep much. And the whole experience just forces you to toss that whole supermom junk out the window. You do what you have to do and then you move on. But it's beautiful. It's magic.

This week the twins are working on a growth spurt. Milo can't decide whether to be "big" or "yiddle". He can't decide if he wants to grow up or be "a baby." But Ben is sure. He is sure he wants to be big. He tells me frequently throughout the day that he's "very big" and he "just gwew, Mom". Today we were in a sporting good's store that is having a sale looking for replacement sandals for Max. Max was looking at sandals. Ben and Milo found a small display of one pound weights. They delighted in picking up the weights and hoisting them above their heads in weigh-lifter fashion. Ben told the sporting good's store girl that he was VERY strong. The girl was completely charmed.

And they are growing. They are eating five waffles at a sitting and two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and ordering up more. I cut them off and offer only milk at that point. Their jeans are rolled down a little more. Their roomy shirts aren't so roomy. Their new sneakers are already looking kind of snug. Their faces look more boyish, less babyish.

And yet in the middle of all this expansion they keep running back to me. I get a million little cuddles a day sitting in my corner typing. Up into the lap for a close cuddle. A happy sigh. A request for a kiss. Then it's wiggle, wiggle, wiggle back to the floor. Land on their feet and run away. "I'm running!" they narrate as they disappear around the corner.

And it's just all the more delicious because there are TWO and it's all happening at the same time and yet in wonderfully different ways.

So if it ever happens to you, and you tell me, and you're scared and worried and hoping I'll have something to say that will reassure you I can tell you already that my heart will be in my throat for you knowing what is ahead. That every worry, every stretch mark, even if you end up on bedrest, even if the pregnancy must deliver with a c-section, even if you feel completely unprepared because these are your first kids -- that it will all be worth it.

I know, I do, every pregnancy, every child is wonderful. I mean to take nothing away from the glorious experience of having a singleton pregnancy and the experience of raising that child. There was nothing lacking in raising Max. He is still my firstborn. The boy who turned me into a mother and the boy who continues to teach me what being a mother is. I don't wish to tarnish that at all.

I'm just saying that if you ask *me* if having twins is as fun, as cool, as great as it looks then my answer is, "Oh, yesss. Yes it is."

I'm Getting This For My Car

And I would walk 500 more . . .

So yesterday afternoon Ben let both dogs out. Wild and free they went carousing through the neighborhood. Only at this time of day, there were plenty of neighbors around to point and hollar. So I left Max and Milo with one neighbor and grabbed Ben and we hurried off in the direction of the pointing. Barefoot. (Hey, it's SUMMER, okay?)

Ben did great till we hit the blacktop because he has soft little preschooler feet. So I taught him to stick to the grass and we hurried on calling for the dogs. Finally another neighbor caught up with us and said that the first one had it wrong, they'd been heading back to the house (not away from it) and the dogs were back in the house.

Hokay. So there wasn't any shortcut back to the house from that place -- we finished going around the block. Problem was, we got to a couple of lawns were the owners were at peace with their weeds. One of these weeds is dry and prickly this time of year. Because I have, as Chris says, "Becky" feet, this wasn't a HUGE problem for me, but it was for Ben. "OUCH! OUCH!"

So I picked up my 42 lb preschooler and carried him across the lawn. I'll have to paraphrase this some as when I was writing this my mind went completely blank and I lost his exact wording. This is something close to it (and NOT the words of a kid with speech issues).

"I'm sorry, Mommy," he said in a voice full of despair.
"What for?" I asked with some surprise.
"I'm supposed to carry YOU over the grass. I want to be YOUR hero."

:::sniff:::

Hop, Hop, Hippity, Hop!

I was following Rabbit Trails started by Jill and came across the following lyrics. So here it is, with my favorite bald-headed guy.

BALD MEN

(lyrics by Christine Lavin)

I don't like men who exaggerate

about the places they've been

about the money they've made

I like a man who's honest and true

You can look him in the eye

When he's talking to you

I like men who accept who they are

Not everyone can look like a movie star

If you can follow this thought

to it's logical end

You can see why I like bald-headed men

. . . ooh, I like bald-headed men

Everyone knows that it's testosterone

that turns bushy-haired men into a chrome dome

But testosterone is what makes a man a man

The more that he's got the more that he can

Do the things that make the women go "Oy!"

I'll take the bald-headed man over a big-haired boy

Big-haired boys make very good friends

But they cannot compare to bald-headed men

I've said it before

I'll say it again

I like bald-headed men

So why did you waste your money

joining that hair club for guys?

Oh, why would you cover your manly badge of honor

with such a bad disguise?

Oh, why would you throw away money on Rogaine and Minoxidil?

When all they can guarantee are years and years of pharmacy bills

. . . please don't do it!

I believe the hair replacement industry for men

is like the cosmetic industry for women

A giant black hole that will suck your money away

for the rest of your life

. . . please don't do it!

No matter how you fight it, time marches on

Some new things appear, some old things are gone

Let it move - - it's a natural thing

Like a leaf on a tree or a bird on a wing

Try looking in your mirror from a whole different place

You're not losing hair, you're gaining face

Be confident! Be cool! It won't be long when

You are bound to be one of the bald-headed men

Said it before

I'll say it again

I love bald-headed men

It's Not Naptime!

Chris says it's bedtime, but it's been a bouncy, flouncy, fun, fun, fun day for me and I feel like the kid in Not Naptime. I can't find the lyrics sheet, so I'll spare you this time around.

But I know soon I will hit the wall and turn into a big ball of sleep deprived nothingness, so I'll blog quickly before the noodles I just ate turn to carbo sedative.

My father, step-mother, and sister are visiting from California. They're on a big multi-state, see a million relatives trip. First it was Rochester, New York, now here. Next Baltimore, MD, and from there down south to see the folks in North Carolina. The kids are in a tizzy because of all the attention. Yesterday we ate, gossipped, and enjoyed each other's company. Today we made it out to Penns Cave which I'd only heard of earlier in the week. This was a good move. Milo nearly made the back half of the boat wish we'd never come, but he finally permitted himself to be soothed about five minutes into the tour and by the end he was just so proud of himself for having survived. It's a tour through a big cavern, stalagtites, et al, in a boat. At the other end you come out blinking into this little lake, turn around, and go through it again from the other direction. We saw a young white-tailed deer, an albino deer (no, really), lots of ducks, and a pair of swans. And a lot of rocks.

From there we went to a nice restaurant that was reasonably priced and had good normal food. I got the best deal as I got to open birthday and anniversary presents :)

We had a quiet afternoon in which I worked and my sister read a million stories to the boys. (Then Milo put her to bed for a nap.) From there it was off to Max's swim meet where he did very well. His relay team vastly outswam the others. He dropped 3 and a half seconds from his freestyle time (which he donated to his backstroke time. Oops! But he still came in third in his heat.) It was just great to be there and have EVERYONE else there, too. Husband, kids, grandparents, and an aunt. No wonder he swam well.

So tomorrow is school picture day and everyone is coming along to make them smile. I need to get up in time to iron everything, so I'd better put my punchy self to bed.

You Learn Something New Everyday

So I'm reading along at Effervecence and I stumble across a delightful knitting witticism that I've never heard before. Did she invent it herself?

In other sock knitting news, though, I frogged (rip it, rip it) my lace sock back to the third row. In other words, I undid all of the lace and started it over.

I cannot wait to use FROGGED (or frogging) in context. I'm sure, the way my projects are going, that I will have the opportunity soon.

And now, I leave you with some Justin Roberts. He is my fave children's music guy that totally appeals to any adult with a sense of humor. He's an ex-montessori teacher. It shows.

Dad Caught Stars
It was a summer night oh yes it was it was mmmmmmm
It was a summer night oh yes it was it was mmmmmmm
When my Dad caught stars in his hand
Yeah my Dad caught stars then he let them go
And he'd sing na na na na na na blue moon
And I'd go hey hey yeah yeah mmmmmm
It was so dark, we could hardly see
Yes it was so dark, just him and me
Then I said, "Hey Dad, the stars have fallen down."
And he said, "Hey yeah, the stars are all around."
And it was so dark we couldn't see too far
Yes it was so dark we kept catching stars
Then I said, "Hey, Dad, we better go inside."
And he said, "hey yeah, just one more firefly."
My Dad caught stars in his hand
My Dad caught stars then he let them go
And he'd sing na na na na na na blue moon
And I'd go hey hey yeah yeah mmmmmmm

Not Naptime animation

His website

Boom Boom BOOM

I've seen fireworks in:

• St. Paul. Or maybe it was Minneapolis. It was Minnesota anyway.
• Washington DC, more than once. many more than once.
• Boston and vacinity. With and without the Pops.
• Philadelphia
• various suburbs of Northern and Southern California
• some beaches in New England and Southern California
• Portland, Oregon
• Disneyland
  
• and now, State College, PA.

Now, I'd *heard* that someone rated State College, PA possibly the second best fireworks show in the country, but you know, those central PAians can get carried away.

The music was not as good without the pops. The sound system needed work.

but the FIREWORKS were truly, masterfully done. I ooooohed. I aaaahed. I got choked up. I blinked in the sudden brightness. I pointed excitedly at a firework I'd never seen before. I said over and over, ooooh, THAT'S my favorite one.

I am never, ever, ever moving again. And if you don't see the State College PA fireworks once before you die, well, it's a loss.

But park as FAR from the stadium as you can get. Trust me, the walk, even with two nearly comatose so-happy-they-can-barely-talk (oh yeah, they can't talk ANYWAY :::hairflip:::) preschoolers will TOTALLY pay off cause there's only one road out of the place.

And Ben did NOT pee on the lawn in the middle of the display. No matter WHO tells you otherwise.

Every Girl's Crazy Bout A Sharp Dressed Man

I did a Google Image search on "Sharp Dressed Man" to accompany this post and found:



So we'll go with that since this post is about Mr. Nando Pupdaddy and me.

Today the Pupdaddy came to church with his puppies and ME.

ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME

Your "love language" may be presents, or physical affection, or whathaveyou, but mine is "be there for the ordinary". Be there for the dishwashing and the house pick-upping and sitting in the pew. Be there for the walk to the playground and lawn maintenance and the laundry. And I don't mean, "do it for me," although I'll take that if it's offered, but if you REALLY want the warm fuzzies you'll mow while I weedwhack. You'll dry while I wash. You'll fold the darks while I do the whites. To me that's marital bliss. And we haven't done ANY of that in our marriage because we've always been so BUSY that it's just made more SENSE to delegate. You do lawn maintenance WHILE I cook. You fold the laundry WHILE I put the kids to bed. But as I write this I know I'd love it ten times more if it were, "put the kids to bed together, then go fold the laundry together."

Assuming of course I got my two to three hours of quiet time by getting up at 5:30 am ;)

Anyway, Mr. Puppdaddy got up this morning and without one whit of complaint at the early hour, no put-upon-ness, nothing but cheeriness, helped me get the minions ready for church and we all went out the door, got in the truck, drove to church, and sat through Sacrament meeting. It was all so incredibly ordinary. You'd have never known it was Chris' first time sitting through a service and he didn't fall asleep even once (although it was Fast and Testimony Sunday and that means no talks -- and some testimonies are just more coherent than others).

So that was it. There's nothing to blog about in regard to it all except that he DID look TERRIBLY handsome in his suit and I just walked on air the WHOLE WHOLE time. At the beginning of Relief Society one of the Sister Missionaries found me and said something about expecting to see us in the more basic Gospel class that the investigators and new members usually go to. Now, I used to go to this class all the time in So Cal because it's a great class and there's more conversation than in the big class since it's a smaller group and in a smaller classroom. But I've been going to Gospel Doctrine which is the "regular" Sunday school here because it's a nice group and I really think the teacher is fantastic. So I took Chris to that class. Now I can see how it could be helpful to go to the basic class because it's much more condusive to asking questions and getting them answered. But today wasn't about getting answers. Today was about

ME

So I took him with me to Sunday school. And I said to the Sister Missionary, "Okay, maybe next time." Because while it may be 12 weeks till the next Sunday that there's no RC racing, I'm hoping he'll come then, too. He just looks so GOOD in that suit in a pew and I just feel so wonderful with him there.

Ode to My Neighbor's Garden

Grape Tomatoes, Buttered Lettuce,
chives, green beans, sweet peas,
watercress.

Okra, cucumber,
parsely, dandelion,
basil, thyme, and sage.

Ten times as tasty
from the neighbor's
summer garden.

I Wanna Talk About Me, Wanna Talk About I

So Ben and Milo flunked their speech evaluations and were admitted to the Penn State Graduate Department -- see sidebar -- GOSH I'm funny!

It's now official. They'll spend two mornings a week getting Speech Preschool from a gaggle of pretty young graduate-level speech therapists and then Milo will go twice a week for articulation therapy and chances are really good that Max will end up in their stuttering/stammering program.

We'd never be able to afford it all except that a) the preschool is basically paid for by whomever is loaning these kids money to go to graduate school and b) my parents are paying for a large chunk of the speech therapy. (Did I mention my grandfather was a professor emeritus of Speech and Hearing at Ohio State? Yep.) The twins will get two mornings of preschool a week for $10/month each. The woman taking the message from me that we were withdrawing the twins from the cooperative preschool was telling me that if they had room we could reapply for the spring and I found myself secretly hoping they'd get to do the preschool all year. After all, thanks to a November birthday, the twins can go to this preschool for two more years after '05-'06. There's plenty of time to pay more for preschool. It does seem to be THE place to send your kid. I keep meeting new people and finding out that, yep, they send their kid there. OOh, yeah. We're hip. Well, we were anyway. Now we're back to being geeks.

I'm trying not to get paranoid about the fact that two perfectly intelligent, involved parents ended up with three of the noisiest kids to ever not speak properly, but there it is. For three guys who can't speak well, they sure never shut up.

Okay, I'm kind of upset about it. What did we do wrong?

Carly Simon's First Draft, (but nixed by her record company)

Pro-cras-ti-na-tion
Pro-cras-ti-na-tion
iiiiiiis making me blog
making me blo-o-o-o-og.

Later she put that anticipation song to the same tune and claimed it was inspired by waiting for a date with James Taylor. Shyah.

This is me NOT working because if I WERE working I'd have to write six vocabulary teacher's editions, do copy edit changes on two 128-page manuscripts, and check the first proof of a third 128-page manuscript.

Too. much. fun.

So! Let's post pictures instead!

!

Here is Milo, taking a nap, after putting himself to bed. Something clearly is weighing heavy on his mind. That's jam, not scar tissue, on his arm.



Playing with every bit of Fisher Price we own.



The boys blew up an air mattress and created the SS Naptime (they named it that).



Max is steering.



Later the pillows ended up on the floor, so Ms. Princess Please took them thankyouverymuch. (She's badly in need of a hair cut, but they couldn't "fit her in" until July 14th. I should have them give her a continental cut by then since she'll have the hair for it.) I just realized you can't even see her pretty, and very bright, red collar.



Continental cut -- not my poodle.



MY pretty little redhead, sporting the terrible haircut that led to this too-long gap between hair cuts (you can't actually see the worst of it in this picture):

Catching Up

Piano

I think I have mentioned before that Mrs. Bernstein, a Russian native, is fond of Max. This past week I apologized to both Max and Mrs. Bernstein for not having found the time to practice more than once the previous week. She accepted the apology, and then gently, with no evidence of guile (I am not saying there was none, just that the charge would never stick), spent the rest of the lesson inserting little comments here and there into the lesson addressing the issue of Max and his piano practice. "Oh, you are sooooo smart! You can learn the lesson right off the page the very first time! See? You don't even need your mother's help." and "Nine years old? Why that's such a big boy! A big boy like yourself can practice his piano without his mother around. [as if in confidence] I think she's babying you a little here. You can practice your lesson on your own, no?" And Max, not one to offer to do these kinds of things independently, found himself nodding and gradually being convinced that yes, he was old enough, responsible enough, and smart enough to do his own practicing as long as I made him a checklist and guided what he did for that lesson.

So for the past two mornings when it came time to practice, I made a checklist of the things she wanted covered. There is so much material now that we can no longer review it all in one sitting. So I break it up in to pieces. Some of this today, some of that tomorrow.

And then, by golly, he goes downstairs and I listen from upstairs in the kitchen and he does it all.

At first I was a bit resistant to the slight fee increase this program represented. I am over it now.

Swimming

We had the first real meet last night and it was fun. I knit, decided the piece was too wide, ripped out the stitches, and knit it again. Max talked to me for awhile, swam races, and played with the other kids. It rained on us rather steadily towards the end and it occurred to me that seeing as how we're never, ever moving again, I should probably actually buy the family some umbrellas. As usual, Max swam faster and with more determination than he ever does in any situation other than a race. This morning they're having an intense workout involving cannon balls and Sharks and Minnows. I used to LOVE Sharks and Minnows. :::happy sigh:::

I also got to hang out with our baby sitter's mother, Beth. She's very nice and right around the corner and her second son is only a year younger than Max. Max was being ageist about 8-year-olds last night, which is a side of him I'd never seen, but I am hoping she forgives him and lets her son play with him anyway.

Everything Else

So we are three days into the new schedule, with two days and two nights under our belt. Yesterday I was enjoying some of the side effects of the new schedule -- spending more time with the kids, feeling like the proper phone calls were made and the dishes were done, that sort of thing. But I was just mind-numblingly exhausted the whole day. WHY!?! The new schedule is supposed to provide for more sleep! I should be feeling better than I have in, oh, months! What's going on?

Then as I was going to sleep last night I realized, duh, we started the schedule Monday morning, but I'd had only three hours of sleep the night before! So I am guessing that the chronic sleep deprivation of the previous two to three weeks will require a few more days to right itself.

[Max was just sharked. LOL, people here are SO incredibly nice. Get this, the kid who tagged him laughed, said, "SHARK!" and then followed this with a contrite, "Sorry, Max!" Max grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.]

Indeed, It's Sesame Street

Oh everything comes in its own special size
I guess it can be measured by where you put your eyes
It looks big when you're close
And it looks smaller back a bit
That's about the size of it.

Oh the big becomes the little
When you see it back a bit
The huge becomes the dinky
Which is just the opposite
Of the larger that gets smaller
It never seems to fit
That's about the size of it.

That's about the size
It's where you put your eyes
That's about the size of it.

Well, I have a lot to talk about including rain at an east-coast swim meet, 9 year olds, and sleep deprivation, but I'm working REALLY REALLY hard at overcoming that last one, so I'm off to bed and it will have to wait until tomorrow. g'night.

That's About the Size, Where You Put Your Eyes, That's About the Size of It

Can anyone other than my brother and husband name the song that's from? 100 nothing points to the first person who can. No fair googling.

Googling. Think it'll be in the next Websters?

Google (v) goo-gul to make use of the search engine Google to locate information online. Did you google the doctor's name to see if there were any complaints against him?

Anyway. The song above is about perspective. It goes on to say something along the lines of "Well the big becomes the little and the little becomes the big, something something something . . . That's about the size, where you put your eyes, that's about the size of it."

I was starting to feel a wee bit "old" this week as I start closing in on 37. So the good Lord used up all my milk. And butter. And cream. And half n half. I was nearly dairy-less and we're not a dairy-free household. (I do have some fat free shredded cheddar, but this goes poorly on cereal.) This caused me to need to run to Meyer's Dairy for more of the above.

Now, Meyer's sells fresh milk. It's pasturized, but they don't use hormones in the cows. I don't know what they DO use in the cows, but if you've never had fresh-from-the-cow milk, you don't know what you're missing. It's just . . . delicious. It lacks that flat, cardboardy taste. Maybe that's just the lack of plastic packaging. I don't know. But the milk at Meyer's is packed in glass 2-quart bottles. It's thick glass and it's heavy without any milk in it. If you're trying to buy four bottles, it gets awkward. So you give the dairy a $5 deposit and they give you a metal widget that holds all four glass bottles.

Even with the widget, if you also have a box of butter, two 1-quart boxes of buttermilk, and a 1-qt container of heavy cream (the likes of which you've never tasted), it's a lot to carry. Especially if you notice that in the corner they've stacked some plastic food-grade buckets that they're selling for $1.25 each. Then you need to buy two of those for food storage.

Enter Mr. Sir. Mr. Sir came in as I was first taking everything to the counter. I left the 4-bottle carrier on the floor next to the fridge case and he scooped it up and carried it to the counter for me. I thanked him heartily. Noone does that anymore. He smiled. Five minutes later he was back just as I was putting everything but the bottles in the buckets and telling the girl not to mind, but I'd make two trips (I was putting the bottles off to the side). He couldn't have been a day under 72, but he was tall and thin and insistent. He'd carry the bottles. Well . . . (I scan brain for reason this is a bad idea. Come up empty.) okay! So we go out to my car, he places the bottles on the floor, I thank him effusively again. He says, "No problem! I've made it a policy my whole life to help out the young ladies when ever possible." And it was just the tone of voice, the barely perceptible swagger, that little bit of *something* that made me smile and think to myself, "NANDO! It's you!" Indeed I went on to wonder if maybe he WAS my husband, come back in time to entertain himself bringing my milk to my car.

And suddenly I wasn't so old. I was just another young lady and he was another handsome swashbuckling Nando and my day, at the wee hour of 9:15 am, was made.

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

I'm tired. I'm tired because as time has gone on in this house, I have pushed back my bedtime ever further. For the past ten days, I didn't go to bed one minutes earlier than 1:30. I hit 3:30 a.m. twice. The latest I slept in was 9:00 am, but more typically I was up at 8:30. Except yesterday for church. That was 6:45. So last night when Chris and I sat down to hammer out a final schedule I said, "ENOUGH!" and I put down my bedtime as 10.p.m.and my wake time as 5:30. This is much more like the schedule my body would normally take if left to its own devices (in actual fact, my body wants to go to bed at 8:30 and get up at 4:00, but that won't happen till all the kids are flown and my husband hits the age where he stars falling asleep in the lazy boy at night). This schedule will only take us through the next two weeks because school then starts again – but it's a starting point. We'll know a little more when we go to create that schedule.

So today I am just TOAST because I did work till 3:30 am last "night" and I got up at 6:45 (because I'm not a complete masochist) and since then I've made every effort to stick to the schedule. It's part of the reason I was at the dairy so early. I'm scheduled for swim team 9:00 to 10:00 and if I go to the dairy AFTER practice then I cut into work time. So I went while Max swam. Ah -- swimming is over. Time to de-blog and head home to work.

I'm Hot Blooded, I'm Hot Blooded!

This is a very funny e-mail from my aunt, so I decided to make her today's guest blogger.

A little background: the family farm is so rural that it really *is* near impossible to get regular service people out there to look at anything when it breaks. I ran into this when the pump broke while we were there. Nobody really wanted the job . . . thank goodness for family friends.

Anyway, from my guest blogger, Aunt Charlotte.

And the LORD GOD looked down on his good and faithful servant, Charlotte, and saw that she was sorely troubled. In fact, visions of "For Sale" signs danced in her head at the farm. Not only was the AC not working and it was 95 degrees, and she could not get ANYONE to return her calls about it, but it appeared to her that one of the ceiling fans was falling out of the ceiling! So the LORD GOD, decided to cut her a break, and sent Russ over to look at the fan, (it's not falling, it's shot! the motor is resting on the blades- go figure. Something about ball bearings. Sure, he has been released from his doctor to return to work, so he will pick up 2 and install them, and why don't you try Todd Keeling of Hillsboro for the AC?) So the good and faithful servant called Todd, and was encouraged that at least he had an emergency phone number. And the valiant Todd came over, on Saturday, between his son's ball games in the 95 degree heat, and DID SMITE THE EVIL BEES THAT HAD TAKEN OVER THE MOUSE NEST IN THE AC UNIT, causing it to not work. (go figure, again- something about terminals not drawing?). All the while apologizing that he would have to charge me the weekend rate ($55 for the service call), plus the cost of cleaning out the bees. (AS IF I CARED!) He would not charge me for the mouse nest, however, since that was related to the bees.

And the LORD GOD looked down, and was pleased. His good and faithful servant, Charlotte, was smiling at the cute little bunny (from inside her cool living room) as he ate the contents of the kitchen garden (It is hard to be angry at a bunny who likes dill as much as I do, and has EATEN ALL OF IT. Tomato plants are doing fine though), and the cute little "chip-a-monk", as he ran around, and the cute little baby birds (real little! tufts of down on their heads, not feathers- don't know if they can survive the heat, but at least 2 had lived to Sunday). AND IT IS GOOD.


Yeah for AC! And thanks for the smile Aunt-ie Gwamma Charlotte (as Milo would say).

Come Mr. Tallyman, Tally Me Banana

I'm in a grouchy mood because I didn't want to work through this weekend and yet, here I am. So humor me while I take a break from all that.

For dinner tonight we're having this healthier version of Shephard's Pie. It's on the final "bake in the oven for thirty minutes" stage, so this is probably premature, but I think it's coming out wonderfully and I can't wait to eat it. As I was making it though it occurred (okay, it says there's spell check above but I can't seem to figure out how it works? Any hints? I think my occurr is over populated but I'm not sure in what way. Too many r's? occured?) to me that you could probably use cauliflower "fake" potatoes -- you slightly oversteam some cauliflower and then mash it like potatoes. It looks and feels like (has the texture of) mashed potatoes, but of course, it's ever so slightly ahead of potatoes in the nutrition department. I'm still using up a #10 can of potato pellets so I'm not tempted to try it right now, but it's there for the future.

Eating well is still benefitting us. Obviously if I'm making the occasional apple pie then I'm not taking things to extremes. But Max is down 7 lbs from start and when I last weighed myself I was down another three pounds. He grew 3/4 of an inch since start, too. 7 lbs doesn't sound like much but when you combine it with a 3/4 inch growth it means that his BMI is down from "severely overweight" to "overweight" and that means that I'm down from "severely bad mother" to "bad mother" and things are looking up ;)

I knit two swatches for my pants project and picked the second swatch. The first one -- seed stitch on size 3 needles -- is REALLY cute, but too stiff. It's working out better on size 5 needles with the seed stitch. The seed stitch just gobbles up yarn though.

I think I may have a solution for my sweater problem. Unfortunately it involves buying more yarn (maniacal laugh). I found a nice pattern for a sweater set and the yarn I have would be perfect for the smaller shell. I'd just need to buy more yarn for the accompanying cardigan.

Of course at the rate I get things done, I can go ahead and knit it in size twelve because that's the size I'll be by the time I finish it. right?

Free Free Free!

Before I head off to bed here . . .

If you're not familiar with freecycle.org, please go check them out. It's the greatest schtick -- as long as you're willing to follow the rules. Basically you go to the website, find the group nearest you, and sign up. In So Cal there were two near me and I signed up for both.

Seeing as how normally I am a Potlatch Giver and not an accumulator , I have gleefully used freecycle to rid our house of boxes, get rid of old mattresses, unwanted furniture, an ancient filing cabinet, and that sort of thing. I did *get* a ton of moving boxes -- at least half of our final number -- through freecycle in So Cal. And here, twice in one week, I've received an ancient, ugly, rusted (not rustic) but still perfectly functional compost bin (the kind that spins!) and a juicer. Whoo-hoo!

Doctor, Doctor, Give Me the News . . .

I got a -- bad case of lovin' you!

Did you know that Robert Palmer is dead?!? I totally missed that. September, 2003 in Paris, France. Heart attack.

Anyway. Today I went to see my new doctor and was just thrilled with the place. They got me in at the time of my actual appointment. They were friendly and polite. the nurses seemed clever and not so overworked that they couldn't smile at you. My new doctor looks to be about my age or a little younger. She's got GREAT hair. Red, long, curly. Wish I hair like that.

And I had a few things I wanted to talk to her about. We zipped through the list and agreed to see each other again briefly next month. I got refills for the stuff I needed refills for. And I left.

It is such a pleasant thing to say, "I read X and I read Y and I have this question because of it" and not have the doctor make fun of you for reading around on the internet. She just said, "Yep, personally I think we should try xxx," and I said, "me, too!" and the rest of the visit was that again in repetition. ::: happy dance :::

+++++++++++

Remember Socrates? He had this buddy who went to see the Oracle and for whatever reason, the question he put forth to the Oracle was, "Is there anyone smarter than Socrates?" and the Oracle replied, "Nope." Socrates was so blown away when he heard this, so the story goes, that he began a quest to see, basically, what other people knew. He was in search of the guy smarter than he. It would seem that after some time passed, he decided maybe the Oracle had a point and he went on to urge people to start thinking a little more and be a bit more introspective.

I wonder what the Oracle would say if I said, "Is there a better place on earth than State College, PA?" At the very least I suspect she'd smile and say, "Not for you. What are you doing here? Go home."

I'm looking at the man in the mirror . . .

It was one of those days that gets off to such a rough start that the two of you--the parental units--spend the rest of the day talking about one particular child and whether or not it's time to change something fundamental about the way in which you are parenting him. I say him as we have no hers.

I won't go into details, largely because it creates a sense of anticipation in the reader and lets your imagination run wild, but also because the catalyst of these discussions -- the behavior of the child -- was so common and ordinary for this particular child. It wasn't a big deal. It's just that the behavior is unacceptable to us as parents and we've been trying for over a year to change this one particular behavior without any success. Add to that a full moon, a thunderstorm coming in, rising humidity and pressure, and a tendency on our parts to stay up to late -- and there was a big explosion around 10 am.

We have given our approach to the matter time to take effect and it hasn't. The problem is unchanged. No better, no worse.

We take our role as parents very, very seriously. Obviously. So it's killing us right now that we're in a period of upheaval with this child. But that's how it is. You have periods where things are sort of quiet and organized and you can get to feeling sort of self-congratulatory. We're in that space with Ben right now. He is well managed. Not horrible in public, no toileting accidents, not inclined to hit or bite -- he makes us look good. If only the other two would give us a similar break. But that's not where they are right now. Right now they're our wake-up call. So we keep talking and talking and talking . . .

On the upside of the day, I'm trying to cook my way through some of my food storage items and one of them is dehydrated apples. I found a recipe for apple pie using the dehydrated apples and decided to give it a try even though it meant making my own pie pastry.

Well, it came out deliciously, in a sort of frankenstein-esque way. I am out of wax paper, so I tried rolling out the pastry between two sheets of non-stick aluminum foil. I had to freeze the pastry for twenty minutes to get it to cooperate and come off the aluminum foil, but it all came out okay. Sadly, when it was time to eat the pie we discovered it had taken on a kind of graham cracker crust consistency. The taste was great but the pastry was crumbly, not flakey. Nobody really complained. It *did* taste good. But I'll have to keep working on the crust. Do you think it's because I was using ww pastry flour? Can you not make a pie crust from ww flour?

I just ripped out the sweater I'd started for myself. It wasn't going to work for a couple of reasons. But the yarn is beautiful and I want to wear it. I haven't knitted anything for myself in years and years. And I think my MIL would be upset if I turned around and used it to knit up a gift for someone else. So it has to be for me. I spent an hour tonight looking for a pretty cotton sweater to knit in its place and came up empty handed. (I started to type, "I wasted an hour" but then I reconsidered. It wasn't the hour's fault that I didn't find what I was looking for.) So, maybe I'll cash in some of my reward points for a B&N gift certificate and go spend another hour one afternoon looking at knitting books until I find what I'm looking for. It can't be a shawl or a poncho because I've made three in a row and I need something else. It can't be a scarf because I intended this project to reach beyond my existing abilities and I can knit a scarf in my sleep. I *was* tempted to start a project for the twins with the yarn because I suspect that my MIL would be okay with THAT, but for the time being, I'll keep looking for something for ME.

The pants I've started are my first attempt to do my own design. I want to make a comfy pair of pants for the boys and they don't exist. In general, most knitting designers are smarter than I am and they have the sense not to knit anything for the preschool boy's bottom. But ever since I saw this totally magnificent pair of pants in a vogue about a year ago, I've been obsessed with knitting a pair. Ben and Milo are much shorter (and better looking) so they make good models for this attempt. I'm using a pair of Levi jeans that fit them well for measurements.

Hmmm, any fellow knitters out there want to take on the challenge? To be fair, the model has to be between size 3T and 6 and out of diapers (which requires an entirely different tush design). The finished pants must have some way to stay UP and must be full length. Otherwise you can use whatever type of yarn you want, whatever stitch, and indulge whatever wild whims you have as you go. Keep in mind that if you can find more than an hour each day to knit that you're going to finish well before me. So feel free to make more than one and submit both pictures :)

I Said A Boom Chicka Rocka Chicka Rocka Chicka Boom!

Black Team: Hey, Gold!
Gold Team: Hey, What!
Black Team: Hey, Gold!
Gold Team: Hey, What!
Black Team: I said a Boom Chicka Boom!
Gold Team: I said a Boom Chicka Boom!
Black Team: I said a Boom Chicka Rocka Chicka Rocka Chicka Boom!
Gold Team: I said a Boom Chicka Rocka Chicka Rocka Chicka Boom!

repeat with Gold Team leading.

God loves His camp counselors and underpaid teenage swim coaches. They work hard all day long with other people's children, insist on good manners, teach them loud silly chants and cheers, and for the privelege of paying 1/3 of their pitiful salary in taxes they leave kids at the end of the summer with the kinds of memories that make summer what it is.

Today was Max's mock meet. For the mock meet the kids get to race against each other and it means nothing except that they get to establish a time to beat in the next meet. It doesn't reduce the kids' jitters. Max didn't do well. He was slow in the freestyle, so nervous in the breaststroke that he freaked and swam freestyle again, so worried about hitting his head in the backstroke that he gave up his lead (ahead of the only other kid still in the pool--the three other kids having finished and jumped out of the pool) to sail cautiously into the pool. But by golly he wasn't DQ'd! So that was an improvement over the first backstroke race of last season. And in butterfly -- well, we were just proud that he finished the race. Nobody under the age of 12 could really do that stroke.

This summer will probably not net Max any ribbons. Unlike last fall, he's not at the upper end of the age spread. Oh no, he's in the ten and unders which means that Max is at a disadvantage. The fifth graders are pretty fast.

But his attitude was great, I enjoyed the time we spent together, and in spite of his poor showing, I couldn't help but have a great time and feel so proud of him. Unfortunately, we missed the social event afterwards as I had an appointment at church and needed to get him home. We skiddadled on home, greeted our new babysitter (a boy!), grabbed the truck keys and ran over to church where we had a really nice talk with the new Bishop about renewing our vows. He explained that if we were both members -- well, mormons just don't do that sort of thing. But seeing as how we're not, he was more than happy to trudge with us to some nice scenic overlook and "marry" us again. He did want to explain the LDS outlook on eternal marriage and family after death and that sort of thing and I'm really glad he did because in addition to the opportunity to get all choked up about it, it led to a good discussion.

I really like this Bishop. He's good people.

So now we're in search of a beautiful place in State College to go recite those vows. Good day :)

In the Middle of the Night

In the middle of the night
I go walking in my sleep
Through the jungle of doubt
To the river so deep
I know I'm searching for something
Something so undefined
That it can only be seen
By the eyes of the blind
In the middle of the night
-Billy Joel

Look what came to see us tonight.



She's a Luna moth (Chris thinks it's a Luna Father moth). They only live in Eastern North America (which is where WE picked to live and yes it IS another sign JUST FOR US that we picked the right place). They only fly at night. Their adult lifespan is only one week long. One beautiful, gorgeous week. And they like our back porch light. Or she does. Or he does.

Chris is standing by the window with a flashlight strapped to his head trying to lure the moth to the window screen so he can get a better look. I wish I had a picture of that, too.

I Just Want to Bang on De Drums All Day

Mondays are tough as far as any productivity. There's morning swim practice and afternoon piano lessons and just the whole MONDAYness of it all. This weekend I actually got some sleep, so for some reason today my body seemed to feel well rested enough to realize how TIRED it is, and it was all I could do to stay upright for most of the afternoon. I actually gave up and took a 20 minute nap to try to refresh myself but woke up feeling worse because I'd had crazy fever-dream-like dreams the whole twenty minutes.

I could use some chocolate.

Nevertheless, I did get a bit done and am hopeful that I'll get a bit more done tonight. Tomorrow is Tuesday which is usually GOOD for productivity.

Hooooold Me Back, Hold Me Back, Oh Won't You Please, Hold Me Back?

I'm going to a Pampered Chef party tonight. I really, really need a new pancake pan. AND I don't have a dime for that kind of thing. Crud. Crumb. (yum!)

Sunday Evening

Chris came back happy from the RC track because he came in second and because he feels officially part of that track's group now. Max made him a Father's Day card with a picture of them racing together. I gather he made everyone at the track look at it.

My day wasn't nearly so interesting. I was just happy because we were *only* ten minutes late for church and all three boys were wearing ironed clothing. I was wearing my (one and only thankyouverymuch) denim jumper, but at least my hair was brushed and I had put on some makeup. Sacrament meeting was a disjointed collection of talks. Why are the mother's day talks so sweet and sniffles inducing and the father's day talks such a disappointment. Are we afraid of giving our father's any credit for doing a good job anymore? Is the bar so impossibly high for fatherhood now that every father except the One Father falls short? A shame. One of my favorite features about the Latter Day Saint church is the enthusiastic participation of the men in the actual raising of their children. I kept waiting for someone to stand up and say, "Check us out! Are we not doing a great job or what?!?" But there seemed to be some great hesitency to gush.

Well I bring my three boys to church BECAUSE I think they'll learn a thing or ten about fathering well there. Go Mormon Dads! You rock. Basketball, diapers, prayers, and bills. You got it all covered. That's talent. That's dedication. That's really something to be proud of. You have my vote and my gratitude.

******

Tomorrow it's jumping back into work. It's been nice to have the weekend to catch up on bills and house cleaning and socializing and church going. The laundry is folded, the downstairs sink is clean and clear. The bedroom floors are clear. The books back on bookshelves.

You know, this place is beautiful, this house is pretty cool, the dogs and kids are happy. I married a wonderful man. I am so blessed. Happy Father's Day to me.

Zoom

I'm on a completely twisted sleep schedule since last week's attempts to make too many impossible deadlines, so I'll keep this short so I can get to bed. I've been on a mission to get us caught up with financial type things this weekend and I'm glad that's done. Bills are paid. Receipts are recorded and in an envelope to go to Bill-the-accountant-who-keeps-me-out-of-jail, I have a to-do list for tomorrow ('cause it's Father's Day and in the spirit of recent Mother's Days), in lieu of a spendy gift, I'm cleaning something he feels overwhelmed by. No small task, cleaning the toxic dump that had been my truck on Mother's Day took him the better part of the day (and it looked great afterwards). So this time I'm cleaning the house. It's not a toxic waste dump, but every Fisher Price toy we own was taken out on Friday to create a massive Fisher Price village--and then not put away. We have seven million six million loads of clean laundry to fold and someone needs to find a better place to store the carpet cleaner than in our only full bath. So he shall go race little cars and I shall take the kids to church and then come home and clean.

I put together the menu for the week and then took the family grocery shopping. When we got back we tossed brownies in the oven, put away the groceries, jumped in the shower, dressed, grabbed the hot brownies, and then headed over to Chris' former coworker's house for a BBQ. It is midnight and I spent the whole evening talking to his wife, so I'm completely blanking on his name . . . Todd! Todd. Todd and Dawn. Two of the NICEST people you ever met in your whole life. They dote on their four-year-old--Z. Z and Milo were soon best buddies and Ben was right there with them, although he would occasionally spin off to do his own thing. Max built cities and pirate ships for the little guys to play with and mostly did a great job of entertaining them. There was one NASTY bonk by Ben on the floor, but otherwise the evening was casualty free. Dinner was great, and Chris even forgot to make fun of me for bringing out my knitting.

On the way home Chris commented that he'd smoked a cigar with Todd (I'd missed that part) and Max said in a firm tone, "I hope you won't be doing that again!" Chris reassured him that he had no intention of taking up smoking. I echoed that Daddy knows smoking is very bad for you, and Max seemed reassured. Someday we'll have the discussion about social drinking and smoking and the odd role of the cigar and we'll have to frame that all in the context of being a part-LDS family. But tonight we stuck to reassuring the boy that that particular line still holds and that was apparently all he needed. An odd little moment at the end of a long day.

I put the kids to bed and then worked on a massive pile of moving receipts Chris had found and which needed to be recorded and categorized and put in the Bill-the-accountant envelope and the evening wound a way to a close.

Happy Father's Day everyone. We are awfully fond of all of ours.

Not Crud

My own husband was getting mad at me for not blogging. "Crud! Crud! Crud!" He said today. "That's all it's said since TUESDAY!" I had no reply for that.

It's been one of those weeks where I have not enjoyed working for myself because there has been noone else to blame for how miserable my work was this week. Just plain too much to do. An early night to bed was 2 AM.

I got a check I've been waiting for and I still haven't had two minutes together to sit down and pay bills (I did call the auto insurance people and pay them, but that's as far as I got). I get to pay everyone else tonight after the twins are in bed. Yee-haw.

I did end up switching us to Verizon DSL even though the adelphia cable gal was helpful and did make the service better. It was faster and it cut out less often. But it still cut out repeatedly. That just never happens with our DSL. Then Verizon made it even easier to let go of adelphia by turning on the DSL three days earlier than promised.

We returned the adelphia equipment, cut the cable TV back to PBS and two black and white channels (okay, but you know what I mean), and have surfed along back in DSL land ever since.

Spring YMCA swimming came to an end and we were getting ready to fork over the money for summer YMCA swimming when I ran across something on the community swim team. This program looks noisy, over-crowded--fun! Fun is good. So I made some calls and the next thing we knew, we'd temporarily ditched the Y for the community pool. He can still go back to the Y in August, but the next 8 weeks are highly chlorinated outdoor swimming.

Among other advantages, if he's not AT the Y, he doesn't risk swimming well enough to move up to the next level. We don't want him to move on to the next level this year because then he has to swim five nights a week. Five nights a week is BAD because he wants to play football for two of those nights. BUT if he stays in the lower group, it just happens that those two nights are the two nights he has off. SO everybody wins.

So the rec program looks like it's a hoot and half. There are twelve kids his age (instead of, oh, two at the Y) and they share two coaches who are actually old enough to drive. They're on top of things and Chris thinks Max might actually be burning some calories in this workout. They have one meet a week -- the first one being next Tuesday. Since they'll have been swimming for less than a week together, this is actually a "mock meet" with ice cream social. Hey, I'm for that!

erm, what else. So today I worked till noon and then we had a nice lunch and walked over to the playground. We met Jill and her kids there and they all ran around like lunatics. Then Jill's older daughter came over and played with Max for the rest of the afternoon. I accomplished a lot of puttering around and not much else. I pushed people on swings (they're really demanding, actually. PUSH HARDER!!! PUSH ME! PUSH ME!) and threw the green and white tennis ball for Emily a million billion times until she collapsed on the lawn in front of me in a position that said clearly, "I can't move, but you can still scratch my ears if you want." So I did.

Okay, Max says it's family game night. Off to play Lego Creator.

Crud.

Just when you think you're off to slay some corporate beast, they complicate things by giving you someone with a bean of intelligence. She fixes the problem that has plagued you for nearly two months and suddenly you have to figure out how to cancel the NEW service you'd arranged to replace it.

Our high-speed internet cable service has been nothing but a thorn in our sides. It cuts out constantly. Sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for a few hours. A call to technical support blamed it on a faulty modem (actually, on THAT day, it was because the service was out to half our county, but she kept insisting that it wasn't that). We replaced the modem (driving to their location to do the exchange and standing in line with a lot of other angry people) and tried to make do with the horrible connections. In general, as near as we could tell, cable internet meant slow connections and constant loss of service.

Well, apparently when they signed us up, they signed us up for both regular AND premier internet service. And they can't travel over the same line. So they competed. Hence barely working internet. She turned off the premier, credited the account for two months of charges, and told us to try it for a day before turning our equipment in.

FINE.

She said the changes would take effect as soon as she exited the account which would be fairly soon after we got off the phone with her. Chris signed on as I was telling him about the conversation and his jaw dropped. "This is the fastest internet I've ever experienced."

So. Ugh. Now I may have to cancel the DSL order with verizon. I still want cheaper services though. We're dropping any extras from the cable service and that will help. What's the cheapest way to do phone service? Vonage and an emergency landline? Anyone here have vonage? Like it? hate it?

Whoops! There's another service blip. And there's another one. It's hardly noticeable on firefox -- it's on AOL that it's a big problem. Maybe if I ditched AOL? I love my AOL, but it would another $14/month I wouldn't have to spend . . . but oh gosh, to have to change all those email addresses!

Thank You, Thank You

To Edana, who hosts her own wild blog at Barefoot Bloggin', and who created this custom template for me. I'm not nearly as interesting as most of her clients, but she was very sweet and never said so ;) And I do LOVE the finished product. Ahhh . . . . :::settles in happily to comfy, cozy new blog::: it's great to have a new home.

Haircuts

It was time to shave the puppies again. Their hair was over their ears and it's hot outside. Milo, who sweats profusely at night when it's freezing outside, had started to grow moss in his scalp. Chris, who doesn't like to think of himself as bald, no matter how often I tell him its sexy, was still feeling like the centimeter of hair he had on his head was a centimeter too much. So we put the stool in the bathtub and I shaved the gang down. Max and Milo got short cuts (No. 2) but got to keep some of their hair. Chris and Ben were shaved nearly to scalp. Chris--because I like it that way. Ben because he has a nearly perfectly shaped head and can pull it off. If people start giving us donations for his chemotherapy I'll know I went too far, but otherwise, the boy looks comfortable.

We all walked around for the rest of the day rubbing the tops of the boys' heads.

Otherwise, it was a quiet day. Chris and Max did their exercise routine and then went on a bike ride. Then Chris mowed the lawn. I felt icky and spent the vast majority of the day in my blue comfy chair trying to focus on the book I'm working on and popping excedrins and trying not to throw up. (Pause for sympathy. Thank you.) So I guess it WASN'T a quiet day for Chris, but I missed most of it sitting here spaced out, trying to work. It was probably a banner day for typos.

Max is doing very well with the new routines. Between getting regular exercise and the change in the way we are all eating, he has lost five lbs and I think maybe he grew some, too. He is gradually becoming more active over all, running ahead when we go out, and hosting a really positive attitude about the activities Chris comes up with for them to do. I lay the success of all this at Chris' feet. It's so much easier to change your habits if your mom and dad are changing them with you. I've lost some weight, too. I haven't started exercising much yet. I live in fear of the humidity and it's hard to find the time. But I'm going to have to soon or I'll stop losing weight. And I don't want to stop. I want to be able to say a year from now, that since we moved here we lost X lbs, paid of $X debt, and made a ton of friends, and some other good things. That would be great. At any rate, at the rate Max is going, he'll be under 100 lbs for the first time in '05 in another two to three weeks. That would put us perfectly on track for a total weight loss of 20 lbs in 12 weeks. That's a whole new lifestyle when you're only 9 years old. (And, he won't need new clothes for a year or two!) I'm so proud of him--not for losing weight--for having such a terrific attitude about the new foods and the new activities. It's been nothing but change for this kid this year.

Saturday

I keep checking my own blog as if to see if maybe I wrote anything interesting since the last time I blogged. Nope.

Did you have to do a summer at girl or boyscout camp? I did one summer when I was thirteen. We had to pass a red cross swimming test in order to be able to check out the boats. If you passed such and such level then you could check out a canoe, and another level and you could check out a sail boat, and the third level and you could check out either one of the boats and not have to have a counselor in the boat with you. The third level involved treading water for two minutes while holding your hands out of the water. You had to keep your head above water the whole time. Couldn't stretch out for a nice back float, couldn't let your hands down into the water further than your wrists.

It made two minutes stretch into an eternity. But by golly, you wanted the counselor in someone ELSE'S boat, so you kicked and kicked and kicked . . . I think in the end only six of us passed but four of us were all in the same cabin and so we were happy.

Well, I liken this stage of moving in to the water safety water tread test. On the one hand, you're unpacked enough, things are where they should be enough, that you can get things done. You can do your job, get to church, find at least one phone when the phone rings, make a good meal, get some knitting done.

But on the other hand you are not really swimming. There are still picture frames stacked against two bookshelves, no place for the iron and ironing board, no place for the empty milk bottles to go while they wait for you to take them back to the dairy. Routines are not habits yet. Schedules are easily slaughtered. And the financial safety net is still incredibly flimsy. It's nerve wracking. You want so much to be able to say that this is home, and yet at the same time, you hope noone comes by the house because no, this is not how you want it to look. I *almost* have a place for all of the dog stuff. But not quite -- not quite there yet. I *almost* have my office completely unpacked. But not yet. Still have two boxes left. I know exactly how I want the food storage room to look -- but it'll be months before I have it looking like that. I know what I want for my birthday -- I want spice racks, because if I have to dig through the tiny, narrow cupboard they're in right now one more time looking for the powdered mustard, I'm going to fling them all against the wall until they break.

I feel like we've crossed the better part of the atlantic ocean, and now, having entered some nameless only-partly-poluted-East-Coast port (I can't think of one off the top of my head that I would swim in without some kind of chemical safety gear on) we're treading water from a mile out, just looking at the shore line, and waiting for that last bit of energy that will take us into shore.

tread tread tread tread tread

This week I finished the shawl for my sister-in-law. A mere 7 months after her birthday. I should be ashamed but I'm just happy we didn't get to her next birthday before it was done. One more shawl to go and then I can either knit for myself or get back to knitting for kids. I was going to do a sweater I've been meaning to finish for myself for a year now, but then we had two more births in the family this week and now I'm having second thoughts. I'll read their respective registeries first and then decide. I have to finish this other shawl first anyway.

tread tread tread tread tread

YOU are telling ME they're kids?

An upstairs in the reading room to a downstairs in the garage IM

BringsCrickets [3:51 PM]: Your kids are not quietly reading
Lapper808 [3:53 PM]: did they quietly read for awhle?
Lapper808 [3:53 PM]: 'cuz. You know. They're kids.

If you had told me a year ago . . .

My Street

Our street is not a circle, not a straight line . . . it's a funny mix of loops and circles all called by the same name. When I walk it with the dogs lately I feel like it's 30 years ago and we're at some East Coast campsite somewhere. There are the bugs, the distant noise of a barking dog, the thick, old, tall trees and so much vibrant green everywhere. The houses are just far enough back from the road to lend a sort of private cabin feel to the place. Some of the houses are really big, but you can kind of squint your eyes and make them further away and more cabin like. The way in which the houses alternate -- left, right, left, right -- along the road instead of marching along in subdivision rows. Few of the houses are directly across the street from another. The yards are big, but not wealthy subdivision big. Just divided-up-70 years ago big.

Overheard Today

Ben: Mommy! I'm all done cleaning my hair off! Mommy, can I clean my other hair? I gotta clean my other hair. :::trots off to bathroom:::
:::comes back:::
Ben: I'm all done!
Me: Okay, but, you still have jelly all over your chest.
Ben: Oh! Well, I have to put a washcloth in the cup.
Me: In the cup?
Ben: Yup. For the jelly!

Sunday

Quiet day. Church and some unpacking and organizing and then a long nap and dinner and some knitting and >poof< it was the end of the day. It's a quarter to ten now and I'm trying to brave the continued climbing humidity to get some more knitting done.

Emily wants me to turn the fan back on. She's hot. She keeps standing in front of the fan with her tongue hanging out and looking at me hopefully.

Saturday Night

So I ran errands with the twins this morning and made it back shortly before J and K got here. I made enchiladas while J and K, who are used to bugs, having not lived the last year and a half in the bug-free California desert (I mean, we had rats and other icky things, but we had no gnats and that IS a bonus.) played in the backyard with the kids. We all sat down for lunch and talked and ate and drove the kids nuts having out "adult" conversation (I say adult because we were doing what the adults did when I was a kid, but I made no claims to being all grown up) which only post-poned the cake. Finally, we took pity on the kids and had the cake which was this really cool collection of cupcakes and icing. A whole LOT of sugar died to make that confection. Yum.

Then Max opened presents and after oohing and aahing and yaying over everything, it was decided to break in one of the presents from J and K, which was an air-pressure fueled rocket with a foam "nose cone." Actually, there are two rockets, so you can keep playing even after the first one lands on the roof. When they're both on the roof, then you send Uncle J up there to go get them.

While he was up there, he cleaned out our gutters, which just goes to show you how blessed I am to have this man as my brother. THAT is love.

So the rest of the afternoon passed in happy bliss and then they had to go because they had another family event which I think also involved cake at a location about three hours away.

So I attacked the yard which was looking rather over grown. Especially since my neighbors on both sides were up mowing their respective lawns at 8am. It had rained most of the week, so the lawn was about a half foot high and had gone, in one week, completely to seed. I thought a lawn had to be abandoned for a few weeks before it would do that, but here it had been one week and we had little grass seed stalks everywhere. So I mowed and I weed whacked. The weed whacker is very heavy. It's a gas weed whacker that we picked because it claimed to be easier to start than most of its contemporaries. This seemed partially true. But it was definitely heavy and I struggled to get it to do what I wanted it to do, but when all was said and done, the house had lost its neglected look and I was mostly pleased. I took a shower, crawled into my jammies and have barely moved since.

I made an appointment for this year's school pictures. Picture day for the Three Beacon Academy is the Friday before the first Monday of school. The first Monday of pre-K/fourth grade will be July 11, so July 8th is school picture day. Now I need to make a barber shop appointment for earlier in that week :) Maybe I should get a hair cut myself. I'd kind of like to have a picture with my boys this year myself.

Happy Birthday, Baby

My baby turned nine yesterday. We're celebrating it again today because we figure, seeing as how he was born a bit after nine pm on June 3rd in PST, that means that in EST, he was born a bit after midnight on June 4th. Yesterday I worked most of the day while Chris ran errands and worked on the house. Then we went for groceries together and came home just in time for our guests to arrive. We had friends visiting from Ohio. They're nearby for a wedding this weekend and I hadn't seen them since her mother's wedding five-ish years ago. They have a beautiful daughter now, nearly three, are expecting a baby (she thinks a son) in another two and a half months, and they are a young, good-looking, smart couple. We had a great time.

Max got boisterous and a bit over-the-top towards the end. All my boys were WAY too loud most of the evening. They were having a great time. RIGHT after they left yesterday's lunch of refried black beans and cheese with blue corn chips caught up with Milo and while he got most of the damage in the potty, he didn't get it all. It was a horrific hallway mess and I felt completely traumatized by the situation. After I got the worst of it cleaned up I got the boys in bed, picked up everything on the floor of the twins room (that needed to happen anyway), vacuumed, and then shampooed that part of the hallway and their room. In the end I decided it was just as well since their room looks a LOT better now.

After all of that though, I was beat. Any intentions of staying up vanished and I crawled off to bed. I'm caught up enough with work to be a tiny bit less panicked, thanks to some help from another editing friend. I promised Chris I would go the weekend without working and I'm doing my best to do that.

Today is a Max day. My brother and his lovely wife are coming up later this morning and we'll eat, birthday party, and be merry. Ben says he has a cough in his mouth. Milo says he needs a "tithoo". So maybe we have a little summer cold.

Off to walk the dogs and get a start on the day. It will be a big, busy day.

Did I mention that my BABY is nine? He's so big and tall. I'm going to blink and find him at my height. He's still so young and yet at the same time I find myself worrying that here we are at the halfway point to 18. Have I been enough so far? I'm not really sure. I'd better keep working at it. But gosh, he's a wonderful kid.

Snap Shot

Chris singing this morning as he puts on his shoes:

"You may be right!"
:::makes music noises:::
"I may be crazy,
but it just might be a
pooooooodle you've been looking for!"
:::Emily, watching him adoringly from a distance of two inches licks his face copiously. Chris coughs and sputters.:::

The twins are practing their rolls across the living/reading room floor. Milo wants to do a somersault but hasn't quite figured it out yet. Ben is trying to teach Milo "leap frog jumping" but it soon becomes apparent that other than knowing that Milo is supposed to crouch really, low, he's not sure what to do next. They give up and play a sort of follow the leader doing to footed jumps across the floor and into the kitchen. Since they have the typical lead-in-the-bone-marrow constitution of our family, this sounds like THUD THUD THUD THUD giggle, giggle, giggle.

La La La!

Ben and Milo have this toy that plays these music cartridges. They're interactive and there's a scrolling paper screen . . . the widget comes with a working microphone on the side and the boys are singing into it right now. I *think* they're trying to sing along with it, but if so, it requires a vivid imagination to think they're singing the same song. Nevertheless, it's cute.

I got a lot of work done today and have a lot left to go. I'm going to bed early tonight though. I'm bushed.

We just about have the living room at an intermediary living level. The boxes are gone, the books put away. The dog stuff still needs to move downstairs and the walls need photos, but at least I could get at the carpet to vacuum. I was working on the hard copy of a document today instead of at my computer, so I sat in one of the comfy chairs in the living room and worked. A gentle breeze passed through that part of the house, the lush green leaves of the trees formed the view through the window.

It was really nice. It was REALLY tempting to take a nap :)

+++++++++++

Elizabeth tagged me with the blog question "When did you know you were different?" and my reply is similar to hers in that I was a minority student in a US-minority school. I grew up in Washington D.C. and at least at that time, Shephard Park Elementary was not a very racially mixed school. There were four white kids in my class, of which I was one.

That said, I try not to hit the "different" thing too hard. I believe that my willingness to be "different" -- the belief that I don't have a life like other people do -- has not contributed to my well being. I've made decisions and run my life in directions that didn't work well because I felt so completely different than other people.

When I come at things from the point of view that God loves me like all His other children, expects the same sort of behavior of me that He expects of all His other children, and will send the same blessings He sends all his other children . . . I straighten up and fly right.

It's great to be a little different. Sameness can be dull and a lot of what we might emulate in others isn't what God had in mind either. But my "you're different" message too often leads to "there's no sense following the rules because even if you do, you'll never fit in." And soon, my life spins off again into chaos. So I try REALLY hard not to listen to that nonsense any more. It's not that awful to focus on the similarities.

You know what you get when you take honey, spices, and whole grains out of a basic 50/50 bread recipe? You get french bread (or pizza dough :). It's really nice having the honey, spices, and a variety of grains, but they're not really -- and you'll hear lots of people say otherwise, but I don't believe it -- they're not really what makes the bread, bread.