Chats in the new year

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

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

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.

Thankful Thursday

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

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.

Wednesday porch chats

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.

Wednesday Words

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.

Wednesday healthy living meme!

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

God's providence

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

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

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.

Testing

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"

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.

Doing "school"

I've been doing "school" with Alex and Holly for a few months now. It's one of their very favorite things, but then, we're not doing anything real major.

I print materials off this First School website, whom I found through AAA Math. We've been working our way through the alphabet by making little books for each letter.

Each little book has stickers that you cut out and put in. I just use a little roll of tape on the backs.

And a little handwriting bit where they can trace the letters. Alex really enjoys these.

Maybe I should print him the actual handwriting pages.

Then we do a coloring page with one of the things starting with that letter. In this case, it was a mouse, since we were doing M.

School is their favorite time of day, and we usually do it as soon as I've had a shower, so, like, 7:30 AM. It's a bit early for me, but it sure makes their day.

We do math a little less frequently. We count things, and say the numbers as the microwave counts down. I figure that's about as in-depth as we need to get.

Ten pounds! and sweets

I weighed Claire today, and she's up just over ten pounds now. She was 8.2 when she was born. Not bad for being three weeks old.

Patrice over on Everyday Ruralty does the Wednesday Words for Weight Loss every week. A few weeks ago, her daughter suggested a question about, "Something sweet that is healthy that you can eat and not feel guilty."

I've tried and tried to come up with something that might fit that category. Most baked goods are out of the question, because they have flour and yeast and sugar. I suppose if it was something weird like barley flour, no yeast and some weird natural sugar, it might be okay. Anyway, after three weeks of pondering, I finally have two sweet things that I think qualify:

Granola bars

People go crazy with their granola bar recipes, composing them of strange toasted grains, stuffing them with weird dried fruit, and binding them together with honey and maple syrups. I suppose you could eat these without guilt. They're not cake, but hey, you can mix chocolate chips into them, right?


Fruit (not my photo)

Fruit is full of vitamins and fiber and all kinds of goodness. Although there is a limit to how much you can eat (unless you're immune to laxatives), you can pretty much eat fruit with no guilt.

I keep trying to think of something else that you could eat huge amounts of that wouldn't make you feel guilty (or sick). Try as I might, I can't justify chocolate. I know the dark chocolate people have been working overtime, pimping the antioxidants, but you know what? Chocolate is still chocolate.

Being fruitful

A while back, my mom loaned me this little book called Be Fruitful and Multiply. I picked it up again to encourage myself that having babies is the right thing to do.

Oh, it's encouraging, all right, complete with reams of Bible passages about how God blesses a nation and a family by giving them lots of kids. And how our mentality of "let's wait a while before we have kids" is straight from Satan, and how the church has fallen for it.

And I'm sitting here with a baby in my lap, pettily lamenting, "I'm fine with lots of kids, but why does labor have to hurt so much?"

Another thing that I found encouraging is that God first blesses with children, and then he blesses with material things. I worry about our financial situation all the time (who doesn't?), but it's right there in loads and loads of verses: God blesses with the fruit of the womb, and increases their flocks and herds afterward.

I've kept an eye out to see if this principle actually does hold true in real life. I've been fascinated to see that in many people around me, the birth of another child in their home precipitates some kind of success in the father's place of work, enabling him to feed this new arrival.

One colorful example has been the adventures of Rhett and Link. They're a couple of internet comedians over on youtube, and we've all enjoyed their videos for years. Anyway, they're both in the process of having kids. When Link's fourth one came along, they got this deal to do a commercial for McDonalds. And now they have a contract to do a TV show about making their hilarious local commercials for people.

As their families are expanding, their oddball internet-tainment business is taking off. (I don't know all the internal details, of course. This is gathered mostly from their videos and observing the timing of things.)

I don't know if they're believers or not (their videos are always clean). But God is certainly blessing them.

So I'm waiting to see how God is going to provide for us now. However he does it, it will be unique and fascinating. I just wanted to get my thoughts down, so I can look back and go, "Yeah!"

My field of experience isn't very wide at this point. Have you seen this principle of expanding family leading to God's expanding provision?

Thursday pretty

Gee, it's been a whole week since I updated, just about. This blog is in danger of becoming "let's fill out memes". It makes me take pictures, though!

Anyway, it's time for another edition of {pretty, happy, funny, real} from Like Mother, Like Daughter.

{Pretty}

This is the flower bed outside the apartment office next door to ours. These are mostly pansies and snapdragons. They're well established and look fantastic. Therefore I'm sure the gardeners will rip them out and replace them with "summer" flowers any day now.

I went on a photo tour of the blooming rosebushes around our complex, and found this bush with these odd double blooms, pink on one side and purple on the other.

I think I'm going on my tour again, this time with scissors and a vase.

{Happy}

My girls!

{Funny}

Another mystery photo I discovered on my camera this morning. I don't know what's funnier, that it seems to be a butt shot, or that the pants in question are on backwards.

{Real}

It's a clear, warm, windy day, with a sky blue enough to swim in and the mountains looking clear and much nearer than they are.

I suppose it's not as real as it should be, because I cropped out the busy road at the bottom of the picture. :-)

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

Another meme for me! I find that filling out memes is easier than thinking, what with mommy-brain and not having anything more interesting to say than, "Got up. Fed people. Nursed the baby. Fed people. Changed diapers. Fed the baby. etc. etc. etc."

So today I'm trying out {pretty, happy, funny, real} from Like Mother, Like Daughter. It looked fun, and it only requires four photos. I can cough up four photos!

{pretty}

Pretty chocolate chip cookies! With some diced peanuts in them for extra nom.

{happy}

His smile disturbs me slightly.

{funny}

"I'll make you a diaper you can't refuse."

{real}

My living room this morning. Sigh. The baby really does sleep the best when she's in the midst of chaos.

Weight "loss" on Wednesday

Well, here it is Wednesday again. This time last week I was sighing about being so huge and pregnant. I took my daughter to the doctor for a checkup, then met my husband and son at a fast food place for lunch. That night, I went into labor. I'm still amazed about that.

Anyway, just for a lark, I thought I'd do Patrice's words of weight loss for today, since I did lose 15 pounds in the last week!

1. Should we classify cheesecake as dairy or a dessert?

It should be dairy, of course, because then we could eat it daily. At one point, I do recall putting cream cheese on toast instead of butter, then slathering it in strawberry jam. Yes, I was pregnant at the time.

2. How often do you get on a scale to check your weight?

While pregnant, once a week. I checked it this morning just out of curiosity. 15 pounds lost so far, which isn't bad, considering 8 of it was baby.

3. Do you wear an apron when you cook?

I have a very nice one, but I always forget to wear it. Then I look down and my shirt is covered in flour or something.

4. Do you like to work in the garden? Tell us about your garden(s).

When it's my garden, yes. I would give anything to have a garden, but we live in an apartment, and we're barely allowed to have flowers in pots. I have a pot of peppermint and a pot of desperate hollyhocks that I fight my children daily to save. They think they should be able to hit the hollyhocks with sticks and pull off all the leaves.

5. Did you hug anyone today?

Everyone in my family, as well as a couple of friends who came to see Claire.

Tuesday blog roundup

Today, I noticed that I have 198 posts on my blog. Two more and I break 200! I sat down to blog about something and drew a complete and utter blank. Kids still a little under the weather. Tired from working yesterday. Staring labor in the face here in a few weeks. Who wants to blog about that?

So I'm going to blog about what other people are blogging about! I follow an oddball mishmash of stuff, so here, without further ado, is what people are talking about on my blogroll:

Over at Razzberry Corner, her guineas are finally laying. Nancy Medina has painted some poppies and talks a little about animal rescue, while Bakerella, who is finally feeling better, shows off her gorgeous cake pedestals.

Food in Jars is advertising a goody giveaway, while over on his art blog, Stape delves a little into the career of L. Gerome. I Live in an Antbed offers tips on traveling with many children crammed into a car, and Bee Haven Acres brags about a different species of newborn kid (triplets!)

The Joys of Home Educating reviews some homemade soap today. Patrice at Everyday Ruralty interviews a lady who lives off the grid, and My Watercolor Diary has a new painting of a Yorkshire countryside.

And Cake Wrecks.