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!