M K Relates

Filling our freezer

2008-07-16T16:42:00.003-04:00

I love early summer! We're enjoying all sorts of fruits, and stocking the freezer for later, and the best part of it is how much of this we're doing for free!

First were the strawberries from our own garden. We ate berries each evening when they came in, and then cut up however many didn't get eaten and put them in the freezer. I think we ended up with about a quart there. Not anywhere near the quantity that we typically use in our smoothies over the course of the year. Darn those slugs!

James found a plum tree at work that no one seemed interested in. . . so home came those free plums to be pitted and frozen. The final count there-three tubbies of 1 1/2 quarts each. Those go into smoothies because they're a bit too tart to eat plain.

Peaches showed up at the farmers' market last weekend, and when we asked for a bushel we were told we had to wait until early August when the freestone peaches come in. But then he offered us seconds at two quarts for $5, rather than $7 a quart for the pretty ones. Some of the seconds were bruised, some just had spots on the skin. We only ended up with three that were too bruised to salvage the majority of them. Final count-over 18 lbs of pieces to freeze for $15. Those are primarily for smoothies, but will also be used in cobblers during the winter. We'll continue collecting and processing seconds through the season. It's much easier to do the smaller batches than it was to do the whole bushel+ we did over three days last summer.

Best of all, the wine berries (wild raspberries) are ripe. We made the twins join us to pick them before they went over to their dad's house weekend before last, and brought home a quart and a half. James and I picked another three quarts on Sunday, and James had done another picking trip one evening while I was at kung fu. It looks like something in the neighborhood of five quarts in the freezer, not including all the ones eaten fresh. There's nothing quite like berries that make it from branch to belly in ten seconds! We haven't taken bowls to pick berries on our walks since Sunday, but have each picked and eaten almost a cup each evening. Life is good!

Next up. . .blackberries! (We found the first dozen or so ripe ones last night, so I'm sure James is going to be out picking those while I'm at my sisters. He's the real blackberry fan in the house, but Samuel gives him some good competition for the berries.)

My favorite beekeeper

2008-07-16T16:42:00.000-04:00

James is really enjoying his bees, but he has learned to put on his hat and shirt when doing major work in the hives. This time he was moving a bar of brood (eggs & larva) from the strong hive to the weaker one.

Isn't this a nice looking piece of comb?

Kung fu

2008-07-16T14:42:00.001-04:00

Samuel figures he's safely too far ahead of me in kung fu for me to catch up with him before he graduates, so I started this spring. I found that I had too much on my plate and skipped April, but was ready to test for my yellow sash in June. This is me doing my form at testing.

Samuel looks much better doing his forms, but he should. His final test (of 6!) to earn his black sash (after four & a half years) will be the 26th of this month. I love watching him! He moves with such grace and style.

Celebration-5/60/261

2008-07-11T22:15:00.002-04:00

Five years/Sixty months/Two hundred sixty-one weeks since the wonderful afternoon that James and I gathered with F/friends and family to make our commitment to each other, and we're even more certain now than we were that afternoon!

It is wonderful to have found this man to be my love, my partner, and my best friend. I do so appreciate the relationship and life we are building together, and it was fun to hear my mom comment on it when I talked to her this afternoon.

I'll get pictures and news of other happenings up tomorrow, but wanted to post a quick acknowledgment of this wonderful day tonight.

(And how have we spent our anniversary? Well, I've had both orthodontic and dental appointments in the last two days, so my mouth is tender, so we had a simple -soft!-supper and watched the tape of today's Tour de France race segment, then took Torri and her friend Alex to get free little slurpees from 7-11.)

Miriam!

2008-05-06T21:01:00.003-04:00

Finally, here's a picture from Miriam's dancing at the school Russian Night.

Safely Home

2008-05-05T05:52:00.004-04:00

This is James, putting the new queen cage into one of his top bar hives. After spending most of a year (because he got taken with the idea too late to start last year) learning about bees and building the top bar hives, James spent Thursday-Saturday on a driving trip down to Georgia to buy his small-cell, and very docile!, bees. While there he learned how to make queen cups and cages, and all sorts of other useful tips. We wore the bee veils while loading the boxes into the hives, but haven't worn them since.
Now I get to tease him about the "exciting Sunday afternoons sitting there watching the bees buzz" (I'll get a picture one of these days!), and the eco-logic of driving twenty hours to buy four pounds of bees, and "interstate trafficking in captive females" (since they didn't get many drones into those cages). But I'm fascinated also, and looking forward to having our own pollinators and honey.
James has really upped the food production in the yard this year, or at least the food planting! We'll see what produces throughout the year. The kale from last fall is still producing, but is going to flower at this point. We're enjoying making smoothies with our fresh chocolate mint and berries foraged and frozen last year- really yummy!
I'm wrapping up my first year as a PhD student. My big paper for this semester is the proposal for my "thesis" due next April, but which I hope to complete over the summer or early next fall. I sent the first "complete" draft off to both professors who'll be grading it and my advisor, as well as the group of colleagues who'll be discussing it in our seminar this Thursday. I'll be expanding and reshaping it all week as I receive feedback, but my stress level has gone way down with that step completed. Beyond that, all I have left is creating a poster with my preliminary statistical analysis for Thursday's class, and grading students' papers before Friday.
We're looking forward to a visit with James's folks, and while there will be planning another trip to help move his grandmother to an apartment close to where they live until she can get into a senior living facility. Granny's having some health issues and is finding her big house too much to take care of and too isolating. At the same time, it's really hard to leave the house Grandpa built for her almost 50 years ago!
The kids are pretty much just keeping on. I do finally have the picture of Samuel's testing at Jing Ying. That's Samuel at the top, standing on Jose's shoulders- something they've been planning since they tested for , I think.

Kids and kin

2008-04-16T12:48:00.003-04:00

Samuel (and two friends) started testing for his black belt in kung fu in February. At Jing Ying, testing to Black is a 6-12 months long process. Besides demonstrating excellence in the forms, including multiple weapons forms, the students also take responsibility for teaching others. It’s wonderful to see how much Samuel has enjoyed and accomplished over the last four+ years that he’s been studying here. I really appreciate the family feel of the school.

I tried to start kung fu last month, but reality intervened this month, and I’ve postponed that adventure until next month- when I’ll have more time during the summer (yeah, right!) to get into the groove there. Samuel had figured he’s far enough ahead of me that I wouldn’t be able to catch up with him. . . James just wondered when/how I was going to fit it into my schedule. (You can say “I told you so” now, darling.)

Miriam has been busy with learning Russian dances for a performance this weekend. I’ll try to get a picture of that posted, but you’ll be more likely to see it on James’s blog first!

Kyle called James on St. Patrick’s Day, just before he headed out for a band trip to Florida, and then was going to be heading to Ohio Valley University this month for a Bible Bowl event.

Liza was out for a quick visit last month, and it was wonderful to see her! She’s taking a photography class at the local community college, and busy with plans for next Fall.

Tori’s working and taking classes and dancing and still finding time to travel to dance weekends and drop everything to come down and be here for her little sister when Miriam needed her.

That’s one of my biggest joys. I enjoy the relationships I have with my kids, and treasure the time we spend together, but I am still the parent. There are times when I have to push or set a boundary, and there’s an imbalance in our relationship because of our role differences. It makes my heart sing to see how close the kids are to each other. I love my sibs, and am so glad to have them in my life. I’m thrilled to see my own kids growing into strong relationships also.

Last Friday James and I drove down to Alexandria to watch Aria’s theatrical debut. She was a spider in her elementary school production of Sleeping Beauty-the Enchanted story of Princess Briar Rose. It was a fabulous production, put on at the high school!, with live music and incredible performances. Aria was spectacular! She takes after her Aunt Becky in her delight at being in the spotlight (but I’m her favorite aunty because I was there!).

I’m so glad we live close enough to Rob & Lisa to enjoy watching their kids grow up! We were down last month for our annual Epilepsy Walk adventure, this time representing SeizureTracker.com! James and I were brochure distributors extraordinaire (“Have you heard about SeizureTracker.com yet?”). I’m so proud of what Rob and Lisa have done with that project! They’re fabulous parents, especially with all that they have going on with keeping their brilliant kids challenged while managing Evan’s medical needs. And somehow they’ve created time to develop this site and provide this service for others.

Our own beautiful corner of the world

2008-04-16T12:46:00.001-04:00

James and I are enjoying the bursting Spring as we take our walks around the neighborhood. I haven’t had much time for gardening, but we did stop by Homestead Gardens Saturday and picked out a few plants. James got them all planted Saturday afternoon while I was doing my homework. We also picked up hyacinths in a pot for my desk at work (almost too fragrant for the enclosed space!), and another orchid for James’s collection. (Is it fair of me to encourage him to buy another one, and then tease him about doing so???)

Last night was just about the first time I did anything in the garden besides enjoy it. . . I took a few minutes and untangled the kiwi vines and wrapped/tied them further up the arbor. I had taken a few minutes last week to pollinate the peach blossoms (all 7 of them!) with a paintbrush since we hadn’t seen any bees around at that point, and helped a bit with planting peas last month, but James is doing most of the garden work these days.

James will be driving down to Georgia to pick up his special small-cell bees sometime in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully they’ll be well established by next Spring, and I won’t have to hand pollinate the peaches then.

We’ve accomplished one goal: eating something fresh from the garden every month of the year. We had fresh kale and black-eyed peas for dinner last Saturday (and lunch on Monday!) and I just harvested the last of my wintergreen berries. We may have strawberries before the end of the month. There are a few blossoms already. The peach tree and our bush cherries have blossomed. The apple and pear trees, along with the figs, kiwis, grapes, wolfberry, & quince are beginning to leaf out. The blueberry bushes are loaded with blossom buds. We’re going to thin those a bit, but will let them bear some this year.

James cleared the pachysandra from another bed in the front so that he could use that space for growing food.

Our frogs made it through the winter, and we even had a pair of wood ducks stop by for a visit to the pond last week. I was hoping they’d stay around and eat slugs, but haven’t seen them since. (Anyone know where I can buy slug-eating beetles???)

We’re looking forward to showing off our gardens, and are busy plotting ideas to share with my brother Chuck. He just bought another five acres- and has to hurry and get the gardens laid out before that plot gets infested with the equine epidemic that got his first lot. I figure that we’ve got four kinds of apples and four pears and a peach on our 1/5 of an acre. He can have lots more in an orchard in one corner, and still have room for his hops and salsa gardens. And he already has a handy source of manure to enhance the soil! I overheard James trying to talk him into a couple of beehives. . .

Catching up-school stuff. . .

2008-04-16T12:37:00.003-04:00

After two months without blogging, I guess I’d better do a bit of catching up. This post is about my school stuff. I’ll do another one about the garden and a third about the kids.

School is going well, but keeping me very busy. I really set myself up for a challenge this semester when I carried a research project over from last semester, and then just kept complicating my life- with a trip to Hawaii and then taking an extra class- but that shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who knows me.

The research project was for my Sociology of Mental Health class, and I thought it would be interesting and relevant to research the long-term mental health consequences for children whose parents divorce. Interesting? Maybe. But definitely NOT fun, and way too close to home. As the original due date approached, I thought I’d change topics, but then I couldn’t get timely access to materials for my alternate topic (the University of Maryland doesn’t do much with Appalachia), and just before school resumed in January I admitted I’d be better off going back to my original topic, even if things with Kyle seemed to “blow up” every time I got into my research. I did finally finish that paper over Spring Break. The good news is that the vast majority of children whose parents divorce end up in the “normal” range as young adults (up to about age 30 is as far as the research goes), with about 10% moving from a low normal range to display clinical-level depression at some point in their twenties. Much of that seems to be related to their exposure to continuing parental conflict, or loss of relationship with the non-custodial parent (hence the personal relevance particularly with Kyle’s absence).

While post-divorce parenting questions were my motivation for returning to school, I won’t be following that path unless I can find a team to work with on relevant issues. It’s just “too close to home” at this point in my life. I joked about studying sex, since it’s much more fun, but I think I’ll be doing more with education or work-life balance issues, and probably involving the military. We have a fabulous Military Sociology program here at UMCP, and the advisors are tremendously helpful. It’s also the community with the most “older” students, and I’m quite comfortable there. I realized the other week that I’ve carried a dependent’s ID card for all but 8 years of my life!

Which leads me to another factor that complicated this semester: taking an extra class. The program pays for 10 credits/semester- three courses and a seminar that meets once/week or every other week & has minimal homework. My courses this semester are: second semester Statistics (Multiple Regression Analysis), the core course for Gender, Work & Family (only taught in alternate years), and the new Survey of Research Methods course that is designed to introduce us to various research methodologies and to help us prepare our proposal for the Second-Year Paper (Master’s Thesis equivalent but designed to be just about ready for submission to a journal for publication). Typically students also take Contemporary Theory Spring semester of their first year, but I couldn’t fit it in and it’s offered every year so that got postponed. I also had to postpone taking the Military Families course that I’d wanted to help with my research for next year.

. . . I asked Mady Segal for some guidance on foundational readings for my research on the impact of parental military service on children’s educational attainment. She first suggested that I scan the course syllabus, and then talk to some students who’d taken her course in the past. Then she thought I’d be better off if I audited the course this semester- do all the readings and attend seminar, but save the papers for some later time and get credit for it through Independent Study credits at that time.

The official “seminar” this semester for our cohort was a statistical analysis programming workshop (STATA). “Unofficially” I’m also in the Military Sociology seminar that all of the MilSoc folks attend, whether or not we’re registered, AND the Works-in-Progress seminar that meets every other week to discuss individual student research projects.

So, I’ve ended up doing most of the work for four classes, and that after taking a ten-day trip to Hawaii for most of the first two weeks of the semester! No wonder I’ve felt a bit busy.

Fortunately I’m figuring out how to play the grad school game more comfortably. The reading is easier now that I’ve learned the jargon and format of the articles. I am having fun.

It looks like I’ll be teaching my own class next Fall. I’ve tried to talk my way into a research position, but keep hearing that they have me in mind to teach. . . So this summer I’ll be preparing for that, plus creating my own mini-research experiences. One of the profs in our department is working on a Community Greens project in Baltimore and needs interviewers, so I jumped on that. And I’ll probably be helping with coding and analysis of another qualitative research project over in the Family Studies Department. Then trips to Colorado to help Becky with her yard, Boston for the American Sociological Association annual meeting in August, and Baltimore Yearly Meeting the week after that. No time to get bored here!

A trip to Paradise

2008-01-31T17:52:00.000-05:00

They keep telling me they hope the weather improves (warms up) while I'm here, but gee, it's January and I'm running around in shorts and short sleeves. What's a little tropical breeze or occassional showers?

Lunch yesterday was a box of sushi and haupia malasadas (think doughnuts filled with coconut pudding). Dinner was more vegetable tempura than I could finish because Paul, Millie and Edwin all gave me most of their tempura from their combination plates. They are having trouble with understanding how I get enough to eat on my vegan diet. And I found dark chocolate covered macadamia nuts that are vegan too!

Paul's doing well recovering with surgery. The doctor cleared him for most activities except lifting/pushing/pulling. That means he's home in his place, but cleaning up and replacing kitchen gear after the remodeling effort are off limits. I wiped out the cabinets yesterday. We'll start putting things away after his nap. (I've been working on school stuff all morning, and he was ready for a rest by the time I got that part done yesterday.)

When Becky called yesterday, she asked if I'd gotten the bathroom done too. Gee, Bec, who's the bossy one? Three thousand miles away and she's still telling us what to do! (Love you bunches!)

It is good to have this opportunity to spend time with Paul, and to be able to give back some small measure of what he's given us over the years. It's interesting how this came up as I was considering what it means to be family, both in who is family and what we do with and for each other. But that's for another post.

"Can I tell you 'sumping '(something)?"

2008-01-25T21:58:00.000-05:00

I've enjoyed spending the last two days with my niece and nephew, Aria and Evan. Evan is the one who enjoyed the miraculous improvement in his epilepsy after his surgeries last November, and is still doing physical therapy four times/week. Thus, when both Mom and Dad have to work, they need to find more than day care, they need a chauffeur! With this being my last week of winter break before I head back to class, I got to play "Aunt Mary to the rescue!"

I also cleared a box of books that our kids have outgrown and were ready to share with their cousins. At just four years old, Evan read me two books this afternoon. He was thrilled to find some books that looked interesting to him in that box. Most of the books on his level had already migrated down there for Aria when she was at that stage.
Now in kindergarten, and just turned six at Christmastime, Aria is a voracious reader. She discovered the Magic Tree House books-chapter books at a 3rd grade independent reading level, and devoured the first one in less than an hour and a half- all by herself! I took advantage of a few minutes while Evan was occupied with his trains to have her read for me. She sight read the first few pages of one of the American Girl books, totally new to her, with great expression. This is NOT a kindergarten or even first-grade level book! I don't know how her teachers can challenge her at all in the regular classroom! While her class is learning to count to 100 by tens, at dinner tonight we were working on counting to a thousand by hundreds, and then taking it all the way to a million. The kid is a sponge!

Meanwhile, Evan never stops talking or singing. And, being very polite, he checks to make sure you're really listening. . ."Can I tell you sumping?" "Did you see my fish? Isn't he cute?!"(complete with a cute squinch of his face and shoulders) "Can I tell you sumping?" "I love my new Little Blue Engine that Could." "Can I tell you sumping?" etc. (Lots of etc!)

It's so much fun to live close by, and to be able to enjoy watching them grow up!

Evan, can I tell you sumping? I love you! (And you too, Aria!)

More project pictures

2008-01-21T16:46:00.000-05:00

I've been busy working on more projects! (James is making comments about how productive I get when I'm avoiding things. Whatever paper could he be referring to??? Certainly not the divorce and mental health paper I have hanging around. I deliberately choose not to work on that one when the family's home!)
This is the skirt I made for Tori, out of the remainder of the fabric from her Ball dress. There are 16 panels, so it's almost a circle, or a circle and a half!, skirt. It should twirl nicely when she's dancing.

I hope she'll enjoy dancing in this skirt! And if she doesn't, Miriam has already registered an intention to borrow it, so I'm sure she'll be glad to take it off Tori's hands.

We had a lovely time dancing with her and the twins at the contra dance at Glen Echo on Friday night. Miriam's knee was bothering her a bit, so she didn't dance as much as the rest of us did, but Samuel and James and I had a blast! Our friend, Steve Hickman, was one of the band members, and when Steve's on fiddle the music's always fantastic!
Here are the six zabuton pillows I got covered on Saturday afternoon, before we ran over to Columbia to hang out with Lee & Jon and their kids. I do so enjoy having family (by blood or by choice!) nearby, and being able to be a part of their lives as the kids grow up! It's hard to believe the twins are almost six. I remember when they were tiny and we propped them up with their giant teddy bears and took a picture of all the twins together! Now even baby Daniel's almost two, and the twins are reading!

Here's a picture of Miriam wearing the new lounge pants I made for her after I finished the skirt and before I changed to the navy thread to make the zabuton covers and our curtains. I have another pair of pants to make for her, and a pair for James, and several for Samuel- who is growing like a weed and needs comfy pants to sleep in.

I made the blue curtains for our bedroom yesterday, and then got to tease James because he hadn't obtained the cup hooks to hold the tiebacks by the time the curtains were finished, and he'd had a whole week's notice. He said something about my not usually finishing a project that quickly, but I must be mistaken! . . .Okay, so how long ago did I finish the red bedding set for the library (since back in the time when Kyle was visiting regularly!), and have had the fabric for the curtain sitting around since then. But I got that finished this afternoon too!

The curtains did a wonderful job of darkening our room, and kept it warmer, too!

The red curtains in the library will block the streetlight and let our guests sleep without hanging a towel in the window!

Projects galore!

2008-01-17T13:20:00.000-05:00

After completing much of the last curtain panel at the Christmas Country Dance School (aka CCDS, while in seated classes or gatherings), I finally tied it off on the 5^th. Here is a picture of the first and last panels for our bedroom, hanging in the window. I made the second and third panels wider, and then had to make this one wider still for balance. It’s still not exactly the same, but that’s the delight of handmade, right?

Being on a crocheting binge, I stopped by Joann’s to pick up some other yarns to make a couple of vests. I got this one finished in about three hours. Two strands of yarn and a big hook make things go quite quickly. I love the depth of colors that comes from combining the two different blue yarns. If I use this pattern again, I’ll make the shoulder straps shorter, and probably approach it a bit differently, but I rarely follow a pattern anyway.

I’m working on another vest, made with black chenille with little specks of color. I’ll post a picture when I finish that one. It’s rather bulky, so I’m still carrying my ball of thread and the tiny needle when I go out. I am almost finished with a doily that I started in Meeting for Business on the sixth. I’ll post a picture when I finish it. I don’t use doilies around the house, so if someone wants to use it, let me know. If not, I’m thinking about putting it in the auction for the scholarship fund at this year’s CCDS.

The major project for this week was Tori’s gown for the Midwinter Ball. The theme is the Roaring Twenties, and she wanted a flapper dress. Now, if it were that simple, she could have borrowed Aunt Lisa’s flapper dress, but no! Being the princess (or whirling dervish?) that she is, Tori wanted it to have a twirly skirt that hid when she was standing still, so that the dress maintained the lines of the flapper style! Okay, have you ever tried to find a pattern for a flapper dress in January? Maybe in August or September, when people are working on Halloween costumes, but not January. No big deal. I am an old pro at making costumes, and it’s basically a sac, right? We found a delightful fabric in the red tag section on Saturday, and all those fabrics went on a further 50% markdown with the new sale on Sunday, so we set it aside.

I used muslin to make a mockup, and it worked pretty well. I was awake for hours two nights in a row, waking from dreams trying to figure out the geometry of a hidden twirly skirt. (The things we do for our kids!) After trying two (or three, depending on how you count it) variations on the muslin skirt, we were ready to cut the real fabric.

Lots of pressing and trying it on, (the fabrics hang very differently!), we ended up with a quite satisfactory dress, and I made a little clutch purse to match. I think the socks really make the outfit, don't you?

(Sorry about the gap on the page. I can't figure out how to make it go away.)

I didn’t have the right serger thread, so Tori took Miriam out to get that, and bought her flannel to make lounge pants and a soft top to sleep in. Then there are Samuel’s lounge pants, and the curtains full-length blue curtains to hang over the café curtains in our bedroom, and the ones that have been waiting to be made for the library/guest room so we can take down the towel to keep the streetlight from shining in that window, and the covers for the zabuton (floor pillows) because we like to sit on the floor, and need them if we’re going to host teen parties very often, and . . . etc.

Where has my break gone??? School resumes in another week and a half. I’ve missed having the time to do these creative projects during the semester. It’s fun to look at something I’ve made and think “I did that!”

What's up around here???

2007-11-24T18:58:00.001-05:00

For those of you who don't follow James's blog, here's what we've been up to lately:

James has been building things for the house, like beehives (which will require a trip to GA in the spring to pick up the special organic bees!). . .

a sign with our house number from scrap wood scavenged from a flooring company on his way to work. . .

and a cat tree and shelves for Kit. . . but she's not so sure about this whole thing.

He's also really gotten into orchids, and displaced my seed starting shelves to set up adjustable shelves for his orchids. He took all four of my seedlings' grow lights to light his orchids. He's bought hundreds of containers . . . because they were only sold in units of one gross (12 dozen!) to hold the clay pellets he bought to grow the orchids semi-hydroponically. And then bought a few clay pots- to tie the orchids to the outside! I do tease him, but I get to enjoy having something blooming almost constantly, and I did pick out four at the orchid show and bring one home from a neighbor's house, so I can't complain too much. I don't complain at all, except for the teasing. He needs something to keep him busy while I'm playing in my PhD program, or he'll build something else huge to fit in the living room!

Tori spent September and October working at the Renaissance Festival, and we got to see her every weekend, since we live closer than she does! With the aggravations of her office job increasing, she's considering a switch. . . buying a pick-up truck and traveling the faire circuit, working a faire on the weekends and either freelancing or working temp during the week. My vagabond daughter!

Tori and Liza are saving money to take a month or so this summer and go vagabond in Europe together. I'm so glad they enjoy each other's company!

Liza's doing some general education courses and nannying for her aunt, while her uncle is in Kuwait. It has its advantages. . . for her-income to buy a computer and soon a quality SLR digital camera, for me-appreciation of what was involved in getting her to 18, or even 8, alive. That was one unexpected phone call!

James went to see one of Kyle's band competitions, but Kyle was too busy to even have a conversation. They've had a couple of phone calls, but it's really hard to feel the distance increasing, and he just turned 16 this week. He's looking ahead to college- Ohio Valley U, unless he's changed his mind. We may see him for a Christmas trip to C'burg to visit the grandparents.

Samuel is keeping busy, and learning to balance/juggle numerous demands. High school academics are a bit more intense, but the pressure is off now that he earned his laptop. He's still keeping busy with Scouts and kung fu, and I'm being the mean mom and not letting him add tennis team until he wraps those up. He starts testing for his black sash in kung fu in January!

Miriam is also enjoying many aspects of high school- if only it didn't include algebra! She was working as a page at the public library, but cut that out to focus on academics and school-based activities like Model UN and Interact (the high school version of Rotary International). She is growing up so fast! My baby went to homecoming this year!

For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to encourage the twins to have a party next weekend, the first that they've been here and not had some school or church function on Saturday night. They took a bit of prodding to start the guest list, but then momentum got going and I got nervous! I finally cut them off and gave them a limit of 40 on the guest list! (Here's hoping they don't all show up. . . but I heard a few whispers of "___ will bring ___ anyway, so we don't have to include him in the count". At least the invitations will include a note prohibiting drugs and alcohol- "because the parents call the cops", so we won't have the whole school showing up!)

Me? I'm just trying to juggle ten hours of class each week, twenty hours each for homework and TA responsibilities, a few hours of meetings of one sort or another, commuting to DC, and having interesting conversations with my colleagues and family, and maybe sleeping occasionally. I picked up my crochet hook to start the last panel of our curtains for the first time last weekend during a visit to James's parents' house- something that's just been sitting around since I blogged the last one!

A special thanks-giving. . . my nephew, Evan, completed three brain surgeries this month, and has come through fabulously! His seizures seem to have stopped, and he's walking and talking-two things that are always a concern when you go into the brain. He charmed the nurses most of the time he was there, but will be glad to get out of the hospital and home.

On top of school, but life around the edges . . .

2007-11-20T09:09:00.001-05:00

I know I haven't been posting in ages. . . Oh, well. I'm still figuring out how to keep up with the game. We're in the final stretch of the semester and it's looking do-able. I am having a blast! I'll try to get a kid update up sometime over the long weekend (in between grading 60 student research projects, writing a 20-page paper, and reading a book or three!).

Just wanted to get a quick post up to celebrate the gorgeous colors on my drive in this morning. I'm reminded of an impressionist painting with the golds and reds and rusts and oranges showing between the evergreens and the few deciduous trees that are still green.

Also, today is my nephew Evan's last brain surgery, so we're keeping him in our thoughts and prayers.

I think I've figured it out. . .

2007-09-14T06:33:00.000-04:00

I am finally feeling like I'm "caught up" and, amazingly enough, I've almost finished my task list for the week. (It flowed onto a third page, so that's a real accomplishment!) Of course, I haven't had posting to my blog on my list, so you can tell it isn't even a complete list.

My Stats prof gave us a guideline yesterday that our homework shouldn't take more than 6 hours/week. I'm not sure if that includes the reading time or not, but using that guideline, I'm looking at 28 hours of class-related time (9 hours of academic courses + 18 hours of homework + 1 hour of seminar) each week, + 20 hours per week for my TA responsibilities, + essentially 10 hours per week of driving, and somewhere in there I ought to fit in a few hours of reading and working on long-term projects (say 5 hours/week?). I'm on campus from 8-3:30 most days. I stay late (until almost 9:30-long day!) on Wednesdays and leave early (2:15 or so) on Fridays. It looks like that means I'll need to set aside another 10-15 hours per week to work at home. That would be challenging (impossible?) to do without James's support. I'm so fortunate to have him standing beside me (except when he's out running kids around, working to support our family because we sure couldn't make it on what I make as a grad student!, picking beans and tending the garden, cooking dinner, or any of the other gazillion things he's doing to keep us all fed, clothed, housed & happily involved in life!). With James's support, and the realization of what needs to be scheduled, I think I may actually be able to make it without going into "survival mode".

Of course, James may just be throwing those boxes of papers away come November. I made a promise that I'd go through all my old classroom & memorabilia files by November or he could just take them out to the recycling/trash. I'm not sure how I let all my free time get away from me earlier this year, but it's going to be a trick to squeeze that project in on top of the schedule I described above. Oh well. This is part of that "simplifying life" game we play. (Is that possible when I just added grad school, or even more essential???)

James and Samuel picked and snapped and put in the freezer two more gallon-sized bags of beans from our harvest last night. I didn't get a picture of the sink before they started, but when I got home one sink was full to the top with beans, and James wasn't finished picking at that point! We also enjoyed beans in our steamed vegetables for dinner. James picked up several types of squash and fresh corn at the produce stand on his way home, then picked beans and tomatoes fresh from our garden. Simple food, but so very good!!!

Well, it's almost 7, and I've got to get out the door to school. Have a great day!

Busy week-school's back in session

2007-09-08T15:02:00.000-04:00

From a week that started a bit sleep-deprived after spending last weekend with house guests-two five-year-olds and a toddler!- through four days of class and into this weekend when I need to read at least two books and part of two more, I guess I'd have to say we're into the school year. Not to mention Back-to-school night on Thursday. . .

It's quite a change having to read at a pace with others. Sure, I read at least 17 books in August (those are the ones I remembered to add to my reading list/bibliography), but they were on a variety of subjects, and most were written with a popular audience in mind. Books written for an academic audience tend to be more densely packed with detail, and I've been feeling like I'm learning another language. Sure, I recognize almost all of the words in any given sentence, but deriving meaning from the combination can be a challenge. And when I do, information overload takes over very quickly.

What am I supposed to do when just the introduction to the book gives me more ideas and questions than I have room to discuss or raise in the entire "journal post" I am supposed to send to the class? Check in at my sociology blog if you want details.

Other than a brief issue with the professor I'm working with, which was resolved the same day it came up, the week has gone very well. I'm really enjoying the mental challenge, the new ideas, and generally just plain being in the academic community. The driving is not as stressful as I thought it might be. Part of that is choosing to go in before rush hour, and making it home before rush hour builds up too much most days. Of course, there was Wednesday. If I had the sun rising in my mirror on my way in, and setting in my mirror on the way home-after having my late class canceled for the week, and it's only the first week of September. . .what is November going to be like??? (Dark to dark and then some! Silly question, Mary.)

Going in early also means I have my office to myself most of the time, because after all, college students aren't morning people. (And neither are most graduate professors judging by the quiet hallways!) I'm still working on the time management components, and figuring out how to prioritize and process all the new ideas and responsibilities.

I appreciate James's support so much! The kids have been great, and help out where they think of it, but James is the one catching the brunt of the adjustments. He's doing virtually all of the shuttling of kids and household management. And to top it off, he's there to answer questions when I run into a challenge with making a chart in Excel or such. I am so blessed to have him supporting me in this!

Samuel's working on preparations for his Eagle project. The girls and I are planning on doing the GlamourShots thing next Friday-one last fling before Liza heads out to Washington the following week. James is keeping the gardens going, and the beans are really prolific this year. This morning he picked and prepped two gallon-sized bags plus a big pot for dinner! We may actually be able to grow most of a year's supply of green beans for our family.

Matching curtains!

2007-09-05T05:54:00.001-04:00

I did it! I finally made two panels that actually match! They are the same width, and have the motifs going in the same direction, and the trim lines are the same, and. . .

Unfortunately, now that I've got the pattern figured out, I have to modify it slightly to make the last panel. The one that will share that window is only 5, not 9, motifs wide (oops! miscounted while waiting in the airport) and needs an extra-wide panel to give it enough fullness. I'll probably start that one this weekend, after I catch up with my readings and when I have time to concentrate.

This panel took less than two weeks. I started it Tuesday of orientation (8/21), did nothing more until worked on it while visiting in Christiansburg the following weekend, and finished it while sitting on the sofa making sure my niece and nephews were safe this past weekend. (I tried to read for class, but that was more stressful than productive. . . "Aunty Mary! Aunty Mary!" while trying to translated words into meaning in a new field just wasn't going to work!) Crocheting was something I could do while they talked to me, and the twins took turns "helping" me by pulling off loops of thread as they chattered.

New blog. . .

2007-09-02T21:18:00.001-04:00

I'm starting another blog focused on musings around my studies in Sociology. You're all welcome to stop in and read there, but I figured it made sense to separate the family stories from my "professional" stuff. I'll get the FeedBlitz link there set up tomorrow (if I get quiet time) or maybe Wednesday evening (since I really do need to get my readings done for class in time to post my thoughts to the class link by Wednesday noon). For now, I think I'll take advantage of the quiet, and go to sleep myself!

Kid pics

2007-09-02T20:49:00.000-04:00

Here are the twins-barely tolerating Mom's insistence on pictures before their first day of high school.

And here's Tori in her newest outfit for working at the Renn Fest.

This time it's Liza's turn to dodge the pictures, but I'll get her again before she leaves.

How do I get myself into these situations???

2007-09-02T20:33:00.000-04:00

Having once lived through five-year-old twins, one would think I'd have the sense not to repeat the experience, but no!

James and I are exhausted but enjoying having my "sister's" kids while she and her husband are enjoying a music festival in Vegas. (Sister is in quotes because we're family by choice, dating back to high school at least. I did live with them for several months in my early college years, and was acknowledged as one of the girls by both parents-with varying degrees of enthusiasm.) The twins, Noe & Gil, are five and a half, and enjoying kindergarten. Daniel is four years younger, and quite a handful! And they all like to talk! (Really makes us appreciate having teenagers!)

I suppose the shirts Mom packed for them should have given me a clue as to what we were in for: Gil's is a Hawaiian-themed "Here Comes Trouble". Daniel's reads "Monkey See-Monkey Do-Monkey get in trouble too". Noe left her matching shirt at home, but Gil really wanted her to put it on for the picture! Noe's line of the week seems to be, "He always does (pronounced dues) that sometimes." Daniel's favorite word is "Uh-oh!"

We're definitely ready for bedtime when 8 o'clock rolls around! Fortunately, they have inherited the family interest in books, and we can usually carve out a bit of calm with a stack of new books.

New pictures added

2007-08-21T06:51:00.000-04:00

I finally got the pictures into my post about my trip to stay with Becky's kids in Colorado. (July 5th) Here's one to give you a sense of how my days started out there. . .
The game they're playing is Trouble (think loud popping thing to roll the die), and the time on the clock was basically 6:15 AM! (I did mention their energy levels are as high as their mother's, right?)

Marvelous Miriam

2007-08-19T12:25:00.000-04:00

. . .has a new job, too!

Miriam did so well last year as a summer teen volunteer at the library that they were waiting for her to turn fourteen so they could hire her as a page. There was one opening earlier in the year, just after her birthday, but that didn't pan out. The librarian in charge of pages did ask Miriam to keep her application on file, and they called her back a couple of weeks later to ask about an opening that was coming available in July.

Okay, so what they meant was that they would start the hiring process in July, and we spent several hours one day the last week she was here running back and forth between the high school and the library: pick up the work permit from the school, take it to the library to get the work section completed, back to the high school to get the counselor's signature/permission to work, stop by the bank to open an account for direct depositing her paychecks, return to the library to turn in all the paperwork, . . .and then wait for the central office to give their okay to add Miriam to the payroll and start orientation. With the traveling she's been doing (NC & Boston, MA) with Shannon and her sibs, orientation has been scheduled for this week.

I am delighted that, in spite of the energy I may expend at times getting the kids to do their chores around the house, they have picked up a work ethic that has them in demand in the world at large. Miri-chan, I'm glad you're my girl!

BTW-I looked for a picture to post with this note, and I think Miriam is more camera-shy than Samuel. She's just quiet about it, so we don't realize that she's dodging the spotlight! But then she came in to get Liza for church, and I was able to grab a quick picture. Isn't she turning into a real beauty?!

Powerfully creative---Tori

2007-08-19T09:40:00.000-04:00

Tori starts a new job this week.

Before we left for the reunion in Florida, we were talking about how she'd like to rearrange her schedule. She wanted to cut back on her hours at Premier Windows a bit, and let go of the call center support work so that she could pick up more hours at the restaurant during their busy summer months, and get weekends freed up so she could work at the Renaissance Festival. . .but that all meant getting out of the job for which she was originally hired at Premier!

When she got back to work upon our return, they had hired a new employee "downstairs", and he was going to bump Tori to fourth in line for the computer-making it almost impossible for her to do the call center support work she didn't like anyway. They didn't want to lose her, since she is such a marvelous worker, and were a bit nervous about how she'd react. Not only did she get to adjust her schedule to exactly what she'd told me she wanted, Tori got to make it look like she was doing them a favor by not being upset at the change!

The Renn Fest starts next weekend, and runs through late October- eight (?) weekends of dress-up fun!

Have I mentioned how much I appreciate and admire the way Tori is growing up and learning to be responsible? Even more, I'm impressed at how well she is doing figuring out who she is and what matters to her, and living her life by those values. Not knowing exactly what she wants to do/be/study can be a disconcerting space to be in. I think it's easier to take on external standards, and follow the culturally-acceptable path (ie. go to college), than it is to step off that path and admit that there's nothing drawing her into the classroom at this point. Yes, she enjoys learning, and she's good at the academic game, but she's also good at other things. Traveling is definitely much easier before kids and mortgage complicate the scheduling and financial picture.

I appreciate Tori's work ethic. Everywhere she has worked, the supervisors are ready to take on her siblings-just because they're her sibs. One of the restaurant managers she worked for last year is eagerly looking forward to the twins turning 16 so he can hire them! He even wanted Liza for just the few weeks that she's here before she heads out to Washington, but logistics intervened.

The balance in Tori's life is pretty tilted toward work these days, but she's also doing well maintaining relationships and fitting in some fun. Keep up the good work, Tori, that's a lifelong challenge! I'm glad I get to be your mom!

And, oh yeah, the picture . . . a friend did Tori's hair in braids, and my wonderful daughter let mommy play- and I got to weave the braids into a visor. (Something I always wanted to do to mine when my hair was long, but it's hard to do to your own hair!) We laughed and joked while I was weaving-reminiscing about the time we cut iris leaves and wove a basket that fell apart as it dried. Good times, good memories!

She's wonderful!

2007-08-19T09:15:00.000-04:00

And she's home!!!!!

If you're noticing that Liza's getting most of the focus these days, that would be because she's been gone so long, I'm delighting in having her here, . . . and it's summer so the twins have been spending much of the time with their dad. (I had my big block of time with them at the beginning of the summer for our Florida reunion.) They'll be back tonight and I start orientations for school this week, so I'm trying to get caught up on my blogging before things get busy again.

This picture is from Liza's homecoming presentation to the Parole Rotary club-her sponsors for her Hungarian adventure. When she made her farewell presentation at this time last year, I was so impressed at how she had grown through the process of getting ready for the trip.

I was in tears of delight that morning (as I am again now) at the young woman she is now! Liza did a fantastic job with her presentation! She put together a PowerPoint presentation with slides from some of her adventures, and used that as the basis of her talk.

She was so poised! The audience was with her the whole time, and she spontaneously included humor that had everyone chuckling, or laughing out loud.

She was real. We all felt her love for the country, the experiences, and most especially the people. Liza let us all see and feel how much her families there mean to her. It takes courage to stand up in front of a good-sized audience of any age. When they're all older than you are, and you're talking about things that evoke strong emotions, the courage required is even more. And to let them see your tears?!?, and then keep speaking. . . Tremendous!

Other parents have asked me how I could let Liza go so far away. How could I not? This was something she wanted and worked to make happen. Yes, I missed her. Yes, it was hard to hear about her challenges. Yes, I've felt her homesickness-for Hungary!, and wished there was something I could do to make it better. But all of this is part of life, and Liza's doing so well with it!

Liza, your mom is proud of you, and loves you very, very, very much!

Maximum mortification, or. . .

2007-08-18T21:52:00.000-04:00

I’m really not dressed for this, . . . but why let that stop me?

When we were at Liza’s homecoming presentation to the Parole Rotary club, we were invited to attend the annual family picnic that Saturday. The hosts had restored a home that was originally built in the 1600’s, and then moved on to improving the property. Leon built a wonderful 40-foot (diameter) pavilion where we dined, put in a pool and a hot tub in a grotto, restored the corn crib for a storage shed, and recently built a tower for the antique windmill he purchased and moved to the property.

Naturally enough, a crowd gathered when Leon started explaining the adventure of obtaining the windmill and building the tower. Standing there, I was thinking how much fun it would be to climb the tower, but I was certain that wasn’t on the day’s plan. (Liability and all that.)

Then Leon went to get a ladder, and extended an open invitation for anyone who wanted to climb the tower to do so. Unfortunately, I was in a skirt (my standard summer garb) and my clogs-not exactly the thing to wear when climbing. I said something to that effect, and one of the other women said go ahead, don’t let that stop me. When another woman agreed, I headed for the ladder. James beat me to the ladder, but decided about halfway up he wasn’t going to the top, and stepped aside. I vaguely heard some joking going on, but was focused on climbing. There is a bit of a trick in getting through the opening in the deck (not to mention needing to watch for the windmill catching the wind while figuring out how to get through), but I managed and soon found myself sitting 52 feet above ground and wishing there was a railing around the platform.

Of course, having climbed that far, I couldn’t bypass Leon’s invitation (challenge?) to stand up. You can see from my pose here that I was 100% comfortable, but I did it. I found out later that Leon enjoys challenging his guests with the climb. The last big gathering had seven people attempt the climb, three make it to the top, and NONE of them were willing to stand up. I got lots of points for that!

Then it came time to climb down- much more of a challenge. The pattern was pull my skirt back so I could find the next peg, carefully step down-making sure that I didn’t slide out of my clog, unhook my skirt from the peg I’d just passed, and repeat about fifty times! . . . I think the pegs were something like 9” apart, and the tower was 52 feet tall, with the bottom ten feet using a ladder.

When I got back to terra firma, all Liza could say was, “Mom, your skirt was. . .” (You didn't think I was the one mortified, did you?)
Yes, and was I supposed to let that stop me?

Fortunately, the Rotarians seemed much more impressed by the fact that I’d made the climb than concerned about it being made in a skirt. (It could’ve been worse, Liza. I could’ve gotten stuck on the way down and perched up there, with my skirt blowing in the wind, until a hook & ladder truck got there to rescue me. Now that would really have been embarrassing!)

I made the climb! It’s another marker of how much better I’m doing physically. I couldn’t have made the climb up and back down even two years ago. I did feel my quads & hamstrings a bit later that day and the next. Controlled descent takes much more muscular control & strength than climbing up.

But I think when we build our watchtower, we won’t put a windmill on it! It’ll be much more relaxing if I don’t have to constantly be aware of where the blades are and watch for it rotating in the wind. Or maybe we’ll just put a platform in a tall tree. (Where’s Grandma? Did you look in the tree? Mother, don’t let the kids up there!!! Now, that will be fun!)

Skydiving!

2007-08-18T09:41:00.000-04:00

Before she left for Hungary, James promised Liza he'd take her skydiving when she got back. Something about you have to be 18 to be able to sign your life away before they'll let you get in their airplanes. . .

Samuel has the same deal waiting for him to turn 18. Tori and Miriam agreed with their great-grandfather's opinion that "there is no reason to jump out of a perfectly good airplane". James's standard reply to that is, "Who says the airplane is perfectly good? It has a big hole in the side", and that's just for starters.

After much juggling of Liza's busy summer schedule, the big day was scheduled for Saturday, August 4th. I chose not to jump, both holding to that family philosophy, and not being sure how my body would handle the adrenalin. I'm doing so much better than I was two or four years ago, and don't have the adrenalin surges I used to have when the Lyme disease was active, but still. . . 14,000 feet is a long way to fall, and adrenalin is a natural response to the situation.

Tori spent the night so she could go with us, and we all piled in the car at some early hour of the morning for the two hour drive to Orange, VA. James and Liza filled out their paperwork. . .

took a training class on solid ground. . .

and we waited around for a couple of hours.

The tandem team from the Army skydiving team, the Golden Knights, was there taking bigwigs for jumps, and we had fun visiting with them while we waited. It's quite an opportunity for Liza to say she got to jump with the Golden Knights! (And she did-two of them went up in the plane at the same time she did.)

By the time we'd hung out there for four hours, I was really wishing I had signed up to jump also. I'll probably be jumping when Samuel does.

Here's a picture of Liza back on terra firma. . .
Both James and Liza were thrilled with the experience. They both told me I have to do it with them the next time. We highly recommend the Skydive Orange experience to anyone who wants to try it out. I'll try to get Liza to upload her jump video, and will add the link when she does.

Strawberry curtains

2007-08-18T09:24:00.000-04:00

So, first I thought the pattern was pineapples, and related to my link to Hawaii, as well as being a traditional symbol of hospitality. I made three panels with the points oriented up. (refer to my previous picture last spring) Those panels were too narrow, and I hung all three in the library/guest bedroom window.

Samuel said he thought they looked more like pine cones, so I turned the pattern upside down for the next panel. I was sitting in the airport on the way to Colorado making the chain to begin that panel, lost count, and didn’t make it long enough, so it ended up being too narrow again.

I finished that one while watching the Tour de France (after carrying it to Colorado and Florida!), and started the next one very carefully. I just finished that one this week, as a surprise for James. (He was taking a class in Reston, VA this week, and stayed with my brother rather than commuting 2+ hours each way every day. Thanks for having him, Chuck!) With the curtains hanging in the window, James says he thinks the pattern looks like strawberries.

I don’t know, or even care, what to call the pattern. I enjoy doing the work, and like the way they’re turning out.

I’m going to try to actually make the next panel match this one! Five panels so far, and no two of them match exactly. The final panel is going to be different again, because I’ve got to figure out how to balance the design in the window, while adding width to make up for the last narrow one.

I did finally use up that first huge (1.5+ mile) ball of thread, and started the next ball to finish the last four inches or so of this curtain.

100 Things (squared) Challenge

2007-08-17T13:40:00.000-04:00

Yes, it's been a while since I posted. I'll start playing catch up here. . .

James showed me a link to blog post about a 100 Things Challenge last week, and it’s been percolating since then. (I’ll find the link and add it later.)

We haven’t strictly followed the 100-mile limit for food in a similar locavore challenge, but we do eat quite a bit from local sources. Our favorite meals often include a 100-foot element. There’s a special delight in looking out the window at the vines that held dinner just an hour earlier. (Although Tori prefers to sit with her back to the window so she can’t see the vines “watching her” as she eats their "baby" beans.)

James and I discussed the 100-Things challenge, and pretty much dismissed it at that point. I think it’s going to require some real modification for us, before we can handle the adjustments to that much simplicity. Shoots, we probably have over 3000 books alone in this house, and I wouldn’t be surprised to find the number closer to twice that---and that’s after we’ve been culling books a bit at a time for almost two years (since we painted the upstairs winter before last).

I’m thinking that, in the interest of awareness, we start by listing what we have and sorting it into categories. (I’m hoping that we’ll choose to release many items before they even make it to a list.)

I was only partially joking when I sent James an email suggesting that we start with a maximum of 100 lists of 100 items, but everything goes on one of the lists. That would give us a total of 10,000 items in the house, and that would include everything: books, financial papers (100 items should cover that, although it might need one list for taxes and one for other records), people’s clothes, tools, household and kitchen items, etc. We’ll just break the lists down into sub-categories as finely distinguished as necessary to get the total that we need in that category down below 101 items. My hope is that, as we move along this path, we’ll continue eliminating items and will be able to combine the lists in the future.

Yes, I know, this is just another piece of evidence that we’re teetering on the edge of certifiable lunacy. Would you accept that this started as a way to make a game that I could enjoy out of the idea of getting rid of stuff? Those of you who know me very well at all are familiar with my tendency to pack rat. However much progress I’ve made in the last few years, I have a long way to go (as evidenced by the fact that just getting the household down to 10,000 items is going to be an improvement!). And I’m not the only one in the house with this affliction!

I don’t really see us getting to a place where we have less than 200 items in our house, even when the kids are gone and we’ve really simplified our lives. But we are moving toward a much simpler lifestyle, and don’t want to be putting more energy (time, money, thought) into maintaining stuff that we really don’t need.

Thought challenge: Start a list of what you really need to live comfortably. . . a plate, a bowl, a cup, knife/fork/spoon, napkin, towel, pillow (or 2 . . . plus a Bucky!), sheets (how do you count those? Individually? As a set?), journal, pen, brush, toothbrush, washcloth or shower scrubby, then the consumables-soap, toothpaste, etc.-how do you count those????, clothing (I have 75 things on hangers in my closet right now-with laundry to be done-and that doesn’t count the hangers! And I counted each suit skirt + jacket as one item!), etc. Have fun! And feel free to post your own version/additions to this list.

In the Mile-High City

2007-07-05T23:32:00.000-04:00

I'm out in colorado this week. . .attempting to keep my sister's kids alive for a few more days-and hopefully stay alive myself!

Beck is in Ethiopia, visiting her kids' family there, volunteering in a couple of orphanages, and getting things started on solving the water crisis there. I've heard it said that the water situation in Africa is hopeless, but if anyone can get things going, my little sister can! Beck is a powerhouse of energy and enthusiasm, hard to keep up with, and it's even harder not to catch the excitement when she's on a roll.

I'm so very glad she trusts me to take charge of her kids for a few days. Her husband, Mitch, is a firefighter working 24 hour shifts, and that can make child care very tricky. Fortunately for them, their kids are adorable, and I wasn't hard to convince when they offered me a free ticket and five days with their five kids. Okay, so Roman really doesn't count as a kid at 15. He's a spectacular young man and we've had some great chats since I arrived.

The other four are all within about two years of the same age-6-8 years old. They are as high energy and dynamic personalities as their mother-if that's possible, and eat as much as their uncles and cousins! And do they ever love to talk!

I've done a bit of "coming down hard", but we've mostly gotten along quite well.

Yesterday was my first day "on the job", and we got most of the chores done, rooms clean, clothes on and food in everyone's stomach before I sent them outside to play. Then we cleaned the front porch, and Taye got tired of waiting for his turn with the broom and came inside to find something else to do. All on his own he decided to vacuum the family room sofa and carpet, and he did an excellent job of it! Sierra helped hold the cushions so that Taye could vacuum them, and they worked together so well putting the sofa back together! I was so proud of them! Meanwhile Saba and Gizachew were busy sweeping outside. When they finished with the porch and sidewalk, those two just kept on going, and swept the driveway too! What a great team!

Saba wanted to make sure that everyone remembered that Mom doesn't like them writing on the front porch. (The sign on the step reads, "Don't write here" with a bit of creative spelling.)

After lunch we joined their friends Molly & Reilly (and their parents-6 on 1 was a bit much!) for an expedition to the pool. The floating slide had been patched and made an appearance for the first time in almost two years. The kids had a blast, and the adults agreed it was wonderful. I ended up a bit pink from too much midday sun-even with SPF 45 on, but I did get the kids well gooped and none of them burned.

Besides the necessity of keeping the ravening horde fed, I did manage to organize a half hour of reading before the short night and high energy caught up with me and I resorted to mindless entertainment and let them turn on the tv for an hour or so.

They were almost settled for bed when the fireworks started, and it was after ten before I was able to chase them back to bed. Oh well, that's what happens on holidays. Unfortunately short nights tend to be followed by shorter tempers the next day-but today Dad was "in charge". . .

For my day off, I got to go out to lunch with one of Becky's best friends, Capucine, and we had a wonderful time. Without Beck to help, we didn't manage to solve all the world's problems, but we did get to know each other. I am delighted to know that Becky has such a wonderful friend here to share life's challenges when I, as her big sister, am so far away.

Now, I'm off to bed to recharge my batteries before wrestling the kids tomorrow.

HE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-06-28T12:55:00.000-04:00

Report cards are in, and Samuel presented us with a perfect report card- straight A's for the whole year! We're so proud of him! James will be taking Samuel to buy his well-earned laptop this evening. (A carrot to inspire just that little bit of extra effort towards excellence. . . and the motivation to prove to himself that he can do it!) We don't want him to feel pressured to keep it up all the way through high school, but to know that he is capable of working at that level. Perfection is NOT required, but please set his expectations high. He's already negotiated "appropriate" rewards for future years of stellar performance-a contribution to his cause of choice for the second year, and a scooter after three years (when he's sixteen and has at least a learner's permit).

Miriam likewise turned in an excellent performance. Math was her only non-A grade this marking period/or semester final grades. She's content with being the only one using the "kids' computer"-at least for now. (If I let her use my laptop a bit, so she could see how much faster it is, would she want her own?)

I do so enjoy my kids!

And we had a marvelous time at my family reunion in Florida last week. My sibs are some of my favorite people in the world- but I think I've mentioned that before. We had a bit of a down mood to get over at the beginning-missing teenagers and Beck bringing her kids out late, along with Evan having a rough day of seizures early on in the week, but being together left us all happy and exhausted.

My best friend from high school, Aimee, is here for a quick visit this week, and we're still trying to convince her to move up. Of course, convincing anyone to leave the islands can be difficult, so we're not having too much luck, but we keep trying.

I'll be heading out to Colorado for a few days next week to stay with Beck's kids while she's in Africa fixing their water problems (if anyone can do it-she can!) and Mitch is working his 24-hour shifts at the fire station. I'm glad they trust me with the kids, and think that the kids would most enjoy having me there.

Then Liza gets home on the 10th, and we head to Florida for a quick trip the following week. It won't be anything like the reunion, but at least she'll get to visit with her grandparents and great-grandmother, and hopefully see my cousins newborn twins. (We're still waiting on their arrival!)

James and I want to fit in another trip to Berea before I start school at the end of the summer, but all my travels have my homebody self craving some time at home, so I don't know how that will play out. A trip to visit James's side of the family, and a skydiving trip with Liza (count me out of that one-my pilot grandfather convinced me early on to stick with the airplane unless it's going down!) are higher priorities.

Life's good!

Why don't they. . .

2007-06-11T08:57:00.000-04:00

. . . have a button labeled "fix what I messed up"?

I can understand code to a very limited degree, and I know when I messed up the format (most likely when I removed the AdSense code, but it could've been adding FeedBlitz), but finding that code line, now that the AdSense stuff is gone requires a heck of a lot of scrolling and comparing!

I'll get it figured out someday, or maybe I'll just change layouts? Update colors for Spring/Summer???

Grins! (with only an occasional grimace)

Gift from a prayer, and thoughts about faith & religion

2007-06-10T19:34:00.000-04:00

A Friend offered a prayer today during our Silent Worship that went something like this:
O, Gracious One,
I come here today to wait for you in the Silence.
We all come here with our quirks, our rushing, and our egos-
Sometimes too big- to wait for you.
And I realize that you're always waiting for us.
Thank you for waiting for us.

Can you understand how this prayer reached into my heart to soothe and heal the pain I've been feeling this week, wondering how long I/we might be waiting for Kyle to have time for us?

As I pondered this prayer, I felt so strongly comforted.
If the Divine One is our role model, then can't I draw on that example to wait patiently, to be calmly here whenever any of our children turn to me?
I do have an easier time with that patience with the other kids. For one, the wait has never been as long as it has with Kyle. Even since they've moved out of the house, it is unusual for me to go more than a few days without hearing something from each of the big girls. We have more of a history of sharing than I have with Kyle. I'm more a part of their lives, because I've always been a part of their lives. Kyle was delighted, at 11, to be able to "really call you Mom now!" And I gave my heart to that precious boy. At 15 1/2, he wants much less to do with all of his parents, and really doesn't want to risk conflict just to spend time with parents. That's certainly normal behavior. Just makes for a very different relationship than I have with the kids who live with me. (I'm blessed to still be able to enjoy morning cuddles with my teenagers fairly often, and Samuel and I share a game of kakuro before school more often than not.)
Another piece of the challenge comes from Kyle's age. He's only 15, he's not "supposed" to be gone yet. That's something to happen at 18, or maybe 17 if he decides to do a student exchange! But he is gone, for all intents and purposes. Hopefully we have enough foundation for a relationship as adults to be established in the future. Only time will tell.

From thinking about LeeAnn's prayer in light of my feelings about my relationship with Kyle I moved on to thinking about faith and unity.

I believe the purpose of religion, the practice of faith, is to bring us into unity with that Divine Presence that waits for us in the Silence-whatever people call that presence, and to bring our actions into alignment with that peace.

I've been reading Bird of Another Heaven by James D. Houston. (I highly recommend it!) The female protagonist, Nani, is a hapa woman (Hawaiian/Native American from one of the California tribes) living (mostly in California) at the end of the Hawaiian monarchy. I bring the book into this topic because Nani knew, followed, and worked to integrate the "religious" practices of her Hawaiian father, her Native American mother, and the Christian minister with whom she taught. Quite a challenge.

I'll continue these thoughts tomorrow. . . I started this post over two hours ago, keep getting interrupted, and it's past bedtime.

The Dark Side of Mary/more on Why Sociology?

2007-06-09T07:53:00.000-04:00

I've had another restless night, and lots of time thinking about Kyle. I rarely post about the issues we have with our children's other parents. Part of that is because I don't like the negative tone, part because I don't want it out in the world forever. Since this has been going on for a week or so, and I'm getting ready to start a doctoral program with an interest in this post-divorce parenting stuff, I guess I should start from the beginning with an open admission that I fall far short of my ideal of cooperative co-parenting!

With my other kids, I'd think that something was going on that they needed me if they showed up in my dreams four times in a week, with enough intensity to leave me wide awake even if I don't remember what the dream was about. But I don't have that level of connection with Kyle. He's never been here for any longer than about ten days at a time, and only eight nights since school started last fall.

I think this has to do with Father's Day coming up, and our excitement about the family reunion the following week-for neither of which will Kyle be joining us. After all, he needs to spend Father's Day with his "real" father- the one who's there for him every day. (Okay, so what if James doesn't even hear about things going on, and that set of parents bristles if we find out about a concert and show up, and that's the set of parents who set 100% attendance as the standard for participation in such activities as the church ball league or Scouts-and then schedule Scouting events to conflict with his time with his birth father??? And they tell him we're "not his real family"-yes, that's a quote, along with we're going to hell so he shouldn't love us too much. They live a different view of Christianity than I do!)

After our visitors last February/March, I'm somewhat relieved not to have the threat of a spy in the house.

But I'm angry with his mother for setting up the game this way. There's no way we could stand up for time with Kyle without putting him in the middle when she scheduled birthday parties for his weekend up here, and then made it a twelve-year-old's choice- "just tell him you want to be here for ____'s party, and remind him I don't owe make-up time."

When we met as all four parents two years ago, to refine the schedule, I tried to generate a common vision for parenting Kyle, but they just wanted to hash out/fix the schedule that they didn't like. Since Kyle was already struggling with grades and work ethic at that point, I suggested home schooling as a possibility that would both give us more flexibility in the schedule as well as give Kyle an opportunity to learn how to study. That was rejected outright and vehemently. "Home schooling doesn't work! They don't learn anything!"

Oh, yeah?!? Let me tell you, I'm so tempted to photocopy Samuel's straight-A's-for-the-whole- year report card and send it to her with a comment about "home schooling doesn't work?" My son wasn't kicked out of kindergarten the first week and sent to first grade. You've used that as a marker to say your son's so smart. Then why is he going to be in the same math and Spanish classes as my son, who's two grades behind him? Could it be that Samuel learned some academic stuff as well as how to learn while he was home for school?

I won't do that, because that wouldn't accomplish anything besides feeding resentment between the boys and making her angry. But sometimes I get tired of being adult and responsible, and I want to throw a tantrum and hit out at the perceived cause of pain.

Okay, I acknowledge that it's my thoughts causing me this pain. I don't think she or Kyle have done anything new to hurt me or James. It's my silly thoughts that Kyle "should" be here with his father for Father's Day, and with us for the reunion, and remembering the past that is causing me pain.

But today, I just want to take that "superior" place, and claim to be a better mother because I don't make my kids choose between me and their dad, and I do support his relationship with them-even if it doesn't feel like it to him. I think the kids (my birth ones) are better off because I do encourage and support them loving their dad, stepmother, and little sisters. They have more people to love and love them. Yes, at times it's more complicated for me to continue to try to negotiate & coordinate with the other household. And yes, they do still catch a bit of flak when we don't get things worked out smoothly. But they know that I want them to have a real relationship with him, and I expect them to be a part of both households. And even parents who are still together don't always agree.

I wish "She" were comfortable with the idea that Kyle could love us without loving her less. (I use the pronoun rather than her name to protect her privacy. Few people who might ever read this will connect her with my version of the story if I leave that out. I am specifically trying not to de-personalize her even though I'm feeling angry and hurt right now.) That's the only way I can make sense out of her attempts to keep James out of Kyle's life. They had such a good relationship when I first met them. I can only think that, after her apparent attempts to replace James with her second husband as Kyle's "dad", she felt like I threatened her position as Kyle's mom. Not gonna happen (even if I had wanted to do it, which I most certainly did NOT)!

Divorce sucks! It's a bum deal for everyone-kids, custodial parents, non-custodial parents and step-parents/sibs/etc. And yet, I still think we're better off than we would have been had I stayed in the marriage that wasn't working. Choose your partner wisely and carefully, and wait until after you've got a pretty good idea of who you are as a person, kids!

FeedBlitz available

2007-06-07T21:41:00.000-04:00

You can now have my amusing posts emailed straight to your inbox, so you don't miss anything when I decide to come back after a long hiatus. Messages will arrive daily, if I understand how this works and if I've written anything that day. If you're interested, just fill in your email in the box on the sidebar. I promise not to spam you!

Unfortunately, in setting this up, I've scrambled my layout and will have to play with that tomorrow.

Lisa, thanks for getting me headed in the right direction!

Kid news at the end of the school year

2007-06-06T13:15:00.001-04:00

Alphabetically this time. . .

What we hear of Kyle is focused on music. . . He had a solo at last month's school band concert and word is that he did well. He's thinking about organizing a youth praise group (songs & scripture study) in his area, but they may travel to revivals in a larger area. Go for it, Kyle! He finishes school for the year tomorrow, and has a busy summer of travel with school & family and lots of camps (Scouts, church, and band) planned.

Liza (pronounced Leeza by all her Hungarian friends and "family") is resisting the creeping of the calendar. Her language skills have really clicked, and she loves the country, the culture, and most of all the people! Besides her travel around Hungary, she's trying to fit in a quick run to Salzburg before she comes home next month.

Miriam is glad to be finishing up her school year also, and has done very well. She will be receiving at least one award next week-but they won't tell us what it is until the assembly! She's done well academically, making honor roll all year. She's really growing up. Besides having pulled that trick of turning into a young woman over night, she's really become a dependable contributor to our household. She baked me a cake for my birthday Monday, and gave me one of the pieces she'd painted in Art this year. I am certainly blessed to have such creative daughters!

We've attended our last middle school concert for our children! Here's Samuel too busy playing to hide from the camera. . .

Samuel's also receiving an award at school, but he couldn't get one in the same assembly as Miriam is. Nope, James will be late to work TWO mornings next week so that he can come help me embarrass the kids (oops, I mean cheer them on!).
Besides family adventures and church camp, Samuel will be busy this summer working on Scouting projects with a week at Conservation camp earning badges toward his Hornaday Award and making his Eagle project happen.

Tori came by yesterday for a visit to celebrate my birthday. Have I mentioned that I really enjoy and appreciate spending time with her? She had a fun time visiting London and Hungary with Liza. (She's the one who provided the Liza pic I used above!) Tori's finished another semester of college, and highly recommends against taking accounting in an online format. (Of course, I never tackled the second semester of accounting at all. I did well my first semester, but couldn't face the idea of three more semesters and changed my major away from business! Guess she's not exactly like her mom.) With the semester over, and a summer without classes, Tori has time to read for FUN, and joined us on our library trip last night. It was delightful having her cue us on appropriate songs on the way home.

I know not everyone breaks into song spontaneously throughout the day, but that's one of the things Liza has commented about missing this year. I love that piece of family culture, and the jokes and laughter from my smart-aleky family. It is a joy and a delight to spend time with these people! One night last month we were sitting at the table and went from discussing school to an old Bugs Bunny cartoon to the Road Runner, then on to planning our "talent" show contribution for the reunion, to quoting and debating the location of various Shakespearean scenes! Wacky!

real estate adventures

2007-06-06T12:44:00.000-04:00

After our trip to Berea on Memorial Day weekend, James and I put in an offer on a 5-acre property with a lot of UP! last Thursday. It had much to recommend it-a creek, nice neighbors, and an existing septic system, water, electric and cable were on the property, and it had a southern exposure on an east-facing slope. The previous house burned down about four-five years ago, and there was a pile of rubble/ash that needed to be cleared.
It has a creek down by the street, and goes UP (and UP some more!) from there. We'd have clearing work to do-rubble, trash left in the shed, brush that's grown up during the unattended years, etc. Fauna in the area includes a variety of song birds, deer, some bobcats, a bear that wandered through a couple of years ago, and rattlesnakes that come down to the creek in the dry season. James figured we'd just build them a pond further up the hill.

The neighbors told us there are wet-weather springs, so we'd have to figure out where those were before siting the house, but we could manage that.

We'd need to clear a good bit of underbrush, but that's free mulch. There were a couple of dying pines, and a poplar closer to the house site than we'd like, so those would come down and be cut for firewood. A few other trees would need to be cut to open a clear solar window, and we'd try to use those in our actual construction.

We could make it work!

It had been on the market for about 10 months, so we knew it was a bit over-priced, besides not showing well, so we offered just over tax assessment for it, but included contingencies that the septic system pass approval to get a building permit, and the owner obtain an easement for the driveway that the last survey (1995) showed as encroaching on the neighbor's property. We'd already talked to the neighbors and knew they didn't think it did, but we wanted to avoid problems in the future.

We submitted the offer Thursday morning, with a 5 PM Friday deadline for response. Late Friday our agent called to request an extension because the owner's agent had found out that he was out of town for the weekend. Could they have until Monday morning?

There was no response on Monday, so when I called my agent at 7 PM I gave the owner until 10 AM Tuesday to actually get in contact with me or we pulled the offer. About 9:30 AM I got a call from a gal in Berea who understands the permaculture/eco-friendly (eco-freak) scene, and she had some questions about the street possibly becoming a corridor, or paralleling the corridor for the future continuation of the bypass under construction to the north. (One more concern about that property.) Timmie also said she just bought almost two acres with a tear-down house four miles closer to town, so appropriate property is available. She's going to keep her ears open for us.

Discussing this with James, we had gotten to the point that we weren't going to do anything further to pursue the original property. So, of course, when we got home from our family trip to the library I had a message waiting from our agent.

The seller's agent had finally gone out to his house. He hadn't checked his messages and didn't know he had an offer! He accepted the price as long as we dropped the driveway easement contingency. If we hadn't already gotten to the point that we weren't going to renew the offer, we would probably have negotiated from there to increase the price of the property to cover the cost of a survey and filing paperwork at the courthouse, but we were past that.

Not wanting to buy a property that might lose use of the driveway should the neighbors decide to sell, and being too far from the site to deal with things ourselves, we're letting this offer go.

I'm back to shopping!

We're moving. . .

2007-06-06T10:49:00.000-04:00

to Berea!!!!!!!!

Okay, so we won't be moving for another four years (or three if both twins choose to follow Liza's example and graduate early), but -after looking for at least two years- we've found our community.

We want out of "the city", space to extend our gardens, a simple life of gardens, music, relationships, and so forth. We'd been focusing on the eastern side of the Appalachians with no success. Our thinking has been that James's family is in C'burg & Waynesboro, and I still have two brothers in the DC area. We'd like to be near them. Getting other places is easy from the DC & BWI airports.

But we want out of the megalopolis, and the traffic and density, etc. We already live our lives at a slower pace than most folks, and quite happily so.

James's military retirement gives us options since it provides a minimal income-but with medical coverage for a very reasonable price. We figure that once the kids graduate and we clear the housing expenses (mortgage, primarily, but also most utilities), we could easily make enough money to cover the rest of our expenses (in a lower cost-of-living area) with part-time or temporary work. We'd be able to select work based on interests/passions/values, rather than having to focus on the paycheck.

Our goal is to have the property paid off and money saved for building expenses so that James at least, if not both of us, can take a year or two and focus on the building without having to fit it in around a job. And be able to spend much of our time making the world a more beautiful place. . .

After investigating and visiting various communities in the Piedmont (NC through VA, and looking into PA) without finding "our place", I figured we'd widen the search field a bit.

What are we looking for?
A community within an hour's drive (or a little bit more) of a good-sized military base so we can take advantage of the retiree's benefits (medical and maybe commissary), a college town to provide a more diverse perspective on the world (since other small towns can be very homogeneous) and opportunities for me to teach (which rules out most church-affiliated schools except Quaker ones), a public library, a Friends' Meeting, hopefully a Buddhist group of some sort for James, contra-dancing nearby, and affordable non-toxic land (we can build soil but cleaning up major toxins can be a problem). Access to the Interstate system is a plus, but we don't want to be within sound range of the road or train tracks.

We want something in the 2-10 acre range within a couple miles of the college so we can use bikes as our primary mode of transportation for much of the year. Outside a neighborhood association because we don't do lawns! A southern exposure or at least solar access is essential.

Nice-to-haves include: bike trails nearby, a creek or pond, established nut & fruit trees

We'd rather not have a house on the property, since we want to build and won't be moving for a couple of years anyway (vacant houses deteriorate and we aren't looking to be landlords!).

James and I spent Memorial Day weekend in Berea, KY. Why Berea?
It has all of the must haves PLUS an active sustainability group and other environmentally-focused folks. Berea College even has an Environment and Sustainability Department, a history of supporting the Appalachian people and culture, and a philosophy I love! The town grew up around the college, and the community seems to have a more tolerant/open-minded attitude than other small-ish communities we've visited. I received multiple welcoming responses from emails I sent to the Friends and the sustainability group. We met a local musician, Mitch Barrett (check out his Sacred Yard song!), our first night there-and he put us in touch with other folks we needed to talk to.

In short, it feels like a place we could almost "fit in", feel comfortable, connect with like-minded folks, contribute, and so forth. And it's beautiful country, besides being where all my mother's family has come from for roughly two centuries!

I'm going back to school!

2007-06-05T17:11:00.000-04:00

I wanted to upload pics but I can't find the camera cord we bought to replace the one left on Liza's desk in Hungary, so. . . I can't show you the pics from Samuel's concert last night or the last two weeks of garden pics. (Aw, shucks???) I'll work on that.

In the meantime, I gave you a kid update (and you need another one), but I didn't share my good news here, and I got lectured Sunday night for not telling everyone-so, to all my loyal readers, ;-)
I hereby announce that I will be starting my PhD in Sociology this fall at the University of Maryland. Between my last minute decision to apply, and a few computer glitches, it took them a while to make the decision, but they offered me admission with an assistantship that includes full tuition and a stipend that will cover books, fees, transportation, and other expenses related to this adventure. As Mom put it, I'll probably learn more from that part of my education than I do from my classes.

Why am I going back to school?
With the big girls out of the house, and the twins starting high school, I'm really moving out of the intense parenting phase of life. (No, Beck, we're still not going to adopt a few more, much as we love yours!)
I considered employment, but with those aforementioned big girls in college, 47% of my after tax earnings go to the increase in their Expected Family Contribution, so I'd be working for a third of whatever the nominal paycheck was. James & I looked at that, and had a hard time finding anything that would pay enough to make it worth the restrictions on our family schedule, unless it were something I'd enjoy doing for "free". I am pretty comfortable with computers, but I'm no geek.
I miss the delight of watching the light go on in my students' eyes, but I still can't handle the noise inherent in a middle or high school situation. (Thanks so much little Lyme buggies!) There are more teachers wanting to teach Spanish at the community college than they need, so it's takes timing, luck, and connections to get in there.

With this as background, I was thinking about our co-parenting situations, and began wondering about if & how it is possible to create a situation where children of divorced parents really feel like they belong in both households. . .more questions: how to define that?, how to assess it?, is it better for the kids to feel like they are part of both households?, how would that be measured?, what are some strategies that support (& interfere) with that belonging?, etc. As the project developed, I quickly realized that, as diverse as my background is, my limited experience in social research would present challenges and I needed a couple of courses in research design & methodology to do this well, and make it meaningful. Investigating the graduate programs in the area, I realized that the courses I would need to feel confident in doing effective and safe research would get me most of the way to a Masters degree, and the other classes I'd need for the Master's degree would complete some 70% of the coursework for a PhD. The project itself will easily work into a dissertation research project, so. . .

The end of the first week of January I decided to apply for the PhD program. Never mind the deadline for applications was in early February and I had never taken the GRE! I scheduled that, checked out three review books from the library, and went to take that as the January ice storm rolled into town. I managed a 700 Verbal/800 Math (better than my SAT scores!)-we do enjoy the challenge of standardized tests!- and had the scores sent on to UMCP. I filled out the first part of the application online, and somehow there was a glitch and I never could get into the supplemental part. Two of my recommendation letters made it in on paper, but the other one was waiting for the electronic format, but the department stopped sending the weekly status reports so I thought everything was in.
And so I waited to hear from them. . .
And waited. . .
And waited, until late March, after the letters were supposed to go out. They pulled my application off the shelf, decided they really did want me in the program after all, but had to figure out where they were going to get the money to offer me the assistantship. . .and so things were still "pending" when I left for Hungary. The Graduate Adviser called while I was gone, but I didn't get the message for some reason (?!?). I had an emailed acceptance waiting for me when I got home, and the official letter came the first week of May.

I'm really looking forward to: being back in class, the intellectual exchange, learning new things, meeting new people, teaching again (eventually), etc. At this point I'm expecting (and the department is too) to specialize in Social Psychology and Gender, Work & Family areas. Now, if they only had some environmental sociology courses. . .but I've tracked down a contact with that background to guide me in some independent study in that area!

The family's screaming that it's dinner time, so I'll post more later (and won't wait a month this time!).

"Kid" update

2007-05-04T14:46:00.000-04:00

Can I still call them kids when their shoes are all bigger than mine are?

Anyway, we'll start with the youngest this time. . .
Miriam brought home another Honor Roll report card. Great job, Miri!
She's been having some trouble with her TMJ issues, and had to drop Honors Chorus because some days singing is painful. The worst of that discomfort was handled by having her bite guard (that she wears at night) adjusted slightly, but we won't be able to do anything significant to "fix" the issue until she stops growing.
The good news, and compliment to who she is in the world, came Monday during one of our frequent trips to the library. The library has an paid opening for a page, to shelve the books and otherwise assist the librarians. Because of the excellent work she did last summer as a teen volunteer in the summer reading program, one of the librarians actually came up to her and asked her to apply! (They tried to get her on staff last fall, but she wasn't old enough at that point. They've been waiting until an opening came up after her birthday!)

Samuel has interviews scheduled for this weekend to finish up the last of the merit badges he needs to complete his Eagle Scout award. All that he'll have left after this is his project and the paperwork.
He continues to enjoy his kung fu workouts three nights each week, and has some wonderful friends in that community. But that's not enough of a physical outlet, so he's taking up tennis as well. Samuel hopes to make it onto the high school tennis team in the spring, in the midst of testing for his black sash in kung fu (a 6-12 month process!).
And all this, while bringing home his third straight-A report card in a row! You go, Son! Samuel is determined to earn his own computer, and if four straight straight-A report cards is what it takes, then that's what he's going to do.

Kyle is keeping busy with Scouts, band, and other high school activities. Last month he took a trip to Ohio, I think it was, to participate in Bible Bowl with the team from his church. As he finishes up his sophomore year, Kyle's starting to look toward college, and right now plans to attend Ohio Valley University and become a school music teacher. That's a compliment to his current teacher and mentor. Thank you, Mr. L!

Liza is really getting the Hungarian language down. I really enjoyed traveling with her, especially in Hungary where she made a wonderful tour guide and translator. She has really connected with the people and the culture, and isn't ready to come back to the States. I hope another 2 1/2 months will be enough for this trip, Liza. We love you and miss you, and do want you back-at least for a little while!
Since so many people have asked what Liza's planning to do when she returns. . . It looks at this point like she'll be heading out to Washington to help her aunt with her cousins while Uncle Reuben is in Kuwait. Since she's also looking forward to a degree in International Relations in route to a career in the Foreign Service, Liza'll be knocking out general education requirements through independent study and coursework at the local community college-including a course in color photography. (She has really missed her "real" camera this year, but didn't have access to a darkroom in Hungary, so she didn't have me take it to her.)

Tori has quite the summer of travel planned-Hungary to visit Liza (with a detour through London on the way! Did I mention my girls like cities???), Florida in June for a family reunion, New England somewhere in July for a dance weekend, and then another one in August if I've got that straight. And somewhere in there, she and Liza are planning a bit of visiting as a sisters only trip. And she's paying for all of this herself! She's not working much at the restaurant, at least until the semester finishes, but that doesn't mean she has much spare time. She has two other jobs at a home improvement company. Did I tell you they gave her a raise??? They recognize what a hard worker she is, and not only accommodate all this travel she wants to do, they give her money to do it so she'll come back and work some more for them!

One of the great things about my children growing up is my changing role in their lives. I am no longer responsible for the decisions they make as young adults. I get to be a counselor-if (and only if!) asked. And most of the time I get to stand back and admire their creativity and determination as they resolve the situations that arise. I really am blessed with a fine bunch of people to share my family!!!

Where have I been???

2007-05-04T14:29:00.001-04:00

Actually, I have been traveling-to Hungary to visit Liza, and then to Vienna, Prague, Kalocsa, and Budapest with her. I'll tuck in pictures and thoughts from my travel experiences through the next few days. I've been back a week (last night) and finally feel like I'm catching up with projects that got set aside while I was preparing for the trip, and then gone.

I've learned some interesting things about myself through this, to include:
1) I am NOT a city girl! I don't know how I ended up with two daughters who love the hustle and bustle so much, but I'm going to leave cities to them! I need my regular fix of trees and bird song and space.
2) I am fine for about a week of traveling, and after that I've got to get home. Part of that is the "nothing meaningful to show for all this time" aspect of sightseeing day after day. Part of it is missing my partner in life, my own bed, and my own dirt in the garden.
3) I care much more about making connections with people than I do about admiring architecture. And it's definitely easier to make connections when we have a shared language, even if it's a second language for one or both.
4) I'm outgrowing collecting "things" as mementos of my trip. I was even challenged finding meaningful gifts to being home for my people who didn't go with me.
5) I can eat dairy and still function (walk, especially), but I feel much better on our plant-based diet we eat here!

It's great to be home!!!!!!!
I really appreciated James staying home and tending to everything here, so I didn't have any of those worries/concerns weighing on me. And you should see all the projects he got finished without me to distract him or change things mid-stream! (I'll do a garden report in a bit.) But best of all is just being home to share ideas and connections.

The time with the twins, without me, did bring them closer together, and made a shift in their relationship that has continued even after my return.
At the same time, the time with just Liza was a special treat. Even if we were both satisfied with our time together by the time it was drawing to a close, and ready to get back to our lives (me-family & gardening, Liza-speaking Hungarian), the experience of extended time together and sharing experiences just the two of us was priceless! James, thank you from both of us for making that possible!!!

Spring is on its way!/Life lessons in relationship

2007-03-13T13:14:00.000-04:00

The crocuses have been carpeting the neighbors' back yard for about a week. The ground is thawing (after another late snow last Wednesday!), and we'll be planting peas in the next couple of days. And this morning I heard the geese honking as I lay cuddling with Samuel.

I do so appreciate my affectionate teenagers! I had morning cuddles with both twins this morning. Miriam came in for the first time since we cleaned her room the weekend before last. I've really missed her. As much as I understand her frustration and anger, and our need to be parents, I really felt hurt when she refused hugs. (It's her right, and we have never pushed our kids to be affectionate when they don't want to.)

We did have one really funny story come out of her "punishing silence", and she knows I claim the right to publish it, so here goes. . . Thursday night Tori was giving one of her friends a ride home to our neighborhood, and her car died in the turnaround on the highway just outside the entrance to our neighborhood. Naturally enough, she called for help. Knowing James had work early the next morning, and not wanting to disturb him at 10:45 PM, when Miriam answered the phone, Tori asked her to wake me. Miriam's response? "Can I get James instead? I'm not speaking to Mom." Everyone (except Miriam for some reason) has gotten a good laugh out of this.

Fourteen can be a miserable time to be a girl! Fortunately, I have seventeen and nineteen-year-old daughters to remind me that we CAN all live through it!

A visiting baby in Meeting for Worship this week, along with wonderful times "babysitting" my nieces and nephews in recent weeks, contrasted with adventures in parenting teens and conversations with the ones who have flown the nest, have made me really appreciate how quickly time passes and the kids pass through the phases of life. They all have so much to learn and teach!

Last Wednesday I spent the day with Aria and Evan, my brother Rob's children, while he and Lisa were educating our legislators about Tuberous Sclerosis. It's wonderful to be able to enjoy the results of their loving parenting. The kids are so happy, loving, enthusiastic, creative, and intelligent! I got sleepy toddler hugs from Evan when I arrived, and we had a wonderful time together while Aria was at school. He focuses so intently on his trains and construction projects, and then switches gears, and is all about communicating something imaginative. It's clear that he really enjoys the attention his big sister gives him, and learns so much from her.
Aria is a "model child" (a role model for the other children) in an early intervention program at the neighborhood elementary school, and was delighted to introduce me to her friends. She was even more delighted when I started speaking Spanish with one of her classmates. The kids have an Hispanic day care provider who speaks Spanish with them, and Aria had forgotten that I speak Spanish also. She's hoping to be included in the Spanish immersion kindergarten next year. I hope she makes it! Even with the challenge of learning Spanish, the teachers will have their hands full keeping her challenged! At lunchtime we had an intense conversation about numbers and math, because Aria was looking for a number word that I wasn't getting "right"! (You have to understand, twenty plus twenty equals forty, which is a new word for multiple tens. Therefore, by Aria's reasoning, there should also be new words when you add multiple hundreds, and I wasn't giving her that word!)
It really is impressive, especially with my background in language and early childhood education, to see how much those two kids have integrated! Evan's language skills, and synthesis of grammatical rules, are so far beyond his age level expectations that I was pulled up short by his age-appropriate (not quite 3 1/2 years old) speech patterns (missed sounds in words, for example). And his numerical sense is impressive also. One example-a kindergarten readiness test is the ability to count to twenty by rote, without missing numbers. He not only did that in English, but did most of it in Spanish also! Aria, who actually will be starting kindergarten in five or six months, can count beyond one hundred in English, and has the pattern down in Spanish, but just needs the words for multiples of ten (30, 40, 50, etc). She also sight-read a book I brought with me, WITH EXPRESSION!!! I really am impressed! And I appreciate the opportunity I have to be included in their lives! You're doing a great job with them, Rob & Lisa!

So, back to that idea of lessons to learn & teach. . . I feel like I learn so much about the world, and myself, through my interactions with my kids and other people in general. We each have our own path to walk through this life, and I don't presume to know how others should walk theirs. I do appreciate what I learn to see, by contrasting what I accept as a given with the way other people do things. Kids help so much in this, because their innocent questions, or adamant demands for answers (Aria) open my eyes to so many other possibilities.

Living with teenagers, especially my own, it can be a little harder. (For that matter, I think I may have been too exhausted to fully appreciate & take advantage of the opportunities when my own kids were at that younger stage!) They've now assimilated many of my viewpoints, and I often expect their behavior to match my expectations more than might be realistic, or even appropriate. Their different perspectives are more often couched in "attitude". And, for some reason, the opinions expressed in a huff just don't land as "cute" the way they did at five-years-old. And then I get to have a conversation with Eliza, who is still in Hungary, and appreciate the world through her perspective and experiences. I am so looking forward to traveling through Eastern Europe with her next month!

As I watch my kids with each other, I am really beginning to "get" my mother's joy at watching the relationships my sibs and I have with each other. I love being with the people my children are becoming, and am so glad they appreciate the relationships they have with each other! Like my sibs, they're all individuals, with different perspectives on life, but an abiding love and respect for each other. They're "good people", and I'm glad they're my people!

Parenting Teens, Part 2

2007-03-05T08:39:00.000-05:00

Or, "How did I get myself into this????"

This just happens to be my hundredth post. . .yippee!

Now for our story. . .
So, the crock pot was somehow missed when Miriam did dishes last week. She assured me she'd get that done when she washed the dishes she used to bake a cake for her Young Women's activity Wednesday night-after she got home that evening. They were still there Thursday morning, but eye contact and a look in that direction earned an "Oops!" and she got right to it. I came back down to the kitchen after she left for school to find the crock pot in the drainer tray, but the lid and baking dishes still unwashed.

Could someone please explain to me how washing the crock pot would NOT include washing the lid??? Have I mentioned that fourteen-year-old brains work differently than more "experienced" brains do?

Being their birthday, I chose to consider that she had fulfilled the letter of the request, and only deferred the other dishes out of consideration for her sister who was sleeping on the futon nearby. We were going out to dinner, so there was a bit of slack in letting Miriam figure out when she'd finish the dishes that were piling up around the sink where the baking dishes awaited her attention. Friday morning James pointed out that the unwashed dishes were now at the point that he couldn't work in the kitchen, and she promised to do them when she got home from school. But then the weather was sooooo nice, and she just had to get out for a walk with her best friend Kimmy. Except that Mean Mom said the dishes had to be done first. I even offered to help her with the other if she'd like, but she refused to do the others because they weren't "her" dishes.

In the conversation that ensued, I heard "I don't know why you guys keep saying I choose to forget. I don't CHOOSE to forget. I just forget." "Consequences won't teach me to remember. Dad's tried that too, and it doesn't work for him either. You can't make me remember!" (Seems she's consistent between the households. . .) I'm not quite sure how the conversation flowed, but somehow I chose to connect us clearing out her room as a consequence of her choosing not to finish the dishes before she left. She even had extra time to consider that option, as her stepmother agreed to leave her here when she picked up Samuel, so that we could show a united front on the need to complete chores. We'll be making up that time on Tuesday evening, and won't do it again, since it "can't be reciprocal"-or her dad doesn't see a way that it could. No big deal since it didn't work anyway.

James and I spent a dozen or more hours working together this weekend-throwing out obvious trash, recycling papers from third-fifth grades and scraps of receipts, etc. We filled two contractor bags with clothes that needed washed, and twelve boxes with books. I washed the shelf and walls in the closet, and wiped out the drawers in her emptied dresser, so those spaces would be clean and ready to accept the limited wardrobe she was allowed to select when she got home last night. (10 each: panties, bras/camisoles, tops, bottoms-pants or skirts, accessories; 2 swimsuits, 2 dresses, 4 sweaters/sweatshirts, her PE uniform, a jacket and a heavy coat) We bought her some storage containers for her make-up and other "girly" things, art supplies, mementos, and a hanging shoe holder. She'll keep a few other essentials/comfort items (lamp, radio, cuddle dog, and such), and can earn back 10 items every two weeks that she keeps what she has in order. What isn't kept in order goes away. (The Navy term is "Gear Adrift"=gear gone.)

I know she can't appreciate it right now, or maybe ever, but there was no way she could have put that room in any resemblance of order with all that she had before. We threw away little that didn't seem obviously trash (except for stashes of candy that aren't allowed to be stored in bedrooms-especially back corners! We do live in a wooded area and can have small furry visitors, whom we do NOT want to encourage to stay). It would have been much easier, and was very tempting after working for more than ten hours in two days and still having a good section of the room remaining! I'm not heartless. I understand that having "her" space invaded like this is traumatic for an adolescent. She was given instructions to get things in order, and deep/Spring cleaning was due to be completed this month. We just moved it up a bit, and she did have a half-hour task that would have postponed this project until her spring holiday from school.

The challenge ("You can't teach me anything with consequences!") accelerated the schedule, but we've been having concerns about Miriam's "perceptual challenges"-not noticing things out of place/that need doing.
There could be actual physical challenges, possibly related to the effects of limited oxygen to the brain when she had an upper GI bleed as a toddler. She definitely has "clutter-genes" from both sides of her family. I don't think she has a single naturally-neat grandparent! Maybe one or two uncles/aunts out of nine? And then there's the link between creativity and a degree of disorder in the physical environment. All readily available to be used as excuses, or just for understanding.

Nevertheless, life needs coping strategies to get around this challenge area. . . And it's our job as her parents to help her learn them. I didn't have time, energy, or support (Thanks, James!) to be able to tackle a project like this for the older girls when they were this age. (That whole single-parenting, grad school, working full-time, and dealing with Lyme disease thing. . .) I'm sorry about that. I can give Miriam an experience that she CAN live without so many things. I can give her practice in selecting what is meaningful to her.

And oh yes, apparently the reason Miriam didn't get her week-long math project finished was that every time she started to work on it, we "told (her) to do the dishes". But she was "not having any trouble managing the way it was!"

James and I have been moving through the whole house clearing clutter, simplifying, and practicing maintaining a higher state of overall order. The twins had been informed that we would be moving into their rooms if they couldn't bring things up to (our) reasonable standard on their own.

This hasn't been an easy weekend, and I know Miriam is going to let me know how she feels about it for quite some time. I treasure the close, warm relationships I have with my children, and it hurts that she is hurting and shutting me out (but I absolutely understand it, and love her anyway!). Sometimes parenting can be the hardest job in the world. And my job's to prepare her for success as an adult, not to be her best friend. There are just plain going to be times when I fit the "worst enemy" category more closely that the friend one. I'll just hold on to the experience I've had with the older girls coming back to our connection.

BTW-"Spring is sprung,
The grass is riz,
I see my little crocus-iz!" since Tuesday. Snowdrops are up also and the combination of deep violet crocuses and the white snow drops is gorgeous!

Parenting Teenagers-Part I

2007-02-27T09:15:00.000-05:00

One side effect of my binge reading (checking out several books on a topic when I get curious about something) is that I end up with a big stack of books to annotate as part of my self-education notes.

The topic for the last few days has been parenting teenagers. . . a topic I picked after our winter holiday with the three younger ones together, and had renewed the books to the limit and had to take notes or turn them back in without reading. (That’s “allowed” but doesn’t happen often.) Based on the way Tori and Liza are turning out, we’re on the right track, but there’s always room for improvement, right?

As with of boundaries, I often find it’s easiest to identify what’s important to me when that expectation isn’t met. Kyle, growing up mostly in a different household, has a different background, and has provided some clear contrasts. Don’t get me wrong- he’s still a great kid, but the places he provides the most learning for me are in the areas where his behavior is different than my expectations. The other kids “conform” more closely-because the consequences are more serious if they don’t. They have to live with ME!

What have I noticed that I/we value? Where are our standards?

Academics-a minimal standard is a solid B average.

None of our kids are incapable of performing at that level. In fact, unless they’re carrying a very strenuous academic load, even a 3.0 unweighted overall GPA is not a particular challenge. It mostly a matter of work habits, although one or two of the kids are a bit more challenged by algebra than the others.

In practice, regardless of what classes they are taking, privileges such as recreational computer usage, “entertainment”, driving when they get old enough, and matching funds for significant expenditures are dependent on “privilege-level grades”. We define that standard as a mix of A’s & B’s, with one C acceptable as long as there are at least as many A’s as B’s.

We encourage the kids to take the most challenging level of a class for which they can qualify. (We don’t put a kid who struggled with Algebra I in an honors-level Algebra II class, for example.) The theory there is that the peer group is more interested in learning in the higher-level classes, and the teachers are able to spend more time teaching and less disciplining in those classes. The classes are also able to cover the material in more depth, and are thus generally more interesting.

This strategy can backfire in the college application process if the college eliminates students based on a strict unweighted GPA cut-off, and the student gets B’s in Advanced Placement-level (college credit if you do well on the exam at the end of the year) classes but would’ve reliable earned A’s in a less-challenging level. Most colleges do look at the levels selected at some point in the process. If a student avoided available honors & AP level courses, the admissions folks will ask why, and question motivation &/or ability levels.

I don’t know how much guidance I gave the big girls on their high school course selections. I know I have NO influence on Kyle’s courses. But I’ve defined some guidelines for the twins: at least four academic courses per semester, honors-level or better for most of them, at least one active (PE) and one creative (art/music/theater/maybe technology) course each year. No less than three years of one foreign language, and making it to AP-level is even better. I think the ideal would be one of each during each semester, but that would get tricky if they want to graduate early (as Liza did) or take multiple foreign languages (as Miriam plans to do).

Which brings up another interesting background expectation. . . "foreign" languages. A second language is a given, but it seems that a third is also. And to the point of being essentially fluent! Tori and Samuel have both tackled Spanish and Japanese. Liza took Spanish-albeit reluctantly at times-and is now working on Hungarian. I hear from her that she’ll be bringing the Spanish up to fluent-level once she finishes the available Hungarian courses (or maybe concurrently!). Then she’s looking at another interesting one, but hasn’t decided on which one yet. Miriam rebelled-and insisted on taking French rather than Spanish, and will be adding Russian next year.

As in my household growing up, college through a bachelor’s degree is pretty much expected. I don’t want them to shoot for a “name school” just for prestige factor. I would prefer that they find a school that really suits them, and even formal education isn’t essential, as long as they “keep learning”. The incentive for school is that we can keep them on our health insurance if they’re full-time students. If the insurance company won’t let them stay on our policy as a dependent, they’re on their own!

Social/Spiritual standards:

Hmmm. . .harder to define. . .With four religious groups represented in this household, we obviously don’t declare a household faith. (One of the challenges of sharing parenting between different households!)

We do expect:

-participate in some sort of spiritual development

-honor the standards of whatever group you claim, as a part of integrity & keeping your word

-demonstrate respect for others, and for their beliefs: curiosity is encouraged, asking thought-provoking questions is great, telling others they are wrong or “going to hell” is highly discouraged (and you’ll face challenging questions from the parents if you do!)

-show gratitude for what we have-silent thanks before meals, appreciation of tangibles, intangibles, and service others do for us

-serve to others/share resources We really appreciated the opportunities the snowstorm provided to model this one for the kids.

-take care of what you have (stewardship over things first, with increasing responsibility as they develop) and consider your impact in the world-Make the world a better place because you’re here. (This ties in with the service piece also.)

-and think things through-don’t follow ANYONE (even us) blindly

Given that I’m reaching two pages at this point, I think I’ll save communication and finances, and whatever else I can think of (orderliness???) for another post. Not to mention, I did mean to do some reading response bits! (The font is different from my normal posts because I imported it from a Word document, and can't remember what my standard font is. . . I never claimed to be a geek! But I am going to start using labels for my posts, and may get around to labeling older posts-but not this week!)

We are experiencing technical difficulties. . .

2007-02-20T11:57:00.000-05:00

Or, "What do you mean you're having trouble completing your application? The system sends the instructions the day after you submit the first part. . ." Followed by, "I'll pass this on to ____ (my secretary/tech support/our programmers/. . .)."

So, is this challenge an indication that I'm headed in the wrong direction, or my last hurdle to prove my "worthiness" to re-enter the "hallowed halls of academia"?

I keep getting emails listing the parts of my application that are still missing. I'm resorting to the old-fashioned way and having people submit my recommendation letters on PAPER! (AAACCKK! How 20th Century!) The department already has my grad school transcript from my first Master's degree (Leadership in Teaching), and my GRE scores are on the way.

I actually had fun taking the GRE tests last week, especially when my unofficial scores came up at the end-Verbal 700, Quantitative 800!

The department chair told me they'd only be accepting stellar candidates by March. I think I qualify as stellar-if (and only if!) I can get these silly pieces past the technical blockade!

Along the lines of enjoying a mental challenge, Samuel's Valentines' present from his dad and stepmother was a new book of number puzzles. . .kakuro! For those of you who enjoy sudoku, this is another step up in difficulty. For an idea of what it's like, try this. The daily puzzles are less complex than the ones printed in Samuel's book, so we're enjoying a real challenge. (I copied several out of the book, and have worked to get ahead of him, because "racing" took some of the fun out of the game.) James chuckles at me talking my way through the logic, and I get to chuckle when Samuel does the same on his puzzle.

A belated Happy Valentines Day! & Snow report

2007-02-15T19:53:00.000-05:00

If you've been watching the news, you'll know that Anne Arundel County is the only one in Maryland with significant loss of power due to yesterday's storm-and we were part of that "lucky" crowd. Fortunately, James had an abundant supply of firewood split, stacked and tarped in the back yard, so we were able to keep warm. It took a while to get the house warmed up after the fire went out last night (gee, Samuel, why didn't you rebuild it when you got up at 2?), but nothing like those folks who didn't have a fireplace! We have gas appliances so we still had plenty of hot water and could cook on the stove. A corded phone replaced the powerless cordless phone, to keep us in touch with the world.

It was amazing to notice how much access to the internet and wandering around with the phone have become a part of our lives. Those were actually bigger challenges than the heat. That and the twins' boredom. . .
Had it been just snow, Samuel would've been out sledding, but it was 3/4" of bumpy ice atop the two+ inches of snow, then studded with chips of ice that fell from the trees as the wind blew. Without the wind, we would probably not have lost power. Fortunately, we seem to have weathered the storm without losing many trees. Or maybe that's unfortunate, since we need to replenish our severely depleted wood pile.
Miriam's greatest hardship was going two days without her radio, even if I enjoyed the quiet! She was home with a slight fever and headache Friday, but that didn't keep her from listening to her music. She was feeling better by the time she headed over to her dad's for the weekend, but was home again on Monday and Tuesday with a stomach bug. I was definitely ready for the music to go off. And she has the choice of headphones or no music tomorrow-the third day out of school for this storm, and the last of their allotted snow days-all used in February!

I'm going to turn this computer over to James to figure out why I can't connect to any of the other computers on our network to upload pictures. I'll add pictures later.

Spring is on the way!

2007-02-12T15:01:00.000-05:00

Even with the winter storm on its way, or maybe because I had to take advantage of the beautiful day-warmer than any we've had in the last two weeks, I think, I got three loads of laundry out on the line. In February! I'm sure some of the heavier pieces will have to finish with a few minutes in the dryer, but they smell so good after line-drying!

I was delighted to come home yesterday afternoon and find the seedlings I'd potted up on Thursday doing well. I started the seeds on damp paper towels in snack-sized plastic baggies Thursday, Feb. 1st. There weren't "supposed" to be many ready to plant before my weekend away, but I checked them last Thursday and knew I had a project to complete before I left.
I labeled and made up some 140 little newspaper pots using our new Potmaker, filled them with potting mix amended with a bit of rock dust for minerals, and ended up filling four trays with seedlings. I made sure they were all well-moistened and covered the trays with plastic wrap to keep them from drying out. James was home to keep an eye on them, but he has his own projects and this one is pretty much mine.

That said, I thought I was going to be sharing out a good bit of my experiment here, and sprouted the seeds accordingly. James says he'll have plenty of room in the beds he's been building for all of them. Even so, if there's something you want, let me know.

I don't think we really need ten cherry tomato plants (Sweet Baby Girl) and ten Brandywine plants-especially since I still have to start my Roma/paste tomato plants. (I left ordering the tomato seeds to James, since he and Samuel are the ones who devour our fresh tomatoes, and didn't confirm that he had ordered my cooking tomato seeds. Oops!) We have three kinds of basil starting: Genovese (sweet, green-a "standard" basil), Thai, and Red Rubin. I am determined to protect these little ones from the slugs that got the babies I put out to start hardening off last year! Other herbs include: dill, cumin, cilantro, epazote (to flavor black beans), chamomile (wish I had some of this fresh to make a tea for the twins today!), and pennyroyal, with parsley still in the sprouting process. We're also starting quite a few different edible flowers this year: nasturtiums are probably the most noticeable at this point-with their ruffled purple-y leaves standing tallest in the trays, but we also have calendula, marshmallow, bachelor's buttons, an edible chrysanthemum, and borage in pots. The serrano chilis and "hot salsa hybrid" peppers are in pots. Still sprouting are: green tomatillos-so we can make Becky's tomatillo salsa!, Thai eggplant, pineapple ground cherries, a rainbow mix of bell peppers, lavender bergamot, Hungarian blue poppies, and shiso (an oriental herb that flowers-if I remember correctly-but I have to pull my notes together in one place---after my GRE).

My experimental vegetable for the year is artichokes, and I'm sure I have too many of these! They are a biennial/"tender" perennial, but I've heard I may be able to trick them into flowering this year-if it stays cold long enough. (Thanks, groundhog! Weird weather.) I have roughly a dozen pots each of two varieties, and each plant needs elbow-room to the tune of 3-4 square feet each. They are an interestingly shaped plant, and we're thinking to plant a few in the front yard, but even so, I think I got carried away. Anyone else want to try growing one or more???

While I was gone, James finished the trellis frames along one side of the yard. I do so appreciate having him as my partner in life! Thirty+ feet of garden bed ready and waiting for peas and beans!!! Beans were our big success last year, so I'm hoping we can keep that going this year.

Silent Weekend

2007-02-12T13:51:00.000-05:00

I spent the weekend on a Silent Retreat at Dayspring Retreat Center with several other women from our Quaker Meeting. I didn't know how I'd handle the mandatory silence (not talking from after dinner Friday evening until just before lunch on Sunday), but really enjoyed it.

Okay, so I wasn't absolutely silent. Walking around, enjoying the sunshine and nature sounds, I did break out into song a time or two- without thinking about it. But I stopped singing as soon as I realized I was doing it- and noticed that I like expressing my joy in song.

It was a gorgeous, if chilly, weekend to spend out in the country. The pin oaks chattered as the breeze rattled their leaves. The grasses glowed red-gold and whispered in the sunshine. I came upon a frozen pond, covered in snow, as I was out walking. The sun made a gorgeous picture of on that canvas-sparkling snow contrasted with the bold shadows of trees. And across the surface, critter tracks! I sat beside the stream, listening to the water tumbling over the rocks and splashing on the crust of ice. Air bubbles trapped below the surface looked like a shadow-box movie as they oozed along, and the ice glittered like crystal in the sunshine. Pictures don't do justice, but I'll add them in when James gets home. He uploaded them from the camera, and I can't find them on our network. . .

The highlight of walking was my close encounter with a gray fox. The breeze was blowing into my direction, so he didn't smell me, and the rustling grasses must have covered the sound of my approach. I got within thirty feet or so before he trotted another 10-15 feet down the path to investigate something he'd seen. I stood there watching for a couple of minutes before he realized I was there, stared at me for another minute, and then turned tail and ran to the end of that path before turning back to look at me. Quite an experience! I wished I'd had my camera at that point, but the sound of the motor as it extended the lens would've startled him into running anyway, so I guess it doesn't matter. That was probably the hardest thing to keep silent about the whole weekend.

I enjoyed a relatively little bit of reading (by my standards) and journaled less in the weekend than I have on many mornings. I relished the sense of peace I felt, and will be repeating the experience. I pondered the question of how to carry this feeling on in daily life, to whatever extent I can manage.

With that thought in mind, I came home to get ready to take my GRE tomorrow morning-if our winter storm holds off that long. Samuel's report card was waiting on the back of the sofa, just inside the front door, where he was sure I'd see it as soon as I walked in! (Love that boy!) It was the first thing he asked about when they got home from Pratt's. Full of energy-as usual!- it was quite unexpected when, at 10 PM, Miriam came to wake me because he was throwing up downstairs. After soaking in the tub, Samuel slept on the upstairs bathroom floor-close to the toilet, and warm next to the heater vent. Miriam was getting ready for school after morning cuddles, until she felt a chill and asked me if she had a fever. I sent her for a bucket, and sure enough, soon heard her retching. Sure comes on quick! (And I'm reminding myself that my immune system was strengthened by this weekend's peace, and I'll be fine to take my exam tomorrow. No pressure there!) I feel somewhat torn between defending myself so I can get through my exam tomorrow and taking care of my sick kids. Fortunately, they aren't requiring much. Miriam has been a lump (her radio the only disruption to the quiet day I'd had planned), and Samuel has only needed a couple of cups of chamomile tea. The apple juice he requested for a change just didn't sit right, and he went back to the tea. With their resilience, I expect they'll be back on their feet in plenty of time to enjoy our winter weather and the day or two off school it looks like they'll be getting later this week.

Kid report

2007-02-12T13:31:00.000-05:00

Did I mention Tori has a new job? She's doing clerical work for a construction company in Baltimore. The second day she had impressed them so much that one of the managers was talking about training her for a position equivalent to his! He couldn't figure out why someone who is so bright, and cheerful, and bi-lingual, and competent, etc. would be working in that position. (Maybe because she just wants something to provide some funds until she heads out west to continue her schooling this fall? She's thinking about Arizona State at this point. Fortunately, transfer deadlines are later than new admissions.)

Liza is beginning to get the hang of Hungarian. Now she can't speak English either, but her "Hunglish" is really coming along!
Liza's looking forward to three weeks of traveling around the country at the end of March. Her current host parents will be out of the country then, and she isn't scheduled to move to her next family until April 8th. That host dad called to make sure she knew she was welcome early, but she's looking forward to gallivanting, touring, and visiting other exchangers. With the difficulties the exchange students experience learning the language, it seems that they don't have much pressure to attend school-as long as they have something else "meaningful" to do. So they make plans to visit each others' cities/towns- and that gets both the tourist and the guide out of school. Hmmm. . . I'm not sure that's what I sent her over there for, but I suppose she's learning from it anyway. If nothing else, Liza has learned that she appreciates being challenged academically, and really wants external feedback on how she's doing. When we were talking about my taking the GRE tomorrow, Liza said she wants to take a test. (Some people would think you're sick, Kid. But how's that Statistics class coming along? There's a test you could take!)

Kyle said something to James about a ski trip with Scouts during their last call, but I didn't get the details. (Feel free to post a comment here, Kyle, and let us know how it goes!) His Scout troop is really keeping him busy now that life is more than marching band. As I hear it, he's almost finished with his requirements for First Class, too.

Samuel brought home another straight-A report card. He's really working for that computer. (James, wherever did you get the idea that we should offer that challenge???) We are so proud of you, son!

Miriam made Honor Roll again. Proud of you, too, precious daughter!
Have I relayed the momentous landmark Miriam reached recently? She's as tall as Mom now. And loves to stand up tall to rush the "taller than Mom" achievement-but I'm NOT conceding that! (I know, but I'm trying to maintain the delusion a little longer!)

It's such a blessing to be able to enjoy the way my kids are growing up! (And no, Beck, I'm still NOT going to bring in a few more, much as I love yours!)

Blogger trouble

2007-02-01T09:12:00.000-05:00

My apologies to readers who got the trouble screen this morning. Thanks, Dad, for letting me know about it. There has been some trouble with the server and the new version of Blogger, but the trouble team got right on it.

I'll update more once I know that people will actually be able to read what I write.

Celebrations!

2007-01-31T19:16:00.000-05:00

First, the livingroom is finished! We are quite pleased with the way it turned out. James is getting quite skilled at mudding the walls to get them smooth, and I am happy with the way the painting went. The last of the teal trim, inherited when the house was purchased years ago, has now been covered. We both thought Miriam would just walk through the room on her way in, but she surprised us in her delight- mostly just to have the furniture back. At the moment, the only piece on the walls is our marriage certificate above the mantel. We plan to finally frame and hang the family portrait we had taken over a year ago. We're moving very slowly to put things into the room, since we really like the uncluttered, minimalist feel it has now. Okay, so the colors aren't minimalist, but it's uncluttered!

Second, Liza (with her mother's help) has completed her application to attend Brigham Young University next fall. Let me tell you, the international aspects of this project did make it much more complicated. One challenge-her high school guidance counselor was out of school for over two weeks with a family emergency so she couldn't get the recommendation letter sent, and the office held the transcript to send both pieces together-logical. The biggest challenge we had was that BYU, being a church school, requires an ecclesiastical endorsement from the leader of her local congregation. The problem there was that Liza's membership records were in transit for months, so neither the bishop here nor her bishop there "had" her record for close to two months (pending translation, maybe???). Her bishop in Hungary was facing a challenge with the language barrier, and didn't want to do the interview until he had her records in his congregation. Then the interview itself required a translator. And then Liza had to go in to Budapest for the second interview. And by this time, it was too late to trust the mail to get it to Utah before the deadline. FedEx maybe? Not available in their small city. Just fax it, right? Have you ever tried to find a fax machine in a country where you don't speak the language? Then she found someone who tried to fax it for her, but the fax wouldn't go through (because 300 other faxes were trying to come in the same day, maybe?). So they tried emailing it to her dad so he could try, but that didn't go through either. The zip file they sent to me this morning kept shutting down my programs when I tried to open it. So a second email came with unzipped pictures, but I couldn't get them copied into a document to fax. A call to the Admissions office revealed that they could accept them via email- which I already had in hand, and the wonderfully helpful young lady who took my call even watched for my email, and sent a reply when it got there. Thanks, Andrea! Success!- with 35+ hours to spare.

Lesson learned: If either of the twins decide to go overseas prior to completing their college applications, they will have their test scores sent to BYU, Univ. of Maryland, and any other schools they are considering AND they will complete their ecclesiastical endorsement for BYU before they leave! (Love you, Liza!)

Third: Samuel appears to have pulled off another marking period of straight A's. He's certainly determined to earn that laptop! We had a bit of drama yesterday-first, elation when he showed off the midterm with the grade high enough to preserve his precarious A in Geometry (precarious after he "blew off" a quiz-learned that lesson pretty quickly), and then meltdown when he realized he forgot to turn in his band practice sheet-thereby placing his A in band in jeopardy. An email to his teacher revealed that his grade otherwise was high enough that he squeaked an A even without that, but the teacher wanted to see the practice sheet anyway. Impressive, son! Several lessons learned and strategies created to prevent a repeat of this experience. We're quite proud of Samuel's determination and efforts.

Fourth: We received word Saturday that Miriam's Christmas orphan from AHOPE , an orphanage in Ethiopia for children who are HIV+, is being adopted, and will be coming to the US. Miriam now has a new child sponsored in her name. It is such a pleasure to be able to make our small difference in these children's lives.

Fifth: Tori has a new job, doing clerical work for a construction and home improvement firm in Baltimore. It could be closer to home, but she's thrilled to be looking forward to reliable income, and they're working around her Tuesday evening class schedule. At this point she plans to continue with the waitressing on her days off from the other job. She's looking forward to visiting Liza in Hungary after the semester ends.

Final harvest of the 2006 gardening season-again

2007-01-17T20:33:00.000-05:00

Really, it's the last harvest. I'm sure this time. . .maybe. We did pull up the remaining mustard greens, and James made some bitter greens. We had the last of the tender baby kale leaves in our dinner salad last night. The rest of the plants are now buried under the sheet mulch. (I did realize that a few greens are still growing out in the front bulb bed- if they survived the freeze.)

We finally have winter here. A bit of water left in one of the hoses after watering in the sheet mulch last night dripped out and froze. (Thought I'd done better than that when I drained it.) The pond had an inch thick layer of ice on it when I checked mid-afternoon today. Not enough to support weight, but enough to complicate the next stage of sheet mulching.

I'm glad we got so much done over the weekend. With the weather getting cold, it's been less enjoyable preparing the beds. James had to break the ice on the pond so I could soak the boxes to lay out on the big bed on the side of the house (between two layers of manure that he spread out). The cardboard layer serves as a weed barrier while the other layers are breaking down into lovely rich soil.

We've more than doubled our garden space this year. And have plenty of seeds to fill it up! I'll be starting artichokes and parsley this week. I have to start the artichokes early enough to get them outside while it's still cool- to trick them into thinking they've had a winter so they'll flower their first year. Otherwise, they won't bear flowers until the second year, and that's the part we eat. With luck, mild winters, and some loving care, I may be able to keep them bearing for three or four years. We'll see.

Other than that, what's going on? Well, we met with a group of Friends from Quaker meeting with a concern for the environment. I realized that I do care about political activism, and I'm looking at getting more involved in writing letters and maybe testifying on some bills. I also realized that I prefer other approaches to change-like figuring out how to live so that we minimize our negative impact on the earth and sharing that with others. The political (top-down legislation) action is a supplement to that, rather than the focus with personal action as a supplement.

That's two loads of s***!

2007-01-13T18:06:00.000-05:00

James and I took a break from working on the livingroom walls to enjoy this lovely unseasonal weather. We spent the afternoon working in our t-shirts (no jackets!), moving manure, shovelling sh**, distributing dung, (laying out garden beds) and coming up with different ways to describe what we were doing.

Sheet-mulching is a project that's been on our list since at least August, but we've been limited by not having a pick-up truck to collect the nitrogen rich component (manure) we needed. We used the truck belonging to the parents of one of Liza's friends to move their manure pile, but don't know them well enough to ask to borrow it to retrieve fertilizer from someone else's barn. Since our friends moved to Texas and took their truck with them (the gall!), everyone else we know with a truck is a young adult male with concerns about the damage we might do to his precious vehicle. . .not terribly conducive to the project.

Even Google wasn't much use trying to locate someone who'd bring us several cubic yards for a reasonable delivery fee, but I persisted in asking gardeners, and finally found a link to someone who would deliver!

Two loads were delivered today. Most of the first went to covering the soon-to-be asparagus bed- a very high priority since asparagus is a perennial crop, and James had already ordered 30 crowns to be delivered as soon as we can plant them here. Got to have their bed ready when they get here! The second load wasn't spread as thickly, so we got the base layers for sheet mulching the beds inside the three frames James built earlier and last season's bean beds, scattered some over herb hill, and the big bed in the back-now if we can just figure out what we're going to plant there!

The seeds are here, and I'll be starting some of the early vegetables as soon as I finish painting the living room.

Somehow, the twins haven't seemed interested in either of these projects. What's up with that? They have had fun playing tennis together. Tennis is Samuel's new sport, and he begs people to play with him whenever the weather is nice enough- and he has a much more liberal definition of "nice enough" than I do! Miriam seems to be joining in on this interest, but wants her own racket. She's borrowing mine, but says the grip doesn't fit.

Funny Liza story I forgot to include last time: Liza's Hungarian fluency is improving, but people still want to use english much of the time. So, she was talking about something, and the word "ameliorate" came up. Telling me about it, she says even her bright friends rarely use it, and that's the only word she's ever stumped her dad with, so she can't figure out why she thought she could use it with non-native speakers, but she tried. Quite a vocabulary she has developed over the years! (We miss you, Liza! I had to remind James to buy an adverb last night! "-ly") A bit of perspective, such strange vocabulary may actually appear in second language situations, because an unusual word in english, for example, may be the best translation for a common word in the primary language, but not in this case. This is just a Liza-ism.

Winter???

2007-01-11T13:10:00.000-05:00

This is really some wacky weather we're having! Short sleeves in January two weekends in a row, with a day or two of cold in between. I'm wishing I'd gotten peas and such in the ground last August. We'd have had fresh peas for Christmas, New Years, and so forth. We did actually have a salad with greens from the garden last week. With no protection whatsoever. Next winter we'll be using hoop houses, but I can't hope for two mild winters in a row.

What are the kids up to?
Tori's between semesters, having made Dean's List last semester. You go, Girl! She's job hunting, since her current waitressing job at J Paul's, in downtown Baltimore, is providing neither sufficient income nor activity. She loves the place she's living, and has a wonderful circle of friends. It's just that job thing, and figuring out where her passion lies to direct her studies for a few years. On the horizon-a trip to visit her "little" sister in Hungary at the end of the semester. (That's a real motivator for finding a new job.)

Liza's doing the "Sound of Music" thing hiking the hills of Austria this weekend. It was supposed to be a ski trip, but they're having a mild winter also. Unfortunately for our warmth-loving kid, warm there means no scarf needed, but don't leave home without the down-filled, calf-length parka. Language skills are coming along, and she actually got text books for school this month! With her interest in the Foreign Service, and after having worked so hard to get the Hungarian language, Liza's applying to study at BYU next year. With all those missionaries, BYU has one of the largest groups of Hungarian speakers of any US university, and the Kennedy Center is a great place to study International Relations.

Kyle has lettered in marching band for his second year. That required memorizing all the music, and perfect attendance for the whole season. Good for you, Kyle! Academics still aren't high on his list of priorities, but he's enjoying the class they're doing at school to prepare for next summer's trip to Italy.

Samuel and Miriam just finished science projects- done separately, of course. And with their individual approaches. Samuel was intense whenever he worked on it. Miriam seemed to regard it more as another social opportunity.

Samuel is wrapping up the loose ends of the last few merit badges he needs to complete to make Eagle Scout. The project has been declared an April through June endeavor, with paperwork to be completed this summer. You're all invited to his Court of Honor next fall, sometime. He'll be heading to Conservation Camp at the specialty camp week at our local BSA camp at the end of July, and will wrap up most of the merit badges he needs for his Hornaday medal at that point. Then he'll have another 3-4 projects to finish for that, but no rush. He has until his 18th birthday, and is planning to do one a summer until then.
Marching band lost out to kung fu for his freshman year of high school. Testing for that is a 6-12 month process, and marching band requires so much time that he'd have a hard time doing both. He'll be trying out for jazz band, and taking classes.

Miriam considered continuing her sisters' tradition of color guard in the BHS marching band, but is leaning more toward theater. We'll see where she goes. Right now, approaching 14, she mostly goes to her room to read! I'd be concerned, but both of the older girls did that also, and I sure like the way they're turning out. So for now all I have to worry about is where she hid the book I was looking to read?!?

James is in the midst of his part of the living room remodeling project. Since he doesn't like the feel of paint on his hands (Thanks, Mom!), I get to do that after he finishes the sanding and mudding piece of the project. Then he wraps up with replacing all the electical boxes-switches and outlets- in the room. We're getting it down to a routine. The hardest part for both of us seems to be the getting started. Moving furniture, figuring out where to store things for the time it takes to work on the room, and dreading the disorder. Once we get going, it gets to looking better so quickly that we enjoy the work.

Looks like winter's really here

2006-12-10T17:31:00.000-05:00

We're just about to call it the end of this year's gardening year. The water barrels have been emptied. Might have been a good idea to do that last weekend-BEFORE the water started freezing!, but we (James) get to things as we get to them. There are chunks of ice scattered around the yard. I grabbed a few to melt in around the pomegranate. I'm sure it doesn't appreciate the cold, but we were thinking she looked like she needed a bit of water and the barrels were all emptied. . .

James's project for the weekend has been building portable 2x4 frames to support PVC hoops, over which we will stretch plastic, bird netting, or shade cloth as the season calls for it next year. Most of the frames will be built to a 4x8 foot standard size. The strawberry bed has already been built bigger than that, so we had to go buy ten foot long 2x4's for the sides of that one. Hoops will support the bird netting to protect the berries from flying competition, but I'm looking for a good solution to save some of my berries from the slimy slug-type competition! For some reason James doesn't think our neighbors would appreciate ducks, so I'm still looking. (I might be able to talk him into borrowing ducks occassionally, if anyone has a couple who would like to vacation in our yard. We do have a private pond all ready for them.) Otherwise, we'll just continue to post invitations to all the local frogs and toads, who are also supposed to consume the slimy pests.
There are very few critters I mind having in my yard. While I don't like their appearance, I'd still be okay with the slugs IF they would just leave me a few of my baby plants. One single, solitary slug gorged itself on ALL of my basil babies last spring. And I got tired of picking up beautiful bright red strawberries, only to find a hole on the other side. It was even worse when the intruder was still there devouring the berry in my hand!

Here are a picture of our harvest this year:
This is the entire harvest of calico popcorn. It's not much, but it was very pretty sitting in this wooden bowl on our diningroom table. Very few of the late-planted corn that went up front had time to fill out the ears. I think the squirrels got a few ears, but not as many as I'd expected. James kept them satisfied dining at the platform bird feeder, where they didn't have to do the work of shucking their dinner. They preferred fill their pouches, either from the platform feeder or by stripping the kernels off of corn cobs on the squirrel feeder, and then running around the yard planting it for later consumption. You'd be amazed where we had corn growing until the freeze killed it back this week.
James was just building a double feeder for the squirrels, thinking that if he had three cobs of corn out at one time, they'd eat there and leave his bird feeders alone. Anyone agree? I'm guessing that they'll just invite their friends, and we'll have more squirrels to feed from the assorted feeders-and our garden next spring.

The final tally was roughly 2 cups of kernels from half a package of seed. Maybe a ten or twenty-to-one return? Not much, but it did make tasty popcorn!
Corn is a heavy feeder, and the soil probably wasn't rich enough for it this year. We'll continue soil-building, and try again in the future.
We got one lonely little acorn squash before the borers got to the vines there. The scarlet runner beans did better, and we have enough for a small pot of soup. Guess it's a good thing we're not counting on the garden to provide all of our produce yet, isn't it? ;-)

Besides the frames with hoops, to extend our growing season and protect our dinner, James is also planning trellis frames to fit on each of the boxes. I'm going to dig the asparagus bed and amend the soil (lots of leaves and manure) before the ground freezes, so we can get the crowns in early next spring. Working the soil in the fall is easier than waiting for it to dry out in the spring.

I'm also working on our seed order, and trying to figure out where we're going to plant everything. I definitely DO NOT need to order more pea seeds! We have sugar snaps, snow peas, and Oregon Giant (something?) peas-almost half a pound of each. (3,000 row feet? A slight exaggeration, but that's what it feels like at this point!) We bought plenty, intending to plant some in the late summer, for a fall crop, but I couldn't figure out where the beds we going to go, and we kept changing the plans, so I didn't get those planted. Now that it's getting cold enough that they won't germinate until the thaw, I will probably be planting part of our stash for an early spring crop. Our neighbor up the street swears by planting his peas at Christmas, so they're ready as soon as the ground warms up. The critters get a few of them, and a wet winter with lots of thawing, or a surprise late freeze, can wipe others out, but most of the time it gives them a good start. And it's certainly better than waiting until I realize that it's time to plant-especially since we've been caught up in home improvement projects the last couple of years, and have been very late getting things into the ground.

A couple of planting guidelines:
1-Corn goes in as soon as the oak leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear. (They were at least as big as a baby's hand by the time I got the Three Sisters bed planted this year. Tip: Don't plant the beans until the corn is knee-high! The corn needs a head start!)

2-We're trying potatoes next year so we need: "Plant potatoes when the dandelions bloom." Does anyone know if this applies to sweet potatoes also, or do they need to wait until it's a bit warmer?

3-Artichokes are a biennial, and don't set fruit until the second year. They can be tricked into thinking it's their second year if they are started indoors in January, growing six weeks or so for their first spring, then get moved to a cold frame for another six weeks before last frost. After that they "think" they've been through a winter, and set fruit at the end of their first summer. I get to use my growlight shelves next month!!! They do winter over in Zone 8 or south, but can supposedly make it through a mild winter in Zone 6 or 7 by cutting them back to a foot or so tall, and covering them with mulch. I'll let you know how it works-in 2008! (Okay, so I may be able to report positively on the speed-grow trick in August of 2007. . .)

Those CRAZY Kniskerns are at it again!

2006-12-06T17:50:00.000-05:00

And early Christmas presents. . .

James and I have spent the last several days collecting, mulching, and spreading leaves. We usually confine ourselves to gathering leaves from around the neighborhood, but chose to go farther afield this week. Last Tuesday the county yard waste collectors came around -a day early!-and collected all the bagged leaves we were planning to bring home that afternoon after our walk. That left us feeling short of leaves to enrich our soil. Sunday afternoon we were visiting a friend and saw TEN! large bags of beautiful oak leaves, just waiting to go home with us to feed our garden worms. Then the twins' middle school had another 19 or so bags piled up and waiting for a good home. (We had lots of fun teasing the kids about making sure we got taped by the security cameras!)

James got those mulched down just in time to work on the huge pile of leaves our neighbor's yard man hauled to fill our driveway. Add a few more trashcans of leaves from another neighbor, and we pretty much have six inches of shredded leaves covering everywhere we intend to have food beds next year, as well as a supply to mix in to our compost pile, and a few more to use to mulch the potatoes we'll be growing next year.

James has also been generous with my early Christmas presents this year! He was looking for a project last weekend (the first quiet weekend at home in seems like ages!), and ran out to Home Depot for supplies. By Saturday evening, I was able to admire my four-tier grow light shelves. Unfortunately, I can't really start on the seedlings yet, since I don't want them getting rootbound waiting for the weather to warm.

Looks like I'm going to try starting artichokes inside this year. Don't know if we'll be able to keep them as perennials (very tender), but I found a couple of references that suggest growing them inside for six weeks or so, then setting them out in a cold frame to trick them into thinking they've had a winter, and then planting them out to grow for what they think is their second season-so they'll set fruit. Even so, I am going to try the mulching technique to try to save them for the following year also.

The big, and unplanned, present was a semi-spontaneous purchase. Saturday was the annual Quaker Market at Meeting, which meant that the Meetinghouse was full of "leftovers" on First Day, including the beautiful array of jewelry, scarves, and rugs Fahima Vorgetts brings each year. Fahima is an Afghani woman, married to an American, who imports such handmade gifts, sells them, and then-through the auspices of Women for Afghan Women-uses the funds to build wells, set up cottage industries, and build schools for girls in Afghanistan. James and I were both drawn to the same beautiful rug, and it happened to be half off, so James decided this would be our major purchase for the holidays. One of the blessings of living a simple life is being able to make such purchases without wondering how we are going to pay for it. (We've postponed the purchase of such a rug for at least two or three past markets- and I'm glad we did! This is the most beautiful of all the rugs we've considered!)

RED! Yeah, Samuel!

2006-11-28T21:19:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know I've been absent for too long. Maybe I'll get a catch up post done soon, or maybe I won't. But I want to share a celebration with all my loyal readers (Hi, Mom!).

We're just home from Samuel's kung fu testing, and he passed. He will now be wearing a red belt until he earns his black one sometime in 2008. He looked great, and we weren't the only ones who thought he had the best form. He didn't get the certificate, because that goes to one of the lower belts, but he really did look sharp! From here it's at least nine months of lessons three times/week, and then a minimum of six tests at monthly intervals, but more likely nine, to earn his black belt. James has promised Samuel a snazzy pair of silk pajamas when he achieves that landmark.

Other bragging on Samuel- Court of Honor is next week, and Samuel will receive his Life Scout rank advancement and a stack of merit badges. He only has five or six more merit badges and his project to complete the requirements for Eagle, along with almost six months of activity and leadership responsibilities in the troop. And he has most of those merit badges just about finished, except for needing to complete the interviews with the counselors.

We've teased Samuel about being hyperactive, or an over-achiever. He refuses both labels, but proudly claims the title of hyper-achiever. (Did I mention that he did earn straight A's for his first marking period back in school after 2 1/2 years of home schooling? James has started teasing him with obstacles to completing his homework so we won't have to buy him a computer at the end of the year.) He was also asked to play percussion in the select group that will be accompanying the school chorus in their holiday concert next month.

Guess tonight is Samuel's spotlight. Sure am proud of you, Son!

The berry beds are planted!

2006-10-03T21:56:00.000-04:00

Working together, James and the twins and I finished planting both the strawberry and blueberry+ beds. The twins worked together to plant all 20 strawberry plants, and then came over to help us get the lingonberries, cranberries and wintergreen into the acid-loving bed where James had already settled the blueberries. I also tucked the garlic chives into their space on Herb Hill, and the "experimental" pomegranate is now settled (hopefully happily) into her corner of the patio. All but the strawberries were carefully mulched in with shredded leaves.

It sure was fun working together this afternoon. And the fun continued as silly songs broke out at the dinner table. Tonight it was my turn to play the agonized straight guy for everyone else's silliness.

Wonderful memories being built here in the red house.

Catching up---kids & family news

2006-10-02T20:28:00.000-04:00

We'll start with the youngest this time:
Miriam has really become a teenager/young lady (depending on your interpretation , and her mood)! Where did my little girl go? She's off to a solid start for the school year. Honors Chorus starts early morning practices this month, and will hopefully move into full Chorus rehearsals soon-so that I am only doing the driving one morning per week. Her language of choice is French this year, but only because Russian isn't offered until high school! Miriam continues with her writing, and even enters the occassional contest with some success. I am delighted by her general good judgement (except that she will probably not repeat the tie-dye in the light laundry load experiment!) and willingness to help. The down side of her maturation process is probably the change in her music choices and the optimal listening volumn.

Samuel is very glad to be back in kung fu and drum lessons, after taking two months off this summer, and we're glad he has those outlets for his tremendous energy. He'll be testing for red sash (the belt before black) at the end of this month, with part 2 of the test next month. We have a meeting about the process of planning, completing, and reporting the Eagle Scout project tomorrow night. He'll get a chance to meet several of the District leaders who've been sending emails around trying to figure out how to support him in his quest for the Hornaday medal. Apparently, there has only been one young man to complete this award in the past 20+ years in all of the Baltimore Area Council. Samuel said he wanted to do something unusual/meaningful. The consensus is that this qualifies! His driver personality is keeping him at the top in his classes at school, and he reminds James to be saving, because he's going to earn that laptop James promised any of them who earn straight-A's for a year.

Liza (Leeza there) is enjoying her Hungarian adventure. She's had some challenges teaching the school folks how to integrate foreign students, but I think she'll get that worked out once she has the language down. The sense of humor is very different. No one gets sarcasm at all. And no one just randomly breaks out in song for the heck of it. Poor Liza. Guess you had to leave home to really appreciate us, hunh? I enjoy the emails I get, and the $35 of phone calls during the first two weeks were worth every penny. Fortunately we've now figured out how to make internet calls, and won't be paying the extra phone bill every month. She's having fun adventures travelling through the country, and will even be heading to Italy later this month. She's found the LDS church group and is getting help with the language there, along with having someone to challenge/race in language learning-a new missionary who has only been in country two weeks longer than she has & had two months of intensive language lessons. She still thinks she can best him! (She tried to tell me she's not really a Moss, but her competitiveness and the fact the the first vocabulary she mastered was food-related, I'm not buying it!) She's exploring dance lessons with another exchange student, and is going with a classmate to meet a violin/viola teacher and find a viola so she can get back to her music. As much as I miss having her around, I am so very proud of her for making this happen!

Tori is having her adventure in the wilds of Bal'more city, and seems to be doing very well. She loves the neighborhood she's in, and has a park for her front yard. The job isn't the best she could wish for, but it's keeping her basic bills paid, and she's sqeezing in a bit of job hunting around work and her five college classes this semester. She still finds time to dance and spend time with friends. I have to say I'm impressed with how she's taking on life, and I'm very glad to claim her as my daughter! I'm even happier that she's glad to claim me as her mom.

I really do consider myself blessed to share my life with these wonderful young people. I'm pleased to be able to say that I really do love, respect and enjoy them, and that's a tremendous place to be as a mother!

Other family news. . .we enjoyed our visit with Mom & Dad Kniskern. They drove up last month for a three-day visit, with a long day driving on either end. Dad has fixed up a van for Mom, complete with portable toilet-for pit stops whenever they're needed, and everything she needs to be able to do her peritoneal dialysis on the road. We enjoyed being able to share our garden projects with them, and the visiting we enjoy whenever we can get together. We know the trip was strenuous for both of you. Thanks for putting in the effort!

Looking ahead, we're excited to be going out to Colorado for Thanksgiving with my sister and her family. This will be our first chance to meet our Ethiopian kinfolk-Taye, Gizachew, and Saba. They were adopted at the beginning of the summer, and seem to be doing very well adjusting to all these changes. In spite of just learning the language over the last three or four months, they're all in the top half of their classes. I hear Sierra is taking to the role of big sister like a star. I'm proud of you, Sierra! Now, Roman. . .actually, I'm hearing wonderful things about him also, and enjoyed a fabulous conversation with him last weekend. But can you really be old enough to drive already????

Catch up time??? Gardening news

2006-10-02T20:00:00.000-04:00

We've been keeping busy around here, and James has been doing an excellent job of keeping everyone informed of our major projects, so I've been. . .off working on other things??? If you don't read James's blog (you ought to check it out!), I'll try to catch you up on what we've accomplished in the yard lately has included starting the sheet mulching project in the backyard, the strawberry bed (don't remember exactly when that got done-have I mentioned it already?), and the blueberry+ bed. That last was a major project and James did the bulk of the work! The bed is 8 x 18 feet (2.5 x 5-6 meters), and was dug about 2-2.5 feet deep (say .75 m) to break up the clay, then filled in layers of clay, peat, manure, powdered rock for minerals, and sulphur to acidify the soil. Each layer was turned by pitchfork and watered well. (That was my main job, along with cheerleading and appreciating his efforts!) The final bed is almost 18" (.5m) above the previous soil level, and involved roughly ten layers per hole. James divided the bed into ten holes, and did one or two per work session over about two weeks. Lots of work! But it's finished and waiting to dry out a bit after the bout of rain we had last week. We drove out to Afton, VA to visit Edible Landscaping and buy the plants for that bed, some (20) more strawberry plants, the nanking bush cherries for the front yard, and a dwarf pomogranate. (I had to acknowledge that a pomegranate is an experiment in this climate three times before they'd let me buy it!)
We also planted out 1 and 1/4 pounds of small yellow onion sets. If you don't know, that's several hundred of the little things. We may have some impressive stands of onions on Herb Hill next summer.
Silly little things, but my major gardening success for the month has been locating sources for seeds and seedlings of the Siberian Pea plant. That is a large-ish bush that fixes nitrogen in the soil, blooms yellow in the spring, and bears edible pods with seeds similar to lentils that are 35% protein. More perennial edibles!!!
After thinking it over, James has come to the conclusion that we do have room for a couple of dwarf fruit trees, so they'll be ordered this week: Saturn peaches (the donut shaped ones), and combination grafted trees for apples, pears, and akanashi. ('bye Eastern Redbud volunteer!)
Some of the inclination/motivation for those has come from the satisfaction we've felt as we've chopped peaches to stock the freezer for smoothies all winter long. Then Mom & Dad K. brought us a bushel of red delicious apples from their backyard, which we started processing Friday night just over a week ago. Then, the following Saturday, we took the twins out to the Maryland-Pennsylvania border past Frederick to pick apples from the neglected orchard a work colleague just purchased this year. That was another three bushels of free apples. We've had the dehydrator making apples slices almost constantly, while the crockpot brewed apple butter and applesauce. The kids have gotten quite good at the peeler/corer/slicer project, very tired of apples, and have gained an appreciation for the work that goes into food preparation.

I'm back!!!

2006-09-02T17:58:00.000-04:00

James and I have both been experiencing difficulty attempting to log into our blogs for the last couple of weeks. Lots has happened in the intervening time. You probably ought to be glad I couldn't get to my blog at times. The low point was the death of our neighbor two doors up. And I've had some emotional rollercoaster days as I got ready for Liza's departure on her Hungarian adventure.

We dropped Liza at Dulles airport last Sunday afternoon. We only teased her a little bit about being so excited she couldn't sleep or eat. . .And I paid the $25 overweight charge for her suitcase without any hesitation. (It's up to her to figure out how to get everything back home at the end of her trip!) Other than a little excitement in Amsterdam (I'm sorry, Miss, but there is no such flight. Oh, yes there is, but it was overbooked and you forfeited your seat because you hadn't checked in.), she got there just fine. I'm so proud of her resourcefulness. When the phone card the clerk gave her wouldn't work, Liza ran down to the gate and sent a note to her welcoming committee with some of the other exchange students, then went to the other gate to wait for her later flight.

A phone call on Monday shared that story and her plans for the week-a walking tour of downtown Kecskemet, a Rotary meeting, the welcome party, Hungarian classes, school orientation, and finally school yesterday. An email this morning says she's doing well, even if the language is still beyond her. The other two exchangers are from Japan and Brazil, so Liza would be in great shape learning Hungarian, except they put her in the English track at school, so everyone wants to practice with her! My favorite image is the little sticky notes all over the house, labelling objects in both Hungarian and English. If you didn't get the email, just let me know, and I'll forward it on to you.

Kyle's here for the weekend, and we may have another short weekend or two before Thanksgiving. He's enjoying band, even tho' he's tired all the time. School has been exceptionally easy for the last week and a half. The administration spent all summer labelling and scanning the text inventory, only to have the server crash and the info lost the day before school started. They've postponed distribution of the textbooks in order to recreate the file, and the students haven't minded at all!

Samuel has learned his way around school this week, but the first couple of days were a bit confusing. (Room 206 is at the end of one hall, and room 207 at the end of the next, or something like that.) The only class he and Miriam have together is PE. They have the same teacher for Geometry, but at opposite ends of the day. They both have Earth Science for their semester class (to alternate with US History/Government next semester), but with different teachers. Science has enough extra credit available that both scholars are confident of being able to earn A's there.

James and I are saving our pennies (nickels & dimes, too!), since all three are threatening to "make the grade" and earn straight A's for the year, which will get them each a laptop computer. What'll we use for an incentive next year???

Miriam seems to have adjusted to sharing "her" school with her twin. If anyone wants French lessons, please call! She has homework that requires her to teach three people French, and too many of us speak or have studied the language around here. (Both step-parents took French in school, and Shannon served her mission there.)

Hurricane Ernesto took out our power and phone for most of a day, but he did a great job filling the rain barrels. James has completed all five phases, so we caught about 450 gallons of water there. The pond is finally really full, but back to murky. (The abundant plants had filtered it to almost clear until the run-off muddied things up again.) The best part may be that the mulch and swales captured all the water except the overflow from the rainbarrels. James had taken a cultivating fork (three tines on a long handle) and broken up the matted mulch last week. Even with the watering we've been doing (from rainbarrels & greywater from the shower) the ground was dry enough to hold all four-ish inches of rain we received in the last day and a half.

Next on the project list is preparing the soil in the blueberry patch. Samuel's excited about that prospect! We're hoping we can plant enough bushes that the rest of us get a few berries also.

Since the end of the redesign of the yard is appearing vaguely on the horizon, we decided it's time for a new hobby. . .camping. We're having interesting discussions about what qualifies as camping, ranging from a hotel room without a tv to packing everything in for at least ten miles, and compromising with "family camping" at established sites complete with a parking space for the car. James and I bought the tent (car-portable, a bit bulky for backpacking) on Wednesday. We have our sleeping bags picked out, and James went stove shopping before picking up Kyle this morning. Anyone want to come along? Miriam would be GLAD to give up her space!

Love to all!

Kids sure grow up fast!

2006-08-08T12:24:00.000-04:00

Liza was the focus at this morning's Rotary Club breakfast. I sure do appreciate the support they are giving here, and the extra benefits of having a member of the sponsoring club who was in the foreign service so he could connect us with the Hungarian embassy/ambassador before Liza's departure. Having faces and connections, especially meeting people from the city where Liza will be staying for the next year, has really helped ease my concerns.

Anyway, I was so impressed at how much Liza has grown up, and how poised she appears in public situations. This has already been a tremendous growth experience for her, and she hasn't even left yet!

We're having fun taking care of details and getting ready for the grand adventure!

It rained!

2006-08-07T13:30:00.000-04:00

And our rain barrels have water in them again! We only got 45 minutes of rain this morning, but the 3/4 " or so that fell was enough to fill the three current sets of rain barrels more than half full! James just put phase 4 together yesterday, so the caulk is still curing and they aren't hooked up yet. He'll tackle that this afternoon.

We picked two half-bushel baskets of peaches Saturday morning, and have them all spread out on paper bags on the livingroom floor ripening. They come off the tree a bit too hard to really consider ripe. By the time they're ripe, they fall off the tree and get bruised when they hit the ground, so those aren't much good for processing.

We did about a 1/4 bushel yesterday-blanch, chill, peel, slice into chunks, immerse in diluted lemon juice to prevent browning, then spread on trays to freeze. We're still refining the process, since they still clumped once we transferred them to gallon bags to store. We'll figure it out! At any rate, we have three gallon bags of frozen peach chunks-roughly two pounds per bag, and we're looking at 10-12 bags by the time we're through.

James has also cooked and frozen two pounds of black beans, to have them ready to use in cooking, along with the chickpeas that were left after he made hummus. He's really enjoying his freezer!

Am I lucky or what? And on top of this, he thanks me for not complaining when he goes out to putter in the yard!

We are enjoying a bit of a slower pace these days, as all of our teenagers are at their other houses for a couple of weeks. We still see quite a bit of Liza, popping in for this or that, as she prepares for her departure in only twenty days! Time flies!

All he wanted was a chest fridge. . .

2006-08-04T19:47:00.000-04:00

And since we're not ready to do the kitchen remodel, we just bought the freezer on sale, remember?

So this afternoon we made sixty burritos to fill up one section. Five bags of ten went in the downstairs fridge, and one bag upstairs.

Tomorrow morning early (before we drive to Alexandria to retrieve Liza, who has been riding herd on her cousins for the last three days) we're heading over to the Eastern Shore to pick a bushel or so of peaches. James is wandering around singing, "Moving out to the country. Gonna eat me alot of peaches. . ." The farm where we're going has a few other things to offer, so we'll probably come back with a good load of produce. Tomorrow afternoon is booked for slicing peaches to freeze on trays. Once they're frozen, we'll load the slices into gallon freezer bags and stash them in one of the sections. Pureed watermelon will be frozen in ice cube trays to use for popsicles or smoothies later.

And then, while we're down in Alexandria, we're going to visit Rob's neighborhood oriental market for gyoza, noodles and red bean buns.

Sunday we'll be making lumpia. We have five boxes of approximately 30 wrappers each, so I'm not sure how many lumpia we'll be rolling!

And I think James is planning on making enchiladas to freeze on Monday or Tuesday.

Hmmm, . . . I thought we got a freezer so we could store the harvest from our garden. We may have to get a much larger freezer to be the freezer next year (after getting the new beds planted). We'll just convert this one to the fridge at that point. How did we ever live with only the 5 cu. ft freezer above the fridge???

(I know "stuff" expands to fill the available space, but I didn't know it would expand this quickly! -"For efficiency")

Don't want you to miss out, Liza, . . .

2006-07-30T18:17:00.000-04:00

. . .so we're postponing the kitchen remodeling project until you get back from Hungary.

Actually, we looked at our finances, and decided that paying for that project would in effect be borrowing money, since it would delay paying off our Home Equity Line of Credit. We've been teaching the kids about the hazards of debt recently, and have been working all year to pay off the ELOC as quickly as possible. Obviously, we haven't been fanatics about it. We've still been paying for lessons for the kids, going out for dinner once or twice a month as a family, and once a month as a couple, and then there are projects like the rain barrels that still draw on the funds. We know we could be even more agressive about clearing debt, but at this level we're making good progress without a sense of deprivation.

From that perspective, and also wanting to maintain our emergency fund (particularly in the event of a short notice trip to Hungary or someplace), we have chosen to postpone our kitchen project for one more year. We figure that by next fall we can have the ELOC paid off and save money to pay for the cabinets and so forth. (There was also a bit of sticker shock as we wandered around Home Depot pricing the alternatives this afternoon. $2000 for James's pantry!) Even after I explained to the clerk that we were just starting the process, and wanted to get some ideas of costs so that we could save for it, he just kept talking about different financing options.

What has happened to American society that our salesmen can't even conceive of saving to pay cash? Guess this is just another example of our counter-culture tendencies.

We did buy a chest freezer while we were out this afternoon. The money is in the checking account. It's on sale for $50 off, and we've been planning on getting one for several months. It has the energy star rating, and the baskets we'd been looking for. Basic. But it meets our needs. It'll just have to live in the basement for a while. (Mom K-turns out we don't have to rewire a new circuit for it down there, just the outlet, so we're taking your advice.) (And if this takes care of the urge to remodel the kitchen, so much the better???)

All he wanted was a new fridge. . .

2006-07-29T13:03:00.000-04:00

Looks like we're going to be remodeling the kitchen during our winter home improvement activities this winter. James has been working on reducing our electricity usage, and found an article on converting a chest freezer to a refridgerator. The extra insulation reduces the heat transfer, and the chest style prevents all the cold air from falling out every time someone opens the fridge door.

The catch is that one loses alot of storage space when the fridge stops at counter height, rather than being taller. Looking at space requirements, we quickly figured out that the half wall by the back door was going to have to go. And the lower cabinet in the "old kitchen" would have to move unless we were going to put the freezer downstairs. Both spaces were then going to have the issue of the upper cabinets being different sizes due to the previous refridgerator spaces. New cabinets? Why not go ahead and move the oven/get an oven/range combination unit? Why not put a broom closet in the space beside the chest freezer? And a dishwasher would add to the resale value. If we're doing all this, can I have a pantry with a door?

James was soon explaining the principle of snowballing to Samuel, and kept muttering "All I wanted was an efficient fridge."

Anybody want to help? Dad? Rob? I seem to remember you did a fine job on your kitchen! (Just don't drill the pipes-or was it Chuck who did that???) Why is Liza grinning about being sorry she's going to miss this???

Liza's lug-GAGE!

2006-07-29T12:48:00.000-04:00

Our darling Liza had been asking when her luggage was going to get here. So Thursday afternoon, when she went into Annapolis to do some shopping with her friend Tyne, it finally arrived. Miriam came wandering in from the yard, asking, "What are these big boxes on the front porch?" We figured out that that were Liza's luggage, and were going to leave them there to greet Liza upon her return. Unfortunately, James couldn't carry the bucket between them and the two pots of flowers that were still waiting to be planted, so he brought the boxes in and set them against the wall in the livingroom.

Liza was out a bit longer than she'd planned, and we ended up turning out lights and going up to bed. Liza came in quietly, and tiptoed upstairs to check in-so she wouldn't wake James if he'd already gone to sleep. We chatted for a bit. I commented on how quietly she'd come in, and sent Miriam back downstairs to turn on the light. (Very unusual behavior for Mom, but Liza still didn't notice the boxes at the foot of the stairs-even when she had to squeeze past them to get to the sofa to show Miriam what she had purchased.)

When Liza didn't squeal right away, I went downstairs to join them, and leaned on one of the boxes while I looked at all of Liza's purchases. After a bit I started drumming my fingers on the box, and Miriam practically choked on her laughter. Liza was still very focused. Having finished approving of Liza's purchases, Miriam could stand it no longer and innocently asked, "So, Liza, when are you going to pack all your stuff?"

Putting on her stage pout and turning toward me, Liza started to reply, "I can't pack until I get my lug-GAGE! IT'S HERE! IT CAME!"

Miriam and I fell apart laughing!

Liza quickly opened the first box, and had it open by the time Samuel made it into the room to figure out what was going on. Yes, Liza likes her new suitcases, and the larger one is big enough to zip closed with her brother inside! But we couldn't grab the camera fast enough to get a picture, sorry.

Where's my chauffeur's cap???

2006-07-26T18:28:00.000-04:00

I should have known it was going to be a busy day when the block on the calendar was too full to fit another line into today's activities!

By 8 AM this morning, when my student arrived for tutoring, I'd already put the second load of laundry in the washing machine, worked with Samuel for half an hour or so finding practice tests for his Algebra exam for credit that he'll be taking tomorrow morning-after almost two months since he finished his algebra studies. It wasn't until we tried to set up his schedule for school this Fall that they mentioned he needed to take this test. (I did ask when I went in during the first week of May!)

After tutoring I dropped Samuel at his orthodontic appointment, took Liza to get her picture for her visa application (Nothing like waiting until the last minute, Liza, my love!) then dropped her at home and went back to talk to the orthodontist about Samuel's continuing treatment (Grow those jaws, Samuel!). Then it was a quick stop by the house to pick up Miriam and Liza, and drop the twins at the library. Oops, we're missing a paper for the visa application. Another quick stop by the house. Oh, Kyle, what are you doing on the computer? Guess you'll be coming with us. Get dressed quickly while we find the missing paper. Then drive into DC to the Hungarian embassy. . .Have I mentioned I really don't enjoy driving in the city?

Home, sort of, to pick up the twins from the library, and grab a late lunch. Then down to the Naval Station to reserve the pool for Liza's farewell party. Then back to the library to drop Miriam at the end-of-the-season thanks-for-helping pizza party for the library volunteers. James is out the door to pick up Miriam and take the three "local" kids to their youth group activities this evening. Then there's Scout Troop Committee later this evening.

Just another day with a houseful of active teens.

It's great to be alive! (And I'll REALLY enjoy my quiet week next week!)

PS-For friends & family in the area, save the evening of August 24th for Liza's big send off!

Yard progress update

2006-07-23T18:51:00.000-04:00

Things are really moving along in our yard this summer. Last week I cut down most of the remaining forsythia, and chopped it into little pieces to be used when we sheet mulch more of the backyard for berries and more vegetable beds. James and the boys pulled the ivy from the forsythia bed and cut back some of the neighboring shrubs. Those cuttings are almost chopped up as well. (Teenagers aren't as determined to see that finished as we are, for some reason???)

The first planting of the fall crop of lettuces and turnips were seeded last weekend, and it's still exciting to see the tiny seedlings poking through the mulch of dead weeds & grasses we pulled at planting time.

The funniest piece of the garden is the winter squash vine that has escaped the three sisters' bed by climbing five feet over the euonymus at the bottom of that bed!

The front yard is in full bloom with hostas, echinacea, black-eyed susans (everywhere!), another tall prairie flower whose name I've forgotten, royal burgundy beans, my first ever bloom of lavender (Thank you for tending them so carefully, James!), and the odd dianthus and lily bloom persisting past their fellows. Combined with the delights of fresh local peaches and canteloupes for breakfast, I'm thinking summer is my favorite season. (But don't hold me to that. I'll change my mind when the spring bulbs come up, if not before then!)

Phase Two of James's rain barrel project is collecting rain water for our water conservation agenda. You can see pictures on James's blog. While there, be sure to check out the pictures of our new pond!

The pond has been this weekend's project. James dug the hole by himself yesterday. We then lined the hole with plastic, and covered that with pieces of carpet to protect the plastic from punctures and sunlight. We learned that trick during our visit to Earthaven Ecovillage in May. Above the pond is a small graywater marsh to filter shower water before it runs into the pond. We'll know it's working when the amphibians inhabit the pond. (And just think, when I contemplated the idea of a marsh, James nixed it rather firmly! Just like the berries, grapes, fruit trees, etc. That's what I've been teasing him about this week, since three or four of the ideas I've had nixed in recent months have been proposed as possibilities this week. Hmmm. Must be VERY careful what I suggest! And I really love you, James!-even if I tease you in this public forum.)

I also have a new echinacea and a lily waiting to go into the friendship garden. They were a thank-you gift from friends for a bit of calligraphy I did for their wedding. I may have to enlarge that bed soon. It's quite a reminder of being surrounded by so many people who love me!

Yeah, Liza!

2006-07-17T07:40:00.000-04:00

My mommy brag for the weekend is Liza's awesome performance on her AP exams. . .The test scores arrived (finally!) while she was away at camp, and I really had to restrain myself from opening them before she got back. Instead, I tucked the envelope away on her shelf and waited patiently for her return.

The squeal when she opened the envelope was certainly worth disciplining myself! Liza got a 5, the highest possible grade, on her AP Portfolio (Art) score. Awesome!!! The two 4's and one 3, all good for credit in college, in her academic classes were excellent also. That covers at least one semester's worth of credit, since each test is worth at least one course. As a side note, the 3 was in Comparative Government, which was meant to be a year-long course, but her school scheduled it as a semester course, so that 3 was really an accomplishment!

All told, at this point, I think Liza has credit for three or four English classes, probably two semesters of US History, another course of Comparative Government, and a class or two of Art. And the Intro to Criminal Justice course she took Spring semester. Gee, Liza, you could finish your Associate's degree by the time your classmates graduate from high school if you didn't go to Hungary. (wink!)

Sure am proud of my Liza!

"I didn't think about it"

2006-06-26T23:46:00.000-04:00

For a little balance in the story, I'm getting very tired of hearing that excuse from my teenagers.

We were supposed to be heading out early in the morning for a trip to visit grandparents in C'burg and then head down to Alabama to visit an adopted aunt & uncle. I say supposed to be heading out, because at 10 o'clock this evening, as I was checking to make sure people were ready to go and the boys were busy playing "Magic the Gathering", Kyle said he was intending to pack when he went up to bed. I realized I hadn't noticed Kyle doing laundry since he got here, and when he left last week I told him the hamper full of dirty laundry needed to be washed and put away before he left the next time. I don't need a hamper full of four-week-old stinky laundry sitting in the corner, and he is certainly capable of doing his laundry when he is here for a week at a time. So, Kyle's not ready to go. And I can't leave him behind and take Samuel when Samuel's hamper is almost full, can I? So Samuel gets "punished"/consequenced without getting the warning, and laundry isn't generally an issue for him. So we don't leave tomorrow, and then Miriam misses out, and she doesn't even have dirty laundry here-because she left all of her dirty clothes at her dad's house to ripen for two weeks!

Where's the manual to handle all this???

On the up side, I finally finished a 60-page translation project that has been hanging over my head for months! (No, I do NOT do written translation. I think I have finally learned my lesson.)

I had a joint celebration for that planned for Sunday evening, but Liza didn't think about the 5 PM dinner plans when her stepmother prepared a birthday dinner at 4. Rough spot to be in. And then we couldn't do a later dinner, because the kids had a church youth meeting at 7, which neither girl thought to tell me about. With Eliza preparing to head off to Hungary in nine short weeks, I felt/feel cheated out of a celebration time I needed.

They're still great kids, but I'm really tired of "I didn't think about it", and I'm not feeling very successful as a mother right now. I'm open to suggestions.

Proud of my kids!

2006-06-17T13:20:00.000-04:00

We're having a wonderful week with the four kids here, and time to relax and enjoy each other's company. Tori "joined us" for a trip to the pool yesterday afternoon, but ended up driving her sibs to the pool in Annapolis after both Navy pools were closed. James made the stir-fry including our green beans and turnip greens, and Tori stayed for dinner after their swim. It's so much fun to have them all here and laughing together.

So, why am I proud of them? This morning the four resident teenagers got up and out the door by 8 AM to help our neighbor clean out her late husband's boat so that she can get it sold. Besides being very early for a voluntary wake-up, especially for a work project, today is almost ten degrees warmer than it has been this week, and fifteen or more warmer than days earlier this month. And de-junking a boat is dirty, hot, and sweaty work. They didn't quite get it finished before the heat got overwhelming, but Melissa is very appreciative of how far they got.

And, with their aforementioned interest in playing D&D this evening, the boys had the great idea to do their family work project time last night, before the boat work. Good thinking, guys! (Now, if Miriam will just get her windows cleaned. . .)

Sometimes I wonder. . .or. . . A Family Dungeon

2006-06-17T13:09:00.000-04:00

I get myself into the strangest predicaments. This time it is a family D&D campaign. For the uninitiated, D&D stands for Dungeons and Dragons. It is a fantasy role-playing game that was quite popular when James and I were in high school. Now that our own kids are teenagers and interested in fantasy & role-playing & competitive games, they have latched onto James's old game manuals and wanted to play.

James was adamant that he didn't want to make the time commitment required for creating a dungeon, but I thought it might be an opportunity for us to create a world that requires the kids to consider ideas we value. Besides, it's something Kyle wants to do, and we're looking for activities to keep him interested in coming up here. In working to convince James to DM (Take on the role of Dungeon Master/world creator), Kyle "volunteered" (with a bit of coaching) to help James with yardwork to help complete the projects that will be neglected in the process of building the world, setting up the game. He also says he'll commit to being here at least once a month for the next six months (even during band season), so that we can play the game.

So now I get to see another side of my beloved husband. . .and the diabolical laughter from behind his computer screen can make a person nervous!!! The "it's only a first-level dungeon" comments aren't terribly reassuring either.

Our First Harvest of the Season

2006-06-16T16:40:00.000-04:00

It may not seem like much, but here it is. . .
The picture was James's idea, but the excitement is mine. These are the first of the earliest beans we planted, and I nibbled a few on the way from the garden to the pot. We definitely don't have enough to serve everyone a full serving as a side dish, but they'll be great in tonight's stir-fry. (And they are delicious raw!)

It's sometimes funny to step back and look at how much we enjoy the (tiny!) "harvests" from our garden.

We're far from feeding ourselves from the produce of our hands and land, but we really do enjoy the time spent "digging in the dirt", so our mealtime contributions are bonus results. And we're figuring out how to improve things as we go along. Maybe next year. . .after we've sheet-mulched a few more beds. After all, these beans came from the earliest of the green beans in an area of two or three square feet, and came from the plants that survived a very hungry slug (before we got on top of that threat to our harvest!). And we'll have berry bushes in this fall, for small harvests next spring, and more in following years!

It's a blooming beautiful Ides of June

2006-06-15T12:56:00.000-04:00

We've been watching these lilies grow from little sprouts early in the Spring, through the first blooms on the red lilies, and now we have these gorgeous golden yellow ones providing such nice contrast to the deep red ones. We're also enjoying tints of pink and bright white lilies also. James said (last night) we just needed some blue ones. Unfortunately, the blue spikey flowers haven't started yet.

I'm really appreciating this school fund-raiser! We ordered some $30 worth of perennial bulbs from Miriam's chorus fundraiser last year. Most everything has come up even stronger this year than last. Much better than the usual candy bars or over-priced wrapping paper!

Another piece of excitement in the garden is watching the beans growing. It won't be long now!

And this is what the color scarlet looks like growing in the Three Sisters bed:

Given that we can't do much to control our teenagers any more, we're shifting our focus to the garden. Lots more mulching is on the agenda for the summer, with virtually all of the intended plantings being some sort of edible food crop. It's amazing how much more sun there is when we cut back or remove some of the very well-grown (overgrown) shrubs/hedges.

And woe unto the kid who runs through and tramples a newly planting bed!

And, while we don't seem to have much influence over their academic performance, unplugging the dryer for the summer does somehow inspire them to hang their laundry outside to take advantage of the gorgeous day! And it gives them something else to complain about to their friends. ("You think your parents are bad? Try my eco-nuts! So much for modern conveniences, we have to hang our laundry outside, and they even have us hauling our bath water out to water the garden!!!")

They are looking forward to picking berries off our own bushes next spring!

We almost bought a washboard at the Oriental market last weekend-just for the humor of it. James chose the indoor drying rack instead. He'd considered getting one last year, but didn't buy it the first time we saw it, and they've been out since then. Liza grabbed that to hang laundry in her room yesterday when the sky threatened to rain on her clothes.

A Garden visitor

2006-06-09T10:57:00.000-04:00

"Mom! Mom! You've got to come see this!"

Our visitor was strolling up the path when Samuel spotted him (her?). After our attention, he decided it was time to get moving, and put it into high gear to go hide in the Three Sisters bed by the time I found the camera and made it back out.

The corn stalks are now up to my knees, and the Scarlet Runner beans have started to put out flowers. The squash vines are still short enough that they're standing up, pretty much even with the beans at this point. Sometime soon we hope they'll actually spread out and act as a living mulch.

Our plan for the fall/once we harvest this planting is to widen the bed a bit more, sheet mulch the heck out of it, and plant our late vegetables-kale & broccoli and such.

The living mulch effect is working very well in the densely planted bean beds closer to the patio, and the first of the blossoms are appearing there also. Those beds are scheduled for sheet mulching later this year also.

James is working on forsythia removal these days. Our forsythia hedge hasn't bloomed well in several years, and we're looking for space for more food crops, so . . . Once the forsythia is cleared back to the tree line, we'll sheet mulch that and prepare it for berry crops. We're looking at Nanking Cherries, and maybe some blueberries or goumi or . . .

A few other possible summer projects: a woodfire-heated soaking tub, a small pond above Herb Hill, rainbarrels for all the downspouts, and . . .

Before you consider us too crazy, check out Path to Freedom. This is a family homestead in California that is harvesting 3 tons of fruits & vegetables from the 1/5th of an acre (including the land the house covers!) they own. Of course, 2/3 of their property isn't shaded by their own & neighbors' established trees.

Kid news-mostly

2006-06-03T15:26:00.000-04:00

Guess life has been unbloggable for a while. Some of it I needed a bit of time to figure out what to say, and I figure you're all getting tired of "my garden is blooming" (but the irises really were spectacular last week!). Fortunately, flowers seem to grow with less effort on my part than my kids do.

Tori is working at Ruby Tuesday's, and seems to be doing well. We're see her once or twice a week. Her sibs and I all miss having her around, but this is part of the growing up phase.

Eliza is excited that she finally knows where she will be next year, even if she doesn't yet have a family assigned. She'll be about 85KM outside of Budapest (Hungary), and leaves in "two months, three weeks, and one day". Tuesday is her last ever day of high school in the US, and she's doing a bit of gloating-especially when Miriam comes in with her "___ days of school" countdown. The retort is usually something about Liza's college class continuing through the end of the month.

Such lovely children, and they don't bicker at all! (And if you'll buy that. . .)

James, Kyle and I will be going out for dinner at Ruby Tuesday's on our way to Liza's recital this evening. I wonder what we're going to find to fill our schedules when we only have two teenagers loading the calendar??? It feels like we'll go from five teenagers to only two in the space of less than five months-Tori moving out, Eliza off to Hungary, and Kyle's schedule is becoming less predictable and will be scant due to band August -November. Very wierd, and very fast, somehow.

Speaking of Kyle, he made Tenderfoot in Scouts this week, and received his letter in Band at last week's Band Awards Banquet. Sometimes the distance between our house and his mother's really sucks. We would have loved to be there to cheer him on, but. . .

Samuel continues juggling kung fu, cycling, Scouts, drums, schooling, reading voraciously, and just generally enjoying life. He's glad to be wrapping up the school year, and has his portfolio review on Wednesday. He is looking forward to going back to school for eighth grade next fall.

Miriam is wrapping up her seventh grade year. Completion of the Spring Concert means no more early morning rehearsals. Friday was "the last day to dress for PE". She's getting the experience of major exams with the HSA (High School Assessment) and final exam in Algebra I.
Meanwhile, James and I enjoy puttering in our garden and digging in the dirt. After a visit to an ecovillage, we're figuring out where to tuck a few Nanking cherry bushes and other edibles. . . stay tuned there. I think the scantily blooming forsythia bushes are not long for this world, except as compost for the new bushes!

Happy Mothers' Day to me! (and all you moms, too)

2006-05-14T19:58:00.000-04:00

Haven't been posting much, since I figured you would get tired of reading "we're out enjoying our beautiful garden" again and again. But that's what we're doing.

James and I shared our first strawberry from the garden this morning. We might get a few more this year, but the real objective (since we started so late in the season) is to get a good patch built up this year for next year's crop. James says he's going to put up bird netting next year, and that was even before he found out that our second strawberry was tasted by the birds before it got ripe.

My Mothers' Day presents were trellises for my rose on the side of the house, and four new hostas. We ran by the Navy Exchange to grab the trellises, saw a few hostas we didn't have, talked James into a pair (for my Mothers' Day "flowers"), and got to pick two more when he found out they were only $4 each! We picked out four that we didn't think we had (all variegated with yellow in different patterns), and found that one of them is very close to a pair we had at home, but the others are definitely new to our yard.

The sage is still rooting, so I water it daily after I check the seedlings in my seed starter tray/house. The cucumbers have been planted out, and are doing well after transplanting. The salvia and basils are working on their second sets of leaves, and the first of my zucchinis are sending up their first leaves.

Out in the beds, the beans of all varieties are doing well. The corn and squash are coming up in the "three-sisters" bed. The Sweet William didn't fare well in this week's hard rain, but we have late azaleas blooming for Mom and Bill's visit later this week. The rhododendron may show a bloom or two in time also. My real excitement comes from seeing the new leaf buds on the herbs we've planted out onto Herb Hill, and my lilac twigs and lavender on Mt. Leahi. It looks like they're going to make it.

Out on our walk tonight, we discussed the idea of a neighborhood plant exchange at some point in the future. I'm still trying to figure out logistics, but we ought to be able to work something out, from a database of wants and give-aways to an annual bring-your-extras gathering or a beginning & end of season something. Any suggestions?

And, oh yeah, kids are doing well, too.

"Horrible news!"

2006-05-09T20:07:00.000-04:00

Precious, dear, sweet, little Miriam, the youngest of my lovely daughters has achieved that horrible landmark-she's taller than I am. (And she was thrilled to have James point that out this evening!)

Sage advice

2006-05-06T08:35:00.000-04:00

When taking cuttings from other people's plants, figure out where you are going to put the pieces after they have rooted! I now have two mugs of cuttings (two different types) sitting in front of the diningroom window, waiting for roots to grow so they can go outside. And we only have place for three or four plants (if I squeeze them in!) on Herb Hill. So now we're talking about a sage hedge along the driveway and the sidewalk behind Mt. Leahi. Anyone want a sage plant or two???

You didn't think I really had wisdom to share, did you? Especially not while in the midst of raising teens!

Kyle's accomplishment: He and his section leader/stand partner in band played in the solo & ensemble competition last week, and earned straight 1's=the highest possible scores!

Samuel is having his Board of Review for rank advancement to Star in Scouts this morning. I suppose I ought to wrap this up and clear the table since the Board is here!

More herb notes

2006-05-01T20:45:00.001-04:00

Just a quick note, since I have been accused of blogging novels. . .

The Herb Hill looks marvelous! James finished mulching things in with wood chips. I was out when my neighbor Melissa came home, so I ran over to say hello, invited her over to see our progress, and followed her home to clip some sage for rooting. I now have eight pieces of purple-tinged sage rooting in the diningroom window, soon to be transplanted onto the hill.

Where can I find some more varieties of sage? We have five varieties of mint, five of thyme, and soon five of basil. Seems that we ought to have come up with five of sage, just for consistency. James is posting a Wanted listing on freecycle.

Melissa also had some cultivation advice for my lavender growing-mulch with rocks rather than wood chips, and feed them with lime water. Wonder what that's going to do to the other inhabitants of Mt Leahi???

Herb Hill

2006-05-01T11:33:00.000-04:00

Wrote this one last night, but our internet provider has been on the blink. . .

We’ve had a busy weekend, with an herb focus to our gardening. On Saturday, James and I went to the National Arboretum to see the azaleas blooming. We picked up a few fun plants like ruffled purple basil, holy basil, black cohosh, anise, angelica, dill, and a tri-color sage. I talked James into planting mints in pots and burying the pots on the hill, so we picked up two small mint plants also. On the way home we stopped at Homestead Gardens and did a bit more shopping. James’s particular target was a variety of coleus plants, so we picked up one each of five different varieties. Then a few different kinds of thyme (silver-edged, wooly and creeping), and a couple more mints went onto the cart. Two cilantro plants seemed like a good idea. They didn’t have the ever-blooming wisteria we saw there last year, but the pink-lemonade honeysuckle looks good to go on the trellis out back. James added a flat of marigolds to add a bit of color in the front. And I’m making another attempt to grow lavender. Since it likes sun, Mt. Leahi East is the only possible location for it. Hopefully one of the four varieties will be happy enough to establish itself there. They’re all up on the edge of the hill, so drainage shouldn’t be a problem this time.

James was up early this morning. He planted most of the herbs directly into herb hill, where we’d placed them yesterday when we got home. Then he made a run to Home Depot for potting mix to put in the pots for the mint and coleus plants. While I finished up the bulletin board for Samuel’s Scout Troop, James planted marigolds around the yard.

The Herb Hill tally now:

Fifteen small rosemary plants of one variety, and one large one of another nearby

Five different varieties of thyme-one creeping, one wooly, one silver-edged, lots of variegated and several plain green plants

Two oregano spots (5-6 plants) from our friend Ann’s garden

Two cilantro plants

Two parsley plants that survived the winter in a small window-box planter, and look much happier now that they have a hill to grow on

One lone dill, because we don’t use it much, and don’t want to be overrun next year

One anise hyssop plant

One licorice plant

One angelica plant

Four varieties of mint (one blue balsam, two spearmints, one chocolate mint, one orange mint)

Two varieties of basil-holy & ruffled purple, with two more coming up in the perennial bed (purple opal and sweet), and another (Italian basil) that I’m going to start in peat pots tomorrow. We’re thinking we’ll plant basil in each of the spaces between the hostas at the top of the hill. James is sure he can use all we can grow, so I’m going to give him a bit of a challenge there.

We only have one small tri-color sage on the hill at this point, but I’m going to start some purple sage from my neighbor’s plant this week.

Even if we don’t eat all this, it smells good and looks pretty. I figure it will be a fun touch-taste-smell garden tour for my young neighbors, nieces and nephews when they visit. (Their parents can play, too!)

The black cohosh went up in the hosta and bulb bed under the poplar tree in the back yard, and as I said, the lavender went onto Mt. Leahi.

The yard is really taking shape!

James has already laid out the meandering path through the side yard, so I can get started on planting wildflowers there.

Our list of yard projects is shorter than the list of herbs on Herb Hill. Guess it’s time to get the finances in order to buy a bigger property to keep us busy next year!

Beans, Scouts and Teens

2006-04-28T11:53:00.000-04:00

Can you tell our focus is on the garden in the Spring? The good news there is that the beans are starting to come up! It's so much fun to see the curled stems lifting the dirt, and knowing that there will actually be little bean plants showing the next day.

My experiment with soaking the bean seeds for several hours before planting does speed up germination. The beans in the first bed are just a bit ahead of the ones I planted almost a week later, but soaked before planting. Okay, so it wasn't a controlled experiment. I used different varieties, and some of the seeds were older than others, and they were planted at different times, etc. So, where's the elementary-schooler needing a science fair project???

Kid news:
Miriam is off to Richmond with her school chorus, and won't be back until Saturday night late. The kids are with Pratt this weekend, so I don't have to stay up to go get her, but I don't get to hear about the trip until Sunday evening, but I'll update then.

Samuel received six merit badge cards at Wednesday's Court of Honor, but only received five of the badges, because the trip to the boy scout store had already occurred by the time Samuel got his card signed. He'll get that badge the next time someone makes a trip to council.
The campout for his first Hornaday service project was approved by the Troop Committee, and the director of USNA Security, who has to approve the use of the site, just happens to be a friend of ours from Japan, and affiliated with the troop! The final details will be worked out over the next week or so. If anyone is available to help install nest boxes and predator guards on Saturday, June 24th, just let us know!
The Troop Committee decided to schedule a Saturday Board of Review so that Samuel can will be able to meet the time requirement for his next advancement prior to the November Court of Honor! It also looks to be one of the largest Boards of Review ever held by this troop, with more boys ready for advancement than we've had ready at one time. Amazing what happens as momentum builds! We had two small Boards of Review this month, and have already had three boys advance!

Liza's big thing these days is fighting Senior Slump as the school year draws to a close. Gee, I'm glad she didn't get promoted to Senior until this month!

And Tori??? Don't know. She received notice on Monday that, due to her continued non-compliance with our expectations, she needed to move out. (It's not as short notice as it seems. I did have a hardline talk with her two weeks earlier-bills paid & two hours of household maintenance completed by noon each Monday, or move out by Tuesday. We've been trying to make this work for all involved since her return from Spain last November.) She stayed somewhere else on Tuesday, but was back Wednesday for a nap, shower, and came back to sleep after James & I had gone to bed. She "wasn't available" for a conversation last night while the other kids were at their dad's, so we spent the time moving her clutter out to the driveway instead.

Parenting is a tremendous growth experience! And just when I think I've figured out one challenge, they grow again, and I have a whole new set of challenges to master! Is this why grandparents seem to sit back and grin???? I'm just so glad I have James at my side these days!

Goldfinches

2006-04-27T12:52:00.000-04:00

have found the thistle feeder! It has been up a week, or is it two? Today is the first time I've seen finches on the feeder. The male came by, checked it out and flew off. A few minutes later, he was back with a female. I just had to call James to share the excitement! (Simple pleasures)

I planted the three sisters-corn, beans & squash- on Tuesday, along with more bush beans and soybeans. For corn, we chose calico popcorn. I couldn't decide between acorn squash and "nutty delica" squash, so we have two hills of each. And then half the bed is planted in scarlet runner beans, and the other half in Rattlesnake beans-speckled pods that curl into spirals.

The first beans I planted, ten days ago, are breaking into the sunshine!

By the way, the azaleas are gorgeous (if you want to come by, you're welcome). James and I are planning to head into DC to visit the National Arboretum sometime this weekend. If you haven't seen a hill covered in azaleas in full bloom, I'd recommend the experience!

Wisteria and kid news

2006-04-25T09:55:00.000-04:00

Tried to post this one yesterday. Let's see if it works today. . .

I forgot to mention the wisteria started blooming last week. Our neighbors got home from Florida, and she said I could take seeds from hers later this summer. I have plans for at least two plants, maybe four. Would anyone else like me to save seeds for you???

Eventually, I'd like to get some ever-blooming wisteria, but these trees/vines bloom heavily for a couple of weeks in the Spring, about the same time as the lilacs. I saw one this weekend that appears to have been pruned severly, and resembles one of the miniature weeping maples in shape, but heavily draped in blossoms. (Picture a mound of lavender bunches of grapes, and you'll be close to what I saw.)

James says he likes where I put the lilies of the valley. He had to go look at them this morning, since he missed them when he got home last night. Something about basically six hours in the car. . . Another good reason to move to the country!

Kid news:
Tori's play finished last night, so her theater load will be much lighter. I think she said her store closed this weekend also, so she suddenly has a great deal more time to look for a new job and figure out where she's going next. Stay tuned for further updates.

Eliza spent the weekend with several friends from the Rotary Exchange program, and enjoyed that immensely. She has also been gloating (to her sibs especially) because she'll be taking senior exams and getting out of school on June 6th. Of course, she won't get her diploma until she finishes her English course at the community college at the end of the month. I got a call last Friday that the principal approved excusing Liza from her high school classes to take a class during the day. She will have finished her AP exams the first week or so of May, and most of the time her English class will only overlap with AP classes, so that's not a big deal. Except that it means more driving for Mom!

Kyle was here Thursday through yesterday. His big news was his Band trip to Florida. After all that excitement, he somehow found the energy to play their role-playing game with Samuel, but was pretty quiet otherwise.

Samuel's news is Scouting-focused. He has found a place to do many of his Hornaday conservation projects-the Greenbury Point Nature Center. He's putting together a campout proposal for the Troop Committee to consider at this week's meeting. He also passed off two more merit badges on Saturday. Other than needing another two hours or so of service, he's just waiting for the clock to tick until he's eligible for promotion to Star Scout on May 11th. And he's already started on the three required merit badges he'll need for Life Scout in November. His service hours there will be covered by his bird-focused service project at Greenbury Point.

Miriam is looking forward to her Chorus trip this weekend, and then State Festival the next week. She's less than thrilled with the idea of Samuel joining her at SevernRiver Middle School next year, but that's the price of being a twin. Poor kid, oops, teenager! I finally got to read a couple of her poems a week or so ago-at the library! And she's been doing some beautiful artwork also.

More Blossoms!

2006-04-23T21:10:00.001-04:00

The azaleas are just about in full bloom. The lilacs are out, and I'm looking forward to mine growing & blooming in future years.

We've done quite a bit of driving this weekend- Liza & her Rotary friends had a get-together in Gettysburg. I took advantage of the trip to get together with George & Alexandra, our friends from Raphael Inn. We'd spent some time during our visit earlier this year talking about gardening, so I went laden with black-eyed susans and echinacea from our garden, along with lilies from across the street, and an extra aster plant received from a friend this morning.

After a pleasant chat and tea in the garden, I came home with more plants for our garden.

We'd already been over to a local friend's house to pick up some asters and strawberries, and came home with oregano and larkspur also. Those were safely tucked into the ground before I headed north. I came home from PA with a purple "weed" and planted it into the wildflower garden. We'll just have to clear unwanted weeds and lay the path around it. Identifying the plant is a research project for tomorrow.

George & Alexandra's neighbors came out when they saw us wandering around the garden. They are in the clear the weeds & start-over process, with lots of lovely, sunny beds to play with. Tim and I discussed his plans, and I just had to rescue the little lilies-of-the-valley he was going to pull out and throw away, because they wouldn't fit with what he planned.

I have those tucked in safely now. Sure hope James likes where I put them!

I also planted about 6-8 square feet of peas. It's late in the season to put them in, but here's hoping! I did give them a bit of a boost by saking them for several hours (like all the time I was gone to G'burg) before planting them. I have also planted a package of yellow wax beans (about 4 square feet) earlier this week. Those are actually in right about on time.

After bringing in six strawberry plants from Ann's house today, we're thinking the side bed below where we put the canteloupe hills is going to become our strawberry bed.

The oregano has been planted out onto the herb hill. I'll run across the street and clip some purple sage at some point this week. Once the clips have rooted, they'll get to move out to the herb hill also. We've got basil seedlings started in the side bed. Anyone have some dill I can adopt?

It feels really silly to be furiously pulling strawberries (wild) from one side of the house, while planting them on the other, but that's what we're doing! We're going to turn the East side yard into a wildflower meadow. This week's projects include pulling all the wild strawberries and laying a meandering wood-chip path. James intended to get the path down this afternoon, but he got caught in traffic taking Kyle to meet his mother, and didn't get home until after 8 PM. No fun there, but we enjoyed a few minutes sitting on our new furniture in our gazebo after he got home. We're looking forward to making progress in the meadow over the next few days.

Garden Report

2006-04-18T20:28:00.000-04:00

The daffodils are on their way out. Only the last of the late bloomers are still around, and James has been "chopping their little heads off" as they wilt. . .so that all the energy goes into filling the bulbs for next year, rather than attempting to make useless seed.

The tulips are blooming better than they did last year, and Samuel was quick to tell me when he spotted the first of the purple ones last week. Our azaleas are starting to open. The only one that is in full bloom right now is the peppermint candy-striped one, but the others are teasing us with buds, so we expect the end of the week will be gorgeous!

Our redbud is in full bloom, as are the wisteria and dogwood and cherry (wood) trees in the neighbors' yards.

We've pretty much found all of our hostas coming up around the yard. And the treat for the day is the number of lilies-of-the-valley that are coming up. Since the ones at my brother's house, and on the west side of the house are getting ready to bloom, we were afraid we'd lost the clump by the front door when we couldn't find them. Good news, a dozen or more finally made it through the mulch today!

James's "vacation" time (waiting for his clearance to be picked up by the new company) has been well spent, preparing garden beds and doing other yard work.

This morning he moved the clematis from a tiny box on the back patio out to surround the mailbox. He had an extra one, so we put it up on freecycle, and had five takers within fifteen minutes, and several others even after we said it was taken. We've had fun with the freecycle crowd this weekend. We also put up three bags of pachysandra from the bean bed, and had sixteen people jump for that. Three of them even want to come dig some more, so we're getting other spaces cleared out-without having to dig it ourselves! James also dug up six little redbud seedlings from across the street. Otherwise, they were going to be yanked and composted. We couldn't have that!

We made a trip to Bowen's (farm supply) this afternoon to pick up black oil sunflower seed for the platform feeder he found up in the shed, and to pick up a few more seeds for the garden. Unfortunately, they didn't have the three sisters (corn/beans/squash) seeds I wanted, so I had to get on line and wait until they're delivered. We did pick up a goldfinch feeder and thistle seed for that, clothesline to hang that feeder from a tree, two more straw bales to be a backdrop for Samuel's archery target, and a couple of interesting seed packets.

While James was running Liza to class (on the scooter), I planted the lupine seeds on the front hill. I don't think they'll bloom this year, but they should be ready to bloom most of next summer. I've had the yellow wax beans soaking this afternoon, and will get them in tomorrow morning. By the time James got back from taking Samuel to kung fu (again on the scooter), I had the thyme dug up to move to the back herb hill. We spent an hour or so digging holes in the hill, brutally tearing the clump of thyme into little pieces, and planting them into the hillside. It's taking shape! I'll root some purple sage from my neighbor's plant, and put those on the hill for color. I think we'll buy a dill plant, and the basil is starting in the perennial bed (better soil and easier to tend). James picked up another variety today at Bowen's, so I'll be starting that tomorrow also.

Have I mentioned I love Spring?!?!?!

It's Spring!

2006-04-15T12:32:00.000-04:00

Spring is here, and we're loving it! Today we are enjoying a glorious sunshiny day, with a gentle breeze, and lovely warm temperatures. The daffodils are beginning to fade, but the tulips are taking over. Our red bud tree is blooming, as are the cherry wood trees and dogwoods in the neighbors' yards.

Being a gorgeous Saturday, it seems the whole neighborhood is out doing yard work. We just got a head start on them! While I was saying "how-do?" to the neighbors up the road, James disappeared. I heard the log splitter going across the street, so I'm guessing he is over there splitting the rest of the cherry tree pieces to get them out of the Mosses' yard before next Friday. We hauled 8-10 wheelbarrow loads of wood last night-all that was split, and all that Billy helped us split before we ran out of daylight. "Look, James, I got you a tree for Easter!"

The fun part is that while we were sitting on our glider, enjoying the evening sounds, we talked about getting a wood stove insert for our fireplace. And today, while I was chatting with a neighbor, he mentioned he is planning on getting rid of his! He also is going to re-do his driveway and retaining wall, and offered us the bricks currently in use there.

Guess we're getting something of a reputation for scavenging in the heighborhood. . .We'll call this a good thing, since it means people think of us when they are getting rid of something that might be useful. Besides, it's so much fun to mortify the kids!

James got his "mid-life crisis toy" yesterday- a lime-green mini scooter. He rode it home from the store, took the twins for rides, and then turned it over to Eliza. Unfortunately, he forgot to explain the breaking process before explaining the motion process, and she relied on obstacle braking-right into the back of his car! Liza's the only one who doesn't seem to find this absolutely hilarious, and she's not appreciating the teasing.

Got to get back out to the sunshine (never mind I've been out four times since I started this post!), and get some things done.

More perspective

2006-04-14T09:50:00.000-04:00

We're so excited. It looks like Beck and family will be adding three more soon! For now, we're eagerly awaiting the latest update and pictures of the new ones.

I kept busy yesterday, sorting papers & helping with details across the street. I think today will include much less time over there, running a few errands, and getting the house ready for overnight guests tomorrow. It is wonderful to have so much abundance to share.

The kids have been wonderful helping the Mosses across the street. They've helped prepare food, and carry it over and run back & forth for things we've needed from over here. Samuel pulled weeds to help get the yard ready for the supper there after the funeral. Things are settling down a bit as the worst of the initial shock wears off. For now, the family is holding it together, taking care of details, and holding on to each other.

Ebb & flow of life. Cycles. Challenges and joys. All part of this experience we call life.

Love to all!

Death puts Life in perspective

2006-04-12T18:22:00.000-04:00

The last couple of weeks have been a bit stressful. . . James's job ending, the job hunt, Kyle's grades, trying to coordinate summer plans between all these households, Eliza's travails at school, thirteen-year-olds copping attitudes, an eighteen-year-old who really wants to be on her own, but doesn't want to at the same time, adjusting to coming of my meds, a challenging ex, etc.

Somehow, my perspective changed suddenly about 10:55 this morning. I was upstairs typing on my computer. James was out back cleaning the patio for my new gazebo. Under the sound of the mower mulching leaves, I thought I heard someone knock on the front door. Checking, I found a frantic Jeff Moss standing on my porch, asking for someone to come help with CPR.

Everything pales in comparison to the thought of waking up to find your father sprawled on the kitchen floor. And when we turned him over to start CPR, it was obvious it was too late, from the cool temperature of his body and the way the blood had drained into his face as he'd been laying on the floor.

It's not the first time I've handled a body after the spirit has left. But there is a tremendous difference between a body that has been prepared by the mortuary for the family to do the final dressing, and a body that has been laying alone on the floor for 4-6 hours. And there's a tremendous difference in what it takes to share each of those experiences with the person's child.

Somehow, those issues that seemed so significant yesterday, and demanding of attention, just don't seem to matter.

I'd started to get to that place as I heard the results of my nephew, Evan's, latest MRI. And now this.

Guess I'm getting some pretty strong messages about how good I've got it.

Please keep Evan Moss and his family and doctors in your prayers for healing, and comfort for the family and friends of James Moss. (Yes, that's right, another Moss. Some sort of cousin-just to see the family resemblance that was clear!-but I don't remember the exact relationship. His side of the family stayed in North Carolina, while my father's side left for Oklahoma a couple of generations back.)

Another beautiful day

2006-04-04T20:15:00.000-04:00

The rain cleared out and left this morning gloriously bright. The plants appreciated the water, and seem so much more vibrant this afternoon. With a good breeze and sunshine, I decided it was time to do the laundry and hang it out. There's something so delightful about being out in the sunshine, feeling the breeze, listening to the birds, and enjoying all the spring fragrances as I hand the laundry on the line. And that spring freshness comes right in with the clothes when we take them down.

James finished splitting and transplanting the hostas in the yard. He's really been working hard on the back yard in the last month or two, and it definitely shows! The framework of the landscaping back there is just about finished. We'll plant groundcovers on the slopes and in the hosta bed/s. Rosemary and thyme are planned for the slope by the patio. The play/picnic areas have already been seeded. There's a bit of prep work to do on our "garden" plot. And a few more yards of mulch will finish things off until it's time to plant bulbs in the fall!

My stress level is greatly reduced from yesterday. The gorgeous day helps. And I took Grandma Kniskern's advice-stop trying to plan around schedules that I can't control. Make your plans, let people know, and then they can choose what they want to participate in. I also worked out guidelines for kid activities, so I don't have to fight to get the kids away from the idiot box all summer. Beware all residents of 15 Beechwood Rd . . .It's time for another Red House Memo!

Love a laptop!

2006-04-03T20:30:00.000-04:00

We've got a hail & thunderstorm going on, yet I can unplug from power surges and still blog!

Had a wonderful weekend with James's family in C'burg. It's amazing how much Jessica grows up between visits, but I guess that's what happens with four-year-olds. Kyle is so good with her, and she relishes the attention from her big cousin!

Today has been challenging. I left my PMS meds home this weekend, and conducted an unplanned experiment. I had been wondering if they were contributing to my probable sleep apnea (ie-not formally diagnosed, but James will testify that I was waking him several times each night as I stopped breathing and then startled and gasped for breath). I had some really weird dreams, might be stress-related, but at least I slept long enough to dream! Since I've felt a bit more rested after just two nights, I'll be going in to discuss this with my doctor this week.

Stressors?
James was informed last Tuesday that the contract his company (& thus he) has been working on was cancelled to shift funds to another project. Two weeks, plus or minus, to find another job or have a pay lapse. Glad we've been managing to build up our savings (since we stopped the simultaneous court cases)!

Tori still hasn't decided that she's staying here (so we can arrange things for her to put & keep her stuff out of the way) or moving out. And she's keeping a schedule that doesn't allow her to participate in household activities or discussions about finances or schedules, etc. And she hasn't been living up to the conditions she agreed to as part of staying her. Rather than trying to schedule a later time at her convenience (which it never seems to be), I insisted on a discussion this afternoon, since she's so rarely home. And, mean mom, I insisted that she pay her car insurance bill, per our agreement (or a month late for that) or I would be removing her car from my policy tomorrow. She wasn't happy about that, as you can imagine.
You couldn't pay me enough to be 18 again!!!

Liza's doing well, but she has a meeting for her exchange trip this weekend, I have a seminar, Kyle's here so James isn't available, and transportation from the other household is iffy-even tho' the kids are over there this weekend.

Kyle seems to think that nearly half his grades (in average level classes) as C's should merit his father's support of his participation in marching band next Fall, but Dad doesn't agree. Any suggestions?

Samuel's his usual high-energy self, and going more directions at once than I can keep up with. Wish I had his energy. Since he's been missing time and shared activities with friends, we're talking about him going back to school next year (8th grade). That will/would free up quite a bit of time & energy in my schedule. (And I've been home long enough that the idea of going out to work is beginning to appeal. I'm sure I'll come to my senses soon after I get back into that routine, but it will help us clear debt and build our country-home savings fund!)

At least Miriam is a fount of calm this week, even if she "hates" the idea of sharing a school with her twin again. That's the price of being a twin, kiddo.

And then there are the co-parenting issues. . . It's so much fun (not!) trying to coordinate summer plans between three households. If anyone has suggestions/requests/ideas for summer plans, please let me know! (After all, my favorite means of dealing with stress is to create structure, so I'm working in that direction now!)

On the positive side of things, I really do have a fabulous family! And . . .IT'S SPRING!!! Our yard is full of daffodils. The bright-yellow earliest ones are beginning to fade, and the forsythia is dimming as those leaves come in, but the yard is full of various other daffodils. The hostas have started coming up, and James has been busy splitting and transplanting them throughout the yard. The edge of the hill in the back has been planted with hostas split from the front, and the front yard has had gaps filled in. The rain will be great for all our thirsty plants. The back patio is settling in, and the thyme will soon be ready to split and plant back there. The ornamental cherry trees throughout the neighborhood are bursting out, and they're glorious!

It's just so much fun to wander through our neighborhood, and especially our yard, and watch things come alive!

I had to laugh at the squirrel that was digging in the front beds today. It seems James mulched over his acorns, and he was having the dickens of a time finding them. And Kit was going crazy watching all the activity through the window!

Life is good.

New favorite restaurant!

2006-03-25T20:25:00.000-05:00

To celebrate completing our new back patio, James wanted to go out for dinner. He was in the mood for fajitas, so we headed up to the BWI airport area to Los Portales. (Un)fortunately, Los Portales had a waiting line of 20 groups before we could get in.

Rather than waiting somewhere close to an hour, we decided to try the Asian restaurant next door, Nini's.

This is a FIND! All of the food is prepared fresh. They prepare food from a variety of Asian traditions-a bit of Chinese, sushi, Thai, Vietnamese, Filipino, etc. Portion sizes are generous-even Samuel needed a to go box. James was the only one who didn't, and he'd spent hours building the patio since he'd last eaten.

The first thing that caught our eyes was the variety of offerings we could eat. It is the only non-vegetarian restaurant we've ever visited that gives us more than a dozen vegan options. I ordered General Tso's Tofu! James chose Kung Pao Tofu, and Liza had Vegetable Lo Mein. And they said they could make anything else vegetarian by leaving out the meat.

The next delight was the presentation. Food is served in large shallow bowls. My bowl was edged with orange slices, diagonally-sliced cucumbers, sliced tomatoes and shredded carrots. Sitting atop my entree was a swan carved from an apple. James's and Samuel's bowls "only" had fancy cut orange bowls. Liza had a rose from a tomato, and Tori had a toasted turnip rose. The highlight was probably Miriam's-a goldfish cut from a lemon, with an orange-peel dorsal fin, a cucumber slice tail, and cloves for eyes.

The food was fabulous! I eagerly recommend it to anyone in the area!

Nini's Asian Restaurant-Cromwell Center-just off I-97 near Cromwell Business Park. The actual address is on MD-176. 7-11 is next door to the strip mall where Nini's is located.

A busy week

2006-03-25T15:17:00.000-05:00

James is picking on me! At least I'm not following his mother's suggestion to load a can of tomatoes into the pillow before I bap him with it.

For some reason he seems to think it inappropriate for me to nag my sister for updates on her adoption process without updating my blog, so here goes. . . .

Last Saturday my friend/sister Lee and her family stopped by. They happened to be in Annapolis and called to "pull a Mary" and stop by for a short notice visit. It was my first opportunity to meet my new "nephew", and I have to agree he's a keeper. The twins seem to think he's a fine addition to the family, but much prefer playing with their twin "cousins" to discussing the baby. Samuel was worn out after taking them to the park, racing Kyle home, and playing hide-n-go seek with Noe & Gil. Gil, on the other hand, was NOT ready to leave when Dad suggested getting his shoes back on. He figured he'd just have a sleepover at Aunty Mary's house. Fortunately, he agreed to delaying that since his Grandma was coming in the next day, and he also wanted to see her.

I could really fill the house with preschool-aged nieces & nephews since my brother Rob's kids think it's time for another sleepover at Aunt Mary's also. We spent Sunday afternoon in Alexandria taking time for a more extended visit than we usually manage around returning Kyle to his mother's care. Lisa took advantage of the opportunity to tease James about how complicated his vegan diet makes it for her to plan a meal for us to share. Once she finished "working" on the computer, Aria was delighted to entertain us all, and enjoyed having her cousins join the audience for her performance. Once again, Samuel earned a star for entertaining his adoring cousins.

Tuesday I joined Rob & Lisa for a trip to the neurology department at Johns Hopkins hospital. I was supposedly there to entertain Evan when he got bored with the adult conversation, but he was just fine, and we spent the hour and a half in the room with his parents and the doctor. It's wonderful to have the time to spend with him one-on-one. With such an exhuberant big sister, it isn't easy to have extended time to interact with Evan. We spent quite a bit of time playing with and learning about a set of magnets I'd brought to keep him occupied. Dad wanted to play also, and kept asking for his turn, but Evan was busy learning all about these curiousities, and wasn't ready to share. (Have you had a turn to play with them yet, Rob?) Something about the experience watching him reminded me of his dad (I can do it myself!), and also his uncle Rich (Let's see, how does this work? How does it come apart? What could I do with this piece???). Look out, Lisa!

As much as I enjoy the explorations of my young nieces and nephews, I am enjoying my teenagers venturing into the adult world even more!

Thursday I joined Eliza's entourage in a trip to the Hungarian embassy in DC. One of the Rotarians is a former ambassador, and happened to know Ambassador Simonyi personally. Mr. Penner arranged this trip for Eliza, myself, himself, the president of the Rotary Club that is sponsoring Eliza's trip, her teacher and one of the school vice principals. We spent over half an hour with Ambassador Simonyi, and more time than that with one of his staff. They gifted Liza with a beautiful book about Hungary's history, and invited her back to spend the day with Dr. Zoltan Fehr once she knows where she will be staying. They'll go over the history and other details of the area, so she goes into this even better prepared than she currently is. I may be biased, but I keep hearing how impressed other people are by Eliza, so I think there is reason to be proud of my girl!

And Miriam had a wonderfully successful day on Thursday also. Her chorus group took first place in the county competition.

Now that I've pretty muc brought you up to date, I'm going out to admire James's work installing our back patio. He's using the rest of the reclaimed pavers and a bunch of reclaimed bricks and laying out a patio to match the one in the front. We'll fill the squares between the bricks with soil and plant thyme when it gets a bit warmer. Then it will be time to plant rosemary, etc. on the hill.

Life is great!

Loving this weather!

2006-03-14T12:34:00.000-05:00

It sure feels like Spring is here! We turned the heat off on the 10th, and haven't had it back on since. We open the windows in the morning, and close them in the evening. Our first daffodil opened yesterday.

It looks like we may not get to mudding and painting the livingroom until next Fall. The weather is too nice to be inside, and it feels so good to get out and work in the yard or ride our bikes. The yard is looking great, especially in the front where James spread 6 cu. yards of double-shredded hardwood mulch. Combined with the woodchips in the paths, the bulbs and a few perennials that survived the winter, it's marvelous.

Liza's mock trial team made "the play-offs", and was supposed to compete this afternoon, but a barge hit the Route 50 bridge over the Severn River and has really messed up traffic, so that's postponed. Having enjoyed mock trial so much, she's decided to enter the poetry recitation contest and audition for MouseTrap (a play based on Agatha Christie's mystery). I don't know how she gets everything done, but she seems to do so excellently. For those of you who might like to plan your entertainment in advance-the recital her viola teacher organizes each Spring will probably be the evening of Saturday, June 3rd. (Planned to work around her Rotary farewell dinner on Sunday-since she'll be playing her senior spotlight piece this year.) Liza and a friend are planning a graduation party in August, since they won't walk the stage for their diplomas. Other than that, did I mention she has an appointment with the Hungarian ambassador next week?

We're looking forward to hearing about Kyle's first Scout camping trip that he went on last weekend. Samuel is working to master front flips at his kung fu studio. Miriam is preparing for the county chorus festival, and working lights for the school talent show later this month. And Torri is juggling work, finding a new job, midterms and trying to organize the Spring theater production. Stage manager has turned out to be quite a project!

I understand better and better why my mother said that the teen years were her favorite part of parenting. These young people are SO much fun!

Political activism. . .

2006-03-09T16:50:00.000-05:00

Samuel and I made our first tentative steps into the world of political activism this afternoon.

I had taken on the responsibility of presenting a Minute from last Sunday's Meeting for Worship with attention to Business in the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting this afternoon. I carefully printed up thirty copies of the Minute Friends approved. Samuel and I dressed up, and we "rushed" down there after picking him up from his dad's. We parked at the Naval Academy Stadium and caught the shuttle into town, since parking tends to be limited closer in. We made it in time to sign in on the witness roster, and handed the copies over to the secretary. Then we waitied and waited and waited.

The hearing was delayed from 1:00 to 1:30, because morning sessions ran over. Then the sponsor of our bill was tied up in another committee, so her bills couldn't be heard until they finished her first bill in that committee. By the time she got back to Judiciary, and we got around to "our" bill, it was 4:00, and Samuel and I had to leave to make it home in time for my students. A F/friend ended up presenting our Minute at 5:10 pm.

Samuel reports his learning for the day as, "Senate committee meetings are as boring as (school) board/bored meetings." At least the architecture was worth it.

Spring is sprung

2006-03-04T12:02:00.000-05:00

The grass is riz, I see my little crocuses.

And, with bright sunshine and a good breeze, I decided it was time to hang laundry outside again. The first load of the new year is up on the line. The birds sat in the trees and fussed at me the whole time. I guess they aren't comfortable having a person so close to the feeder (about ten feet away). But I learned what the titmouse song sounds like!

James is busily installing our new kitchen faucet, with only minimal cursing. He figures the plumbers earn such good money because they have to be contortionists to work on plumbing.
He has been quite busy working in the yard as well. We now have woodchips on most of the paths in the backyard. (I got him a load of free wood chips from the guys who were trimming trees around the power lines this week. Unfortunately they don't match the all-poplar chips we got in the last load, but what the heck. Given a few months of aging, I doubt the difference will be that noticable.)

Now that the ground is thawing, James and Samuel will finish moving the dirt at the end of the path, smooth the hills, level the top, and we'll be ready to start planting. James wants to lay a brick patio (like the one under our front yard swing) between the big window in back and the french drains. Then we'll fill the spaces with something low and fragrant, like thyme. Liriope is the current thought for groundcover on the slopes. We'll be splitting hostas to line the paths, and planting bulbs between them in the fall. We're still thinking about what we're going to use to cover the visible side of the compost bins, but may continue the theme along the back fence.

We're open to suggestions if anyone knows of a beautiful, shade-loving, evergreen vine or climbing shrub, preferably one with some flowers or berries for color. . .

The last of the winter indoor projects is the livingroom/diningroom rehab. The thought of sanding and mudding is daunting enough, but we have to move all this furniture (and junk!) before we can even get to that point. . . The effects are worth all the effort, as the other rooms have proven, but we really know how much work is better where we are and getting finished. I'm experiencing some motivational issues. . .

Guess I ought to get back to doing something productive.

Aloha!

I think the room is finished!

2006-02-17T08:46:00.000-05:00

I left everything set up last night. I couldn't tell if the trim paint was going to cover the teal in one coat. The door frames look fine, but I put two coats of wall color on them as I was painting the walls. The window frames will need another coat of white, but as we were painting, we noticed that they also need some caulking, so I'll do that second coat after the caulk. The only question at the moment is the back of the door. I forgot to check that when I was up there.

Samuel is working on a rough draft of an essay on peregrine falcons. After that he wants to run up to the dollar store to buy some glow sticks for his scout campout this evening. Apparently the boys use them to play something akin to capture-the-flag in the dark. (And then they come home scratched to pieces after diving into brambles to get the other team's glow stick.) A cold, rainy night is not my idea of a fun night for camping, but I'm not a twelve-year-old boy. Thank goodness they have adventurous adult "boys" to take them adventuring!

Now that much of the snow has melted, James hauled four wheelbarrow loads of firewood to his wood pile. He has discovered that red bud wood is HEAVY! I'm thinking we need a larger yard to hold James's firewood. Since he can't give up his habit of collecting free firewood, we're going to build a hot tub with a wood-stove heater on the back patio this summer. I love my husband!

Almost finished!

2006-02-16T16:54:00.000-05:00

So, when did I tell James that we'd have our room finished??? I can't remember if I said it would be done before Kyle got here, or if we'd be moved back in before Kyle's arrival this weekend. At any rate, the color coats are finished. All that is left is to paint the trim and inside of the door white. (Yes, Mother, bright white! And my walls follow the rule you taught us-all walls should be painted just off white-NOT gold of any variety!)

Hey, siblings mine. Did I mention that rumor has it someone (or two someones) intend to paint the walls of their house in Florida ANTIQUE GOLD??? Who is she, and what has she done with our mother????

Guess I ought to go find something productive to do. But it won't be painting until after dinner. I have to let the walls dry a bit. The I/we will do the trim and start the clean-up. (Although I hear James pulling down the masking tape from the ceiling as I type.) I want to scrub the floor while the room is empty, and then we need to move the dresser & chest back into the room. I can carry the drawers, but the cabinets are too large/heavy to move with only Samuel's assistance. Somehow I suspect Kyle would appreciate being able to get to his bed when he gets here.

OK, so maybe he had reason to laugh. . .

2006-02-14T11:25:00.000-05:00

I keep forgetting that preparing the room for painting takes quite a while all by itself. One of these days I'll stop combining that with the priming day. I spent most of yesterday sanding walls and cleaning up the dust so that I could get the masking tape and paint to stick (in the appropriate locations). Masking off the edges of the floor and laying paper around the bed went quickly, and then I spent the better part of two hours cutting in all the edges in the room. I finished up by priming the ceiling.

So, shift the priming work to today, and I'll get to color tomorrow. I might still get the trim done tomorrow, but I expect that will be Thursday's project. We'll still be ready to move furniture in on Thursday evening!

Happy Valentine's Day to all my ohana!