My Bird Phase

Last year sometime, I’m not entirely certain how long ago, I entered my “Bird Phase”. And while one can’t be certain I’m thinking that it’s less of a phase and more of a “situation”. Buying expensive feeders, seed, binoculars is sounding more and more reasonable to me. Getting up at crazy times of the morning and traveling crazy distances is sounding more possible – maybe more essential. I was even seduced by a week-long birding camp for educators that’s being offered this summer – but only until I pictured leaving my babies for that long to go look at birds and realized that there would be time for such an activity when I am discharged from active duty motherhood.
I am beginning to feel like either a.) an old woman or b.) a crazy person because I spend a LOT of time reading field guides and staring out my kitchen window trying to master the differences between the LBJ’s (Little Brown Jobs) or squinting to see the details of the shape of a black silhouette flying by. So I am here to sort through and share the reasons that I’m so "enthusiastic” about the bird world.
1. I’m already a naturey kind of person. I’m not a sporty person but I do love to be outside. This is not a new development.
2. Birds are all over the freaking place. In the normal run of my day and WHILE fulfilling my home-bound responsibilities I can be connected to the natural world (even in the winter!). Doing my dishes, weeding the garden, running errands. Birds are always there.
3. They are not all sparrows. Not that there’s anything wrong with a house sparrow – I find them very entertaining actually. But really, there’s a lot more variety if you start to notice what’s going on out there. Just there – right in your yard or on the telephone wires next to the highway.
4. It’s something to “do” when out in nature. I love to take walks or hikes but I find myself hesitating to go out very often because I don’t always (sometimes, but not daily) want the ‘emptiness’ of my mind when I’m just walking. Watching the birds gives my mind just enough occupation to allow me to really engage and enjoy a walk.
5. "In contact with nature, a person rediscovers his correct dimension, rediscovers himself as a creature, small but at the same time unique, with a capacity for God because interiorly he is open to the Infinite." Benedict XVI
God’s creation points us to God – it orients our compass in the correct direction. Birds are just one part of that nature but they are so ubiquitous and varied that there’s a lifetime of discovery and engagement there if you are interested in them.

OK, so that clarifies some of it for me. Now on to my very exciting week of observing the birdies.
Fri. (2 ago): Driving the kids to co-op I saw these big dark lumps in the leaf-less tree up the road. They looked like dozens of squirrels nests. As we got closer it became apparent that they were not nests at all but Black Vultures! I pulled over and right in front of us (10 ft?) I counted 34 vultures. They were not (thankfully) eating anything – just roosting – and they were not (thankfully) Turkey Vultures – the red heads give me the heebee-jeebees. 
Wed. I went out alone for the evening and spent the first part at a Nat. Park nearby. I saw some sort of Flicker flying by and then I watched what I think was a Merlin (kestral) or American Kestral eating something up in a tree. VERY cool.
Fri: Driving to co-op had a Turkey Vulture fly out of a quarry and nearly into the side of the van. A little creepy. Saw a Red-Tail Hawk. AND – watched a Cooper’s Hawk carrying something off right in front of us. I jotted down my notes about what I observed and then spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to identify it when I got home. I’m pretty confident that I got it right in the end.
Sun: Spent an hour watching the feeder after a HUGE rain storm the night before. Those birds were Cr – azy. Here’s my list of observations:
Finch Family – dozens of Gold Finches and Pine Siskins fighting it out for the thistle. House Finches dipping in occasionally too.
Sparrow Family – EEEK!!! SO exciting! I saw two new sparrows – AND identified them!!! The White-throated Sparrow and the Chipping Sparrow. The White-throated looked pretty regular (except the white on his head) until you looked through binoculars and then you saw the beauty. Also, the Juncos are still hanging out and all over (they, the Pine Siskins and the White-throated Sparrows are about the migrate to Canada to breed for the summer).
Female Downy Woodpecker is a frequent visitor these days.
Mourning Doves
Tree Swallows (or Purple Martins) flying around in the yard.
And some unidentified brown bird (my best guess is a female Eastern Tohee)
All of this excitement within an hour while I drank my coffee – poured over my bird books – fed the kids breakfast - and reoriented myself towards God. It was a very good morning.
So pardon me if I include so bird-related posts every now and then. I am finally embracing my inner-bird.

Black Vulture (we live at the far Northern edge of their border)

American Kestral

Pine Siskin

Slate-colored Junco

 

Chipping Sparrow

Cooper’s Hawk

Tree Swallow

White- Throated Sparrow

Costo vs. Aldis: In which I am nerdy and maybe tacky...

*Blogger has decided it thinks paragraphs are too fancy for it's blogs so instead of paragraphs I will put a ~ symbol. Oi ve. To some folks thinking a lot about money is tacky. They think it unseemly to always be going after a bargain. Not refined perhaps. They take pride in not shopping at the big W or not wading through "other people's junk" at garage sales or thrift stores. ~To others it is practically a religion. They spend enormous amounts of time clipping coupons and perusing the ads to find the very very cheapest place to buy their beans that week. They then diligently spend time soaking said beans so as to not have to spend the money on canned beans. They go after pennies on the dollar and it hurts them to not get a deal. ~I have absolutely no shame - no shame whatsoever - about filling my house with "other people's junk." It is frequently an upgrade from my own junk. And I have no qualms about checking out with a cart full of Cheerios because they are on a once a year sale. ~On the other hand, I do not find couponing to be worth the time investment on my part. I am interested in large savings with a minimal output of my time. For me, efficiency is the name of the game. Efficient use of my time and money. ~I recently spent some time on a food buying efficiency project which may be handy for some other families out there. If you think this sort of project is tacky then you can just stop reading now because this is not the post for you. It's seriously nitty gritty and it's boring unless you have, for some reason, been looking for this information. I know I was. :) ~On to the details: We go on a giant shopping trip once a month to both places and then a quick one half way through the month to replenish our milk. We buy ten gallons of milk twice a month (20 total) and freeze half of the them each visit. We get most of our produce on these two trips but will also supplement with fruit on sale from the grocery stores if we run out. ~Here's my Aldi's vs. Costco cost comparison. The first 4 pages are the prices that I have collected (it is by no means exhaustive) and my shopping list is the last page. Frequently I only recorded the cheaper price. If it's on the list and there's only one price listed that is the cheaper price - if there is only an asterisk that also denotes the cheaper price. There are a couple of exceptions. We buy Costco milk (which is .50/gallon more then Aldis) in spite of the possibility of saving $10/month by going with Aldis. For whatever reason the Love-gullets are not huge fans of Aldi's milk. The brown sugar price is actually the same but I can't use the brown sugar fast enough if I buy it from Costco so I go with the smaller bag at Aldis. I go with natural peanut butter so we get that at Costco because Aldi's doesn't carry it, though their peanut butter is much cheaper. We buy Huggies diapers from AmazonMom and they are .01/diaper cheaper then Costco, I didn't compare then to Aldi's diapers price-wise or otherwise. We do a lot of steam-in-bag frozen veggies. I stock up on those at 10/10 sales at the regular grocery. We get our eggs local from a farm or grocery so I didn't compare those prices. Meats I find much cheaper to stock up on when grocery stores have sales then buying them at either place. All the prices are taken from the Maryland Costco and Aldis so if you live elsewhere then things may differ. Also the shopping list is arranged according to my own local stores. ~So, while it's really just designed with our own needs in mind and is always a work in progress, I hope it helps someone else too.

Bad Day to...

Awesome day!

Problem: 2 more streppy kids

Solution: 1 phone call to docs office and 1 trip to pharmacy. EASY.

Problem: Sump Pump broken. 1-2 inches of standing water in the basement.

Saving Grace: Water was ONLY in the play area which had recently (and uncharacteristically) been cleaned up recently. There were no stuffed animals on the floor, no dress up clothes, nothing that we couldn't wipe dry. The only wet thing to contend with is the rug which is already named, "The Sacrificial Rug" due to it's role in protecting the carpet of a dining room in a previous home. So it, as usual, has lived up to it's name. Also, the water did not touch a single book. We have hundreds of school books in the basement and the school room was untouched. I can't tell you my gratefulness.

Solution: Listen to this crazy God moment. Yesterday when I posted about our fun trip to the doctor my friend showed up at the house with chicken soup not an hour later. It was wild. I felt like I pressed "Post" and then turned around and she was there. It was such a blessing in so many ways.

So this morning Anthony send up the alarm about the flooded basement. Chills go through my spine. I will share this FB comment that I left not 2 weeks ago. "I am dreading a basement flood. All of our schoolbooks and toys are down there so if it ever happens it could be a complete disaster. Nothing like living on the edge." That was March 9th.

So we take a survey of the damage, breath a huge sigh of relief and thankfulness for The Sacrificial Rug and I say to John, "Well. Maybe we should get a dehumidifier. That's something that people do when this happens." He replies something about calling the plumber to fix the sump pump. Then I recommend that we call my chicken soup friend's husband as he is a carpenter and contractor and a generally "useful engine" as Thomas the Tank Engine would say. He's also extremely generous with his time and talents. As we are discussing this the kids have gotten their raincoats and boots on and are marching down to the giant puddle inside. "Fun times", they are thinking. (The picture is us baling the water - it was fun - for some.)

John gives chicken soup husband a ring and starts explaining the situation and Fred says, "OK, here's what you do. Walk to the front door." And suddenly I can hear both sides of the conversation and there is Fred, in my kitchen. I think to myself, "Wow. The L's response time to the Love's crises is really improving. That couldn't have been more then one minute after we called them this time."

Fred goes and hits the motor which he explains is the first line of defense when this happens (good to know) and then declares the sump pump dead. He tells John to run up to the local hardware store and when he gets back Fred installs the new pump. Problem solved in under an hour. Unreal. We didn't even have time to freak out. Much. Then he brings us his dehumidifier to borrow (I knew that had something to do with floods).

Next Fred pops on up to our bathroom and fixes the leak that's been stumping the best minds in the house (and the master plumber we called in) in our bathroom for over a month. Now we can re-drywall our foire ceiling. And although I will miss the bathroom plumbing being the first thing that people see when they walk in the door I am very happy to not have to pull out a bucket every time we bathe the children. This is apparently the reason Fred was in our driveway when John called him this morning. He had taken the morning off from working on his own project to fix that pesky leak for us. I know, I know. What makes us so lucky?

So, I think the lesson learned is that I no longer have to worry about anything anymore. The next time a pipe bursts or I have to run a kid to urgent care I'll just tell John, "Don't worry honey. I'm sure the L's are on their way. Just have a little patience."

God is good and today He was good through my friends. Thank you!

Happy day of 1st color!

 

 

                

 

 

                                    

 

 

                 

Zone Defense

I feel (naively, no doubt) that I have happened upon the perfect system. I am going to write it down here even though I’m quite convinced that by doing so I call down the wrath of the chaos gods. Such are the risks bloggers must take.
Since moving into this cozy, quirky home almost 2 years ago we have been shifting and nudging and generally feeling our way around, settling into more-or-less permanent places for things and activities and bodies. We have created schoolrooms, dismantled them and moved them 2 floors away. We have had 3 different designated uses for the room that we still refer to as the “toy room” even though there haven’t been any toys there for over a year. We’ve turned a gently used shower on our main floor into a coat closet (complete with coat wash if a child gets in there and turns the wrong knob). We’ve finished (and by finished I do not mean done) the attic. We’ve added shelves about the toilet in the broom closet in the kitchen and turned it into a cleaning closet, complete with toilet/garbage disposal (yes, you read right – I should really include a picture of said closet in this post). So after 1 year of mild buyers remorse and homeowner self-doubt we have wedged ourselves into our home rather comfortably.
Unless you are slightly nerdy or just have a lot of time on your hands (here’s lookin’ at you James) then don’t feel any obligation to read all the details that I can’t help but provide. Forgive me, it’s a compulsion. I will provide a Moral of the Story at the end of the post for those you skip the bullet points.
The permanent zones that have been formed are :

• Basement (unfinished): 1. School room (ALL homeschool materials. ALL); 2. Play room adjacent to school room. (ALL toys). They all have homes in these 3 old college dorm wardrobes that I bought off craigslist. Best idea I’ve ever had. DOORS for toys. Sweet peace. 3. Some pantry items (Costco purchases); seasonal storage (holidays, beach and snow); and tools. This section is separated from the rest and HAS A GATE (notice a theme?). Phew. That is really a huge amount of our life right there. I got a nice little heater and put down some rugs and lots of bright lights. Plus, in the spring we can open up our windows down there and we look right out into the garden. Last year we had an eye-to-eye relationship with a baby bunny in our yard. It’s not as bad as I feared but it did take me 2 years to admit that we were going to spend large amounts of our time in the basement. But I’m so glad that I finally did. It’s really the key to my sanity. We basically have an entire FLOOR dedicated to school and play. More on that later.
• Main Floor: 1. Meals (all cupboards have “child safety locks” – should be called “mommy-sanity savers” 2. Reading (non-school books and picture books are housed here). 3. Laundry facilities. 4. Coats and shoes. 4. Bills. Not much.
• Upstairs: 1. Beds 2. Clothes 3. Bath. Really not much.
• Attic (now finished): 1. Storage area (long-term clothes storage, baby gear, memory stuff) 2. Chill-axing. The attic is EMPTY. There is nothing there except a place to sit and a desk for John in the summer when he works at home. Also, more on that later. I am going to make a sign for the door that that, “Come this way to get above the fray.” It is bliss. I will post pics in a couple weeks once the carpet is in.

The Moral of the Story:
I have made a dedicated effort to do things IN their specified zones. This drastically cuts down on the schlepping of the hated STUFF hither to yon. It’s simple, have zones – use zones. That combined with a maniacal use of locked cupboards and doors (WHY, WHY spend precious energy and time putting things back that didn’t need to come out in the first place?! Thank God that I had an insane male toddler when we moved in here – I’m so glad I finally just got everything out of his reach. Third kid’s the charm) has reduced the time that I spend tidying up by an estimated 2-3 hours a week. Never mind how I came up with that number, it isn’t scientific but I think it’s accurate.
If nothing else, sticking to the zones has simplified my tidying up because it greatly reduces the decision-making component of tidying. It’s simple. It’s easy. I have a house that is as clean and tidy as I want it to be (not necessarily as clean as what you want your house to be, but still…) and it’s not been a huge amount of effort to keep it that way. It’s magic. Truly magic.

Or maybe Cecilia just hasn’t reached her B.T. (Big Trouble) age yet. It could definitely all go up in flames and I have certainly tempted the fates by writing this post. The taming of the stuff doesn’t really have an end, I’m sure but for the last two weeks I have actually experienced triumph instead of defeat and it is sweet.

This toilet is located in the only closet on the main floor of my house – in the kitchen. Nicknamed, “Potty-training Alley”. We needed somewhere for brooms and what not so now it’s the “toilet closet” (not to be confused with the “shower closet”). It serves another purpose though (the brain child of the ever-inventive Kristina) as a stand-in garbage disposal. For all the ends of soup and cereal that are just generally a nuisance in a home that is sadly in want of a garbage disposal. And note the toilet lock on the toilet. The bane of many guests with an emergency potty problem but the savior of many cookies that were being threated with a dip is the (probably unflushed) ‘pot’ – yes this is why we got the toilet lock – not a hypothetical.

Snow Day

A Christmas Ode to The Stuff *Updated*

While I have wanted to post something I just haven't been feelin' it. The creative juices are being diverted somewhere along the way and I'm pretty sure that when you say "I want you to post again" you do not mean you want me to write: "And today we watched Charlotte's Web and then I took a nap and then the baby sneezed all over me and then I cooked a mediocre dinner which consisted primarily of sausages." So consider my long silences between posts a mercy. A severe mercy no doubt (har har) but a mercy nonetheless.
Today something did strike my fancy though. Especially during this time of the year I feel the need to speak up for the Stuff. The Stuff gets such a bad rep around Christmas time - in spite of the the alleged widespread indulgence of our every Stuffish whim. We all rail against the non-stop accumulation of Stuff in our disgustingly affluent society and we purge and declutter and our homes become increasingly stark and in some cases sterile. We become more and more dependent on our electronics to house the information that used to be housed between the covers of books. Instead of wrapping a gift for someone at Christmas we lick an envelope that will deliver to someone "an experience" - a trip to a store, to a movie, to a play. If we have really gone off the deep end we make a gift to a charity in someone's name (yikes).
There is nothing wrong with any of the above tendencies or actions or gifts (except the charity one - go ahead and give to charity but you just can't kill two birds with that stone. It's not that kind of stone). But I like the stuff. I do. I LIKE STUFF. I am a serious Christian. I live in America. I have a lot of children who have a lot of toys. I have a lot of furniture in a not-so-large house. I have a lot of artwork on a lot of walls. I have a lot of Christmas decorations on a lot of surfaces. There's not a lot of visual rest for the eyes in my home (my brother once said to me, "when people come in here do they have a hard time figuring out where to look?"). And I'm happy with it.
Sure - there are things that I want to get rid of. I do, in fact, have a large bin (OK, it's a huge black trash can in my basement) which I regularly fill and return lots of it to the place from whence it came - Goodwill. But I am not interested in boxing up or bagging up all of my kids Playmobiles, Legos, puzzles, trains, dolls, dressup clothes, stuffed animals, movies and certainly not their books (I even own an Encylopedia set and a dictionary. I know. I'm a dinosaur). I am very interested in keeping their toys organized and in working order and I am also interested in buying them toys that improve their imagination and education - not the junk. The junk toys come in a much more conveniently stored package. A little electronic box the size of their pocket and which keeps them occupied and quiet and the house clean for greater periods of time then your typical selection of quality, cluttery toys will.
I am interested in facilitating a rich childhood and a cozy home. A cozy home needs to be clean and organized and the Stuff often seems to be getting in the way of that but really each piece of Stuff, in it's proper place, is a building block that builds up into a childhood and a home. I think that the homes that look so nice in a picture in a magazine might end up looking cold and empty if you lived in it. I find that the effort it takes to maintain The Stuff can look very much like the effort it takes to make a home and to be a mom.
I just got back from a fabulous trip to the Goodwill where I bought my children lots of good, cluttery toy Stuff (some of it is even plastic with lights and sounds! Horrors!) that I can't wait to watch them open up on Christmas morning. A lot of it will probably end up back in my Goodwill trash can eventually but I'm happy to house it and and clean it up every night for the next few years of my children's lives. I will facilitate The Stuff, The Childhood and The Home and I will be exhausted and happy. And I hope my kids will be too. Welcome home, Stuff - welcome home.

P.S. After posting this I suddenly got very nervous that I was going to insult some of my dearest friends and best homemakers and mothers that I know. This is not about you, dear friends! This is about the unexamined purge - the heedless quest for clean lines in a home to the point of disregarding the people who live in that home.
Equally, this is not a manifesto in favor of the disgusting home in which clutter reigns supreme, but I think I made that clear enough.
Essentially this is just me coming to terms with the fact that my idea of providing a home and a childhood for my family can look different then that of the other good moms in my life. And that's OK. I'm OK, you're OK. Good holiday feelings all around, OK? Right. Love to all and I can't wait to come to your cozy homes and give my eyeballs a rest. :)

Canning Season

 

The picture above is about as much canning as I’ve done in the last couple years (aside from a quantity of freezer jam).

I had my canning season rescued by the visit of a couple dear friends from HOME. They came down, we canned applesauce and apple butter and I realized why it is that I don’t enjoy canning down here in the south. I don’t like thinking. Canning is such a multi-tasking endeavor and so I like to do it but only when someone else is keeping all the plates spinning. Enter, Maureen.

So, we “put up” close to 30 quarts of applesauce in a few hours, got to visit and even made a trip to the local antique mall and I walked away with a STEAL of a deal on an antique quilt. All while the husbands took the band of 6 youngins to visit a couple of the Smithsonian’s best offering. Easy cheesy, right? I think that they only lost 1 of the kids for a little while.

So next year I just need them to visit in May for the strawberries, June for the blueberries, July for raspberries, August for peaches, September for tomatoes and October for apples. You just get on top of that, please. Thank you very much.

7 Quick Takes or....

I have no single unifying thought whatsoever but I'm trying to blog more so...
1. Rosie came downstairs a couple days ago complaining that she had "very bad breath". Well, I could have told her that. It turns out that she meant she had a sore throat. Very cute.
2. This week has been one of great yelling. I don't mean "great" as a description of it's worthiness, just of the large amount. In fact, I have bad breath from all the yelling. Take that how you will.
I reached a point on Monday of looking around me, and upon viewing the disrespect being shown by each member of the family for each member of the family, and thinking, "Where the H#%l are the parents?! What is going on here?!" And I haven't stopped yelling since. I HAVE HHHHHHAAAAADDDD IT!!!!!!!
I am aware that there must be a better way of handling this, in fact I even have several ideas but I also feel the need to impart to my children my astonishment at the state of the behavior. Some things are NOT acceptable - the are, in fact, shocking. When one is shocked, one yells.
Justify much?
3. John and Anthony are going on a camping trip this weekend. I can't help feeling that I'm a horrible nurturer for sending them out, overnight, in this chilly fall weather. But they are going with a large contingent of sons/dads from our home school group so I guess there are other bad nurturers too.
4. Thomas has been climbing out of his crib several times a night, in the middle of the night and puttering the halls looking for his pacifier. At 2 am. At 3 am. At 4 am. "You must be tired", you say. Well, John the night-time martyr is tired but I'm doing OK.
5. We have peeps from home coming to visit us in our East Coast outpost next week. I'm so excited! It's also a great reason to really push through and get more of the attic done. I spent a lot of yesterday morning up there with John hanging drywall and it's a very satisfying experience. What was not so satisfying was the state of the house when we came down. But I can be pretty confident that I accomplished something less transitory then my usual fare of laundry, math, vacuuming, changing a diaper, feeding the masses, etc. It's nice to know that the drywall will continue being hung now that I did it. It's not going to end up in a heap on the floor at the end of the day or be thrown down on the floor because it doesn't have the right kind of red sauce.
6. I've started some very early Christmas shopping. Mainly it's things that I'm trying to justify buying because I like them and they're a smokin' deal.
7. If you are thinking about becoming a vegetarian but need a little nudge then just buy 40 lbs of chicken, bring it home and spend 2 hours with your hands covered in chicken fluid getting it prepped to freeze individually. The sticky, slimy feeling on your hands and the meaty smell will surely put you over the edge. If you would like to continue eating meat though, I don't really suggest it.
Jen is host of the quick takes so visit her for more and better thoughts.

The Attic:low - medium glamour jobs

Over the summer John has been finishing our attic with the help of some of the more handy men of our acquaintance, most notable his stepfather. Do you know how hot is has been this summer? Have you noticed the humidity and the temp being in the high 90's? Well, if you haven't then it's because these guys have noticed your share for you.
Up until this point they have been doing a lot of low-glamour background work like fixing a broken condensate pipe on the AC, running all the electrical, pulling up floor boards for insulation and drilling holes in the floor (apparently called soffits) and solving many problems that have crept up along the way. They have done some medium-glamour work like getting all the framing up for the new walls, turning one switch into a three-way switch, and running the new AC ducting up (unfortunately all that cool air still flies straight up through the ridge-vent). So far the highest glamour job we ended up hiring out. We had 2, 4ft skylights installed. I don't know why no one but me thought it was a good idea to scramble around on our 43 degree slanted roof. i still maintain that I would have done it myself except that I have no skilz. You need a crazy person with skilz to do that work and I'm only crazy. The last steps are the high glam jobs like insulation and drywall and painting! But if I only did a post when that's all done then the poor low-glam and medium glam jobs wouldn't get their due. So this post is for them.
And for the men who have been sweating their guts out in the first circle of Hell.
In the Beginning...Then there were walls and light and AC and...SKYLIGHTS!

This is my skylight face

My first view of the mountains FROM my house!The ever-present soffits...only 20 more to go.

Notice the tip of that nose....

Glen, the step-father who can do it all...

Getting lumber up into the attic requires thinking outside the box sometimes...

Wordless Wednesday

The Highs and the Lows

Highpoint of the day:
Getting some totally awesome shelving and antique children's reading desks at a live library auction (those auctioneers actually do sound like that).


Lowpoint of the day:
Listening to the Passion narrative for Palm Sunday with the narrator referring to Herod as HAROLD the whole way through.


On second thought, I think that was the highpoint.

A Spring Thought I'm Sharing

The Muddy Puddle, by Dennis Lee

I am sitting

In the middle

Of a rather Muddy

Puddle,

With my bottom

Full of bubbles

And my rubbers

Full of Mud,

While my jacket

And my sweater

Go on slowly

Getting wetter

As I very

Slowly settle

To the Bottom

Of the Mud.

And I find that

What a person

With a puddle

Round his middle

Thinks of mostly

In the muddle

Is the Muddi-

Ness of Mud.

I'm so proud...

This week I spent several afternoon naps working on transforming the shed (oh yes, the famous shed from the Poop Chronicles, vol. 1) into the playhouse of my dreams. For the kids. Right...

Here's the raw material we had to work with. A shed that barely fit the lawnmower, and shovels that you see there...LOT of spiders, old wasps nests, some rotting wood and years worth of mud. The sweeping and mopping out of the place took 2 days. I stopped when the water running out the doorway was just dirty instead of being pure mud.

VERY rough first coat of paint. It was supposed to be teal but most of the color seems soaked out into the raw wood. I have a sneaking suspicion that I might never get around to a 2nd coat...

Moving Day. "I'm sure I never gave her leave to borrow my wheel-barrow!" Bonus points if you can tell me the name of the classic children's tale that is from (no Googling, now!)

Rosie is taking her role has house mother quite seriously. While I was trying to take this picture she kept yelling, "Stop! I'm cooking!!!" Hmmm...look in the mirror lately?

The always present "reading corner", no home is complete without it.

Snow-pocalypse 2010

Our town takes the "removal" part of "snow removal" very seriously. This picture was taken from the kid's bedroom window.


She lasted for about 3.5 minutes


Please ignore the pink fur-lined boots.


Anthony and neighbor, Dodge, scaling the face of the mountain

(this post began a week ago and is being posted belatedly because better late then never)

You may be tired of hearing about our big snow storm out east here but it's pretty awesome. So I thought I'd share some pictures. We have been ordered by the State and the County to stay off the roads yesterday and today and since there was also a big snow last week I've left the house for a total of 6 hours since January 30th (that includes Mass). A little cabin fever has set in but really, it's so hard to do anything with all four kids that I might not have left the house anymore then that anyway and at least there's a pretty view from my windows.
I'm so grateful for neighbors with snowblowers (although I'm puzzled by why they invest in snowblowers when this sort of weather is so unusual here). I'm also thankful for our other neighbors who are FOCUS missionaries and came over in the middle of the blizzard last night to share a bowl of chili and break up the monotony.
I have just finished rereading The Long Winter by Laura Ingles Wilder which makes me basically grateful for everything in my modern, cushy life.

UPDATE: We did manage to get out of the house (to an indoor McDonald's playplace) for an evening of wild abandon before the puke-fest commenced. Also, I feel a bit sheepish for all of my complaints about our south of the Mason-Dixon line winters here, one mile south of the Mason-Dixon line. This is a real, for serious snow situation. In fact, there's been so much snow that the kids can't even play in it. Anthony was waist-deep in the backyard. Our swings on our swing set had no seats anymore. It was awesome. Now I only have to wait about 10 years to see something like it again. In nine years I'll have to remember to go out and buy a snowblower - I wouldn't want miss out on another opportunity to join the snowblower brigade.

Bringing us up to date

[Also known as, "I don't have the time to figure out how to make the darn pictures work today. Grrr.]

Since I haven't been regularly posting since June I'm going to brief you as to how we've spent our last 7 months. In June we travelled to Michigan for our annual trip to "Len's Cabin". There was no destroying of neighbors ponds or anything so I apparently didn't feel the need to take ANY pictures?! Can this be right? Weird.
My family came down in August for a 24 hour visit - what sacrifice!
And the next day we took off for our week-long vacation with John's family at Rehobath Beach, Delaware. "Gricky" is the celebrity word I would use to describe that week. It wasn't that is was terribly hot - just a lot of melting ice cream (sticky) mixed with sand (gritty) resulting in a general feeling of grickiness.
The beach with Gussy is...shall we say, trying? A fully mobile 11 month old is just about the worst type of human bean to take to the beach. I tried to let him learn the lesson by letting himtaste the sand and draw his own conclusions about it but this didn't work. At least he wasn't as bad as Rosie at his age, she actually intentionally dipped her food into the sand before eating it. But after realizing that he wasn't going to stop eating sand I spent my time trying to intercept all of the cigarette butts before they made down the hatch with the sand. Really gross.
We ended up staying a whole extra week due to an unfortunate tennis accident that forced John's grandparents back to the city with an extra week booked at the beach house. It was such a wonderful treat for us (sorry, Betty!) and a wonderful break from all of the home improvement/moving/gardening that occupied us all summer.
John started up the semester immediately. This time he only had one new class and two classes that he had taught before so it was vastly different then last fall when he was a new prof., all new classes and a new baby 2 weeks into the semester. Isn't wonderful that we don't ever have to repeat the exact same things? You couldn't pay me enough to go back to that year.
We also started homeschooling Moses in September for Kindergarten. Such FUN! I love it. I don't love that it isn't my sole occupation though. The cleaning, cooking, laundry doesn't seem to care that I would so much rather be researching curriculum and finding "living books" for my son - it just continues demanding attention. I actually enjoy all of those other things too but the novelty of using my brain for more then cleaning lists and menu plans is sort of addicting.
Moses is doing very well - learning to read and add and subtract. Plus enormous amounts of information about Knights and Castles, Trains and (of course!) Dinosaurs.



Sometime during our study of Knights and Castles, Rosie became enamoured with princesses. That continues to be her all-consuming story of the year.
Thomas has fully enjoyed himself for mom's group and library story time because he's such an extrovert. He runs around in the middle of the kids at story time while the other two kids cling to me like we're on a sinking ship. There's no accounting for temperaments, I suppose.
Let's see - in September he also turned one. No one could have been happier with all the attention, believe me.
Fall went by with all the usual things, picking apples, Halloween, etc.
Anthony turned 5. Oh my goodness. For a certain amount of time it gave him great courage. When people asked him how old he was he would actually say, out loud, "five". Now we've languished to just raising one hand but there was a burst of courage following such an important birthday. It's OK, Rosie tells everybody she meets how old we all are, including me and daddy.
The morning of his birthday we woke up and had this conversation...
Anthony: Am I five right this moment?
Mommy: Yes, today is your birthday!
Anthony (with a puzzled look at his hands and arms): But I don't look 5, I just look 4.
Later in the morning he showed me a picture he'd just drawn, saying, " So...I guess this is what a picture by a five year old looks like."
Also in November I was 34 - 38 weeks pregnant. Therefore we did not travel for Thanksgiving but stayed here in the south and spent the day with John's extended family at the big gathering in D.C. November and December were spent with me in a FRANTIC state trying to get everything ready for Christmas before the baby came and then she came, right on cue. Born on her due date, the feast of St. John of the Cross. We had Christmas at our home with some of John's family stopping in for a very pleasant visit.
My family and dear friend Reenie came down for a week after Christmas where we (by we, I mean John and Reenie) successfully replaced a toilet, a faucet, a stove, put hardware on the cupboards, and finished the window seat. Phew! It was fun for me - I got a very nice upgraded kitchen and a wonderful visit all in one!
Since John started the semester life has been one big blur, just trying to figure out how to handle this...situation (the one with me and many young children alone is a house in the winter). But that's a post for another day.