The Man of the Hour

So yesterday Husband went to work and I began the long process of laundry (over 8 loads!) and putting away Christmas. The children were assembling the different lego/bionicle goodies they received: T-Bone was working hard on a Skeleton Tower, Cheeseball was working on a skeleton carriage, and Janey was working on some wierd undersea creature. Well, it wasn't long until Cheeseball needed a little assistance getting a piece attached. I glanced at the instuctions, looked at the legos, looked back at the instructions and said, "Uh, sorry, no help from me." So he implored his brother to help. T-Bone stopped what he was doing and came over to help him. A little bit later, Janey called, needing some help. Again I looked, shrugged, and said, "Sorry! I can't do this." So she went up to T-Bone and again he helped. I needed the dishwasher emptied and it was T-Bone's turn and he came as soon as I called. The kids spent several hours on their projects and T-Bone continued to be interrupted and asked for help. All the while he was working on this tricky tower and then a bionicle and then a Naboo space craft. He never complained. I guess it's good to be needed.

Goose has taken to speaking with her scary voice. She growls deep in her throat and what comes out is a mixture of Darth Vader and the Exorcist. She is such a little girl and I just can't get used to it.

Janey is trying to get me to sign a set of laws she has created for the better running of our home. They include (but are not limited to): Boon is mayor of Our Town and will be respected. All punished people will be punished by Janey. No popping of balloons." She cracks me up; she loves to draw up contracts. I have refused to sign, by the way.

We played Murder in the Dark as a family last night. In the past we have always done the winking method (and Cheeseball would always keep his eyes closed so he couldn't be killed), but this time we did the hand squeeze way. T-Bone and I both suceeded in killing everyone before we were caught!

Some things are easy, others are hard

Our return trip home from Christmas in Arizona was easy and uneventful (except for the few minutes a certain member of our family had to spend outside the car while regaining composure). The roads were perfectly clear, traffic was light, and crossing the dam was pretty quick, despite the dire roads signs which warned of significant delays.
Our visit was good, except for the part where I went pyscho and became the worst version of myself. Fortunately others are patient and forgiving.
As we were driving back, we found a radio station where a bunch of commentators with British accents were discussing progress and space and life and one of them said something along the lines of, "We're not even sure about the idea of free will, whether people really have choices or not." Of course that flies in the face of what I believe, but the truth is, for me, changing myself is the hardest thing there is. It is so easy to continue being the way I am and so hard--too hard, it seems--to change. I guess that's why true change requires something outside of ourselves to help us be better. Grace provided for by the atonement, I guess it is. Boy do I need some of that and soon!
On a side note, I've resolved to stop in Boulder City (I think that's the name) instead of Las Vegas for any gas or food needs, and be very wary of the Burger Kings on the outskirts of small towns. . . .

Oh, the Dam Traffic!

Yeah! It's Christmas and it has been wonderful. Our normally 11.5 hour trip telescoped to over 13 hours, thanks to patches of icy roads, several misguided attempts to find Little Caesars, and the horrible traffic over the Hoover Dam. But it all went well--we were safe and happy and even reasonably happy, although the power cord for our portable DVD player wasn't working so we couldn't enjoy a movie. The kids are truly enjoying being with their cousins and it has been nice and relaxing. The lack of snow has also been a plus.

What a wonderful thing it is to celebrate the birth of the Savior of the world. Merry Christmas!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

Well we are supposed to be heading out for our Christmas trip adventure today but the weather forecasts haven't been encouraging. I found a sitter from the online classifieds for Boon Dog, but I'm a little concerned because she lives in a trailer park. . . . It's not like I have a love for the animal, but Cheeseball in particular has been getting closer to him and even put Boon's name on his school-made stocking.
We had a nice weekend. Janey had a good birthday and she was happy with her party and we got to see some of my family (though Husband and I have been outed as the worst Trivial Pursuit players ever), and we're going to be able to see Husband's family for Christmas. The kids are so excited to be with their cousins and I'll be grateful to have my fun and fearless sister-in-law to keep me happy. Husband has been warned to not spend all his time fishing and at the electronics store. We'll see how that pans out!
Above all else right now, I am feeling very grateful. Our lives are so blessed and we have so many excellent opportunities and soon there will be presents and yummy food and chances to think about Jesus.
And on a cheesy last note, I have to add that I am really loving the Christmas music that is all around. A couple of days ago, I was in the car and I heard "Ave Maria" and it was just about the prettiest thing ever. I almost choked when I heard the DJ say the singer was Barbara Streisand, but I guess you have to hand it to her, she has a beautiful voice. Okay, and for the song that I'm most embarressed to admit I'm moved by: "Mary, Did You Know?" by Kenny Rogers. The music is that soft rock stuff that has never sat well with me but the lyrics are so sweet,
"Did you know
That your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
And when you kiss your little boy
You've kissed the face of god"

Too perfect for words

Sometimes I love the snow. Today I walked outside with Boon. The snow was falling softly and everything was white and silent. I don't know if falling snow provides insulation from sound, but everything seemed so quiet and peaceful and clean and good. It was a perfect moment. As I go through life I occasionally find moments of perfection, when all the elements come together without flaw, and I am moved to a point beyond my ability to articulate. Sometimes it happens in a book (the Book Thief had several moments that I remember with gratitude), many times it happens in music (Brahms has a beautiful, gentle piano waltz), and every once in a while it happens with my family, when we're all together and happy and safe. I thank God for these moments and for the hope of more to come.

Want a dog?

AGH! Now that the weather is snowy, when Boon has to go potty, we want to be able to open the door, let him out and have him return, just like a boomerang (Boonerang?). The german shepherd next door does that. But no, Boon Dog has to be Mr. Social and he goes running through the neighborhood and ends up visiting other dogs in others' yards. We have a hard time finding him and who wants to tramp through all that snow anyway?

I've had a couple of minor crisises (how is that spelled?) the past few days as I've tried to prove myself reasonably competent. I keep thinking I can do these things that others can do but I meet with failure or my own ineptitude and end up feeling frustrated. (And I hope I didn't actually kill my wheat grinder!)

Oh, my Bookshelf to the right has only one book that I'm actually reading. (The Drummer Boy is a little gem we got from the library and Goose wants to read it at least once a day.) I hope to be reading the Hunger book soon for Book Group, and I really should be reading Gods and Generals just for my personal development.

After lunch treats

So Cheeseball comes up to me after lunch and requests his "after lunch treat." He wants chocolate chips--both the regular chocolate and the white chocolate (which I just happen to have sitting around in my cupboard so I can nibble on whilst I think about making cookies). I asked him why he wanted both. He answered, "So they can battle." I then wondered aloud who would win. But Cheeseball's shirt said it all. "Never Underestimate the Power of the Dark Side." (It features Lego Star Wars characters; he's only mildly obsessed....)

Oh, Janey didn't get called back for the play:(. It's okay though, apparently none of her good friends did either. The school must have a lot of very talented children. But to be brutally honest, elementary school plays hold zero interest for me unless my child is on stage, I don't care if Shirley Temple herself would waltz out in front of the curtain. I wonder if how many other parents feel that way?
UPDATE: The light side won the chocolate chip battle, apparently one of the whites had the force extra, extra strong.

And you thought your life was exciting . . .

Goose and I are doing in-depth research for the book we're writing on discount store restrooms. That's why whenever we go to Target or WalMart or Costco, bingo, she says she has to go potty and we head off to the WC. Sometimes she produces and sometimes she just sits there, and sits there, and sits there . . . . I've never been in so many store restrooms in my life.

Oh, yesterday I tried a new recipe:http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/White-Chocolate-Chocolate-Cookies/Detail.aspx?prop31=1
I think that only someone who really likes dark chocolate would appreciate them because they are so packed with cocoa (more than twice that which is in my regular brownie recipe) that they aren't very sweet, but I loved them precisely because they did satisfy my chocolate craving. I even passed up a chance to nibble on Beulah's Toblerone bar because I had had a couple of cookies an hour or two before she offered and I just didn't need any more chocolate.

Speaking of Beulah, we finished up her mop cap (or was it a muffin hat?) for her English class. We had to dig out my sewing maching and it was after an hour of whining and screaming (all mine, btw) that Beulah delicately showed me that I had threaded the maching the wrong way. Duh, duh, duh. But the hat turned out fun. We sacrficed an old piece of black velour which had been Beulah's Hermione cape from Halloween six years ago.

Here's to making things easier!

Well it finally occurred to me that it was the holiday season and I wanted to be baking and making goodies. My very wise sister-in-law clued me into making gingerbread cookies with a mix. Whenever I've made them by hand it has always taken so long and been so messy and hard on my mixer and ultimately, the cookies aren't even that tasty. Well, sitting in my fridge right now is a batch of dough waiting for the kids to come home and roll and cut and it took me two or three minutes to throw together. Yeah!

Goose is trying to get Boon Dog in his crate. I don't think he believes that he has to obey her. He is amazingly patient with her poking and prodding. I think I just heard her tell that something was disgusting. Hmmm. Maybe I should check it out. . . .

Janey is trying out for a part in the Cinderella play today. She has no fear on stage and I have to say that she is adorable when she's performing. I was going to wonder where it comes from but her Dad is the biggest ham I know. The boys are fun. I am so grateful that they are good friends.

Beulah is enjoying her new haircut. She has to say she doesn't like it, occasionally, just so she's not bragging, but I know she knows she cute.

What is DNCB?

Last night, about an hour and a half before we were going to go the Messiah, I discovered that Goose had gotten into this dangerous substance that I received from a dermatologist. I had thought it was out of reach but Goose had put a chair up to the dresser where I had put it and she'd gotten the lid off the vial. I don't know what she did with it; there wasn't much in the tube to begin with and I couldn't tell if any was gone. It looks like Vaseline. All that was written on the tube was "DNCB V. For external use only." (I couldn't recognize the C) I called the poison control center and the man on the phone was unable to tell me what the stuff was. It was 6:00 on a Friday evening, and I called the Dermatologist's office but he wasn't in. So then I went through the list of dermatologists in the phone book. The first one I called answered, to my surprise, and as it turned out, she was the doctor and not a receptionist. At first she didn't know what I was talking about but then she said, "Oh, there's DNCB--Dinitrocholorobenzoide (or something like that). Oh, I don't use that. It's a carcinogen." I thanked her quickly and then recalled the poison control. I told him that I'd put Goose in the bath tub immediately and washed her off in case all she had done was touch it. He told me that if she'd ingested enough to make her sick she would have problems with her red blood cells and turn blue around the lips or get lethargic. At this point we could both hear her screaming lustily, and he said it sounded like she was okay. He said he'd call back in an hour. Fortunately, Goose never should any symptoms of red blood cell destruction and when he called back she was fine.
Husband went to the Messiah early and saved a seat for me. When we determined that Goose was okay, I went and joined him. My kind father-in-law actually dropped me off so I didn't have to find a parking spot. I went running in and, can you believe it, I didn't miss the music. It was fabulous, though we didn't sing about being like sheep or the Sons of Levi.
So anyway, it's early in the morning and I can't get back to sleep and I figured I would research DNCB and then record what I learned.
There isn't a lot of info; it seems like a mildly controversial treatment for skin lesions (that's warts). Apparently it's also used in AIDS treatment. I think I dreamed about Goose getting cancer. But maybe I should be more concerned about the person who had been getting this treatment. I was never told that the substance was a "mutagen," only that it was a substance that provokes an allergic reaction on everyone who comes into contact with it. I didn't get a lot of "danger" warnings, though.

BTW, before all this drama, Beulah did my makeup. (She wants to be a cosmotolgist, she says.) It was fun, but she laid the foundation on a bit thick and I think I looked a little orange. She did a much better job on me than I did when I insisted on giving my mom a makeover twenty years ago.

God Couldn't Be Everywhere So He Created Mothers

Now I am not sure my children would understand this sentiment but let me tell you. . . . Yesterday I was having a bad day and feeling angry, frustrated, and useless and then it occurred to me that I could simply call my mom. A few rings and there she was, full of support and sympathy and wisdom. I have always been able to talk with her and feel comforted and reassured by her words, as far as I can remember back in my memory. I know that everyone does not have this kind of relationship with their mothers and it's a pity because it's a wonderful thing.

Tonight is the Messiah Sing Along! I am so excited! I'm not sure what my favorite part is: I love hearing the drums boom along with "Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." And of course I adore the Hallelujah chorus. I also really like "And he will purify the sons of Levi that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness." But I think the most personally moving part of the experience is when we all sing, repetitively in parts, "All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way," and then it ends with the slowly sung truth of our salvation, "And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of . . .us . . . all." I will probably bawl through the whole thing. I hope I don't see anyone I know!

A Grain of Rice

I had a strange dream last night. Instead of being a lovely 2 year-old toddler my youngest child was an ant, about the size of a grain of rice. I loved her very much and I dressed her in a pink top and little white pants. I was holding her carefully and then I dropped her and she fell in a space between two pushed-together bunk beds. As I looked around the base of the beds, I kept thinking that I saw huge killer ants. I was certain they would find Goose and kill her. I continued to look but I knew I would never find her. I then remembered that I had only taken a couple of pictures of her and I cursed myself for not having more. It was not until I woke up that I remembered that Goose is actually a little girl with messy light brown hair and a magically elusive smile.

Say Cheese

We took some glamour shots for the advertising inserts coming up in the next couple of weeks. I was just joking when I suggested we should put our hands up to our ears. . . .

Books I read after getting my BA in English, part A

Moby Dick

Pride and Prejudice

Emma

War and Peace

Atlas Shrugged

Fountainhead

Sense and Sensibility

Persuasion

Northanger Abbey

Yes. I honestly graduated without ever having read Jane Austen. (I did read Lonesome Dove twice, though)

A Tale of Two Turkeys

I think I've already established that I'm not the sharpest stick in the stack but here's an example. . . . We decided to host Thanksgiving a few days ago, and I didn't get a turkey until Tuesday afternoon. It was nearly 20 pounds. And it was frozen. I didn't even think about the thawing process. Yesterday evening I read on the bag the "quick thaw" method, which is to immerse the bird in cold water, changing it frequently. We figured we could get started at 8:00 at night and it would be ready in the morning (if you count ignoring the bird in water for the eight hours between 11:00 and 7:00 am). Well, at about 9:30 at night, I started checking different websites for turkey cooking hints. Again and again I read, "Don't leave the turkey in water; it's a breeding ground for bacteria"--(at which point I always wonder, "well, doesn't the 180 degree temperature we cook the turkey to kill all the bacteria?!) But finally I felt like I would be putting my family and guests in mortal peril if I used the bird. So I turned to my intrepid husband and asked if he could run to the grocery store and find a "fresh" turkey. It was past 10:00 at night, but he did.

So this morning I tried to follow a recipe I found on Allrecipes.com. It included directions for making a brine for the turkey, but as I checked on brining, I saw that if the turkey is prebasted you're not supposed to brine it. So I followed the instructions for the most part, cooking the turkey breast side down. I'm sorry to say that it ended up a very ugly bird. It tasted okay, and we have lots of leftovers.
The other turkey is in the freezer. I'll make it sometime in the future.

I do have a few vices

Okay, whenever I watch 24 I have to go check the Dave Barry Blog for reactions. They are always hilarious. http://blogs.herald.com/dave_barrys_blog/24/index.html

We survived!

Rob reinstalled the computer this weekend and hallelujah it's working so much better now. Initially he lost a lot of information (pictures and my journal entries for 4-7 years ago) but after a lot of sweat and tears (and 29.95) he was able to retrieve them. As I rechecked some of the files, I had a lot of fun looking back at what was going on when we lived in Simi Valley. I can't believe how the kids have grown and changed. It's a little disconcerting.

I took Beulah and Janey to see The Dark Knight last Saturday night. It was a very last minute decision and I can't believe we made it on time. It was good and fun. I think Christian Bale is the best Batman yet.

We haven't been able to see my grandma for a while and I feel bad. I don't know how much time she has left, but whenever we see her, she is always so grateful and good to visit with. Maybe this week when the kids are out of school.

I have to break down and buy a vacuum. I really want the Dyson at Costco for $350 but I think it's time that I don't get what I want (I always do, ultimately) and settle for a $100 vacuum, with the stipulation that we get our central vacuum system fixed in the upcoming months.

Not much is going on, I guess

It's been cold and dark and rainy today.
Goose gave herself a haircut last week while Husband and I were at Mamma Mia. I liked the movie okay but I wasn't totally thrilled with it. I did like the last scene ("Take a chance on me"--didn't Yaz or Erasure do a version of it?). Goose is still beautiful, BTW.
Husband is so busy getting his office ready. He is opening on Monday and so far has scheduled two appointments for tests.
Don't you with the Dow Jones would stop going down? Come on, already. Obama's been elected, the government is going to keep saving hemorrhaging business, and the sun will shine again so let's stop selling stocks and driving down prices!
I tried to listen to Michael Medved's conspiracy show today but it was just too noisy with the kids' coming home from school.
Oh, and I am cranky because Husband is paying a sign company to do the vinyl lettering for his office door instead of buying me a Cricut and having us do it ourselves. S0 what if the quality isn't as good; I think it would be fun to be able to have a vinyl cutter!

Life goes on

This afternoon we went over to the kids' school for the Falloween Ball. I helped out Cheeseball's teacher with the spider toss as Husband took the kids around to the various classrooms. Lots of parents helped out and it was really well attended. Our family had a distinct Lucasian flavor: T-Bone was Darth Vader, Cheeseball was Darth Sidious, and Janey really wanted to be Yoda, but settled for Jango Fett (alas, we couldn't find a Yoda costume).

About an hour earlier, we brought all the kids but Beulah (she was babysitting) to get flu shots. Most of us now have sore shoulders and I'm feeling strangely wheezy.


Goose continues to do very well out of diapers. She is usually dry through the night. We have a few minor struggles : she doesn't tinkle on command and she also says she has to go pottymany times when she doesn't. Sometimes she can hold it for hours and hours and sometimes she has silly accidents.


I'm reading a book that has yet to engage me--and I'm close to 300 pages into it. I'd stop reading it but there's nothing else immediately around and Husband is glued to Brisinger.

Is the end in sight?

I am cautiously optimistic.

We have been potty training Goose for the past 10-11 days, and yesterday there were no accidents. I do know that it is in the nature of life for there to be vicissitudes so I should expect messes today but I can't help feeling hopeful!

We decided to kick up our efforts to train her for economic reasons. Diapers are expensive and we'd rather not have to buy them anymore.

Things are coming along for Husband's office. We bought 6 used guest chairs a couple of days ago and are looking at another half dozen with interest. The man we bought the chairs from commented that it was an interesting time to start a business. I am so grateful that we have to chance to invest in Husband and his abilities right now, because I trust his hard work, drive, and intelligence and I know he will do his best.

On a serious note, I am thinking about Proposition 8 in California. Nine years ago, we campaigned heavily for Prop. 22, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Even though we were canvassing a fairly conservative area, it was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do to go door to door and ask people how they were planning to vote. I hate intruding on people. But I did it because I believed in the cause. We need to have a standard, an ideal. There are a multitude of lifestyle options available, but there is one that is the best for children to be brought into, and that is a binding marriage between a man and a woman. It saddens me that some might find that a hateful position. It is not. It is the truth. I am frustrated at how our society bends to the demands of the few and the powerful and glamorous but I guess that it is nothing new. People who know what is good can't be afraid to say it, though, and I can't be afraid to support marriage as solely between a woman and a man.

I am hesitant to pick the very last of our peaches.
It kind of feels as if I'm saying a long and sad goodbye, like when I used to have to tell Husband good-night back when we were just dating.

I'm drying a few of the ground peaches that I salvaged, and my swan song for the season will be a dozen jars of jam. (I hope!)

The tree was so beautiful this year and loaded with wonderful fruit. Maybe it was the extra cold winter?

We have had a good week. We were encouraged to visit the temple often, and I went about as much as I could. I helped out in Cheeseball and T-Bone's classrooms and I went out with Husband and his parents to make plans for the new office. Plus I processed peaches--jam, "butter," and just plain bottled. I did not, however, mop the floor yet (why bother when I'm just going to be spilling peaches all week?) and my house is a bigger mess than usual. But for the first time in a long while, I feel as if I haven't been wasting my time.

I took a break from politics and talk radio. I've listened to a lot of Dvorak, Debussey, and Berlioz. It's been great!

Now if I could just make smart use of the too many zucchinis we have...

Soccer season is finally over. We attended Janey's last game yesterday. I heard one of her coaches talking about her to someone else. He said, "See that little one? She scored goals in the last four games in a row." I was feeling so proud (or should I say tickeled pink) that it literally seemed like my heart was swelling. She didn't score yesterday, but she tried really hard.

I have now canned 14 jars of peaches! I am hoping to do at least one more batch. This was my first time ever canning anything by myself. What a relief that the jars sealed!

I helped out in T-Bone's class today. He didn't look at me once, but that's okay. It was fun to get to meet some of his classmates.

We're having sloppy joes tonight. The secret ingredient is yesterday morning's cracked wheat (maybe 1 cup to 2+ pounds of ground beef so it's not doing much).

We are hoping that Husband has found the spot for his office. I'm trying not to get too excited in case it doesn't work out.

Oh, I finished Austenland. I enjoyed it quite a bit. She has the phrase "Jane Austen immersion therapy" somewhere in the book and I could have sworn that I was the first to use it. Guess I was wrong....

The mornings are cold, it's wonderful.
School is going well so far. I am grateful that everyone is happy to be learning and it seems that all the teachers are going to be good.
Goose misses her siblings. We are learning how to play with Janey's old Loving Family dollhouse.
We're not sure when to harvest T-Bone's watermelons. How do you know when they're done? Guess I could google it.

I've read several books the past few weeks. The best, by far, was The Book Thief . I also thought Life as We Knew It and The Giver were very creditable and gave me a lot to think about. I checked out a compilation of Flannery O'Conner and Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure. I've glanced at those books, but I'm not sure I'm going to read them. It's always hard to slide back to literay novels when I've been dallying with Young Adult fiction. Flannery O'Connor's view of man somehow tires me. I'm sure she thinks she's authentic but I must like something more rosy. Maybe I should give Jude another try. I guess I don't embrace books were marriage is something to be escaped or be saved from.
Let's face it, I've never been open-minded. I couldn't even get through Gloria Steinem's lament that Palin is no Hillary. (Yeah Gloria, she got elected on her own merits and not because of her husband!) I have a hard time ingesting material that wants me to think differently than I do.

On a last agricultural note, I love Joy in the Garden for telling me a couple of weeks ago to plant spinach and peas. I took the seeds from my spring's crop of spinach and planted them and now I have a row of green and the promise of fresh spinach in a couple of weeks. I planted my old pack of peas which I neglected to plant in the spring and they're coming up too.

Okay, a final, final note: Next year, no petunias, just zinnias.

Well, I read Breaking Dawn in a couple of days. I thought it was okay; I'm happy that Bella got married, that Jacob is finally happy and satisfied, and that good seemed to triumph over evil. Do I have complaints? Absolutely. From a critical point of view, I think the story would have been better if there had been some tragedy. Here Meyer paints hereself into a hard situation. If the book is for innocent teens who need a thrill then all the references to house breaking sex are questionable, right? If the novel is for mature women who like a thrilling fantasy, hey, we can handle a sacrifice. Kill off Esme or something! And yet I find myself defending Meyer. Most of the ideas that she presents about sex are false, I believe, but I think that it provides an opportunity to talk about intimacy and what is good and what is just plain disturbing. Most teen girls are very curious about sex and there's a lot of bad stuff out there. The book isn't graphic. So I guess I don't mind my 13-year-old reading it, so long as we talk about it.
Or am I just defending my lame parenting?
My very wise mom rarely interferred in my choice of literature, and I don't regret that.
There has been one book Beulah has checked out which I nixed so far, and I did that because of the detailed nature of the scenes.
So maybe I don't mind vague notions about sex as long as we don't start describing how one thing leads to another?
I'm rationalizing again, and I have to go make dinner.

The Worked and the Gory

Okay, after just having purchased novel number four of Stephenie Meyer's vampire fantasy, I have to consider that there just might be a niche out there for pioneer vampire stories. I am not intending to be disrespectful, it's just a whimsical juxtaposition of genres which seem to captivate many in my demographic!

Every once in a while I need to record some of the fun things that get said around my house.
Beulah, for instance, recently quiped, "I can easily spend two hours primping and not get bored." She didn't understand why that was funny. Speaking of her primping, she has this lip gloss from Bath and Body Works that is supposed to smell like a chocolate dipped strawberry. It is by far the nastiest artificial fragrance I have ever been around. Whenever she whips it out--in the car, at church, on the sofa or in the park--we can sense its stink immediately. She claims that if she gets another lip gloss for her upcoming birthday, she'll throw it away.
Goose is asking, "Where's John?" all the time. I don't know why. She and Husband talk about opening the door and closing the door, with the door being the mouth. Right now she's saying, "Gimme a bowl, please" to T-Bone.
Speaking of T-Bone, he has a grape-sized watermelon growing. He wants to unlock the Post Token at Pirates Online.
Cheeseball got sunburned the other day when he sat out in our neighbor's sandbox for several hours. She had filled the box with water and just let the hose keep running while the kids sat in the sandy mud. A good way to spend a few hours, provided you've applied sunscreen first!
Janey has taken to tying up the children and calling it "play." We had a conversation and that's not going to happen again. She is looking forward to painting her room.
Husband is taking his practical test for a license this Friday.
I am looking for exciting new ways to present zucchini. The good news with me lately is that I've finally made a spaghetti sauce that Husband and I both really like.

You put it in a trash can?!

So we took a fun trip down to San Diego for a few days. We played in the waves at La Jolla Shores (even I went boogie boarding and I caught a few waves all by myself!) and went to the cove--the kids saw a couple of different types colorful fish swimming around. We went to the Museum of Man and saw some dried up mummies and the Fleet Science center where we raced little sail boats (Cheeseball beat me both times). We went swimming with some fun cousins and we went for a couple of hikes. On one of our outings we were walking past a bird sanctuary of sorts--it's where the San Diego river (ha ha) meets Mission Bay. The kids were being a little naughty and went down into where the river would be, had California not been in a drought for the whole 35 years of my life. There were big rocks lining the "banks" of the river and the kids were climbing on them. (Yes, it smelled like a sewer and I did call them up but they were having such a good time I just held Goose and kept a blind eye.) Well, all of a sudden Husband is holding something up and I see it looks like a munition. He brings it up to me and tells me that Janey had found it. As soon as he saw it in her hands, he called out, "That's a bomb! Don't drop that!" And so she drops it nose first onto the rocks. We are very grateful that we're all still here. After Husband brought the item up, the kids magically climbed out the the river rocks (I guess weaponry is more exciting than stinky riverbeds) and had to touch it. I was worried it was going to come home and end on on my mantel. (thank goodness we decided the theme for the basement would be pirates and not WW2). But we saw a trash can and so we stuck it in there, thinking we could call some authority person and have them come pick it up. As we were walking away, we saw a San Diego city truck drive by. Hero (that's my dad) flagged it down and went to talk to the driver. All I heard was, "YOU PUT IT IN A TRASH CAN? " Hero tried to explain that we didn't want to carry it, didn't want to put it back, and wanted to have a specific place to tell someone to look. Anyway, we were cleared away and the good city worker got on his walkie talkie and was soon putting up yellow caution tape across the road. After we walked about a block or two, another city truck came up a put the caution tape on the other end of the road, thus sealing it off.

We came home and tried to do some research but the picture of the serial number didn't work too well (the autofocus picked husband's shirtand not the "piece".) Anyway, from what we could remember and deduce, we surmised that it was a 81 mm mortar shell, and yes, it was designed to explode and destroy and no, it hadn't exploded or destroyed yet. I don't know what it was doing there. We checked a map of San Diego to see where old muntions have been found or where old test sites were and none correlated with the area. I had a friend whose soccer teammate died back in 1983 when he and friend found played with a munition shell they found in Tierrasanta. We were probably not in any danger, but I am a believer in prayer and I'm grateful that we were all safe.

The first week of summer (okay it techincally isn't summer, but my kids are out of school, and that's my benchmark) has gone pretty well. Every June I have high hopes that I can teach my kids how to work, and every mid-June, I have thrown my hands up in the air. But this summer I have a new strategy: I developed a "Chore Buddy Chart." I have typical jobs that I do on specific days: Laundry on Monday and Friday, Bathrooms on Tuesday, and Dusting/Wiping on Thursday. And so I have assigned each of the older children a day to be my chore buddy and help with that particular task. The kids rotate days every new week. So far, so good.

My garden is making me anxious. Why aren't those carrots coming up? I planted them a month ago! I even planted a "second planting" two weeks ago, going on pure faith. We were disappointed to learn that the soaker tubes weren't actually watering the areas where the boys had planted their corn and watermelon (Grrr!). I found some other places for their seeds, and they planted again. But it's getting later in the season, so I' don't know if the watermelon will have time to develop well. I'm a little apprehensive for their success. Janey's green beans and squash are coming up, though, and the tomato plants have some flowers, and best of all the apricot trees have fruit on them. So all is not lost.

I finished Killer Angels. What a fabulous read. I want to go to Gettysburg so bad that I'm almost considering driving my family across the country to do it. I want to see Little Round Top and see the ridge that Armistead was able to breach before he died.

And on a final note, Boon Dog passed his Canine Good Citizen test.

We are in

Husband and I are in the midst of Jane Austen immersion therapy. We enjoyed the older BBC version (1985, without Colin Firth) Pride and Prejudice on Sunday and Monday, and last night we watched the 2005 version with Keira and the MI5 guy. Why can I watch this story over and over again and still get excited when Elizabeth finally accepts that she loves Darcy--that he is the ulitimate honorable man--and then lets him know of her affection. I first experienced P&P at my grandparents' house, with Husband. I believe we watched the colorized Laurence Olivier version. I was completely ignorant of the story (even though I had just graduated from college with a degree in English! Some day I will write a list of all the books I didn't read in college but have since found and enjoyed) and I was absolutely delighted with the storyand the characters and the ridiculous costumes, and frankly I found Sir Laurence very amiable. Then I must have read the story and then saw the 90s BBC version, with the diehard's favorite, Colin Firth. I loved it, loved it, loved it. It is one of my greatest joys that I was able to introduce the story and movie to one of my young friends from church, who had been babysitting for me. When she returned the DVDs we talked about it and I told her my favorite part was when Darcy gets out of his pond and is dripping wet as he comes across a very humbled Elizabeth. Perfect. Her favorite part was when he was in the bath, by the way.
We saw the 2005 version in the theater with my brother and sister and their spouses and my parents. I was prepared to be loyal to Colin, but I was wonover by the beautiful music and the extra dramatic license--how he stands in the rain and confesses he loves her and then how they walk towards each other through the misty dawn and he stumbles with his words as he tells her her loves her again, and then finally the Mrs. Darcy, Mrs. Darcy kissing scene at the end... (don't mention it in front of my daughters--they will try to ruin it for you). I know dear Jane didn't put any of that in the book, but hey, it works for me.
Husband puts up with all of this very well. It doesn't hurt him that he's extra handsome and adorable and will share ice cream with me as I'm in raptures over lines like, "She is tolerable , I suppose, but not handsome enough to tempt me," or "I defy Sir Lucas himself to produce such a fine son-in-law," etc.
Well, Husband requires the use of his computer and unfortunately mine is not working so I must be off.

Okay, I finsished Lord of Chaos and than took a few hours to read Uglies. Husband tells me I'm crazy to be reading a series that is permanently unresolved, but I'm so interested in the story and what Rand al Thor is going to do next. I keep hoping for love scenes, but, as I said to Husband, looking for romance in Robert Jordan is like looking for a tomato at McDonalds. You keep thinking you'll find one, but somehow it's elusive.
Goose is still fairly high maintainence. It's my fault, I know I spoil her, but I'm not sure what to do about it. She cries, a lot. I still have to hold her a lot. And she just turned two. What to do.
Janey's black eye is fading to yellowish purple. I guess next week it will be gone.
T-Bone claimed to do 100 sit ups, 100 push ups and 100 jumping jacks yesterday.
Cheeseball made a very cute stick figure (literally) out of popsicle sticks and paper. He even gave him a back pack of sorts, which stored two different types of popsicle stick guns. His preschool teacher says he's the most creative kid in class. (I think she's just trying to butter me up).
Beulah has dropped her allegiance to David Archeleta. She likes Syesha (sp?) the most now. She still does not like Cream of Wheat. Cracked wheat also yields a snarl.
Husband is working on his book again. Now that my recreational reading is all caught up, I'm going to start helping him again.
Well we're off to go horde some oats. I don't like rice very much (except with curries) so I hope to be able to forgo purchasing it while the shortage looms large.

We saw this stranded seal at the tide pools at Point Loma last week. We had gone there at low tide and this poor seal had been washed ashore several hours earlier. The park rangers were there to keep people away, and just as our family left, we saw the the SeaWorld stranded animal team had come to save the day. The seal looked pretty bad; we saw it move its flipper once or twice but I suspect it's swimming around seal heaven now.
Our trip was fun. San Diego was perfect to visit. It's green from the recent rain and there are flowers everywhere.

Beulah was not pleased with cream of wheat for breakfast this morning. Between you and me, I don't like it very much either, but I managed to not yell about how we have it three times a week. (More like three times a month).
I had a mini crisis in Wal-Mart yesterday. I was looking for presents for Goose and I saw a "MyPod" from fisher-price, I think. Goose was immediately interested, "Want it! Want it!" I let her hold it for a while. It looked like fun; it had music features and flashed dots of light into numerals and probably letters, too. But I had seen too many cases of a little tiny person stuck on a little electronic device that they can manipulate, so I said no. We ended up getting her a handheld toy that just plays pretty music and flashes lights in time to the music. I don't mind her loving music--she's just too young and precious to be intimately involved with an interactive device.
Boon really stinks. I hear adds for miracle substances that supposedly remove stench from dog, but I don't think it's possible. Labs just really smell bad, unfortunately.

Janey and I are planning to refinish a boring old cabinet and turn it into a doll house. We have some little furniture pieces ("petite princess") that my mom inherited from Dorothy and we're excited to be able to finally display them. So I went to Wal-Mart and Target today with the hope of checking out generic wall paper only to learn that neither store sells anything besides borders. I'm planning to check out Home Depot tomorrow.

Last night Beulah and I watched A Walk in the Clouds. It was beautiful and sweet. Husband and I first saw it when Beulah was only 2 weeks old. (Husband's mother had come to visit and she was watching the baby). A couple of years ago, we were playing a game of Apples to Apples. I was the Judge, and my card was "Classic." Husband offered the card I chose, which was "Keanu Reeves."

And on a final note. . . . I read on the Round-Up bottle that the outdoor temperature should be at least 60 degrees for efficacy in weed killing. No wonder everything is still perky and green.

So I've always been curious about how strongly loud music really does affect your hearing. I attended my very first rock concert, ever, 20 years ago yesterday. I saw INXS at the San Diego Sports Arena. My friend and I had fairly good seats, (we were off to the right of the stage) and as I was only 14 years old, I felt like I'd been catapulted into cooldom just by having been there. Well, the next day (20 years ago today), I noticed an interesting fuzziness in my ears. I realized it had been loud, but that just made it even cooler, right? Well, in the next four or five years, I attended many more rock concerts in many different venues--xFest, which features Sugarcubes, PIL, New Order and De la Soul; Depeche Mode and Nitzer Ebb; Nitzer Ebb by itself (I got all the way to the front of the crowd and touched the guy's boots), the Cult; the Cure; the Cure and Love and Rockets; PIL and Flesh for LuLu; Anthrax, Megadeth, and a group which will remain unnamed; the Dead Milkmen; and They Might Be Giants. I think I might have left out something, but it doesn't matter. The point is, I was exposed to a lot of very loud music.

Now that I'm 34, with 5 kids, I notice that I often have to ask people to repeat themselves. I mean, I can hear fine, but I just want people to speak a little louder. So my good father-in-law gave me a hearing test and determined my left ear has a mild-to-moderate loss in the lower frequency area. He even gave me and over-the-ear Oticon hearing aid. Husband developed a cool website, http://www.understandhearing.com/, where I can take a hearing test and then have the results, as shown below. What I'm curious about is if my results are typical at all of people who have had a similar exposure to loud music. My dad has a slight hearing loss, but my mom's hearing is near-perfect.

I have also heard that pregnancy contributes to hearing loss but I'm not clear as to whether that is temporary or permanent.

I think it would be an interesting experiment to note one's hearing before and after attending a loud event, and then check it again in maybe a month or so, to see if there is an noticeable effect. My rock concert going days are over, though, as now I 'm much more interested in seeing a symphony perform Debussy's Fetes. The last classical performance I attended (besides Beulah's middle school orchestra concert) was Handel's Messiah. And that really wasn't very loud. The last loud event that I've attended was a Monster Truck rally. (Don't ask why) and I wore earplugs, left early, and won't ever go again. So it's an experiment for someone else I guess. Well, Goose is making loud noises from the kitchen (can hear those just fine, thank you very much). So off I go.

Okay, I was going to try to put a picture of T-Bone with the sharks up but it was proving too difficult. Instead, I'm going to relate the following account:

This morning Beulah stomped upstairs and growled, "What's for breakfast?" When she heard the reply, she scowled, "Cold cereal? I can't believe it! That's stupid!"

It's the little things in life that bring us pleasure.

We were able to persuade Goose to sleep in with us this morning. She is still cuddling with Husband. (Hence she isn't trying to disturb me as I type).

Oh the agony and ecstasy of school projects. T-Bone wrote a story which he first titled, A Sharky Tale, but then renamed a more cautious My Ocean Adventure. I worked with him to find pictures of sharks for the purpose of illustration. and then Husband spend h-o-u-r-s enhancing the pictures and finding little diver bodies to match with pictures of T-Bone's head. (Now I'm going to interrupt myself here and say that initially I wanted T-Bone to illustrate the book by hand, but then I realized that playing with graphics on the computer is an excellent way to fulfill one's artistic desires ) Well, Husband is a perfectionist, and tweaked and tweaked and tweaked but finally the pictures were all ready. So we printed the images out onto the special paper provided for us by Studentreasures. Oops. Even though we told the printer that we were printing on photo paper, it still used way too much ink and the pictures were runny. They were cute--they just weren't as crisp. And we had no extra sheets to reprint on. Husband was not happy about this. In the morning he called the company and was told we could go buy more special paper of a special weight and then bring them into school and swap them out with T-Bone's originals. (Of course the book was due this day) But in the end T-Bone thought they were fine and didn't want to go through the extreme measures of replacing them.

I will show one of the pictures in my next post....

So we discovered last week that Goose gets carsick. We'd been a good two hours into our trip when she started to cough. It was a wet cough, a bit juicy for our comfort, and up came the banana and chex cereal. Worrying that she was sick with a stomach bug, I threatened Husband that we would have to go back home if she spewed anymore. She actually did vomit one more time, but the road was really windy and it seemed too big of a coincidence for her to suddenely get sick when we get in a car. We found some dramamine in the side of the door. I quartered the tablet and inserted it into a grape (This was Beulah's idea, btw). She gobbled it up, we rested for a few minutes, and then we continued on our way, with no more nasty episodes of regurgitation.

The weekend was good. Husband and T-Bone caught some bass using lures (they feel so manly when they can catch without live bait).

Beulah fell in the giardia-ridden lake (we'll have to watch her for any unpleasant bathroom experiences). Skilly won the prize for catching the first fish. He chose to get a "special" set of cowboy guns and accoutrements at the indoor swapmeet. Janey was a daredevil in the pool and was generally pleasant and sweet as always.

Beulah wants me to add that she is every bit as much of a daredevil. Believe what you want to.

I am happy to say that the shelves look good. Now all we need to do is the other side.
We're trying to think of a title for Husband's book. I think he should wait until he is done (he's a third of the way through?) But he's going hog wild finding website names (ever since he had to pick a name for his project with his bro. They got "Pixelhunt.com" but now that he knows how hard it is to get what you want, he tries to snap up names as fast as he can), and I know he just wants to stake his claim on the title. He's already got the .dom name for his main character.
I finished Book 5 from The Wheel of Time series. So fun! What's going to happen when Lan goes to meet Myrelle, only to be thrust in front of Nynaeve, and this right after he's sent word that she needs to be done with him? The heart beats faster in consideration! And will Aviendah ever let Rand touch her again? Talk about an anticlimatic love scene, by the way. Oh well, at least I can't complain that it was too graphic. I was fine with seeing Moraine go (she had no romantic interest so who cares about her?), a little bit sad to know that Lanfear won't pop out anymore to eviscerate any woman that Rand looks on too fondly, and I liked Rahvin gone. I want Luca to go chase down Nynaeve and reveal that he has some channeling power, to give Loser Lan a run for his money. I'm not a fan of Elayne, either, that spoiled, simpering princess. Maybe Aviendah can challenge her to a fist fight for the honor of loving the Dragon Reborn. And in support of geriatric love, let's see Gareth Bryne locked in a passionate embrace with Siuan. But at Robert Jordan's speed, that's probably part of the last book that hasn't (and now never will be) written yet.

Sigh.

Our library is smelling fumy. Yesterday, Husband and I stained the shelves (well, half of the shelves) that he put up a couple of months ago. As we were just getting started, we were chagrined to see that we had purchased the pre-stain conditioner for water-based stain, instead of buying the conditioner for the oil-based stain, which is of course the type of stain which we had bought. Well, he suggested he could go back to Home Depot to buy the correct material, but I opined that with these shelves which are theoretically going to be covered with books, it probably wouldn't matter if we skipped it, and at any rate, we could just do one shelf (the top) and if it didn't look good, we could stop, get the conditioner, and then do the others. Well, as with many things in my life laziness won out and we chose to forgo the pre-treatment. We used an ebony stain and were a little startled at how dark it was. ("Ebony" is black so we shouldn't have been surprised). We like how it looks, though, especially when the light hits that wood grain that we can see through the stain. We still have to put on the polycrilic finish. I remember my Grandma saying that her least favorite part of carpentry was putting on the verathane. I'd just like to be able to apply the stain in a way that it wouldn't splatter across the wall. Several times. I kept thinking, "This is actually fun. If only I were really good at this; we could stain things all the time."

I'm sporting two band-aids on my fingers. In the dry of winter, the skin on my hands shrivels up and becomes papery. Add to that my compulsion to wash my hands when I touch anything having to do with Boon Dog, or diapers, or laundry, or even mail (yes, I've had issues with the safety of mail ever since the anthrax scares after Sept. 11). Compounding the problem is my seeming inability to dry my hands after I wash them. Yes, logically I know that the moisture that evaporates off of wet hands includes what tiny amounts of natural moisture I had had, but still I don't do dry my wet handsproperly. Maybe I do it to subvert Husband's wishes.
I love Dr. Seuss. I'm working with my five year-0ld, we'll just call him Cheeseball, (see The Perilous Plot of Professor Poopypants), and last night I whipped out Hop on Pop. At first he was a bit skeptical about reading (we'd read a word here and there occasionally, but I've tried not to push it), but as I gently worked with him, he was able to go 6 or 7 pages before going to bed. I've done Hop on Pop with my older children and while it's never been completely smooth sailing, they've all enjoyed such pride from being able to finally read a book.