Carrolls All Year

Ketchup!

2012-02-13T12:34:00.000-08:00

See what I made today?

Ketchup!

It even tastes like ketchup. The jar is a little steamy because it was still warm when I poured it in, and I used aluminum foil with the jar ring because I couldn't find a proper lid, but I don't expect this to hang around very long anyway.

Here's the recipe:

1 6 oz can of tomato paste
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup white vinegar
1/4 cup water
1 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/8 tsp garlic powder

Combine all ingredients in saucepan over medium heat. Whisk until smooth. When mixture boils, reduce heat and simmer 20 minutes, stirring often. Remove pan from heat and cover until cool. Chill and store in covered container. Makes 1 1/2 cups.
From Top Secret Recipes

I used honey instead of corn syrup, and omitted the extra sugar. It came out a little on the sweet side. I think I should have reduced the honey to 1/4 a cup and worked up a tablespoon at a time until it tasted right.

I also only had red wine vinegar, but it doesn't seem to have affected the taste too much.

Also, thanks, Mom, for the batteries! :-)

Park day

2012-02-08T16:27:00.000-08:00

Alas, I have no pictures because my camera is dead.

But my hubby left for school today. He was gone five minutes and I asked the munchkins, "Want to go to the park?"

I had planned on doing some school with them, drilling letters and counting pencils and drawing pictures. But ... dang it ... it's a nice day and I haven't been outside in three days. PARK DAY!!

So we hoofed it over to the park and let them run wild. Other kids came and went, so they had other people to play with. Claire wasn't happy about not being allowed to eat sand, so she sat in the stroller, or rode in swings, or sat on a blanket with mom. She's to that stage where she can crawl well, but she hates the feel of grass. So she just tentatively pats it and looks at her hand as if expecting spikes to be stuck in it.

I packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and brownies, so they had a refuel snack at 10:30.

Hubby came and picked us up after he got off school at noon. By then we were all exhausted and hungry, especially mama.

I covertly tried to cross the monkey bars. I couldn't move my arm to the next bar. I'm absolutely pathetic. I need to run around the playground, myself, just to build some muscle. Is playground activity considered aerobic exercise?

Salad confessions

2012-02-06T19:15:00.000-08:00

I have a confession to make.

I have no idea how to make a salad from scratch.

My idea of a salad from scratch is one of those premade bagged deals with the dressing and tortilla strips.

So, assuming I wanted to have some lettuce on hand for salad making, what should I get? One head of iceburg? Romaine? (Can you eat all of the Romaine or only the hearts?)

I'm a salad noob. I have no idea how you do it. And I'm craving greens something fierce.

Also, can you make bean sprouts from any old beans, or does it have to be soybeans?

Kid pics

2012-02-03T10:29:00.000-08:00

It's time for another edition of ...

Pictures I Found In My Camera Not Taken By Me!

The mysterious things that go on around here that I'm not privy to. The thing is, most of the time, we're all in the same room together! I don't understand how these things happen.

On the side

2012-02-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

I told my son that tonight for dinner we were having macaroni and cheese with hamburger on the side.

He asked, "And Mac and Cheese on the front?"

Courage

2012-02-01T09:12:00.000-08:00

The definition of courage is not the absence of fear, but of doing what you have to do in spite of the fear.

Yesterday my husband bit the bullet and did something that took a lot of courage. He came home devastated, but I'm so proud of him.

I baked a turkey yesterday because I wanted something different for lunch. Turkey sandwiches, yummy.

My turkey did not look like this. It burned on top, so it looked, well, Cajun. But fortunately that was only the skin, and the meat underneath was still delicious.

I also made gravy from the drippings. It was fantastic. I made biscuits this morning so we could have that gravy again for breakfast.

I'm afraid I have this tendency to love people with food. But my poor brave husband deserved the best spread I could put on.

No Stroganoff

2012-01-25T09:12:00.000-08:00

A couple people asked how my stroganoff turned out last night.

Except, er, it turned out that I made something else.

I made THESE bad boys!

Ground Beef and Bisciuts from Taste of Home.

I didn't have the mushrooms and consumme that you need to make stroganoff, which I didn't realize until 5 minutes before I started cooking. So I typed "ground beef" into the search on Taste of Home and picked the first thing that looked tasty.

It kind of tasted like the Sloppy Joes in a Pan that we used to make off the Bisquick box. The recipe calls for canned biscuits, but I just whipped up a batch of baking powder biscuits. It was delicious. Even the munchkins ate it, which is a change from the norm. :-)

Wednesday chats

2012-01-24T15:43:00.000-08:00

Doing Patrice's Farmhouse Chats today!

We're staring into an interminable period of Tule fog. But one of the neighbors is anticipating spring. They're even helping it along with silk flowers in a bush.

I chuckle every time I walk by.

Anyway, onto the meme questions!

Kimberly asks: How long have you blogged?

I started up my art blog in August 2009, and this blog in February of 2010. So 3 years, give or take. My art blog gets me to occasionally draw things, and this blog helps me stay in touch with family.

Lana asks:What is the most difficult part of taking care of chickens?

Keeping their pen cleaned and keeping them entertained. Bored chickens are destructive to themselves and their eggs. Chickens aren't much harder than any other pet, provided you don't have too many of them. And you can play with them and make them into pets just like any cage bird. Except you can banish chickens to the coop when you're tired of them. :-)

Susannah asks: Would you prefer to live where it's hot or cold?

Somewhere hot. Oh wait, I already live there! I can't tolerate the cold. I can't do real extreme heat, like the Sahara, but Southern Cali isn't too bad.

Farm Girl asks: What sort of things are you looking forward to in 2012?

That depends on a lot of things. Holidays and birthdays, hanging out with family, canning time rolling around again. Beyond that, the future is uncertain so I have no plans.

Dreaming asks: What's for dinner?

Beef stroganoff! I only just realized that Hamburger Helper is stroganoff in a box. Except when you make it from scratch it has a sour cream sauce and stuff. So I'll give it a shot tonight and see how folks like it. The munchkins are hugely picky right now. I don't know how health-food people get their kids to eat anything fermented or whatever. If I make food that tastes slightly off, they turn up their noses.

Cold Cali

2012-01-18T14:22:00.000-08:00

You know how I just posted last week about how warm it was?

Well, the weather changed. Now it's frigid. And since coldness is relative, I won't tell you the exact temperature because you'll laugh. We actually have rain on the forecast for this weekend. We need rain, because it's only physically possible to have rain here in the winter. You know how Arizona gets monsoons and Texas gets big thunderstorms in the summer? We get nothin'.

The oldest munchkin is almost reading. I've been making him do phonics drills on a game called Phonics Vowels on my ipod, and it's taught him how words fit together. He wants to read in the worst way. He sounds out signs and logos on passing trucks and comes up with words out of his head. I imagine this will lure me into a false sense of how easy it is to teach reading, then my other two won't read until they're 10.

Not much else has been going on. I've been educating myself on how to write for publication. Writing for publication means that you write your heart out and then edit your brains out, in that order. With small children around, I can't feasibly publish anything, but I can sure practice.

And then next year I'll start homeschooling in earnest. I'm sure my oldest munchkin will wind up like Ramses from the Amelia Peabody series. "It's obviouswy the tibia of a winocerwus."

Worried eyebrows

2012-01-16T08:02:00.000-08:00

Look at those little worried eyebrows! This is one of those pictures taken by the munchkins as they ran amuck with my camera. I'm always amused to see what they come up with, because their pictures have such fun perspective.

Happy Monday! Martin Luther King has nothing to do with how dirty my house is and meals that must be cooked. Some people just don't get days off. :-)

Warm Cali

2012-01-14T09:25:00.000-08:00

It's been about 65-70 degrees here in Cali lately. No rain since November. The ground is hard as rock and twice as powdery. It's disconcerting to be in the middle of winter and have all this spring-like weather that nonetheless still smells like winter.

This is how warm it's been. The door is open. The munchkins running around outside. The baby comfortable in bare feet, playing with a broom.

Chats in the new year

2012-01-04T14:35:00.000-08:00

Since I need to blog, and I have no idea what in the world to write about, it's time for a meme! Thanks, Patrice!

What's your favorite kind of tree?

This question is a little ambiguous. If we're talking Christmas trees, then mine is blue spruce, because they have those nice, skinny branches to hang ornaments on.

For other kinds of trees, I like the various ash trees because they're nice to climb in. Oaks look neat, but they take too long to grow. I'm also growing fond of magnolias despite their mess, because of their semi-fuzzy leaves and those ginormous flowers.

How did you celebrate the New Year?

I told the kids they could stay up until midnight, if they could. The baby and 2 year old went to bed at 8. I played games with the 4 year old until 10, when I had to crash. He only made it to about 10:30. Morale drops when Mom's not around.

Do you have any family traditions for the New Year?

Not really. New Year is the no-show holiday after Christmas. Oh, wait, I guess we do have a tradition. No driving anywhere New Year's Even starting about noon. The drunk drivers are frightening.

I'm so glad I____________ in 2011.

Had kid #3!

Did you have a nickname as a child?

Not really. My self-given nickname of NetRaptor was how I went on the internet, though, and I'm still just as comfortable being called "NR" as I am my real name.

Here's a blurry picture of me that the kids snapped. As you can see, this is how I pass my time.

New sofa

2011-12-28T16:49:00.000-08:00

Because I'm sure everybody's so interested in our new furniture, right?

I'm excited because it's the first new furniture we ever picked out and bought ourselves. We went shopping for used furniture, and we liked this one. Also I dibs'd a rocking chair. I've gone three babies now with no rocking chair. It was time.

The sofa is dark green, and makes our tiny living room look quite fancy indeed.

I'm going to attempt to sand down and refinish the rocking chair over the summer, because the finish is flaking off.

We didn't realize until my hubby and brother were trying to lift the sofa into the truck that it's also a hideabed. Because it weighed approximately 5000 pounds. I helped them muscle it into the house, and we were all exhausted afterward. But we had wanted a hideabed if at all possible, and we got one completely by accident!

Does God care about sofa shopping? Because He sure seemed to direct us to the right one. :-)

Tuesday ramble

2011-12-27T14:46:00.000-08:00

I had a few minutes to sit down and update blogs. And now that I'm sitting here, I can't think of anything to say.

Not much has been going on since Christmas. I'm glad it's over, personally. So much stress and anxiety. I do think that I ought to become Orthodox, just to celebrate Christmas on January 6th. Think of all the loot I could pick up during the post-Christmas sales!

Or Catholic. Do Catholics celebrate on the 6th or the 25th? My ignorance of this is embarrassing.

I got a bunch of great books that I've been wanting all year. Those on top of my unread library books, I'm all set. I've also been devouring freebies via Kindle. I haven't read so many genres in a long time.

It's also a good way to read books I'm not sure about *cough*christianfantasy*cough* without shelling out 20 bucks for them, then being stuck with a lemon on my bookshelf.

Although, since we got rid of the sofa and chair, there's nowhere to sit in here. I'm going to go shopping after new year's and see what I can scrounge up.

The poor munchkins haven't had any of their new books read to them, because it's so hard to sit on the floor and read to them.

So there you have it. Not much going on to speak of. The sick munchkin is finally well, but she was sick for an entire week. This morning she played with toys, and I was so relieved.

Christmas 2011

2011-12-25T18:24:00.000-08:00

Even though a sick child necessitated canceling our family get together on Christmas eve, it was a nice Christmas anyway.

Childlike Christmas - unintentionally busy

2011-12-21T14:59:00.000-08:00

This is the spot where the couch was. Now there is a Christmas tree. This happened this morning.

Our couch and chair were on loan from my mother-in-law. I wanted to get some new furniture, so we arranged to move her sofa and chair to storage. For some reason, that didn't actually happen until this morning.

The couch had accumulated a lot of junk beneath it and behind it. So as I was frantically trying to clean up this fantastic mess, the guy shows up at the door to fix the cracked tile in the bathroom. (We put in the work request about a week ago and I forgot all about it.)

So my hubby and my brother hauled the furniture out, I cleaned the living room with three enthusiastic munchkins underfoot, and the repair guy rushed in and out with various tools and minor demolition mess.

But as you can see, now it's all clean, and the Christmas tree actually touches the floor this year. The kids have been playing there nonstop.

I'm not sure how this relates to a Childlike Christmas. It was just our crazy morning today.

A Christmas story - Candle in the Forest

2011-12-19T17:08:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd post this on both my blogs today. This is my traditional Christmas story to read every year. I always try to share it with folks online, too, as it’s just a little short story, and so lovely. No barbed sting in its tail to make you cry, unless you cry at happy endings.

Candle in the Forest
by Temple Bailey

The small girl's mother was saying, "The onions will be silver,
and the carrots will be gold--"
"And the potatoes will be ivory," said the small girl, and they
laughed together. The small girl's mother had a big white bowl in her
lap, and she was cutting up vegetables. The onions were the hardest,
because she cried over them.
"But our tears will be pearls," said the small girl's mother,
and they laughed at that and dried their eyes, and found the carrots
much easier, and the potatoes the easiest of all.
Then the next-door-neighbor came in and said, "What are you doing?"

"We are making a vegetable pie for our Christmas dinner," said the
small girl's mother.
"And the onions are silver, and the carrots are gold, and the
potatoes are ivory," said the small girl.
"I am sure I don't know what you are talking about," said the
next-door-neighbor. "We are going to have turkey for dinner, and
cranberries and celery."
The small girl laughed and clapped her hands. "But we are going to
have a Christmas pie--and the onions will be silver and the carrots
gold--"
"You said that once," said the next-door-neighbor, "and I should
think you'd know they weren't anything of the kind."
"But they are," said the small girl, all shining eyes and rosy
cheeks.
"Run along, darling," said the small girl's mother, "and find poor
Pussy-purr-up. He's out in the cold. And you can put on your red
sweater and red cap."
So the small girl hopped away like a happy robin, and the next-
door-neighbor said, "She's old enough to know that onions aren't
silver."
"But they are," said the small girl's mother. "And carrots are
gold and the potatoes are--"
The next-door-neighbor's face was flaming. "If you say that
again, I'll scream. It sounds silly to me."
"But it isn't in the least silly," said the small girl's mother,
and her eyes were blue as sapphires, and as clear as the sea; "it is
sensible. When people are poor, they have to make the most of little
things. And we'll only have inexpensive things in our pie, but the
onions will be silver--"
The lips of the next-door-neighbor were folded in a thin line.
"If you had acted like a sensible creature, I shouldn't have asked
you for the rent."
The small girl's mother was silent for a moment; then she said,
"I am sorry--it ought to be sensible to make the best of things."
"Well," said the next-door neighbor, sitting down in a chair
with a very stiff back, "a pie is a pie. And I wouldn't want to teach
a child to call it anything else."
"I haven't taught her to call it anything else. I was only
trying to make her feel that it was something fine and splendid for
Christmas Day, so I said that the onions were silver--"
"Don't say that again," snapped the next-door-neighbor, "and I
want the rent as soon as possible."
With that, she flung up her head and marched out the front door,
and slammed it behind her and made wild echoes in the little home.
And the small girl's mother stood there alone in the middle of
the floor, and her eyes were like the sea in a storm.
But presently the door opened, and the small girl, looking like
a red-breast robin, hopped in, and after her came a great black cat
with his tail in the air, and he said, "Purr-up," which gave him his
name.
And the small girl said, out of the things she had been thinking,
"Mother, why don't we have turkey?"
The clear look came back into the eyes of the small girl's mother,
and she said, "Because we are content."
And the small girl said, "What is content?"
And her mother said, "It is making the best of what God gives us.
And our best for Christmas Day, my darling, is our Christmas pie."
So she kissed the small girl, and they finished peeling the
vegetables, and then they put them to simmer on the back of the stove.

After that, the small girl had her supper of bread and milk, and
Pussy-purr-up had milk in a saucer on the hearth, and the small girl
climbed up on her mother's lap and said, "Tell me a story."
But the small girl's mother said, "Won't it be nicer to talk
about Christmas presents?"
And the small girl sat up and said, "Let's."
And the mother said, "Let's tell each other what we'd rather have
in the whole wide world."
"Oh, let's," said the small girl. "And I'll tell you first that I
want a doll--and I want it to have a pink dress--and I want it to have
eyes that open and shut--and I want it to have shoes and stockings--and
I want it to have curly hair--" She had to stop, because she didn't
have any breath left in her body, and when she got her breath back, she
said, "Now what do you want, Mother, more than anything else in the
whole wide world?"
"Well," said the mother, "I want a chocolate mouse."
"Oh," said the small girl scornfully, "I shouldn't think you'd
want that."
"Why not?"
"Because a chocolate mouse isn't anything."
"Oh yes, it is," said the small girl's mother. "A chocolate mouse
is Dickory-Dock, and Pussy-Cat-Pussy-Cat-where-have-you-been-was-
frightened-under-a-chair, and the mice in Three-Blind-Mice ran after
the farmer's wife, and the mouse in A-Frog-Would-A-Wooing-Go went down
the throat of the crow--"
And the small girl said, "Could a chocolate mouse do all that?"
"Well," said the small girl's mother, "we could put him on the
clock, and under a chair, and cut his tail with a carving knife, and
at the very last we could eat him like a crow--"
The small girl said, shivering deliciously, "And he wouldn't be
a real mouse?"
"No, just a chocolate one, with cream inside."
"Do you think I'll get one for Christmas?"
"I'm not sure," said the mother.
"Would he be nicer than a doll?"
The small girl's mother hesitated, then told her the truth. "My
darling, Mother saved up money for a doll, but the next-door-neighbor
wants the rent."
"Hasn't Daddy any more money?"
"Poor Daddy has been sick so long."
"But he's well now."
"I know. But he has to pay for the doctors, and money for
medicine, and money for your red sweater, and money for milk for Pussy-
purr-up, and money for our pie."
"The boy-next-door says we're poor, Mother."
"We are rich, my darling. We have love, each other, and Pussy-
purr-up--"
"His mother won't let him have a cat," said the small girl, with
her mind still on the boy-next-door. "But he's going to have a radio."
"Would you rather have a radio than Pussy-purr-up?"
The small girl gave a crow of derision. "I'd rather have Pussy-
purr-up than anything else in the whole wide world."
At that, the great cat, who had been sitting on the hearth with
his paws tucked under him and his eyes like moons, stretched out his
satin-shining length and jumped up on the arm of the chair beside the
small girl and her mother, and began to sing a song that was like a
mill-wheel away off. He purred to them so loud and so long that at last
the small girl grew drowsy.
"Tell me some more about the chocolate mouse," she said, and
nodded, and slept.
The small girl's mother carried her into another room, put her to
bed, and came back to the kitchen, and it was full of shadows.

But she did not let herself sit among them. She wrapped herself in
a great cape and went out into the cold dusk. There was a sweep of wind,
heavy clouds overhead, and a band of dull orange showing back of the
trees, where the sun had burned down.
She went straight from her little house to the big house of the
next-door-neighbor and rang the bell at the back entrance. A maid let
her into the kitchen, and there was the next-door-neighbor, and the two
women who worked for her, and a daughter-in-law who had come to spend
Christmas. The great range was glowing, and things were simmering, and
things were stewing, and things were steaming, and things were baking,
and things were boiling, and things were broiling, and there were the
fragrances of a thousand delicious dishes in the air.
And the next-door-neighbor said: "We are trying to get as much
done as possible tonight. We have plans for 12 people for Christmas
dinner tomorrow."
And the daughter-in-law, who was all dressed up and had an apron
tied about her, said in a sharp voice, "I can't see why you don't let
your maids work for you."
And the next-door-neighbor said: "I have always worked. There is
no excuse for laziness."
And the daughter-in-law said, "I'm not lazy, if that's what you
mean. And we'll never have any dinner if I have to cook it." And she
went out of the kitchen with tears of rage in her eyes.
And the next-door-neighbor said, "If she hadn't gone when she
did, I should have told her to go," and there was rage in her eyes
but no tears.
She took her hands out of the pan of bread crumbs and sage, which
was being mixed for the stuffing, and said to the small girl's mother,
"Did you come to pay the rent?"
The small girl's mother handed her the money, and the next-door-
neighbor went upstairs to write a receipt. Nobody asked the small
girl's mother to sit down, so she stood in the middle of the floor and
sniffed the entrancing fragrances, and looked at the mountain of food
that would have served her small family for a month.
While she waited, the boy-next-door came in and said, "Are you
the small girl's mother?"
"Yes."
"Are you going to have a tree?"
"Yes."
"Do you want to see mine?"
"It would be wonderful."
So he led her down a long passage to a great room, and there was
a tree that touched the ceiling, and on the very top branches and on
all the other branches were myriads of little lights that shone like
stars, and there were gold balls and silver ones, and red and blue and
green balls, and under the tree and on it were toys for boys and toys
for girls, and one of the toys was a doll in a pink dress! At that,
the heart of the small girl's mother tightened, and she was glad she
wasn't a thief, or she would have snatched at the pink doll when the
boy wasn't looking, and hidden it under her cape, and run away with it.

The next-door-neighbor-boy was saying, "It's the finest tree
anybody has around here. But Dad and Mother don't know that I've seen
it."
"Oh, don't they?" said the small girl's mother.
"No," said the boy-next-door, with a wide grin, "and it's fun to
fool 'em."
"Is it?" said the small girl's mother. "Now, do you know, I
should think that the very nicest thing in the whole world would be
not to have seen the tree."
"Because," said the small girl's mother, "the nicest thing in the
world would be to have somebody tie a handkerchief around your eyes,
so tight, and then to have somebody take your hand and lead you in and
out, and in and out, and in and out, until you didn't know where you
were, and then to have them untie the handkerchief--and there would be
the tree, all shining and splendid!" She stopped, but her singing
voice seemed to echo and re-echo in the great room.
The boy's staring eyes had a new look in them. "Did anybody ever
tie a handkerchief over your eyes?"
"Oh yes--"
"And lead you in and out, and in and out?"
"Yes."
"Well, nobody does things like that in our house. They think it's
silly."
The small girl's mother laughed, and her laugh tinkled like a
bell. "Do you think it's silly?"
He was eager. "No, I don't."
She held out her hand to him. "Will you come and see our tree?"
"Tonight?"
"No, tomorrow morning--early."
"Before breakfast?"
She nodded.
"I'd like it!"

So that was a bargain, and with a quick squeeze of their hands on
it. And the small girl's mother went back to the kitchen, and the next-
door-neighbor came down with the receipt, and the small girl's mother
went out the back door and found that the orange band that had burned
on the horizon was gone, and that there was just the wind and the
singing of the trees.
Two men passed her on the brick walk that led to the house, and
one of the men was saying, "If you'd only be fair to me, Father."
And the other man said, "All you want of me is money."
"You taught me that, Father."
"Blame it on me--"
"You are to blame. You and mother--did you ever show me the finer
things?"
Their angry voices seemed to beat against the noise of the wind
and singing trees, so that the small girl's mother shivered, and drew
her cape around her, and ran as fast as she could to her little house.
There were all the shadows to meet her, but she did not sit
among them. She made coffee and a dish of milk toast, and set the
toast in the oven to keep hot, and then she stood at the window
watching. At last she saw through the darkness what looked like a star
low down, and she knew that that star was a lantern, and she ran out
and opened the door wide.
And her young husband set the lantern down on the threshold, and
took her in his arms, and said, "The sight of you is more than food
and drink."
When he said that, she knew he had had a hard day, but her heart
leaped because she knew that what he said of her was true.
Then they went into the house together, and she set the food
before him. And that he might forget his hard day, she told him of her
own. And when she came to the part about the next-door-neighbor and
the rent, she said, "I'm telling you this because it has a happy
ending."
And he put his hands over hers and said, "Everything with you
has a happy ending."
"Well, this is a happy ending," said the small girl's mother,
with all the sapphires in her eyes emphasizing it. "Because when I went
over there to pay the rent, I was feeling how poor we were and wishing
that I had a pink doll for Baby, and books for you, and, and--and a
magic carpet to carry us away from work and worry. And then I went
into the parlor and saw the tree--with everything hanging on it that
was glittering and gorgeous, and then I came home." Her breath was
quick and her lips smiling. "I came home--and I was glad I lived in
my little home."
"What made you glad, dearest?"
"Oh, love is here; and hate is there, and a boy's deceit, and a
man's injustice. They were saying sharp things to each other--and--
and--their dinner will be a stalled ox--and in my little house is the
faith of a child in the goodness of God, and the bravery of a man who
fought for his country--"
She was in his arms now.
"And the blessing of a woman who has never known defeat." His
voice broke on the words.
In that moment it seemed as if the trees stopped sighing, as
if there was the sound of heavenly singing.
The small girl's mother and the small girl's father sat up
very late that night. They popped a great bowlful of crisp snow corn
and made it into balls; they boiled sugar and molasses, and cracked
nuts, and made candy of them. They cut funny little Christmas fairies
out of paper and painted their jackets bright red, with round silver
buttons of the tinfoil that came on cream cheese. And then they put
the balls and the candy and the painted fairies and a long red candle
in a big basket, and set it away. And the small girl's mother brought
out the chocolate mouse.
"We will put this on the clock," she said, "where her eyes
will rest on it the first thing in the morning."
So they put it there, and it seemed as natural as life, so that
Pussy-purr-up positively licked his chops and sat in front of the
clock to keep his eye on the chocolate mouse. The small girl's mother
said, "She was lovely about giving up the doll, and she will love the
tree."
"We'll have to get up very early," said the small girl's father.
"And you'll have to run ahead to light the candle."

* * *

Well, they got up before dawn the next morning, and so did the
boy-next-door. He was there on the step, waiting, blowing on his hands
and beating them quite like the poor little boys do in a Christmas
story, who haven't any mittens. But he wasn't a poor little boy, and he
had so many pairs of fur-trimmed gloves that he didn't know what to do
with them, but he had left the house in such a hurry that he had
forgotten to put them on. So there he stood on the front step of the
little house, blowing on his hands and beating them. And it was dark,
with a sort of pale shine in the heavens, which didn't seem to come
from the stars or the herald of the dawn; it was just a mystical silver
glow that set the boy's heart to beating.
He had never been out alone like this. He had always stayed in
his warm bed until somebody called him, and then he had waited until
they called again, and then he had dressed and gone to breakfast,
where his father scolded because he was late, and his mother scolded
because he ate too fast. But this day had begun with adventure, and
for the first time, under that silvery sky, he felt the thrill of it.
Then suddenly someone came around the house--someone tall and
thin, with a cap on his head and an empty basket in his hands.
"Hello," he said. "A merry Christmas!"
He was the small girl's father, and he put the key in the lock
and went in, and turned on a light, and there was the table set for
four.
And the small girl's father said, "You see, we have set a place
for you. We must eat something before we go out."
And the boy said, "Are we going out? I came to see the tree."
"We are going out to see the tree."
Before the boy could ask any questions, the small girl's mother
appeared with fingers on her lips and said, "Sh-sh," and then began to
recite in a hushed voice, "Hickory-Dickory-Dock--"
Then there was a little cry and the sound of dancing feet, and
the small girl in a red dressing gown came flying in.
"Oh Mother, Mother, the mouse is on the clock--the mouse is on
the clock!"
Well, it seemed to the little boy that he had never seen
anything so exciting as the things that followed. The chocolate mouse
went up the clock and under the chair and would have had its tail cut
off except that the small girl begged to save it.
"I want to keep it as it is, Mother."
And playing this game as if it were the most important thing in
the whole wide world were the small girl's mother and the small girl's
father, all laughing and flushed, and chanting the quaint old words to
the quaint old music. The boy-next-door held his breath for fear he
would wake up from this entrancing dream and find himself in his own
big house, alone in his puffy bed, or eating breakfast with his stodgy
parents who never played with him in his life. He found himself
laughing too, and flushed and happy, and trying to sing in his funny
boy's voice.
The small girl absolutely refused to eat the mouse. "He's my
darling Christmas mouse, Mother."
So her mother said, "Well, I'll put him on the clock again,
where Pussy-purr-up can't get him while we are out."
"Oh, are we going out?" said the small girl, round-eyed.
"Yes."
"Where are we going?"
"To find Christmas."

That was all the small girl's mother would tell. So they had
breakfast, and everything tasted perfectly delicious to the boy-next-
door. But first they bowed their heads, and the small girl's father
said, "Dear Christ-Child, on this Christmas morning, bless these
children, and keep our hearts young and full of love for Thee."
The boy-next-door, when he lifted his head, had a funny feeling
as if he wanted to cry, and yet it was a lovely feeling, all warm and
comfortable.
For breakfast they each had a great baked apple, and great
slices of sweet bread and butter, and great glasses of milk, and as
soon as they had finished, away they went out of the door and down
into the woods back of the house, and when they were deep into the
woods, the small girl's father took out of his pocket a little flute
and began to play; he played thin piping tunes that went flitting
around among the trees, and the small girl and her mother hummed the
tunes until it sounded like singing bees, and their feet fairly
danced and the boy found himself humming and dancing with them.
Then suddenly the piping ceased, and a hush fell over the wood.
It was so still they could almost hear each other breathe--so still
that when a light flamed suddenly in that open space, it burned
without a flicker.
The light came from a red candle that was set in the top of a
small living tree. It was the only light on the tree, but it showed
the snowy balls, and the small red fairies whose coats had silver
buttons.
"It's our tree, my darling," he heard the small girl's mother
saying.
Suddenly it seemed to the boy that his heart would burst in his
breast. He wanted someone to speak to him like that. The small girl
sat high on her father's shoulder, and her father held her mother's
hand. It was like a chain of gold, their holding hands like that,
their loving each other.

The boy reached out and touched the woman's hand. She looked down at
him and drew him close. He felt warm and comforted. Their candle
burning there in the darkness was like some sacred fire of friendship.
He wished that it would never go out, that he might stand there
watching it, with his small cold hand in the clasp of the small girl's
mother's hand.
It was late when the boy-next-door got back to his own big house.
But he had not been missed. Everybody was up, and everything was upset.
The daughter-in-law had declared the night before that she would not
stay another day beneath that roof, and off she had gone with her
young husband, and her little girl, who was to have had the pink doll
on the tree.
"And good riddance," said the next-door-neighbor. But she ate no
breakfast, and she went to the kitchen and worked with her maids to get
to the dinner ready, and there were covers laid for nine instead of 12.
And the next-door-neighbor kept saying, "Good riddance--good
riddance," and not once did she say, "A merry Christmas."
But the boy-next-door had something in his heart that was warm
and glowing like the candle in the forest, and he came to his mother
and said, "May I have the pink dolly?"
She spoke frowningly. "What does a boy want of a doll?"
"I'd like to give it to the little girl next door."
"Do you think I can buy dolls to give away in charity?"
"Well, they gave me a Christmas present."
"What did they give you?"
He opened his hand and showed a little flute tied with a gay red
ribbon. He lifted it to his lips and blew on it, a thin piping tune.
"Oh, that," said his mother scornfully. "Why, that's nothing
but a reed from the pond."
But the boy knew it was more than that. It was a magic pipe that
made you dance, and made your heart warm and happy.
So he said again, "I'd like to give her the doll." And he
reached out his little hand and touched his mother's--and his eyes
were wistful.
His mother's own eyes softened--she had lost one son that day--
and she said, "Oh well, do as you please," and went back to the kitchen.
The boy-next-door ran into the great room and took the doll from
the tree, and wrapped her in paper, and flew out the door and down the
brick walk and straight to the little house. When the door was opened,
he saw that his friends were just sitting down to dinner--and there
was the pie, all brown and piping hot, with a wreath of holly, and the
small girl was saying, "And the onions were silver, and the carrots
were gold--"
The boy-next-door went up to the small girl and said, "I've
brought you a present."
With his eyes all lighted up, he took off the paper in which it
was wrapped, and there was the doll, in rosy frills, with eyes that
opened and shut, and shoes and stockings, and curly hair that was
bobbed and beautiful.
And the small girl, in a whirlwind of happiness, said, "Is it
really my doll?" And the boy-next-door felt very shy and happy, and
he said, "Yes."
And the small girl's mother said, "It was a beautiful thing to
do," and she bent and kissed him. Again that bursting feeling came
into the boy's heart and he lifted his face to hers and said, "May I
come sometimes and be your boy?"
And she said, "Yes."
And when at last he went away, she stood in the door and watched
him, such a little lad, who knew so little of loving. And because she
knew so much of love, her eyes filled to overflowing.
But presently she wiped the tears away and went back to the
table; and she smiled at the small girl and at the small girl's
father.
"And the potatoes were ivory," she said. "Oh, who would ask for
turkey, when they can have pie like this?"

Kindle books

2011-12-18T08:33:00.000-08:00

I swore that I'd never get into reading Kindle books. Paper and ink all the way for me, baby!

My opinion of the Kindle was not improved upon acquaintance. It was clunky and hard to use. And ugly.

Then my hubby bequeathed his old ipod to me, and it had a Kindle app. I bought an ebook or two for it, and reading stuff on the ipod wasn't too bad.

Then I discovered the Kindle store on Amazon. Or, more specifically, the free books section.

Every old book that I've adored in my life is free on the Kindle. I found House of a Thousand Candles, and everything George MacDonald ever wrote, and GK Chesterton, and Dickens, and a jillion more. I keep thinking of new authors to look up.

The Kindle isn't half bad when you can get truckloads of free books. GOOD books, too.

Christmas thoughts

2011-12-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

I informed Grandma how the munchkins had no concept of how close Christmas was. She graciously found this calendar for them. We hung it up and the munchkins have ritually moved the marker each day.

The anticipation is building. I love it when the munchkins tell me they want such and such for Christmas. I get to shrug and say with an all-knowing air, "You'll have to wait until Christmas and see." Then they look at the little calendar and count the days. I remember doing the same when I was little.

When I was young, Mom had this counted cross stitch Christmas tree with bells sewed to it, and little ornaments to hang on the bells for each day. They were so tiny that the least breeze knocked the ornaments off, so there was always a sprinkling of tiny candy canes and gingerbread men on the floor beneath it.

Ahh, good memories.

Refracted light

2011-12-12T19:14:00.000-08:00

I had set my quart jar of drinking water on the table beside our little Christmas tree. I turned around and saw this.

I had captured a jar of light.

Childlike Christmas and chats

2011-12-06T21:31:00.000-08:00

Going to cram two memes into today's post!

First off, Pom Pom's Childlike Christmas. It's my first time participating.

Here's one of the little waifs, looking very Tiny Tim in mommy's big hoodie.

Seeing as they're only 4, 2, and 8 months, they're just trying to grasp this whole Christmas thing. They understand the whole "getting presents" thing very well. We're doing Advent candles with Bible reading in the evenings, so hopefully they'll have some idea about the Christmas story.

On Saturday we went to the library, and they went to the storytime thing the library puts on for the kids. The lady had a craft afterward where all the kids made paper ornaments with glitter and those little fuzzy balls and stickers.

I should have taken a picture right after we got home, because they had a lot more stuff on them.

As you see, the fuzzy balls and most of the stickers have been peeled off for use elsewhere.

I'm sad to say, I don't have many pithy thoughts about seeing Christmas through a child's eyes. I feel like that's how I see life right now, and it's actually more difficult to see Christmas as an adult! I do wish I had a nativity creche, so they could play with the little Mary and Joseph and Jesus. Maybe next year.

Now on to Patrice's Farmhouse Porch Chats:

Have you ever had a blog slump?

Yep, all the time. Usually when I'm terribly busy, or sick, or tired. I just have nothing to say, so I look at my blogs and go, "Eh."

Lately I've been playing games with my husband in the evenings, and it's really cut into my blogging. But it makes my hubby so happy. And I've read stuff that talks about how you should keep playing with your husband, because that's what you did when you were dating, right?

What's your favorite way to serve hot chocolate (cocoa)? Marshmallows on top? Whipped Cream? A cinnamon stick?

Marshmallows or whipped cream. The best hot chocolate is the kind where you heat the milk and cocoa and sugar on the stove to make a hot base, then mix it with milk to cool it off. Man, that is the absolute best.

How do you handle it when you see someone you think you know, but cannot place? Do you approach them and ask, shy away, or just go home and hope you don't think of it at 2am?

I remember names, but not faces. I've heard that this is a trained skill, and alas, I never trained it. I'll see someone, smile vaguely at them, and go the other way, wondering why they look familiar.

What was your position in your family? Were you the oldest, a middle child, the youngest or an only child?

I'm the oldest of six. That means I handed down the smacketh from on high when I thought Mom and Dad were being too soft.

And now I have a son who does the same thing. And I don't like it. Oh, the irony.

How do you handle accumulated possessions (stuff)? Are you a pack-rat, a minimalist, or somewhere in between?

I hate having too much stuff. Once in a while I go on a clearing-binge and throw everything away, or haul it to Goodwill. The trouble is, I wind up getting rid of things I probably shouldn't have, and wishing for it later.

Christmas chats

2011-11-30T20:45:00.000-08:00

I like talking about Christmas, so Patrice's questions appealed today! Also I'm sitting here listening to Sixpence None the Richer's Christmas album, and laughing my head off at Christmas Island. I want to see Santa sail up in a canoe.

What's your favorite day of the week? Why?

I really do like both days of the weekend. That'll probably change once my hubby is working, and then I'll prefer whatever days he has off. But for now, Saturday and Sunday are my Get Out Of The House days. I go to the library, and sometimes church, if I'm feeling brave about the germs. So far, out of all the times we've gone, there's been one visit that we didn't bring home some horrible bug. I've sworn church off until after the holidays. Isn't that pagan of me?

What's your favorite Christmas movie?

Does Home Alone count as a Christmas movie? There's also Its A Wonderful Life, which I haven't seen in years but can probably quote it word for word. Of course, watching it re-enacted in 30 seconds by bunnies scratches the itch pretty well, too.

Is there a Christmas Carol that's special to you?

Well, I like O Come Emmanuel, but really only the haunting version by Eden's Bridge. There's just something about Celtic music ...

Is there an art or craft that you'd love to be able to do?

I keep thinking about getting some clay and letting the kids make Christmas ornaments. Then I remember how messy acrylic paints are, and I shake myself and think, "Maybe next year."

Do you have a live Christmas tree or an artificial one?

Fake one! We have a nice little 3-footer that lives in a box the rest of the year, but it's all we have room for. The kids dearly love it, and plugging it in every morning has become a ritual.

Socked in

2011-11-29T08:07:00.000-08:00

This has been our mornings for the last week or so. Until we get some real weather to push it out, the valley fills with fog and stays that way.

It smells like the inside of a freezer.

Thankful weekend

2011-11-26T12:28:00.000-08:00

Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone. We met at my parents' with our spouses and children, and my folks smoked a turkey. I'm so thankful for my family!

Munchkin A ganking an uncle.

After dinner, it was time for games. Here's the gang learning how to play Resistance.

That left me and my mom to watch the munchkins. Poor Mom came down with the awful cold we've been trading around all month, and I couldn't leave her to watch five toddlers all alone.

They never held still. See how blurry my pictures turned out? Here they are, demolishing apples.

I'm so thankful that my life is fairly uneventful. I'm reading blogs about peoples' divorces, and spouses who are dying or who have died, and the heartbreak bleeds from every word. I'm so thankful that we're all healthy and we all like each other. We can weather all of life's other bumps just fine, as long as we just cling to Jesus like limpets to rocks.

Cook-frenzy Wednesday

2011-11-23T07:54:00.000-08:00

It's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. That means it's the day to pre-cook everything!

I'm thankful for:

22. That moment when the tired baby lays her head on your shoulder and sighs.

23. Coconuts.

Because coconuts are awesome. They may be a pain in the butt to get out of the shell (I read that they take 75 days off the tree to ripen, and once ripe, the flesh peels right out of the shell), but fresh grated coconut and coconut milk is out of this world. Here's how you make coconut milk.

Anyway, I'm off to make coconut cream pie, and look up a jillion recipes for sweet potatoes with those marshmallows on top. Mine will be full of butter and brown sugar and cinnamon, and be as dessert-like as possible. Think pumpkin pie, but with marshmallows.

A night at our house

2011-11-21T20:07:00.000-08:00

21. I'm thankful for a sense of humor.

Rainy Sunday

2011-11-20T20:14:00.000-08:00

It rained almost all day today, and it was wonderful.

I'm a bit behind on my thankfulness list, so here we go:

18. The rain! The glorious rain and how good it smells! I know it's supposed to rain Thanksgiving weekend, too, but I don't care. This is semi-arid Bako, and we need every drop.

19. That I got well so fast. I was sick all day Saturday, and it was lame. But I was a lot better today, and I even got to take everybody out to visit Meg at her craft show. The kids got to see each other for a few minutes, and it was nice. I can't wait to visit longer on Thanksgiving.

20. That we've been so well-provided for this year. I'm so thankful for God's hand providing on our behalf, and I know that He will continue to provide for us. (I keep reminding Him that when he gave us our third child, He promised to give us the means to feed her. He just tells me to be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make my requests known to him.)

There. Now we're all ready for Monday.

Thankful Thursday

2011-11-17T14:45:00.000-08:00

I just got up from a nap. I've got a crockpot of taco soup cooking, and it smells so delicious ... I think it's actually what woke me up.

Anyway, today I'm thankful for my sister-in-law and this blanket she made my daughter as a baby blanket.

It's a vast, fuzzy, warm blanket, and I shamelessly appropriated it for naps when the weather cooled off. I sleep so good under the thing. I justify myself by looking at the kids all bundled up in their own blankets. They don't need one more. Right? Right?

I'm also thankful to have Meg as my sister-in-law (and here's her blog!). We trade ideas back and forth, and I enjoy the things she knits (I also have a pair of her fingerless gloves). We're having babies at the same time, and it's so much fun to have a friend who's at the same stage of life that I am. And special bonus is that she's family!

Thankfulness and boring

2011-11-16T07:55:00.000-08:00

Head munchkin playing with his train in the "snow". I thought that was pretty creative.

I've discovered by updating my blog almost every day that I really am very boring. There's nothing much to report that would make a good blog post. "Yesterday I ran out of laundry soap. I bought some cheap stuff, and only read the directions after I found it caked all over the clothes after the wash."

Because that's so interesting.

Anyway, thankfulness!

15. How much fun I have with the munchkins when we're all just being silly.

16. My husband, who is so kind to me. Have I been thankful for him yet? I think it'll be a recurring theme. I am so very thankful for him.

Oh yeah, that's why my brain is shut down about yesterday--I tried to read Hank Hanegraaff's The Apocalypse Code.

*insert stock image of a brain exploding here*

Mostly the book's about how much he hates the Left Behind books, and he uses every study technique that he can to show that Revelation happened in 70 AD. Monsters and demons and meteors falling? All metaphor. Anything that applies to helicopters, tanks, and nukes? Boy, that's all literal!

When I learned about Bible prophecy, we were taught about how every prophecy is in layers, and each layer applies to something different. Sure, some things in Revelation and Daniel and elsewhere apply to 70 AD. But there's multiple layers there. It wasn't completely fulfilled then, and I think to state dogmatically that it was, you remove some of the multidimensionalness of the Bible.

Anyway. I didn't mean to blog about that. I find that it's dangerous to talk about things I don't fully understand, and Revelation is one of those things.

Thankful Monday

2011-11-14T18:48:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy Monday! I have a whole weekend of thankfulness to be thankful for. Does that even make sense?

12. An efficient heater that warms our whole apartment within fifteen minutes, which is really nice when I forgot to turn it on before bed, and I get up at 4 AM with ice crystals hanging from the ceiling.

13. Soap and hot water. Having just bathed the munchkins, I'm thankful for these things. Also watching certain dirty, unwashed protesters on the news. Are they protesting personal hygiene, too? I'm beginning to wonder.

14. Doctor Who. It gives my husband and I so much to talk about. I'm starting to have violent Doctor withdrawal, so we're going to pick up where we left off in season 2. Good thing I like David Tennant. :-)

Windy Friday

2011-11-11T13:37:00.000-08:00

Since the weather cooled off, the munchkins have been really into indoor activities. Like art.

Here they are, showing off their handiwork with the markers. They're so proud of their pictures.

Today I'm thankful for the stormy weather that isn't all that cold, and that my mom is willing to watch the kids while my husband and I go on a date. We haven't had a date in months, and I'm so looking forward to it.

Thankful chats

2011-11-09T20:47:00.000-08:00

Doing both my memes today before it's too late!

What accomplishments make you the most proud?

Being married, having kids. Each new baby is a huge accomplishment, but now I have to raise them. That'll be a huge accomplishment in and of itself! I think that's what I'm thankful for, too. For my husband and my munchkins. I'd be so lonely without them.

When did your family first come to the country which you now live?

Um ... my mom answered this question over on her blog, and for the life of me I can't remember what she said. I'm tired. This time change does not like me.

What's your favorite way to serve carrots?

I like them steamed with brown sugar and butter, but the rest of my family prefers them raw. So I serve them raw. Sigh.

Do you decorate with anything that has Santa or Father Christmas when you prepare for Christmas?

No, because I don't have room. I'd rather have a Nativity scene than a Santa, anyway. I want the munchkins to know why we're celebrating this holiday in the first place.

Do you prefer big dogs or small dogs? Something in between, maybe?
I'm not really a dog person. I like medium-sized dogs, if I had to choose, though. We saw this Pomeranian today that was the size of a chihuahua. I think it was a miniature Pomeranian or something. I snickered at it the whole time it was toddling past us on its leash with its silly little rat-legs.

Food blogs

2011-11-08T15:05:00.000-08:00

Guess what I'm thankful for today?

...you guessed it!

Food blogs.

The reason being, I can go into a panic about dinner, spend ten minutes online, and have dinner ready in the next 45 minutes. This evening, for instance, since it's an early dinner evening, we're having chicken nachos, but without the Chipotle peppers because I forgot they were part of the recipe.

I might just go with red bell peppers.

Because red bell peppers are divine.

I sound like Pioneer Woman.

So yes. In years before the internet, it was all cookbooks and cooking magazines. And now, not only do you have a vast library of step by step recipes at your fingertips, you can leave comments like, "Gee, I didn't have any Chipotle peppers and it turned out just fine!"

This tumultuous life

2011-11-07T20:46:00.000-08:00

Tis Monday night, and I have two more things to be thankful for:

1, For having a warm, dry place to live, as more storms prepare to march down into California, and

2, having an interesting life.

By interesting, I mean every word that is not Boring. Exciting. Fascinating. Entertaining. Frustrating. Thrilling. Hilarious. Just thinking of the day I spent today, cleaning house around the edges of holding Claire, who has a cold and did not want to be on the floor, and watching the other two bounce off the walls ...

Yes. All of the above adjectives, and more.

For some reason it makes me think of Psalm 1:

1 Blessed is the one
who does not walk in step with the wicked
or stand in the way that sinners take
or sit in the company of mockers,
2 but whose delight is in the law of the LORD,
and who meditates on his law day and night.
3 That person is like a tree planted by streams of water,
which yields its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither—
whatever they do prospers.

I've been reading Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, by Madeline L'Engle. I may not understand her fiction very well, but this book is absolutely wonderful. I want to quote huge passages of it on my blogs because they have such deep thoughts.

One thing I liked was the phrase, "Be time." You know how people go on about needing a little "me time"? L'Engle says, "I've long since stopped feeling guilty about taking be time; it's something we all need for our spiritual health, and often we don't take enough of it."

It's when you get off by yourself and watch the wind blow the trees, and the birds fly, and just be quiet. But I've never been able to articulate what that is until I read that.

So anyway. Busy day today in which I didn't accomplish much, other than talking to kids a lot. Ryan eventually had to run the vacuum for me, because it was dinnertime and I still hadn't gotten it done. My man is a saint.

Naptime

2011-11-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

I'm thankful for ...

4. Naptime!

5. Books!

Naptime lets me get this blog updated, and books entertain me in quiet moments when the munchkins are asleep. I picked up a random one at the library and I'm enjoying it immensely. I also picked up Something Wicked This Way Comes by Bradbury, but I don't know if I'll have the nerve and/or the time to read it by the time my books are due.

It's brilliantly blue and sunny outside, but also chilly. Of course, 50 degrees feels absolutely frigid after months of 70s to high 80s. We have another storm coming, so the sky is starting to be sprinkled with little gray clouds. It's funny that they're gray, not white, like they have more water in them.

Giving thanks in November

2011-11-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try to join this little Giving Thanks Challenge by South Breeze Farm. You're supposed to be thankful for something each day until Thanksgiving.

Since I'm starting on the 3rd, I'll list three things to start with:

1. Our new car.

2. My dear husband and his new lease on life.

3. Having enough money to buy food with. This is a Big Deal, because this time last year, we barely did.

Hopefully this will encourage me to write a blog post every day. :-)

November chat

2011-11-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

Here's the munchkins shortly before we set out on our trick or treating adventure last night. We went out about dusk, because I didn't want to be out a long time after dark. We just stayed in the apartment complex, and visited apartments that had decorations up. So we visited about 8 apartments, heh. Everyone was very nice and handed out handfuls of candy, because there were no other trick or treaters.

The decorations of spider webs, witches, ghouls and skulls were a bit much for them, though.

Anyway, on to the meme! This is from Everyday Ruralty.

Alison asks: What's the biggest obstacle you've overcome or need to?

My own laziness. Always have battled it, always will battle it.

Julia asks: If you won $100,000 what changes would you make?

I'd buy some shelves and look into bunk beds for the munchkins. I think we have just enough room, as long as they were child-sized.

McGuffy Ann asks: What's the most unusual pet you've had?

A couple of iguanas. I wasn't a very good pet owner, though. My first one died because I didn't know they needed a heat lamp, and the second one only got fed when I remembered him. He eventually was given away to a guy who raises reptiles, and hopefully is immensely fat these days. I liked my chickens much better.

When do you start decorating for Christmas?

Usually in the start of December. I have, like, two decorations to put up, and a little artificial tree that the kids decorate. It still makes it feel so Christmasy in here. I do wish I had a little Nativity scene like my mom's, that the kids could play with.

What's your favorite type of magazine to read?

I used to devour Reader's Digest before their format changed to Women's Home and Garden. (Remember the Drama in Real Life column? I remember it. Sigh.) I don't really read magazines aside from the occasional cooking mag that my mom lends me. Taste of Home is always nice.

Halloween morning

2011-10-31T12:05:00.000-07:00

Here's the munchkins with their jack o' lanterns. The youngest is still a bit small for a pumpkin.

I tried and tried to get pictures of them playing on their 'slide', but their constant motion defeated me. I finally just took a video.

And this is BEFORE the Halloween candy. I think whatever they get tonight will go in the fridge and be carefully rationed ...

I also made some candy apples, but I let the caramel burn early on in the cooking process, so they came out kind of speckled and ugly, although they tasted good. Also, burning the caramel so demoralized me that I didn't cook it all the way to firm ball stage, so they were also kind of goopy.

I ran out of sticks for apples, so I had about two cups of leftover caramel. I didn't know what to do with it, until my husband asked me to make it into Chex candy. So I recooked it (over very low heat!) until it actually reached firm ball temperature, then mixed it with the cereal.

The trouble being, it's so sticky and stiff that it takes a while to gnaw through the candy. But it sure tastes good.

Three is company

2011-10-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

I was folding laundry on the bed, and I had tucked Claire into the corner of Alex's bed, where she could sit up. She thought it was great fun, and so did the other two.

Today we went costume-shopping. He wanted to be a pirate.

She wanted to be a cat, but there were no cat costumes to be found. So I fell back on the ol' tiger ears and tail. I'll draw a nose and whiskers on her with makeup.

Aside from carving pumpkins, we're set for Halloween!

God's providence, again

2011-10-24T06:31:00.000-07:00

Last summer was a hard, hard summer. No job, no money, little food, little hope. Relatives paid our rent and helped with necessities. I took art commissions and we paid bills with the small amount I made.

Then, right in the middle of it, I got pregnant. We reeled. But we chose to believe that another baby was a blessing, even though we couldn't see it from the circumstances we were in.

There's this little book called Be Fruitful and Multiply, and it's filled with all kinds of encouraging Bible verses that talk about how God blesses the womb first, then he provides material blessings so the family can feed and clothe this additional child. I clung to those verses.

Our financial situation improved a little as my husband went back to school on the GI Bill from his time in the military. At least we could pay the rent and buy food again.

Then Claire was born.

And now, six months later, God has seen fit to give us a bigger car.

(Not the same exact one, just the same model and color.)

A relative died and left it to us, so it's completely paid for and almost as good as new. We rode around in it yesterday, and I was completely astounded at God's grace to us. I took him at his word, never expecting a new car. And for some reason He saw fit to give us a new car. (Admittedly, we had completely filled the other one and rode around like a can of sardines.)

This means that my husband can get a job now, and he and I both have the wheels to go places. I'm hoping that a job will come next. It's been so long. God said that He will provide, though, and I'm still hanging on to that.

Playground visit

2011-10-14T19:41:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday the kids and I walked out to the playground. It was the first time since I had Claire, because it was both cool enough, and I was strong enough to walk that far.

Claire even got to ride in the baby swing. She thought it was awesome, especially when pushed by her big sister.

I loved Holly's look in this picture. We took a picnic lunch and had a nice time eating it. Ryan met us at the park later and drove us home.

This scrub jay flew to the roof of the picnic shade over us, and proceeded to try to crack open a nut. It sounded like somebody knocking on the roof.

The support role

2011-10-08T07:56:00.000-07:00

Last night I was struggling to extract refried beans from a can, and cut myself pretty badly. Somehow I managed to cut the middle knuckle of my ring finger.

I discovered something interesting about my ring finger. I always thought it was just a kind of wimpy finger, since it's not all that dextrous on its own.I thought it was just there to take up space, to make a nice hand of five.

As it turns out, the strength of all my fingers is in my ring finger. Since I have to favor that finger, the rest of my fingers have almost no grasping or lifting strength. I can barely even use that hand.

It made me ponder. Our culture looks down on the submissive, stay-at-home wife as something of a useless wimp. She remains in the background while her husband goes out and does business with the world. He's the thumb and the forefingers.

But the wife is the support role, and to be the support role, she has to be the strong one. It takes an incredible amount of strength to pull for all the other fingers and take no applause or attention. And when that supporting finger is disabled, the strength goes out of all the others.

Isn't it interesting that the non-glamorous supporting finger is the one that gets to wear the ring of gold? Its very back-seatness becomes its position of honor.

Glorious rain!

2011-10-05T14:13:00.000-07:00

Today we got our first rain of the season. Rain! Glorious rain!

About maybe an inch, if we're lucky. Probably half an inch. But it was enough for the kids to get thoroughly soaked in.Claire was not allowed outside, although she'd like to be.

She's to the stage where she scoots around and bites everything. I think we have a few teeth on the way.

October at last!

2011-10-01T17:36:00.000-07:00

Hooray it's finally October! Maybe it will drop below 90 and we can wear long pants!

Of course, that hasn't stopped the munchkins from wearing long pants for weeks prior to this.

Wednesday porch chats

2011-09-28T07:01:00.000-07:00

I'm doing Chats on the Farmhouse Porch today. Hooray!

Would you rather cook or clean house?

Well, I can't cook until my house is clean, or at the very least, my kitchen. My workspace is so miniscule, I can't function unless it's clean and tidy.

Who do you resemble in your family?

Oh, a little of column A, a little of column B. I have my mom's build and my dad's nose, my grandma's eyes and a slather of introspective creative bent from both sides. And plenty of OCD.

We always muse that every genius, from Beethoven to Einstein, would have been labeled obsessive-compulsive, or attention-deficit, or some other label, and then heavily medicated, thereby eradicating their genius. Says loads about our culture, doesn't it?

Have you tried e-books yet?

Yeah, I don't care for them. Staring at a screen is not the same as reading a book, and you can't loan it to anybody without handing over your username and password. Not to mention the issue with batteries and Amazon being able to remotely wipe your Kindle. Stick your device on a shelf for 15 years and see if the book is still readable. But paper and ink books? Still kickin'!

Do you collect anything?

Books. I collect books that I love, mostly by long-dead authors. I have a collection of Albert Payson Terhune that lives at mom's, because I don't have the space here, and the books are too old and delicate to go into storage. I even have one that is a first edition with the original color plates. I'm currently sniffing about for other authors to collect. I'm sampling lots of writing right now.

What's your favorite fall tradition?

Halloween! It's kind of funny. When I was little, I loved Halloween because I got to dress up and have candy. Then when I was a teenager, I was too old to dress up and felt guilty about still liking it. Now that I'm an adult with kids, I can dress them up, decorate with pumpkins, and hand out candy. It's so much fun having kids! They make a great cover to do all the things that I'm supposed to have grown out of.

Wheat makes me mean

2011-09-26T10:03:00.000-07:00

So I've chronicled our experiments with going off wheat, mostly trying to cure Alex's chronic cough. (Which I believe is caused by sugar.)

Anyway, I don't eat much wheat anyway, because I've never really liked bread, except as toast. Right before we had officially gone of wheat, I had noticed that if I had had no wheat that day, and ate, say, a muffin, I'd have a dramatic mood swing. Always toward the angry. (Why can't mood swings be into the happy and nice?)

So I haven't had any wheat in days, and this morning I made pancakes. The kids had been asking, and I thought, eh, what the hey. So I had one pancake with jam, thinking that if I alternated it with bites of oatmeal, my body would never notice.

An hour later, I stepped out of the shower and suddenly I'm screaming at the kids in rage. And I kind of shook myself and went, "What in the world is this? A mood swing?" Then I remembered that pancake. So I slowly blew-dry my hair and prayed and prayed for God to help me to get a handle on this mood. By the time I was done, I felt in control again.

But yeah. Wheat is baaaaad for me. I can't do the mood swing thing.

And for my aunt, who was asking about gluten-free, here is my standard personal gluten-free menu. (The kids and Ryan don't stick to this quite as close as I do.)

Breakfast: 2-egg omelet with cheese, bowl of oatmeal with bananas or strawberries or raisins.

Lunch: Hotdogs wrapped in lettuce leaf, corn tortilla chips, fruit or carrot sticks with homemade Ranch dip.

Snacks: Peanuts and raisins, homemade granola bars, fruit, carrot or bell pepper strips, or smoothies.

Dinner: Anything you like, as flour doesn't generally factor into dinner for us. Stir fry over rice, or baked chicken dishes, or enchiladas with corn tortillas, or baked beans with green beans, or chili thickened with masa, or various soups with rice instead of noodles.

Amazon does sell einkorn noodles, einkorn being the ancient relative of wheat with far less gluten, and reportedly it doesn't bother gluten-intolerant people. There's also brown rice noodles, which aren't quite so expensive.

And googling "gluten-free" turns up thousands of blogs and recipes run by people who are gluten-intolerant, explaining how to get around it.

Stormy evening

2011-09-23T19:59:00.000-07:00

So we went outside to look at tonight's thunderstorm, and right over our apartment were some emerging mammatus clouds. We don't get these kinds of clouds in the San Joaquin valley.

The kids were thoughtful.

Holly looking ...

...at a rainbow sliver.

Alex posing with rainbow sliver.

The creepy clouds eventually billowed out into nothing.

But they continued to look creepy.

Food experiments

2011-09-22T19:55:00.000-07:00

Some people on Facebook who are into mad scientists and steampunk referred to their kids as "experiments", which I found hilarious. I feel like Alex has been the subject of many experiments (harmless, of course!)

Mostly pertaining to that cough of his. I thought I had it pegged to wheat, then I found out that wheat converts pretty much to pure sugar once you eat it. I made a pumpkin pie and let the kids have a couple slices. Lo and behold, his cough worsened within hours. It's starting to look a lot like a sugar allergy. Which is a lot less of a problem than any of the other potential allergies--I can deal with sugar.

I should have figured it out when his cough started after eating a ton of jellybeans at Easter. And he's always responded well to probiotic. All symptoms of a sugar allergy.

Yeesh.

It's taken me how long to figure this out? Of course, I have kind of been preoccupied with a new baby, so I suppose that contributes.

Birthdays according to kids

2011-09-20T11:10:00.000-07:00

When you're a kid, birthdays are awesome.You look forward to your birthday. You're going to be a year older, eat cake and ice cream, and get new toys! What's not to like? It's the perfect day!

And if your birthday is all kinds of awesome, then your mom and dad's birthdays should be exponentially more awesome. They're older, so they should throw, like, a massive party, right?Except they don't. Mom and Dads grunt, "Eh. My birthday." And go back to reading the newspaper or chopping onions.

My birthday is coming up, and the munchkins keep asking, "What are we going to do for your birthday?" And I'm all, "Meh."After so many years of having to work on my birthday, and missing my siblings' birthdays because of work, birthdays lose their shine. Also there's the advancing age issue. After age 21, there's no more milestones of age except maybe Midlife Crisis and Death. Um, yay?

Anyway, while casting about for something to do that might be fun for the munchkins, I discovered that the Via Arte is on the weekend after my birthday this year. It's this place in a local theater/shopping center where they rope off the parking lot and do massive chalk paintings on the asphalt. I've even participated back when I was in art class and we bought a square or two. It's loads of fun.Also I have a birthday coupon for free ice cream from Cold Stone. So I thought we could go brave the crowds, look at the chalk paintings, and get some ice cream. A fun birthday event for all!

Wheat Belly excerpt

2011-09-14T11:35:00.000-07:00

Here's an excerpt from Wheat Belly by William Davis, that book I was talking about earlier. His whole premise is that eating wheat has made us extremely fat. Especially "healthy whole grains". Here's a nice slice of juiciness:

People are usually shocked when I tell them that whole wheat bread increases blood sugar to a higher level than sucrose. Aside from some extra fiber, eating two slices of whole wheat bread is really little different, and often worse, than drinking a can of sugar-sweetened soda or eating a sugary candy bar.

This information is not new. A 1981 University of Toronto study launched the concept of glycemic index, i.e., the comparative blood sugar effects of carbohydrates: the higher the blood sugar after consuming a specific food compared to glucose, the higher the glycemic index (GI).

The original study showed that the GI of white bread was 69, while the GI of whole grain bread was 72, and Shredded Wheat cereal was 67, while that of sucrose (table sugar) was 59. Yes, the GI of whole grain bread is higher than that of sucrose. Incidentally, the GI of a Mars bar--nougat, chocolate, sugar, caramel, and all--is 68. That's better than whole grain bread. The GI of a Snickers bar is 41--far better than whole grain bread.

... Therefore, wheat products elevate blood sugar levels more than virtually any other carbohydrate, from beans to candy bars. This has important implications for body weight, since glucose is unavoidably accompanied by insulin, the hormone that allows entry of glucose into the cells of the body, converting glucose to fat.

The higher the blood glucose after consumption of food, the greater the insulin level, the more fat is deposited. That is why, say, eating a three-egg omelet that triggers no increase in glucose does not add to body fat, while two slices of whole wheat bread increases blood glucose to high levels, triggering insulin and growth of fat, particularly abdominal or deep visceral fat.

There's even more to wheat's curious glucose behavior. The amylopectin A-induced surge in glucose and insulin following wheat consumption is a 120-minute-long phenomenon that produces the "high" at the glucose peak, followed by the "low" of the inevitable glucose drop.

The surge and drop creates a two-hour roller coaster ride of satiety and hunger that repeats itself throughout the day. The glucose "low" is responsible for stomach growling at 9 AM, just two hours after a bowl of wheat cereal or an English muffin breakfast, followed by 11 AM prelunch cravings, as well as the mental fog, fatigue, and shakiness of the hypoglycemic glucose nadir.

Trigger high blood sugars repeatedly and/or over sustained periods, and more fat accumulation results. The consequences of glucose-insulin-fat deposition are especially visible in the abdomen--resulting in, yes, wheat belly.

The bigger your wheat belly, the poorer your response to insulin, since the deep visceral fat of the wheat belly is associated with poor responsiveness, or "resistance", to insulin, demanding higher and higher insulin levels, a situation that cultivates diabetes.

Moreover, the bigger the wheat belly in males, the more estrogen is produced by fat tissue, and the larger the breasts. The bigger your wheat belly, the more inflammatory responses that are triggered: heart disease and cancer.

As you can see, this got our attention. So we've been wheatless since Sunday, and Hubby's already lost 2 pounds.

You know that surge and drop of the blood sugar that he mentions? We've been struggling with that for months. We'd eat about 7, and about 9 or 10, we'd both be falling asleep on our feet. And we wouldn't even feel hungry, just sugar-crashed.Since we eliminated wheat, that awful crash is gone.

I still do crash a bit in the late afternoon, when I've been nursing the baby a lot, but it's always accompanied by hunger. Not the feeling of still being full and knowing I need to eat and not being able to. I've had to take fewer naps as a result. It's wonderful!

Wheat-free

2011-09-10T16:31:00.000-07:00

Alex has been coughing and coughing since Easter. Over the ensuing months, I've experimented on him, trying one thing after another to get rid of the cough.

We've moved his bed. We've loaded him up on probiotics. We've limited his sugar, and lately, we've limited his wheat.

Sugar and wheat limitation have had the most dramatic effect on his coughing. He's been off wheat for about three days, and his cough is limited to a little bit right before bed, and a little bit when he gets up. Before, he was coughing all night, usually making himself throw up.

I was afraid he had whooping cough or something, but he has no other symptoms besides the cough. It's made him hard to pin down.

Anyway, I think he has a bit of a wheat allergy. Then my mom found this book:

Wheat Belly, by William Davis.

He's a cardiologist who observed huge, dramatic turnarounds in thousands of patients who came to him for treatment, and all he had them do was stop eating wheat. No other diet or exercise changes. And he's seen cures in diabetes, arthritis, dementia, and all kinds of other things. It has to do with our modern wheat being so genetically modified that it's more or less unsafe for human consumption. There is no such thing as "healthy whole grains".

I'll post some excerpts from it later on. Right now, the order of business is trying to figure out what to feed picky children when you're pretty much going gluten-free. When peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were a food staple, it's hard to change. So tonight I'm looking at some kind of pizza with a cornmeal crust.

(I tried grinding some flaxseed, then found out that there are two kinds of flaxseed--dark and golden. Dark flaxseed is extremely bitter. Guess which one I have!)

I have some rice flour, but it tends to make really goopy dough. I'm experimenting with adding it to cornflour to make the cornflour a little less grainy. I'm considering picking up some other kind of flour, like amaranth or gram (which is chickpea), but I'm afraid of paying something like 4 bucks a pound.

Wednesday random

2011-09-07T07:46:00.000-07:00

Hadn't updated in a while, so I figured I'd dump a few pics on here from my expiring camera.Here's Claire with a toy. She's very interested in toys now, but her hands don't grab as well as she would like, and she gets frustrated easily.

I told these two, "Go smile for me!" And my camera died. Twice. So here they are, being patient.

Anyway, we're off to do a bit of school. I discovered the Veggietales Sing the 80's album on Spotify, and I'm sitting here laughing my head off. The munchkins have no ideas that we're listening to spoofs.

Ice cream cone crepes

2011-08-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

The older two munchkins were outside, so I put the baby down on the mat where she could watch them. Entertainment for hours! She wants to crawl soooo bad.

Last night I wanted a waffle cone in the worst way, so I went sniffing about to see how to make an ice cream cone.

I discovered this recipe where you just roll up crepes.

Mine looked more or less like that, only more randomly-sized and without the perfect scoops of ice cream in them. But they tasted FABULOUS. Exactly like a waffle cone! Everybody ate the extra crepes plain once the ice cream ran out.

Recipe:

2 large eggs
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated white sugar
4 tablespoons (57 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 - 3 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup (50 grams) all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
Vegetable oil and pastry brush

Oil your griddle set it to medium-low heat, pour on 3 Tbsp batter and tilt griddle to spread it around. Flip after 3-4 minutes. Once golden brown on both sides, roll into cone shape and cool on wire rack. I cooled mine in coffee cups. Lots more details at the site.

Doing school again

2011-08-27T08:48:00.000-07:00

We've been doing school all week, and the munchkins have loved it. Here they are doing arts and crafts, aka "playdough".

My Mom found an old disused preschool curriculum, and passed it on to me. I've been copying pages out of it and letting the munchkins color them. They're Bible stories told very simply, with worksheets to write the letter A or the letter B and so on. And a number, too.

It's a bit over Holly's head, but she can color the pictures while Alex and I count pencils for 'math' and trace letters and numbers. Holly does get in on the alphabet song and saying the sounds the letters make. And Claire is very cooperative. She loves to sit there and look at everything.

Then we read books out loud until the baby gets fussy. Then we have lunch and naptime. It's a nice routine.

I'm ready for this hot weather to be over, though. I feel like such a pansy, because this time last year it was 110, and this week it's just barely breaking 100. But heat is heat and I'm tired of it. Unfortunately, it'll be hot until mid-September.

Munchkins at work

2011-08-20T16:30:00.000-07:00

I walked into the bedroom the other day, and found this:

My industrious munchkins had cleared off the bookcase shelves where I store their toys, and had put their sleeping bags on the shelves to make bunk beds. They were extremely proud of themselves, so I had to get a picture.

And here is their little sister, playing with her feet.

She can now roll over as quick as you please, and she's working on scootching across the floor to target toys. Crawling is not far away.

Writing style

2011-08-19T21:17:00.000-07:00

A friend recently pointed me to http://www.speculativefaith.com/. It's a writing blog/resource for writers of Christian science fiction and fantasy. I've spent a merry couple of days reading articles on there. It's great to read articles by people who are actively writing and struggling with how to present the Gospel (or whether to omit it) in fiction.

But one topic made me squawk in outrage. (There's been several, but this one took the cake.) There was Good vs. Mediocre and Another look at Good vs. Mediocre. I was curious to see someone address the commonest problem with Christian fiction, that being its mediocrity.

The first article is basically summed up in this paragraph:

"All this to explain how I got to today’s topic. In the end, I found myself asking, Is one person’s good book another person’s mediocre fare? And if so, is there in reality a standard of art writers should be aiming for and readers should be looking to support?"

And the following comment on said article:

The more and more I find out about the writing world, the more I realize I do not care as much about style and artistry as much as I care about a really good story. I will forgive an author of almost anything if they hook me.

I violently disagree. All stories being equal, compare the writing of someone like Dickens to someone like Stephanie Meyer. Assuming their stories were equally good, and judging only by their writing styles, could anyone say that one is better than the other?

Have you ever tried to subject your brain to the tripe that is The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches by Robert Staneck? Go to Amazon, click the View Inside link, and read the first paragraph. Aloud. And try not to vomit on your keyboard.

I'm sorry, but if a person's storytelling ability is hampered by lousy prose, passive verbs, clunky pacing, and boring characters, I'm not going to be able to see the story. If the story is even worth the anguish.

Ever read Eregon? The whole story is just a long experiment to see how many authors you can identify that he's ripping off (Tolkien, Star Wars, and Pern, mostly).

After scrolling through the Christian fiction section on Speculative Faith's site, I remembered why I don't bother with Christian fantasy. Not only is it derivative, most of it is poorly written. Don't these people ever study how to write invisibly?

If today's readers can't tell the difference between something that is well written and something that is poorly written, then man, they get what they deserve. :-p

Housesitting

2011-08-16T07:42:00.000-07:00

We house-sat for my parents over the weekend. I only managed to get a few pictures when everyone was down for naps.

Here's Alex in his sleeping bag.

The dollhouse where the munchkins spent half their time. (It has an awesome amount of accessories. Even I played with it a little.)

The kitties, where they spent the other half of their time.

Also, this was my observation last year about August:

August is the cruelest month.

As my mom mentioned in her blog, February is supposedly the cruelest month. But February has holidays to break it up, and there's nothing in August.

Also, we woke up this morning to find that it was cool and breezy, about 70 degrees. My husband went for a walk and said that it was almost chilly.

August always does this. It cools off and gives one hope for fall, and a glimpse of the gloriousness of cooler weather. And then it slams you with 110 degrees and humidity and thunderstorms until mid-September.

February's got nothing on August.

Dancing

2011-08-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

Evening at our house. I put on the Newsboys and everybody bursts into dance.

Claire dances by kicking her feet and looking surprised.

The other two turn in circles.

Blurry circles.

Until they decide to exit, stage left.

Ice milk: poor man's ice cream

2011-08-08T20:41:00.000-07:00

Still-mixed ice milk is like poor man's ice cream. Or maybe lazy man's ice cream.

This is my bowlful of frozen ice milk. Here's how you make it:

4 cups milk
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

OR

4 cups milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4th tsp salt

(Tastes great and has less sugar!)

Stir together until sugar is dissolved. Pour into baking pan (9x13 works well) and place in freezer. Beat with hand mixer every 40 minutes for 2 1/2 hours until frozen. The smoother you beat it, the finer the ice crystals and the smoother the ice cream.

I put mine in the freezer and then took a 2 hour nap, so it was mostly frozen by the time I got back to it. I grimly attacked it with my hand mixer and splattered it all over the kitchen before transferring it to a bowl. But it came out fluffy enough. Kind of coarse, like a slushy. But my husband and kids like it, and it was fast.

Also:

Caterpillar arms.

Kitties

2011-08-06T08:25:00.000-07:00

We visited Mom's yesterday for a while, and the munchkins got to pet kittens.

They're both obsessed with cats right now. As I write this, they're outside, feverishly searching for the neighborhood strays.

Munchkin antics

2011-08-04T20:44:00.000-07:00

Three munchkins, posing for the camera.

The baby, happily munching a string that I then confiscated.

One of the local stray cats had kittens a month or so ago. Her kitties are now semi-teenager kittens, and she has two left. Anyway, this afternoon, Holly appeared at the front door, holding one of those kittens firmly by the head and front legs. She was determined that we were going to keep this kitten. I took it from her and took it back to its mother, and both Holly and Alex were very sad.

I would have taken a picture, but I was so worried that she was strangling the kitten that I didn't think of it until the kitty was freed.

Oh well. Someday, munchkins. Someday we'll be able to have a kitty.

Wednesday Chats

2011-08-02T20:46:00.000-07:00

Patrice has changed the name of her Wednesday weight-loss meme. Now it's just a fun chatty one, and what the heck, I need to write something in August. :-)

What season was your wedding? If you aren't married, the what season is your birthday?

Summer! I got married in June because we couldn't wait until September. My poor mom. My brother got married in May, so she had two weddings just a few weeks apart.

What names did you call your grandparents?(ie- grandma, granny, gran, grammie)

My grandparents were just grandma (name) and grandpa (name), but my great grandparents were Mema and Papa.

What's your favorite smell that comes from your oven?

There's lots. The smell of baking bread, or of barbecue chicken, or cookies, or banana bread.

If you eat eggs- scrambled, fried, over easy, sunny side up, or other?

Fried, scrambled, and omelets mostly. I'd like to try eggs Benedict someday, but it kind of creeps me out. That's the kind where you break the egg into the boiling water, right?

What's the tidiest room in your house? What's the messiest?

This is a 1-bedroom apartment. It's usually all messy in some form or another. The tidiest space is usually the kitchen, because that's my workspace and munchkins have less access to my counter tops.

Have an orb spider that my ornery camera actually focused on!

Summer salsa

2011-07-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

Here is Claire, sitting in Daddy's lap and drooling all over his arm.

Ryan has been asking me to make him some salsa all week, and today I determined that I would make him some if it killed me.

At Mom's last week, I had picked about ten tomatoes, large and small, to make into salsa. So i sliced those up, chucked them on the jelly roll pan that I don't care about, and cooked them at 475 for about 30 minutes, until they started to get black. I turned them halfway through, and chucked on a sliced jalapeno, too, to get that roasted. Turns out it wasn't a very hot jalapeno, and I should have used more. Alas. Anyway, here's the recipe:

Modeled after Baja Fresh's salsa:

7 tomatoes, sliced
1 jalapeno, seeded
1 garlic clove
2 tablespoons diced onion
juice from 1 lime
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup water

Roast the tomatoes on a grill (or in the oven) until black, turning halfway through. At the halfway point, add the jalapeno.

Do not roast the onion or garlic. When the jalapeno and tomatoes are blackened, combine all ingredients in blender and puree until the desired consistency. (I ran it about 4 seconds on low.) Chop 1 last raw tomato and stir into salsa. (I forgot to leave a tomato. Oops.)

It was HEAVEN on a CHIP. I forgot how good fresh roasted tomatoes are. It's just a bright, sparkling flavor. It's like in the cartoon Ratatouille, when he eats the food and the fireworks go off. I'd show you a picture, but my picture just looks like red sauce. Not very appetizing.

Active Claire

2011-07-29T07:49:00.000-07:00

Claire officially rolled over this week. She then props herself up as high as she can to look around.

She's a very happy baby. Actually, I don't think I've ever had an unhappy baby. All my pictures show them all grinning fit to beat the band. Anyway, she's starting to get interested in toys. I have to constantly give her different toys to hold her interest, so it's a good thing she has two older siblings who have accumulated a ton of them. :-)

Grandma's Strawberry Pie

2011-07-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

It's strawberry season, and no summer is complete without a strawberry pie.

It doesn't look as appetizing with half of it missing, but it was delicious.

Here's the recipe:

Grandma Joyce's Strawberry Pie

3 cups fresh strawberries
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 Tbsp cornstarch
2 drops red food coloring
1 tsp strawberry extract
baked pie crust of your choice

Bake pie crust, set aside. Pour 2 cups chopped strawberries into crust. Mash remaining 1 cup, set aside.

In medium saucepan, bring water, sugar and cornstarch to a boil. Add food coloring, extract and mashed strawberries. Pour into pie crust. Refrigerate several hours.

I don't have any strawberry extract on hand, and it still tasted wonderful. I also put a layer of cream cheese on the bottom of my pie crust, before I added the chopped strawberries. Heaven on a plate!

Hot weather fun

2011-07-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

On Friday my sister in law and I met up at my mom's and let the kids play.

There was much playing with water, and water toys. The slip and slide was set up, but I somehow didn't get any pictures of them using it.

The boys decided that the jump rope was great for tug of war.

Claire tried out the baby walker, and absolutely loved it. She's inching up on four months now, and she really wants to be independent.

I did the bird test on her, and she can officially see my cockatiel now. She locked onto him and started kicking her feet, all excited. He, of course, was not thrilled, and told her so.

Nothing

2011-07-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

You know, I've been trying to update this blog for three days. Have I done it? No. I just haven't had the free hands when I sit down at the compy.

So, uh, we're all here and nothing much has been going on. :-p

Pretty happy funny real

2011-07-21T09:57:00.000-07:00

Morning adventures!

Pretty:

An opening hollyhock:

A yellow crab spider, backdropped by Holly's shirt:

Happy

Munchkins drawing pictures:

Baby inspecting the toy barn:

Funny:

Located: one grasshopper

Poking said grasshopper:

Captive grasshopper:

Real:

The baby, awake on the bed, happily kicking her legs, while the grasshopper caper was going on:

Edu-gaming

2011-07-16T08:05:00.000-07:00

A while ago, I started sniffing around the internet for a bunch of early-90s games that I enjoyed growing up. There's this lovely thing called Abandonware. If there's an old game that never gets re-released on another platform, or bundled with other software, or otherwise recycled, it just fades into the ether. It's been abandoned, and as such, becomes free on the internets.

So I collected a few classic DOS titles and played them for a bit. Alex latched onto them, and I taught him to play them.

Fortunately, I was always attracted to Sim titles, and things that were stealth-educational.

There's Sim Tower:

And Sim Ant (which I didn't actually play, but my siblings enjoyed, so I'm learning it alongside Alex)

Sim City 2000, which I utterly adored and played for hours and hours:

The Oregon Trail original version. I have died of dysentery/snakebite/broken legs/etc. etc. etc. But I reached Oregon. Alex hasn't yet managed to do this because the text menus stymie him.

And finally there's Rollercoaster Tycoon, which I actually had on disk and didn't need to download. Much, much love has gone into this game.

Mystery bug

2011-07-13T20:46:00.000-07:00

I was outside with the kids this evening, and noticed these little butterfly things all over my blooming mint.

They were tiny, and when they were at rest, their antennae never stood still. They didn't have the little balls on the ends of their antennae that show that they're butterflies, and they didn't seem to have the feathery bits that show that they're a moth. But they were so tiny, it was hard to be sure.

I think these are the things that left tiny little caterpillars all over my mint. I don't mind--I mean, it's only mint--but I wish I knew what they were.

A large heart

2011-07-10T07:18:00.000-07:00

I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart. - Ps 119: 32

One thing I always wondered about, before I had kids, was how you could love them all. People said snide things like that to my mom all the time. I knew that she loved us all equally, but I wondered if I'd ever be able to do it.

So I was nursing the baby and thinking about this. And really, I think each new baby makes you love the rest of them that much more. It's like God 'enlarges my heart' with each new child so I'm capable of loving them even better.

It's a strange process, where the more you die to yourself, the happier you are. Seems so alien to the human nature, you know?

July 4th fun

2011-07-06T10:37:00.000-07:00

We went to grandma's and grandpa's for the 4th of July, and had a rip-roaring waterfight on and off for most of the afternoon.

Here is Alex, learning how to squirt water from a water cannon. That tub is their pool, so they can "swim" without getting near the big pool. I looked outside at one point, and the entire pool area was full of flying water from water cannons. Alex and Holly ran around the outside of the pool fence, retrieving different types of ammunition (these squishy balls full of water). Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera at that point.

And here is Claire talking to her aunt.

It was extremely cute.

We only did a few fireworks, because by the time it was dark, the munchkins were very tired. But I think the watertechnics more than made up for it. :-)

Happy Independence Day!

2011-07-04T06:19:00.000-07:00

It's gonna be a scorcher!

Edit: And I can't spell worth beans!

Outside

2011-07-03T10:40:00.000-07:00

Holly 'painting' by dipping a stick in the water, then making patterns on the sidewalk.

Another hot pink hollyhock.

Claire enjoying being outside.

One of those little tiny yellow butterflies. I as amazed at how close I had managed to get.

You know, I sit down to write a blog post, and people swarm into my lap, or the baby starts fussing, and nothing much gets written. Just pictures.

I've finally pinned down exactly what breastfeeding mommy-brain is and what causes it. When the baby nurses, there's this stuff called Prolactin that gets released in my body to make more milk, and make my milk let down and all that stuff. Well, a side-effect of prolactin is that it makes me sleepy.

I was talking to my husband last night, and we were carrying on an intelligent conversation. Then I picked up the baby to let her nurse, and by the time she finished, all of my nouns and verbs had vanished from my brain. I had gone from, "David Tennant in Doctor Who" to "That one guy in the movie we like who was before the current guy." If I could even form a thought that intelligent.

And after a while the prolactin wears off and my brain comes back. Here I just thought I was turning into an idiot.

Little drummer boy

2011-07-01T13:04:00.000-07:00

Alex bangs on the couch, pa rum pum pum pum ...

Claire thinks, "What the heck?" Pa rum pum pum pum ...

Holly does a facepalm. Pa rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum ...

More plum jam!

2011-06-30T07:47:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year again: plum time!

My mom's plum tree is once again so loaded with plums that I picked an entire basketful off two branches.

I cut up eight cups of them to make into jam, and I still probably have another four cups. I need to use them, but there's not quite enough to make into jam and my plum cobbler was so sour, nobody but me would eat it. (Although my plums are a bit more ripe this time around.)

Pitting plums is the pits. I finally just sliced them in quarters, like I was cutting up an apple, and cut around the pit. That seemed to work pretty well.

I cooked the heck out of it and it actually seemed to set up this time. I also know a bit more about the science of jam-making, like how you have to let it steam while it cooks for quite a while, because that evaporates the water out of it.

So my jam consisted of:

8 cups plums
6 cups sugar
1 bag of Pectin
Mix the plums and sugar together and let stand for 3 or 4 hours. Then bring to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer 5-10 minutes (or until the dishwasher is done washing your jars). Add pectin, return to a boil and boil for 1 minute. Pour into hot jars and seal with sterilized lids.

Anyway, yesterday was bread and jam day, and by six o clock, I was exhausted. I pretty much went to bed at 6, getting up only to put the kids to bed and do some computer stuff before returning to my repose.

A bit of makeup

2011-06-27T07:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I had just gotten out of the shower, and had left Holly in the bathroom to brush her teeth. I was going about my business when I realized that she had been in the bathroom, quietly, for a good ten or fifteen minutes. I went to look for her and this is what I found.

She had been applying eyeliner, just like mama does.

In other news, check out this growth comparison of Claire.

Notice how much of the chair she took up as a newborn:

Now look how much space she takes up at 2 and a half months:

She's getting so big! And more frustrated every day at not being able to get up and play with her big brother and sister. She jabbers now, and it's so very cute. She gets so excited, the way babies do, and she's just barely to the point where she can see toys. She still can't see my cockatiel. I think that comes after three months.

Fun in the sun

2011-06-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

Well, we've had a busy couple of days!

Tuesday was a cousin's birthday, so all the munchkins got together for some fun with water toys.

That beach ball had big shower-heads on it that spouted water when you turned the hose on. The kids all either stood and let the water sprinkle them, or they caught it in buckets. They hardly rolled the ball at all.

They're redoing the parking lots in the apartment complex next door this week. Apparently they've had a lot of dirt left over, because they brought around wheelbarrows full and dumped it into all the flowerbeds. It made for a great sandbox for munchkins.

They've been out there every day with trucks and buckets and digging implements. And they've had baths almost every night.

So much to can!

2011-06-18T16:53:00.000-07:00

My mom loaned me this Better Homes and Gardens Canning magazine. I sat and read it this afternoon, and I'm inspired.

How to make spiced peaches and chow chow and pickles and every kind of jam imaginable! Jam with wine and brandy and herbs and spices!

I'm really curious about spiced peaches, ever since they featured in the book and movie Holes. (It's an awesome book, by the way.) They dubbed it "Sploosh" and I'd love to make some Sploosh.

Summertime pretty happy funny real

2011-06-16T12:48:00.000-07:00

Linking up with Like Mother, Like Daughter, to do Pretty Happy, Funny, Real. Without further ado!

{Pretty}

Some kind of pretty purple flowers that I don't know what they are.

{Happy}

We visited Gramma's yesterday, and an uncle donated his Slip and Slide. It was tons of fun for small people.

{Funny}

I didn't even realize I had frozen that ball in midair until I was looking at my pictures!

{Real}

My second-oldest brother trying to not look creepy. He's so obviously not creepy that the baby is asleep with his finger in her mouth.

Wednesday Words

2011-06-15T10:52:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to get on some semblance of an exercise routine lately, so I thought that this might help me stay a bit accountable.

1. Which works better for you- watching calories or carbs?

Staying aware of calories, I think. Although I adore carbs, I'm more and more aware that most carbs that I like are made with refined sugars and flours (cookies, sweet breads, cake, etc.) Even dinner foods aren't all that good, so I'm trying to eat them more moderately.

We won't mention the bacon.

2. Do you take supplements?

Yep, I'm always a bit on the anemic side, so I take iron. It makes me feel like a human being! It's amazing!

3. What's the healthiest thing you do for yourself on a regular basis?

Ummm ... we probably shouldn't mention the bacon here, either. (But it's so tasty and makes me feel so satisfied for so long!)

The best thing is for me to actually exercise from time to time. I tend to be very sedentary, what with not having to walk far in this tiny apartment to reach anything. Then I'm sitting all the time, holding the baby. I found a beginner's Pilates video on Netflix Instant, so I've been attempting (ha) to do that.

Have you ever seen those Fail videos on youtube, of somebody trying to do something and failing and hurting themselves? That's me, trying to do these Pilates exercises. Maybe by next week, I will have actually finished the video once or twice.

Also, picture this as a Fail: a mommy trying to do crunches, and the four-year-old body slamming himself on her stomach. That has not yet happened, but it could.

4. If you could start a home business, what would it be?

I would love to paint portraits and do sculptures by commission. Unfortunately, the kids are just too small at the moment for me to even think about it.

5. Who did the cooking in your family when you were growing up?

Mom cooked lunch and dinner, while Dad made awesome breakfasts on the weekends. The rest of the week, breakfast was usually cereal, so eggs were like a celebration.

The smell of summer

2011-06-14T20:16:00.000-07:00

Today it's 93 outside, our first really hot day. I was outside with the kids, smelling the hot air and trying to nail down what makes that unique summer smell.

Is it the hot grass?

Is it the hot sidewalk?

Is it the hot asphalt?

Is it just the air itself that smells hot?

There's a general ambiance of everybody's air conditioner units growling away, and a hint of chlorine from the various nearby pools.

Speaking of pools, ours has been getting some heavy usage. We walked over to see if anybody was in it tonight. Nobody was.

Remember last year how it was this lovely emerald green?

Right now it's just as green, but it's more of a dingy greenish brown. It's not even clear. It looks like a pond. I think they need to fire the pool maintenance guy, all he does is throw chlorine at it and leave. :-(

The firework stands are going up, too.

(Not my photo)

I know not everybody gets fireworks in the fourth of July, and even CA only gets wimpy things that barely go pop. But hey, it's a sign of summer. But man, it's weird to see them already. How can June already be half gone?

Kids reading

2011-06-11T08:02:00.000-07:00

I've been reading every blog I can find that talk about teaching your kids to read.

I want them to learn to read, but I'm so scared I won't be able to teach it. You should hear me trying to teach them letter sounds and having to consult my husband on how many sounds C makes and whether I should mention it to the kids.

Then I turn around and see this.

Anybody remember Calvin and Hobbes?

I don't think we'll have any problems getting them to want to read. It's just teaching the mechanics that I'm afraid of.

And here's all the munchkins together:

Snails on Friday

2011-06-10T08:14:00.000-07:00

I went for another nice walk this morning at 5:30. This was the sunrise. I didn't even see that truck parked there until I was editing my photo.

I wound up talking to a new neighbor as I was cleaning snails out of the flowerbed shortly before I came inside. I had chucked about 25 of the buggers out into the road when this older man came walking up and asked what I was doing. I told him that I was "decreasing the surplus population" and we commiserated about the snail problem.

I told him about the snail trap I've always wanted to try, where you put some beer onto a small flat lid of some kind and leave it out overnight. He said he'd try it. I know snails are certainly attracted to the smell of certain marinades leftover on the grill. After it's cooled off.

I tried putting Claire in the high chair, but she's still too small. Her siblings, however, thought it was great.

Edit a few hours later:

Here is how far the snails made it before the sun hit them.

There are at least ten snails in this photo, plus one slug who slimed out to the road, tried to turn around and got caught by the sun. His demise was not my doing.

If you'd like to see why I despise snails so much, take a look at last year. My feud was long and bitter. I don't think I have pictures of what the snails did to my other pot of flowers, but they utterly destroyed my other pot. I think I was too discouraged to take pictures of the pathetic stubs that were left.

So yes. Snails. We has them.

Walking at sunrise

2011-06-08T07:10:00.000-07:00

This morning I got up early, went out and walked.

Not my photo, but the sky looked something like this.

I just walked around our apartment block, because I'd be able to hear the baby if she woke up and fussed. So I walked until I was tired. It was wonderful to get out by myself. Heck, I haven't even been outside in days. Not for any extended length of time.

Daily Light today had one of my favorite verses in it: Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. (Ps. 37:4) So I pondered it as I walked. I prayed that for years and God gave me my husband and my kids. Getting out away from them helps me appreciate them. Lately we've had rampant colds, so it's been very snotty and whiny, and I was tired of my kids. It's nice to remember that I do love them still.

I'm going to try to walk regularly in the early morning. I mean, it's JUNE. It should be warm enough! I'll try to get pictures of the jillions of snails all over the grass. It's both amazing and disgusting.

Twenty percent rain

2011-06-05T13:02:00.000-07:00

We've had a storm spinning slowly off the coast of Cali lately, and on radar, it was so pretty that I had to save it:

It's a perfect cinnamon-roll spiral.

We only have a twenty percent chance of rain here, but elsewhere in California is getting a nice soaking. Which is really weird for June, but hey, that's La Nina for you.

My father-in-law told me that a meteorologist told him what those rain percentages mean. They aren't some weird calculation of odds. They really mean that "twenty percent of the area will get rain." And you look at the Dopplar map, and sure enough, about 20% of it has rain spotting it.

This educational post brought to you by my nap-dazed brain.

Peppermint tea

2011-06-04T12:36:00.000-07:00

My munchkins have come down with headcolds and croupy coughs. Upon doing some research into what sorts of things might help loosen up their coughs, I came upon a site recommending peppermint tea. Peppermint has a high menthol content, which helps to soothe inflamed nasal passages and throats. Plus it instantly eases stomach aches. There's lots more that it does, but that was the primary reason I was interested in it.

This is my peppermint bush. It started out as a small pot of half-dead peppermint I discovered thrown behind a bush in our apartment complex. I planted it, and it's turned into a shrub. There's plenty to make into tea.

This is my tea ball, packed with peppermint leaves.

There's lots of ways to make tea, but I'm going for the "southern iced tea" method, which is to boil water, take it off the heat, chuck in the tea bags and let it steep. With regular tea, you then dilute it with water and sugar, but I only have one tea ball, so mine isn't quite that strong.

Boiling hot water, removed from heat.

When you steep tea like this, make sure you keep a lid on it. With peppermint, the essential oils will evaporate right out.

After fifteen or twenty minutes, check out your tea:

It's a lovely greenish amber color. It tastes like mint-flavored water. It's wonderful with honey, but my munchkins don't like honey, so they've been getting it plain. It loosens up croupy coughs so fast, though, that they don't complain a bit. They've been sucking it down as fast as I can make it, especially at night when they wake up coughing.

We've been watching a lot of videos these last couple of days. Netflix Instant doesn't seem to have any Disney anything. And you know, with no Disney movies or cartoons anywhere in the roster, family entertainment is a sad, sad place.

Wednesday healthy living meme!

2011-06-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

I think Words for Weight Loss should be called Words for Healthy Living, because it's not really about losing weight anymore. And hey, I'm fine with that, because I'm not trying to lose weight, but I am trying to lead a healthy life!

1. Has your diet changed a lot since the warmer weather came?

Yes! More fruits and vegetables, eating grilled food. But don't let the apartment manager find out, because they banned charcoal grills (propane is okay) for air quality issues. I swear, they can make any stupid rule they want for "air quality issues". I grill in secret on the weekends, but last time I left it out Monday morning and the manager noticed, so I haven't had the nerve to get it out again. When I do, I'll hide it when I'm done. My neighbors have all agreed not to tell on me (and they all have secret charcoal grills, too.)

2. Did you do anything interesting over Memorial weekend?

We went out to a movie with friends while a friend watched the kids, because our friends' (and Ryan's) birthdays happened to fall right around Memorial Day weekend. Then Monday I made jam. It was a good weekend. :-)

3. If you could plan a get together with your blog friends, what would that look like?

Play date at the park, and all our kids could run around wild, and us moms could all sit and talk. :-)

4. Do you like yogurt? What's your favorite kind or favorite way of eating it?

I adore yogurt. My favorite kind is the stuff I make myself, but it varies according to what I used as a starter. Mountain High yogurt makes for a very mild-flavored homemade batch. Kefir makes a very sour, sharp-tasting kind. I like the milder stuff, because it goes so well on strawberries or mixed with raisins (when I have no other fruit in the house). Here is how to make crock pot yogurt.

5. What's the most important quality or character trait in a friend?

I don't know. I've pondered this one, and all I can come up with is they have to not be a jerk, and we have to have something in common that we can talk about. Otherwise I'm not too picky. My problem is maintaining friendships. I tend to disappear from relationships just because I forget to call/visit/stay in touch. I'm so thankful for Facebook and blogs, because I can at least click "Like" on what people say. :-p

Book review: Tale of Hill Top Farm

2011-06-01T07:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finished reading this little book, The Tale of Hilltop Farm by Susan Wittig Albert.

It's a "cozy mystery", that is, no sex, violence or swearing. The characters are nice people, the setting is friendly, and the story is well-written.

Beatrix Potter has bought a small farm in a small village called Sawrey, where she is at first looked upon as an outsider. But she begins going around and making friends with all the interesting characters. Along the way, there is rumor of a murder, and numerous thefts that must be solved.

The thing that sets this book apart from other cozy mysteries is that the animals talk. They only talk to each other, of course, but they get involved in solving the mysteries, too. We are also introduced to Potter's own entourage of pets: two rabbits, a hedgehog, and a mouse. Most of the action revolves around the village cats and a dog.

My only problem with this is that sometimes the animals are described as just animals, and other times they're described as wearing clothes, drinking champagne and doing other things that they do in Beatrix Potter's illustrations. My mind instantly unreeled Redwall lookalikes for all this, and I wound up getting confused.

But aside from that, this was a sweet little book that ambled from place to place, once you get past the weirdness of seeing Beatrix Potter solving mysteries. I'd happily read more in this series.

Memorial Day Jam

2011-05-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day: the day it's a tradition to work your butt off. At least, it is in my family. :-)

I got the house all clean, and made strawberry jam. The strawberries I got at the farmer's market on Saturday were so ripe that they were on the way out by a day or two later. I was going to make jam yesterday, and got as far as cutting them up and mashing them, but I ran out of energy. So I shoved it in the fridge and made it this morning instead.

I haven't really tasted it properly yet, but the jam I licked off the cooling pot tasted fabulous. I'm thinking of eating it on ice cream. I was going to make biscuits with dinner, but I had already promised Ryan a copycat recipe for fajitas from Chipotle Grill, and biscuits just don't go with fajitas.

By the way, if you're interested in that copycat recipe, I got it here.

Interview with Claire

2011-05-27T13:37:00.000-07:00

Claire shares what's on her mind today. Mostly cute baby sounds.

What they hear ...

2011-05-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

... vs. what I'm saying.

"Don't drip on the carpet" means "because it collects dirt and makes a dirty spot that we have to pay to get cleaned."

"Don't wake up the baby" means "because she just went to sleep and she's really fussy and if she wakes up I'll kill you."

"Eat your dinner" means "if you come asking for food fifteen minutes after leaving the table, you're getting cold leftovers."

"Don't hit your sister" means "OR ELSE!"

"Naptime!" means "Mommy needs a nap."

"Pick out a movie" means "I am losing my freaking mind and this will help my sanity to return."

"Pick up your toys" means "If I step on one more sharp object I'm going to scream."

"Pick up the Legos" means the same as above, but with additional screaming.

"Stop that" means "don't resume that as soon as my back is turned."

"Bedtime!" means "Mommy and Daddy want some time alone now!"

Strawberries!

2011-05-22T10:55:00.000-07:00

I went to the farmer's market yesterday to get some nice fresh produce. Mostly I wanted strawberries.

Not my photo, because a day later half of them are gone and they're starting to look wilted.

Anyway, they're juicy and flavorful now, if still a little on the pricey side (I hunted around, and found the same 3-box carton at various stalls for 8 bucks, 7 bucks, and 6 bucks. I went for the 6 buck option.) They've gone into smoothies, along with oranges and bananas, as we seem to have a small cold running through the household.

But it got me itching to make some jam. Strawberry jam, one of the finest things in life. All I have in the house is peach butter and marmalade. The marmalade is a bit rich for daily consumption, and I can't stand that peach butter (I smelled it for far too long with morning sickness).

I'm also pondering strawberry-rhubarb. Maybe a batch of each? I've never eaten rhubarb, but it's all the rage in blogland right now.

You know, there's so many things that I've tried because of blogs. They've really broadened my world.

God's providence

2011-05-21T09:06:00.000-07:00

When I got pregnant with Claire last summer, we were going through a really hard time financially. But I chose to believe that God would provide for our family, because he wouldn't give us another baby and then not give us the means to care for her.

Duet 8:18: But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

So I've clung to that verse. Also I've changed prayer tactics. Instead of praying that God would magically change our financial situation, I prayed for my husband directly. And I've seen answers to every prayer.

Yesterday our financial situation changed again, enabling us to have enough to live on for the next four or five months. It came through an avenue that neither of us expected or foresaw, although I was certain it was yet another scam at first (since we've been through two awful job scams now). But my husband researched it and everything checked out. It's not a job, which he needs, but it's the funds to keep us afloat while he continues his job search.

God is so gracious to us. I'm determined to be a good steward, so I have a stack of coupons that I'm taking shopping today, too.

Thursday, pretty - happy - funny -real

2011-05-19T13:49:00.000-07:00

Last week I missed Pretty Happy Funny Real because blogger decided to go down. So I get to do it this week, hooray!

{Pretty}

My second hollyhock stalk is finally blooming, and it's a wonderful magenta color.

{Happy}

Holly got this giant Minnie Mouse from her Grandma Jacki, and she has hardly put it down since she got it.

{Funny}

I didn't really have a funny pic, so here's a shot of Claire. She's getting fat now at six weeks.

{Real}

Look at 'em run!

Pondering foods

2011-05-18T08:52:00.000-07:00

That hollyhock picture right there came out so nice that I sized it for a desktop wallpaper. Click on it to grab the big version. (It looks extra-nice if you make your desktop's background color black to match.)

Anyway, I'm doing Patrice's Wednesday Words of Weight Loss today because I liked the questions.

1. I've heard it said that you should eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper. What are your meals like?

I've sat and tried to figure this one out. I've heard that saying before and I've never been able to decipher its meaning. Does that mean that for breakfast you have whole roasted pigs and roasted fowl and drink flagons of mead and throw the bones over your shoulder to the dogs? And what do princes eat, anyway? Don't they dine with the kings with the roast pigs and so forth?

And if you eat like a pauper, does that mean a crust of black bread and a cup of water at a plain wooden table lit by a single tallow candle?

Anyway, I can answer the second question. Hot meal for breakfast (either eggs or hot cereal), sandwiches or hotdogs at lunch (accompanied by fruit or chips or some other side), and dinner is usually the biggest meal and contains the most meat. So, prince > pauper > king, if I have some grasp of the metaphor.

2. Does eating out include all of the trimmings (appetizer, meal, dessert, beverages)?

Only on dates, when it's just the two of us. It's too expensive to get all that with the kids along. Also we're usually too full to order dessert. I can only get it when I'm ravenous from being pregnant or breastfeeding.

3. What's your favorite season of your wardrobe?

The one I'm not currently on. When it's summer, I long for sweaters and jeans. When it's winter, I wish for shorts and light tops.

4. If you could take a class or course in anything, what would it be?

Life drawing, like a shot. I've seen how it improved the art of all my friends, and I kick myself for not taking it while I had the chance.

5. Optimist or Pessimist?

The best thing about being a pessimist is that you're always being proven right or you're being pleasantly surprised.

I try to be optimistic, but being realistic means you have to fall somewhere in between.

Sun halo

2011-05-17T08:39:00.000-07:00

Two days ago, my husband walked in, exclaiming that I had to come out and get a picture of this ring around the sun.

He had never seen one before. When you can see a ring like that, usually it means rain. And last night, rain! I don't know if there's an adage about sun halos like there is about rainbows and red skies, but there should be.

And here's the munchkins in what they thought was a loving pose.

Looks more like a choke hold, but okay, we'll roll with that.

Holly's 2nd birthday

2011-05-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

Thursday was Holly's second birthday party (her birthday's actually Saturday). Remember that rose cake I wanted to mimic? Here's how the cupcakes turned out:

Here's Holly, opening presents from Gramma. She got a bunch of paint with water books.

Aunt Meg played with baby Claire.

Holly liked the whole "happy birthday" thing and sang along. Then her boy cousins and brother helped her blow out her candles.

And then everybody ate cupcakes like they were going out of style. It was the icing flowers. I sneaked some cream cheese into my buttercream icing, and oh man, it was tasty.

Testing

2011-05-13T10:31:00.000-07:00

This is just to see if I can post on Blogger again, and I'm wondering if my last post is indeed gone forever. We shall just have to see.

Wednesday weight "loss"

2011-05-11T12:54:00.000-07:00

I feel kind of bad for doing another meme, because I want to do pretty-happy-funny-real tomorrow, too. (It's my daughter's birthday party, so it's a great excuse!) But today I wanted to post SOMEthing, so here goes. Shout out to Patrice for writing these questions!

1. Are you happier at a big event/party or would you rather be with a few close friends/family? I have a big family, and I prefer being with them than with anybody else. But I don't consider that to be a big group. I think of that as a small group. A "big" group is a church function or a wedding or something.

2. What kind of farm animal is your favorite? The avian ones: chickens, guineas. I'd love to raise turkeys and ducks, but as I have no experience with them, I can't really put them on my favorites. I also like small birds, evil cockatiels notwithstanding. Also reptiles. But reptiles aren't considered farm animals.

Alex at 4 months

3. How are you doing with your weight loss or healthy eating? Horribly, and not afraid to admit it. But I'm breastfeeding and trying to fatten up the baby, so brownies and ice cream every night isn't as sinful as it sounds.

And man, they were sure good brownies.

Holly smiling

4. If you could have any food made calorie free or carb free, what would it be?

Ice cream. But then, I don't eat it because it's diet. I eat it because I love the fat in it. It makes me feel full and satisfied. Like that line from that one movie, "We only serve food high in starches and fats. Comforts you deep down inside."

5. What's the most relaxing thing for you to do at the end of the day? Read blogs. I really prefer to go for a nice stroll around the block, but lately, when it hasn't been raining or the wind has been blowing, it's been 90 degrees, and I'm just not acclimated to either extreme just yet. Also, Claire doesn't like the stroller and she's already pretty heavy for the baby sling.

And Claire. My kids are like peas in a pod.