Around the House

We bought some couches from our friend, Tara, who along with her husband and son will soon be setting off an a grand RV adventure. (That is a whole other post.) They sold almost all of their stuff. I also bought a CD/record/tape/mp3 player from them, which I dearly, dearly love. We are currently missing their going away party because Irina woke up with the flu. The bird picture is from an old calendar that I love and the frame is from the thrift store. As soon as I get some more frames I will add more pictures from the calendar, including my favorite, which is of various birds' eggs, with labels.

The picture in the middle I took and developed myself when I was taking Photography 101 during Harper's infancy. The picture is of her hand and mine. The other two pictures I took more recently. The belly one was on this blog and is of my pregnant belly containing Silas, my hand on top, and Irina's hand on top of that. The other is Silas's hands and part of his face while sleeping. At first I had these pictures centered above the bigger couch, but then I moved the couch. Rather than move the pictures as well, I think I will just take more pictures of the same sort and just make a line of them. That's more fun! I am thinking about doing one of Saren's hand holding Irina's hand, since Saren is the only child not represented up there.

Window crayons are the greatest!

This is a bead creation made by Saren that we have hanging on the dining room chandelier. It makes me smile.

This is what we see looking out the back. The mountain is nice. The power line, not so much. I can ignore it though and appreciate the mountain.

The girls like to put things on our fat cats.

Cutie Pie.

I have nothing to say.

I can't come up with a cohesive theme for this blog entry, but I'm blogging anyway.

The girls all did a homeschool gymnastics class today and they all liked it enough that they want to do it again. At $5 per kid, per class, I'm happy with that. It was the first time we've been to a "real" gymnastics place, as opposed to a gymnastics class put on by a community center. Irina had a blast, especially. She had a bit of trouble figuring a few things out, but overall she did fine.

Tomorrow we have our weekly park day with the Life Learners and I have one kid who isn't so keen on going because, as an introvert, more than one activity per week (plus a lot of errands over the weekend) feels like too much for her. As it is, most park days she's the one who is asking if we can just go already, while the other two are always upset to leave. I'm trying to figure out how to balance the needs of all of my children, but it seems to be my eternal quest. I just can't figure out how to make everyone happy. The compromise this time is to go to park day, but after lunch and only for a couple of hours. It would help my introvert immensely if she had a good friend who was always willing to play one-on-one with her and who was there consistently. She's had two in the past, but both have moved away.

Pat bought a bike today for taking to the bus stop on the days we need the van. Meaning he starts riding it tomorrow. I feel nervous about it and it isn't even me who has to ride it. Stupid car-crazy society.

Speaking of which, I am starting to realize just how far out we are from pretty much everything. Today going to gymnastics I was thinking it would be about a 15 minute drive, but it was more like 25. Every time we are driving home from somewhere and we just keep...on...going... it just hits me again.

Lastly, we've been looking around for a couch. We need either a small sectional or a sofa and loveseat because I want all of us to be able to sit down comfortably in the living room, no fighting over seating. New stuff is expensive. And the stuff that is new, but not all that expensive makes me wonder how long it would last. There's always craigslist, but I think I'm leaning toward a consignment store at this point. We've been to two and have seen a couple of possibilities. We'll go out this weekend and hopefully get it all taken care of. I have decided what I want and we'll just have to see if the universe delivers.

Oh wait, not lastly. Speaking of the universe delivering, we also needed a dining room table because the one we had was not big enough and also it was meant to be the craft table. On Sunday, after going out and about looking at furniture, we came home to find a table sitting out in front of our neighbors' house with a "free" sign on it. It's not the best table in the world, but it's big enough and it's good enough for now, so that we can concentrate on getting a decent couch. I like it fine and will probably hang on to it for a couple of years. Free is good.

Morning

Life is good. I have a snuggly baby nursing on my lap. The big girls are still sleeping. Irina is downstairs with her daily viewing of Mamma Mia. Last night a new season of Survivor started up and it looks like it's going to be a pretty good one. This morning the tax refund was deposited, 4 days before they said it would be. And this picture was waiting for me in my inbox.

photo by Sara Janssen

Twenty Ten Goals Revisited

So, I wrote down my goals for 2010 here. I've already accomplished one of them! Let me just take a minute here to congratulate myself and tell me how awesome I am. Way to go, me.

I wasn't as detailed as I wanted to be on ye old blog, because I didn't want to jinx myself. Also, I thought, I'll forget about all this in a month so why bother? But I haven't forgotten, though I have to admit I'm not as on top of things as I wish I was. Whatever! We moved! So here are the more detailed versions of my goals and how things are going with them.

Knitting/Crocheting. I want to finish one knit or crocheted item per month. I don't think that's too difficult a goal to reach at all. (I hope.) I very nearly finished something up during January, but 1)I didn't like it, and 2)I was thrown for an emotional loop when I was very nearly almost done and then I didn't want to finish it anymore. The upset actually did have to do with the knitted item (in a roundabout way), so it wasn't just this random thing. I may or may not get into that at a later date. Crypticism rocks. For this month I've already finished one thing. It's kind of not that great though. I'm hoping to finish a soaker for Silas by the end of February and that will be my real item.

Sewing. I totally didn't even mention sewing. But I want to sew more this year and my more detailed version is that I want to finish sewing at least one item each month AND at some point this year, I want to sew something I can wear. Last month I sewed these things for my brother.

They are handsewn, which totally counts. I have this ambitious idea that I will make all of Silas's clothes for the spring/summer season. And a lot of Irina's. And a few things for the older girls, maybe. That's harder, them being bigger and having opinions and all. For Silas's wardrobe, I want to make a lot of things by re-using old or unwanted or outgrown things.

Eat from home more. There's no more detail on this, but the corollary is, of course, eat out less. So far, so bad. There was a lot of eating out due to being busy with moving. Hopefully that will get better soon. Oh, wait. There is a bit more detail on this one and that is that I want to grow something I can eat this year. I'm kind of vague and deliberately shooting low on that part of the goal because I don't have a good history of growing things. Other thoughts and considerations on food: thinking about easing us into a more traditional foods type diet, making room in the budget or making extra money to accommodate raw milk and cheese, possibly getting chickens.

Draw more and write more. I didn't have any output goals with either of these things and now I'm wondering if I should because not much has been happening in these areas. Boo.

November Book Log - Reviews

Still catching up.

When You Reach Me ~ Rebecca Stead
middle grade
I really liked this book. It's interesting because I generally don't feel that strongly about middle grade books. Usually they're just enjoyable or not, but I thought this one was very good. It is set in the late seventies and features latch-key kids, A Wrinkle in Time, time travel, and $20,000 Pyramid. What's not to love? Some of the reviews say that there are parallels between When You Reach Me and A Wrinkle in Time, but I haven't read the latter in ages. Maybe I will revisit it. It reminded me of the kind of books I read when I was younger as well as my own experience growing up. I definitely recommend it for kids and grown-ups who like kids books.

Jellicoe Road ~ Melina Marchetta
Young Adult
This book started out confusing as hell. Switching viewpoints, switching times, not enough info, too much to sort out. I liked the prose though, so I stuck with it. I'm glad I did because it did eventually become easier to follow and I liked it well enough.

Set in Australia, the story revolves around the boarding school kids, the town kids, and the Cadets, who are all at war with each other. The main character was abandoned a long time ago by her mother and sent to live at the boarding school. Throughout the book, she uncovers more and more of the mystery of her own life and that of her mother's generation. As the story goes on, you see how the past has shaped the present and how the characters are entwined, though they don't know it.

I had some trouble with the aspect of there being far too much tragedy for one small group of people to have endured (making it somewhat unbelievable for me) but that was an integral part of the story, so it's not like it would have been the same without it. It was just something you had to accept, I guess.

Overall, pretty good, though it takes some effort.

Back in Cloth Plus Other Stuff

For awhile Silas has been using disposables due to our washing machine at the old house having a leaking problem. I finally found the box with his snappis in it and now he's back in cloth. Unfortunately ec'ing has fallen by the wayside as well in these past few months. I'm going to try to get him back into it by sitting him on the potty after naps and such, but I don't know how successful I will be. It's good to have him back in cloth diapers again. I love his giant cushy butt.

I'm so happy to be living in this house. But there's this part of me that feels like it's so superficial to love a thing like that. First world guilt, I think. I have it for a lot of things. Guilt or not, I wake up and think to myself, I live here. This house is not a falling-apart dump and I live in it and I am so happy. And then another part of me pipes up saying, "But what about wanting to live in a non-cookie-cutter house, someplace with character?" And I shove that part down and say to it, "Later, later." For now, I like this.

Also, I changed my header, which I think I may try to do on a monthly basis. This one is Psychedelic Raindrops.

House Good, Distance Bad

We had our first Life Learners coming from the new house. Since we are very far out, the sucky transit system doesn't go all the way out to where we are. So, Silas, Irina, and I woke up very early and drove Pat to the bus stop. Ridiculous. Well, I mean. It wasn't that bad, I just don't get why the bus doesn't go all the way out to the edges of the city. Makes no sense.

So, options for the days on which the kids and I want to keep the van. Buy a small car for Pat. Drawbacks are that it is expensive, requires ongoing costs in maintenance, registration, and insurance, and pollutes. Buy a scooter for Pat. Drawbacks are that it will make me worried every time he's on it that some overzealous Hummer is going to mow him down. Buy a bike for Pat and have him ride it to the bus stop. Drawbacks are that it might be too hot in the summer and there's the whole getting mown down thing, though it would be for a shorter distance, just being to the bus stop and all. Oh, and after he gets off the bus at the end of the trip there's another little bit that would have to be navigated.

I'd say what the positives were, but I'm missing a Survivor special so I've got to go. What think y'all?

FIVE!!!!

My baby girl is five! We've had a laid back day today, just hangin' at home and playing. Irina is playing with her new shopping cart and cash register, which I got for her because she so loves to play store. Sometimes she plays with Harper, sometimes just on her own. She tends to gravitate toward toy shopping carts and toy cash registers when we're in the toy aisle lately. She also received a book (Goldilicious, because she loved Pinkalicious so much when we got it from the library), an outfit, and a little indoor play tent. Harper gave her a stuffed cat with some homemade accoutrements. I think the star-of-the-show present though, was a new/hand-me-down DS from big sis, Saren.

Here are a few pics of the birthday girl.