I'm not sure how long I've blogged at HSB but it's been a while.  I've so enjoyed the people I've met here and I've appreciated the opportunity to have free blog space.  All this is to say that I won't be updating my blog here anymore.  I have way too much trouble accessing the site and I just don't have the time to wait for the site to load (yesterday it took upwards of 30 minutes before I just closed it down).  I have two other blogs that I update regularly (with roughly the same content):  http://lorislightextemporanea.blogspot.com and http://www.xanga.com/immax3 .  The Blogspot blog has an rss feed (for those of you who like that feature) but the Xanga does not.  By the way, thank you to those of you who have published an rss feed on your blog.  When HSB did the last browser change and it cut off easy access to figuring out who'd updated their blogs, that rss feed (and Bloglines) was a godsend.  Please consider publishing an rss feed if you don't already so I can keep up with you.

Blessings to you and yours as you do what the Lord commands!

Lori aka SlackerMom

Currently Listening Bob Seger - Greatest Hits By Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band see related

Thursday Thirteen may have to wait until tomorrow.  It's been a skanky day, probably because I started to crack down on the girls and they hate that.

Anyway, look what came in the mail today!

Why didn't you people tell me that hives knock you out?  I depend on this information from you, you know.

Man.  Ok, so I broke out in hives Tuesday (or sometime Monday night).  Went to the doctor.  She said, "Oh yeah, those are hives," and prescribed some antihistimine, followed by the ominous words, "If it's not better by Friday, call me."

Yeah, ok.

It wasn't better by Friday.  I tell you that I have not spent so much of the night awake since I was in graduate school and I sure wasn't scratching myself raw then.  This stuff is worse than poison ivy.  At least with poison ivy, you can use the blow dryer trick and make the itch stop for a time.  No heat treatment for hives, it makes them spread.  The pharmacist recommended a 1% lidocaine spray.  I asked him, "Does this really work or is this what you're recommending so I'll go away?"  He said that, no, it really works.

Not.

Neither did calamine lotion.  Nor did mad scratching.  ARGH!  I did, however, try varying combinations of calamine and lidocaine and benedryl (at night).  Nothing worked.  At last, Friday arrived and I called the doctor bright and early, even before taking the girls to play practice and David to the pediatrician to get his stitches out.  Did they call me back?  Of course not.  About 3 ½ hours later I got a call from the nurse saying that the doctor was going to call in something that I didn't catch.  Yeah, ok, whatever.  By that point, I was too sick to care what happened.

Somehow I managed to get all the children home and fed.  Then I put the twins down for a nap and tried to sleep, to no avail.  I did finish one book that I was reading and get halfway through another.  Once I realized that the twins weren't going to go to sleep, I cast about for something to do until Friend Husband got home.  Something that wouldn't trash the house or make me work too hard, because I wasn't up for that at all.  I decided to take them outside and let them (all) run around in the warmth and sunlight.  Inspired choice.  I huddled in the shade and attempted to stay conscious.  Friend Husband, who was driving all around Cincinnati trying to find us a van to buy, called in on occasion and asked for more time to do so and I just said, "Yeah, whatever."  Sounds like my approach to most of the day.  At one point he asked me when I'd feel well enough to go to the pharmacy and get my prescription.  Um, let's see...packing up 5 children, including 2 hyperactive toddlers and driving to a grocery store to unload them and go inside to get medication.  How about in my next lifetime?  He got the picture and told me he'd pick up my meds and bring them by when his travels brought him near the house.  Yeah, whatever.

The night proceeded:  dinner and a bath for the twins, attempting to stay conscious for me.  Friend Husband brought home my goodies, which turned out to be almost the exact steroids that David is on.  Fine and dandy.  He urged me to partake of the marvelous Chinese food he brought home and to take my pills.  By this point, I didn't even want to eat (and you know I have to be very very sick to not want to eat) but I ate something and took my pills like a good girl, feeling all the while that they wouldn't help anyway.  He went back out on the van search and I put the twins to bed, where they proceeded to dump stuff all over their floor and get to Abby's treasures on the top bunk.  If you're guessing I didn't care, you're right.  Because the plague was spreading.

My saving grace before was that the hives didn't reach the bottoms of my feet or inside my mouth.  I had them on the tops of my feet and a few on my face.  Now they hit the bottom of my feet (and you know how lovely that was...to have something intensely itchy on the most ticklish part of your foot) and my lips.  The lips thing really scared me.  The doctor had said that if my tongue started swelling, I needed to call immediately and I wondered if it was the next thing to go.  I took the precaution of reminding Sarah what to do in an emergency (like Mom passing out, for instance), and attempted to breathe through the pain.

Now I've said many times here that Lamaze breathing is no good for labor.  I had 3 9+ pounders and the last two I had without any drugs.  I've got amazing pain tolerance but to "breathe through the pain", pffft!  I have found it very useful for dealing with the children after they come out or dealing with other stressful situations.  But for labor pain relief, pffft.  It did help with the pain from the hives, though.  It was weird, the pain would come in waves (sort of like labor, actually) and I could stand there and breathe through it and it would go away for a while.  That was nasty.  I thought about it for a while and realized that I had not had enough compassion for people who have chronic pain.  I don't know how they do it and I understand now why it cripples your whole life.  I took the rest of my steroids for the day and went to bed.

Glorious glorious sleep!  But first, amazing hyperness!  Steroids do that to some people, including me.  I couldn't go to sleep for the life of me, so I went into the living room and knitted a few hundred rounds on my buttonhole bag (not really, but it seemed like it).  I was finally able to go to sleep around 1 AM...but it was so very worth it.  I slept through the night.  No scratching, no mad rush to throw on more lidocaine for the 30 seconds of relief it provided.  Ahhhh...This morning I woke up in a much better frame of mind, and was much less itchy.  I'm very very tired and very very loopy but at least I'm not doing St. Vitus' dance.

I still have Sean Astin's lips though.  If you find him, could you tell him to come get them.  I don't want them anymore.

Snow on the ground

Well, I really didn't think I'd be crunching through snow on my deck again before December.  There's not that much but there was enough to crunch when I came back from provisioning Lucy the Wonder Dog this morning.  Wild.

Sarah had a nice birthday.  Unfortunately, the "big gift" we got her hasn't yet arrived.  Friend Husband is hoping for today but, pessimist that I am, I think it'll take longer.  It's coming media mail and that can take up to 2 weeks.

For the first time in a couple of weeks, I'm able to grade and plan.  Yeehaw!  I'm off to do that and maybe to scope out a yarn shop.  I'm a lot more squeamish about buying yarn than I am about buying fabric.  I hope it wears off with practice because it's quite a blow to the old self-esteem.

Y'all have a good weekend!

Have you ever had one of those ideas that seems good at the time but comes back to bite you in the end?  Well, that perfectly describes today.  One of those days when, if your life were a movie, the dramatic music would be burbling off in the background.  Yep, that was today.  And I didn't hear the music until it was too late (I guess that's why all those people in those movies get axed...they didn't hear the music until it was too late.)

My brilliant idea:  take the children down to the Reds' Opening Day Parade.  Yes, sometimes I am that stupid.

I did prepare ahead of time.  I purchased two harnesses to try to keep the twins from running away.  They did keep them from running away but not from attempting to run amok.  David attempted to dart away through the crowd twice and we parted the seas of humanity with our tethers but he didn't get away.  Hooray for the harnesses!

So we parked across the river at Newport on the Levee for $2.  At the end of the day, I was wishing I'd forked over the $15 to park in Ohio.  But that's another story.  We walked across the Purple People Bridge, which the children thought was totally cool.  I like the idea of being able to walk all around places, which was what Friend Mattie did when she and her family lived in Covington, but after hauling the twins all over creation today, I think I've changed my mind.

Ok, one thing to remember:  know where you're going.  I sort of knew where the parade was going to be, but not exactly.  My plan was to get to downtown Cincinnati and follow the people walking around in red until we got to a lot of people sitting around in red and sit down with them.  This plan did not inspire the girls much.  We did make it without incident but I think they thought I'd pretty much lost my mind.

Another thing to remember:  the harnesses will keep the twins from running away but they will not carry them when they are tired.  Just for the record, I thought about taking the stroller but I wasn't entirely sure that the whole route would be accessible.  And how much room would be available for strollers once we got there.  And how far could it be, really?  Those words would come back to haunt me, but big.

Yet another thing to remember:  bring plenty of diapers.  Yes, there's a story there too.

And finally:  the thing will take longer than you think.  Be prepared.

Ok...so we walked across the PPB, found the parade site and settled in quite comfortably in the shade of the Chiquita Center building.  I was comfy but I have my own subcutaneous fat layer to keep me warm.  Sarah and Abby, on the other hand, got cold quickly.  We were all huddled in a mass of Us until the parade started.  Once the parade started, we were on our feet and somewhat warmer.

The parade was very cool.  Parades generally are.  We liked the motorcycle precision team pretty well, although the sirens terrorized Keziah no end.  And so did the walking mascots.  Any time one of those came near, I had 3 bodies (the twins and Abby) attempting to burrow into my backbone.  They didn't like those things at all.  One guy who was walking alongside one of them offered to take a picture of the children with his mascot figure (forgot which one it was) and Sarah said, "No offense, but I think she'd rather not."  There were many marching bands (we read that 18 were coming), many horse-drawn carriages, many many more politicians than I wanted to ever see in one place...lots of marching humanity.  In fact, the early lament of "Are they starting yet?" was replaced by, "Oh.  Another marching band.  Look.  More horses."  The girls wanted to go at one point and I told them that I wanted to see the guys that I listen to in the morning on the radio so they good-naturedly decided to stick around. I also thought it was kind of a chicken move to leave a parade while it was still ongoing.  Shows ya what a provincial hick I am.  People drifted away and drifted away until there were precious few left.  Including us.

Oh yes, the cautionary tale about diapers.  Or maybe it's a self-congratulatory tale about how very inventive I can be when really put to the test.  At one point during the parade, I noticed that Keziah's diaper was beyond-the-pale drippy.  Yuck.  Naturally, we're in the middle of downtown Cincinnati with numerous signs on all the buildings making note of the fact that there are no public restrooms within.  Not to mention that I don't really relish the idea of abandoning the rest of the children to change K.'s diaper nor do I want to drag everybody away at the beginning of the parade (this would have been much different had it been at the end).  So I thought about it and realized that Keziah's voluminous dress would hide my diaper change activities.  I arranged the rest of the children in a semi-circle around us (skirts make good screens to hide all sorts of activities) and changed her diaper.  I congratulated myself on my ingenuity.  Not too long afterward, I realized that David was also soaked.  Obviously, David was not wearing a voluminous dress (although I now understand why mothers of yore kept their sons in dresses until they were toilet trained).  I arranged the girls in a semicircle around us and proceeded to change David's diaper in a semi-modest way involving strategic placement of clean versus wet diapers.  Yay me.  I've finally turned into...what would that make me?  White trash?  I don't know.  I didn't feel as happy about my ingenuity the second time.  I decided that the best thing to do (after copious use of wet wipes on my hands) was to not make eye contact with those around me.  Yeah, that works for me.

I kept asking the girls if they wanted to leave, figuring that I'd missed my morning radio guys anyway and we may as well leave but they wanted to stay to see if they were further on in the parade.  They were!  I bellowed at them, waved hello, and received a stare that said to me, "Do I know you IRL?  No, you must be one of those weird suburban housewife groupies we get."  Yep, that's me...weird suburban housewife white trash groupie.  I know my mama's proud.

When we finally decided to go (at the end of the parade; we marched alongside the final high school marching band), I didn't remember which street we'd walked up and we had to backtrack a bit.  It became very evident to me that David was about to crash.  I'd put him up on my shoulders and he'd lay his head down atop mine and become very still.  I asked the girls if he was asleep and they'd say, "No, but he's very zoned."  As we were drawing nigh to the Reds' new stadium, Zi suffered a wardrobe malfunction.  That is to say that her diaper tab came off.  I just hate it when that happens.  Of course, we had no other diapers to put on her and we had no pins, tape or anything else to attach her diaper.  I was stumped.  I kneeled there on the cement, thinking for a while, then decided that I could remove the tether from her harness, wrap it around her middle like a belt, and tuck the diaper up under there.  It worked for a while, but the girls steadfastly refused to carry her as they were afraid of further malfunctions and further damage to their own wardrobes.  I carried both twins for awhile:  David on my shoulders and Keziah on my hip.  By the time I was ready to put Keziah down, Sarah and Rachel were ready to take turns carrying her (since the tether was now missing, I didn't want to take the chance that she'd run into traffic, as she was in an ornery state at that point). 

We continued to make progress back to the van but it sure seemed to take a long time.  One of the reasons why was that David was now sound asleep and dead weight in my arms.  Keziah decided she had to walk, so she held Sarah's hand and proceeded down the sidewalk.  We wove our ways (in all our hick white trash splendor) through crowds of yuppies waiting to get into some bar/restaurant down there that was apparently the hot place for the young undressed to go.  Sarah kept saying something to me but it was drowned out by my mind's saying, "Ten hup!  Right, left, right, left."  It finally filtered to my brain that she said, "Mom!  Keziah's diaper fell off!" 

"What?"

"Where?"

"Back there."  And she pointed back through the crowd of young beautiful undressed people of which I guess my little girl was now a member.  I will confess that I toyed with the idea of just leaving it there but I haven't reached that level of white-trashedness (can you be white trash if you're a transracially adopting parent?) so I sent Sarah back for it.  Instead of picking it up, rolling it up into a discreet little ball and walking non-chalantly through the crowd (no eye contact, please) which would have been my plan, she picked it up as it lay, attached on one side and one side unattached, slightly urinated in.  She carried it in front of her pinched between the tips of her index finger and thumb with a look of mild irriation on her face.  Come to think of it now, the crowds parted well for her then. 

I looked at Keziah and told her, "Kuh, you're going to walk to the car with no diaper on.  Do. Not. Pee.  Ok?"

"Ok, Mommy!"

Ah the many lovely memories my children will have of our trip to the 2007 Reds Opening Day Parade.  That's what the whole thing was about, right?  Making memories.  One day, I'm sure we will laugh about this.  I was actually laughing so hard I was crying when I was telling Friend Husband about it but the tears might not have been entirely because of the humor of the situation, if you know what I mean...

FAQ's:

Yes, David did sleep all the way to the car.  David weighed close to 35 pounds this morning.  How many calories do you think I burned carrying him from downtown to Newport?

Yes, David did wake up in the van, but only after ice cream for lunch was mentioned as a definite need.

No, Keziah did not get ice cream as she proceeded to fall asleep once we were underway.  And she did not befoul anyone's wardrobe in her diaper-free hours.

Yes, we finally did find the van but only after searching 3 floors of the Newport Aquarium Parking Garage. 

Yes, I was stupid enough not to remember which level we came in. 

No, I was not the only mother who did that.

Yes, we finally got home but it was 4:30 and we'd missed a meal.  We made up for it by using Friend Husband's gift cards to Graeter's.  Oh.  Yeah.

And the Reds won their opener for the first time in a while...go Reds!

Pictures to come...I'm going to bed.

Currently Reading I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away By Bill Bryson see related

Monday Memories? Wordy Wednesday?

I don't know...I'm all messed up here.  We spent yesterday morning tramping through Rowe Woods.  It was an unbelievably gorgeous day, hot for spring but sunny and delightful.  The grounds of the Cincinnati Nature Center are covered in daffodils.  Unfortunately, they weren't in profuse bloom yesterday but we did get to enjoy a fair number of them.  Apparently when the land was privately owned and someone lived on it, that someone planted many many daffodil bulbs and they spread and you have this marvelous display of daffodils.

Since this was the Nature Center, we also got to see many different kinds of wildflowers.  The hills were lush with one yellow one with dark green leaves.  I can't remember the name of them but Sarah does.  She said that they were outlawed in ancient Rome because wives could brew them into a tea and poison their husbands with them.  Come to think of it, were those the flowers that David would surreptitiously eat when we weren't looking?

Anyway, here are some pictures I took of our adventure in the woods yesterday.  This is the first time that we've gone to Rowe Woods and I didn't consult the map once.  We just bumbled around, enjoying the scenery.  If I had looked at the map, I might have noticed that we were taking the rock stairs of doom and I might have gone a different direction...one which would not have caused my calves to ache so intensely this morning.  Anyway, it was a marvelous time.

These are the infamous rock stairs of doom.  Pretty and unassuming, aren't they?  Don't you believe it!  We went down them to discover that the trail led over a stream.  It was not my idea of a good time to walk the twins across rocks over a rushing stream, so we went back up the rock stairs soon after having gone down them.

But, of course, they make for a wonderful photo op...

Does anyone know what this flower is?

Here are the flowers that were banned in ancient Rome, in case anyone wants to know for reasons which I won't ask about...

The children were pretty patient with my constant need for picture-taking.

And, of course, it was just warm enough for us to really appreciate an ice cream treat afterward...

and just plain tired....that just about describes my state of mind right now.

My grandmother died Wednesday night.  This is the woman who I've thought of as my grandmother since I was a child.  Unfortunately, she's also the mother of my stepfather, who decided that I didn't need to know that she had died.  He's called me every other time she's been admitted to the hospital and asked for prayers.  I've duly prayed for her and for him and called to check up on the situation.  All of a sudden I am persona non grata to that family.  I give up.  I just give up.  I think the man was honestly afraid that I'd show up to his mother's funeral.  I called their church to find out if there were any organizations they wanted donations for in lieu of flowers and the church secretary (whom I know well) asked me if I wasn't coming to the funeral.  I said, "Bobbie, I just found out about it this afternoon.  He just didn't let me know about it."  The funeral is in Texas, I'm in Ohio.  No, I don't think I'm coming.  But at least the people at his church will know that it's his fault I'm not there, not mine.

I was very tempted to go, just to see what he'd do.  I think he'll be (unhappy, stunned, shocked) enough that flowers are there tonight from my brother and me.  Of course, he'll probably throw away the card so that no one else can see that we sent flowers.  Why?  Because he is not a decent person.  We are decent people.  We sent flowers with our condolences, sincere condolences.  But he will find a way to twist it around so that we look bad and there's not a thing we can do about it.

Sigh.

Anyway, I've had to do a lot of talking to myself and reminding myself that he will catch up with him and that I have a great life.  Why is it that I have to continually backtrack and be constantly reminded of this wretched upbringing and its effects on me when he gets to get off scot-free?  GRRRRR!

Ok, I'm a bum.  About 1 ½ MONTHS ago, she tagged me for something and I totally forgot about it, so here it is.

From A to Z:

A- Available or married? Married
B- Best Friend? I guess that would be Friend Gina.
C- Cake or Pie? Depends...chocolate cake or lemon or coconut pie

D- Drink of Choice? Depends again:  water, coffee, Diet Pepsi, iced tea
E- Essential Item?  Books
F- Favorite Color?  Green

G- Gummi Bears or Worms? Worms

H- Hometown? Austin, TX

I- Indulgence? Computer time
J- January or February?   Either/neither
K- Kids & names? Sarah, Rachel, Abigail, Keziah, and David (and 2 in Heaven)

L- Life is incomplete without? God
M- Marriage Date? 8/5
N- Number of Siblings? One brother and a half-sister who no longer claims me.

O- Oranges or apples? Oranges or apples from Rouster's Apple House

P -Phobias/Fears? Running out of time.
Q-Favorite Quote? I'm not as stupid as you think I am.
R- Reason to Smile?  When the children are getting along and the sun is shining.

S- Season?  Spring...it's almost here!

T- Tag three people!  I tag everyone...go for it!

U- Unknown fact about me: I don't think there are any unknown facts about me.

W- Worst habit? Procrastinating and/or goofing off.

Y- Your favorite food?  One favorite?  I think not.
Z- Zodiac? Gemini but I don't go for the astrology thing.

It's spring break around here and since Friend Husband is home, I have a lot less time to dottle about on the computer.  I totally missed Monday Memories yesterday as we spent the whole day dealing with the taxes for the year.  This is when I realize that I am hopelessly unorganized and this is when it costs me time and energy.

One of the things we couldn't find was the babies' Social Security numbers.  We were not allowed to count them as deductions last year because the adoption was not finalized in the U.S. until March (although it was finalized in Ethiopia the previous July and they were living in our home from August on).  So we didn't have old tax forms on which to rely, as we do for the girls.  After searching most of the morning, I volunteered to go down to the SSA office (thankfully not the one in downtown Cincinnati) and get replacement cards for them.  Fortunately for me, Sarah went with me and the twins.

Once we got there, we realized that the wait would be long and arduous.  The waiting room was packed with people whose facial expressions ranged from unhappy to belligerent.  I sat down in the back, with the twins in their double stroller, waiting for my number to be called.  After about an hour, the twins got restless and tried to bounce out of their stroller. Rather than annoy my fellow sufferers in the office, I took them outside to stroll up and down the sidewalk in front of and around the building.  I gave the number to Sarah, who stayed in the waiting area, and told her to come get me when they called the number. 

When they finally called the number (after 30 minutes of walking and saying, "Look, green car...red car...silver truck...silver car" and being hit up for small change by a panhandler), I was around the side of the building and Sarah frantically scanned the horizon looking for me.  When I came into the waiting room, the SSA employee looked at me with vast irritation on his face.  Well, excuse me for trying to keep my children occupied quietly while we wait out the afternoon in your nasty waiting room!  He lightened up a bit when one of the twins (I can't remember which one) kept pointing at him and saying, "Dad?"  (They did this to every man in the waiting room yesterday.  I have no idea why.  Most of them did not look like Friend Husband at all and it's not as though they're 9 months old anymore.)  It didn't occur to me until we got home and I was relating to Friend Husband the stories of our trials and travails yesterday that the twins are African-American.  The men in the waiting room had no reason to believe that the twins' dad was caucasian and they're naming all of them off as "Dad".  Somehow that just struck me as hilarious and I rolled on the floor, thinking about it.

Anyway, we finally got the precious slips of paper with the needed numbers on them and proceeded out the door.  As we were leaving, the twins waved to everyone in the open room and said, "Goodbye, Man!  Goodbye, Man!"  The faces were much less grumpy, at least for a while.

I don't know what we're going to do for the rest of spring break.  I'm planning to get the house a little more ready for company (Friends Judi and David from Texas!) and attempt to knit my infuriating KAL dishcloth.  I don't know why I'm having so much trouble with it but I am.  I always end up with the wrong stitch count.  Anyway, those are my plans and I'm sticking to them!

Currently Reading There Is No Me Without You: One Woman's Odyssey to Rescue Africa's Children By Melissa Fay Greene see related

My boy

Dave is such a feisty little man (favorite new word:  "NO!") that it's sometimes hard to remember that he's tenderhearted as well.  When any of his sisters cry (except if they cry because of his actions), he's there, patting them on the back and giving them Dave hugs.  He loves babies and even baby dolls.  He will peer into strollers and infant carriers to see who is inside them.  Yesterday he was in transports because our neighbor needed to leave her 3-month old son with us for half an hour while she took Older Son to school.

David bolted down his food (no surprise there) and was down on the floor, stroking Evan's cheek and head, patting his belly, and generally making Evan laugh uproariously.  He wanted to hold Evan and "rock him, Mama" when Evan was tired of being held by toddler arms.  It was so special.  It's nice to see tenderness in my little man, when mostly what I see is just plain oneriness.

Currently Reading The Friday Night Knitting Club By Kate Jacobs see related

Baby, it's cold outside!

Yes, I am a wuss.  I know that some of my HSB friends deal with this on a regular basis.  But I don't and I am here to tell you that it is officially cold outside.

That's the thermy right outside my very own kitchen door.  Brrrr!

And here's a vision of the sun shining through the icy trees in my back yard last night.

I thought the sunrise was amazing this morning until I realized that I was viewing it through an increasingly foggy glass part of my door as I waved goodbye to Friend Husband yesterday morning.  Once I got a good look at it, I realized it was the standard lovely sunrise as seen through glassy trees.  (When you look at it through the foggy glass, it's pink and blue and yummy.)

So, I've been in the house.  I should should should be quilting.  I am knitting instead.  I decided to knit coasters instead of dishcloths for a couple of my church lady friends (this year I'm giving them all knitted dishcloths for their birthdays.  Except for the ones receiving coasters.)  Those babies just pump right out and they are adorable.  Sadly I don't have a picture of them but I will, soon.  I'm using the Grandmother's Favorite Dishcloth pattern, but only knitting half of it. I even knit in the absolute dark last night on my way (with Friend Husband) to try out a new Indian restaurant.  And I didn't make a mistake.  Yes, I'm gloating.  I like new skills.

And the Indian food was marvelous!  Occasionally I will get a "spice buzz" after eating something wonderful.  I had a good spice buzz going last night.  Oh.  Yum.  Good place:  Bombay City Restaurant on Wooster Pike, just past the Kroger in Mariemont, if any of you live in the area and want to give it a go.

Ta ta!  Have a good weekend!

Currently Watching Pride and Prejudice (Special Edition) By Colin Firth, Jennifer Ehle, David Bamber, Crispin Bonham-Carter, Anna Chancellor, Susannah Harker, Barbara Leigh-Hunt, Adrian Lukis, Julia Sawalha, Alison Steadman, Benjamin Whitrow, Victoria Hamilton, Lucy Briers, Polly Maberly, Alexandra Howerd, Andrew Grainger, Sam Bloom, Bridget Turner, Roger Barclay, Kate O'Malley see related

The rest of the family is off visiting the Creation Museum in Northern KY this morning.  It is very peaceful here in the hacienda! 

I ended up having to bail on WW this morning because I spent the whole morning trying to get the children in a state fit to be seen in public.  I'm quitting the organization anyway but I wanted to go to the last couple of meetings just to have done it.

On his way out the door this morning, David ran under the table and somehow looped his arm through the shoulder strap of my purse.  Naturally, it was open and of course, everything started to come out in sloooow motion.  Likewise I was moving in slow mo and was trying to keep the guts of my purse inside the bag, even as it was streaming out through my fingers.  It irritated me greatly.  I realized that it is the perfect metaphor for my life right now.  I feel like my life is just falling out and falling apart and I can't work fast enough to keep the guts in.  Or something like that.

And while I was looking for images of spilling purses on the Internet, I found this picture of a coffin purse:

There's only one person in the world (well, maybe two) who I can think of who might want to carry a coffin purse.  Being the brain dead person that I am this morning, I was intrigued by the mirror.  I'd never thought of putting a mirror in a coffin.  Why would you do that?  I pondered it way longer than I should have until I realized that the thing is a purse.  It makes sense to have a mirror in a purse (although the sense of carrying a coffin purse is up to debate, I think).

I finally found the fabric that I'd been trying to hunt up to put together some of the 9-patch blocks that I received this year in my swap.  I think that the things are breeding in their little plastic bags!  I find them everywhere now.  I've got to get back to quilting so I can sew some of these babies up so they can stop reproducing themselves.  I mean, they're sweet and all, but there are only so many things I can do with them.

I would like to reproduce a quilt that my grandmother made.  It makes an interesting use of 9-patch blocks and yet is simple.  Here is the quilt (and my sweet Aragorn who was making overtures during the photo shoot):

It was much prettier before I had to wash it half a million times with OxyClean in an attempt to remove Chinese red ink with which the twins had bedaubed it liberally.  Upon more coherent thought, I should have just left it alone.  The ink remains but the colors in the quilt are rather faded.  It is also very warm and heavy because it has a hefty batt.  The girls and I are continually engaged in guerilla warfare over this quilt.  I love to sleep under it in the winter time because it's so heavy and it's so very very cold in my room.  They like it for the same reason except that it isn't cold in the room where they sleep.  I think I'll go hide it so I can have it tonight. 

Here is the basic block:

Please note the floral fabric in this block.  It is recycled curtains!  Definitely a no-no for today's quilter but Mamaw, having been raised in the Depression, would not think of actually buying specific fabric for quilting until she'd been doing it for a while.  I don't think any of the fabrics in this quilt are 100% cotton.  In fact, I suspect that the batt in this is an old blanket.  But I digress.

Here are a few blocks along with the red fabric that I finally found in my stash.  I discovered, much to my chagrin, that there isn't much red fabric.  I'm thinking that perhaps I'll make the triangle points that are bright pink in Mamaw's quilt with the red.  Maybe some kind of whitish homespun or shirting fabric for the floral pieces surrounding the nine-patch, then I don't know what for the light pink squares.  Any suggestions?

And before I do that, I have to finish those charity blocks and that dishcloth that is going to India on Monday.  I tried to knit on it yesterday but the places where the yarn slides were too raw.  I consulted with Friend Gina and she said that she never gets knitting calluses so my hands must be dry.  I need to get on that and get it finished.  Oh yeah, and entering grades, yada yada yada.  Hear that tinkling sound?  That's the sound of the guts of my life falling out again...

Tuesday blog

There's an interesting meme site where you can find memes attuned to certain days of the week.  That's where I usually get my Friday memes when I do those.  I have been so zonked today because Lucy the Wonder Dog barked, I kid you not, ALL night long and my brain is toast.  I thought that I might not do a meme or an entry at all today (and perhaps I should have gone with that thought) but I've been thinking about yesterday's quote from my Mary Engelbreit calendar for a couple of days.  The quote is, "A friend is someone you can be quiet with."  There's a lot to that, isn't there?  How many friends do you have that you can be quiet with?  I don't think I have many that I am quiet with.  By the time I get around another adult who's willing to talk, I'm certainly willing to hold up my end of the conversational chain.  Yak yak yak!  I do think that I could be quiet with most of those women but the person that this holds true with the most is Friend Husband.  Lately, after the children are in bed, we sit on the big couch, side by side, and do our thing.  I knit or read and he works on the computer or reads.  It's kinda nice.  We just sit and enjoy being next to one another.  I can see us doing that when we're old...sitting and communing without words.

So, I'm blipping through the memes today and there's one where they give you a prompt and you're supposed to write about it.  Today's quote was from Jack London:  "You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club."  This reminded me of a story I read about him in my daughters' Highlights Magazine.  He said that it was important to work at the pastime of writing, not to just wait for the muse to strike.  His policy was to go to his office after breakfast and crank out some specified number of words before lunch.  He said that even if it was trash, you've still accomplished something and more often than not, you've got something decent to go with.  So I had to laugh when I read about going after inspiration with a club.  I'm not sure that I agree that you should go after it with a club but I think that it presents itself more often in a guise which is usable, if you've been preparing for it and perhaps persuing it all along.

I have five children, three of whom I homeschool and two of which are two-year-old toddlers.  If I waited for the muse to appear, I'm sure I'd be waiting for a while.  Although the children inspire me to write about a lot of things as I'm slowly going mad, I don't think I'd take the time to put anything down if I wasn't insistent on doing so.  That insistence is my club, I guess.  I do what I can when I can and occasionally I have to be pretty insistent that I get a little extra time to do something in order to finish what I started.

Like today.  We have this ironclad rule that you don't get interrupted during your computer time.  It's ironclad on my part but not on the part of my children.  I've been interrupted no fewer than five times while I've been attempting to write this measly post (now you know why I have some continuity issues) and once I've had to go upstairs to wrestle David into clean diapers and clothes.  But I've noticed that the more I attempt to write (knit, quilt, read) on a regular basis, the better I get at the work.  So I persevere. 

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, but occasionally you get something out of it.

Currently Reading Mary: A Novel By Janis Cooke Newman see related

Brief cool news

My HSB and Blogger.com blogs were randomly selected for the spotlight this week.  My Blogger blog is one of the featured blogs on Thursday Thirteen and my HSB blog is a random blog of the week.  It's funny how that just happened right out of the blue, on the same day. 

We had a nice visit with Mike Carr last night.  He was able to come over after his meetings in Mason and regaled us with his own special humor and insight.  I'm afraid we weren't much company but we sure did enjoy seeing him.

My knitting has been giving me fits.  I had my first episode of "you know, you could just forget all about this" last night as I was valiantly trying to knit the garter stitch lace dishcloth.  It doesn't have any stitches with which I'm unfamiliar but for some reason it just wasn't working.  I ended up binding off the mess that I completed last night.  Abby begged for that homely scrap of knitting and is using it for a ballet wrap for one of her porcelain dolls.  More power to her.

In a misplaced fit of confidence, I started it again, determined to do right.  The dumb thing was messed up by the second or third row, so I frogged the whole thing and decided that I'd do another basketweave dishcloth.  GRRRR!

Anyway, happy Friday!  Friend Husband is off on Monday so I guess we'll have us another old TV show marathon.  I got The Electric Company at the library this week (hands up if you remember that!) but I doubt that he'll go for much of that (I doubt that any of us would, come to think of it).  Tonight, Rachel tricked us into agreeing to watch the Shirley Temple version of A Little Princess as an adjunct to her report on the Depression (movie stars of the 1930's.)  After that, who knows.  Probably bed, as the twins were up at the horrid hour of 5 AM. 

Happy weekend!

I think I was more responsible when I was a teenager...

I decided when I was a mere tot of 11 or so that the only way that I was going to be valuable to my family was to weave myself into the fabric of their lives such that if I were missing, their lives would be totally messed up.  I distinctly remember that exact thought.  And my way of doing that was to take on whatever work they wanted me to do and to do it.  I worked like a dog at home.  I did the Saturday housecleaning, the everyday kitchen clean up, the laundry, the grocery shopping, cooked dinner...whatever.  And I went to school and after I was about 14, I worked an after school job.

Once I got married, I got extremely lazy.  I had to buck up a lot more after I had children but I'm still very lazy.

Which brings me to today.  I need need need to grade papers and prep for next week.  I really really really don't want to. 

But I will.  Because I must.  At some point, you have to grow up.  Or grow up again.

David is having a relapse or a recurrence of his nephrotic syndrome.  Friend Husband is about to take him downtown to Children's Hospital for a consult with the nephrologists.  We expected this to happen sometime but not quite so soon.  He just tapered off his meds last Sunday.  Poor little man is so miserable...please pray for him to feel better soon.

Ouch, ouch, brain cramp!

Man alive, I feel like I've been through the fourth circle of Hell this morning.  (And while that is a literary reference, no, I haven't read the Dante and no, I don't want to end up in anyone's idea of Hell ever, thanks very much.)

What have I been doing that has been so wracking this morning?  I've been changing my investment portfolio.  Thanks to advice from my fil, which he gave me at the beginning of the month and I've ignored until the very last minute (almost literally), I've fixed up this thing so that hopefully it won't hemorrhage and leave me eating the Purina Diet when I'm an old lady.  We hope.

This began at about 9 AM when I called the investment people to tell them that my fil said I should drop this small bomb on the market this morning.  More like a bullet.  My first comment to this poor boy (and we did end up trading life stories and he is a boy-child) was, "Ok, well, I hope this makes sense to you because it surely doesn't to me."  He laughed, ma'amed me and we were on our way.

It took us one hour and fifteen minutes.

Have you ever traveled to another country where you didn't know the language and you didn't have an interpreter?  Neither have I, but I'm convinced that it must be like this.  I'm saying, "M U T U A L   F U N D" and he's coming back with a string of amazing language that sounds like it's English but makes no sense to me.

I think I did learn a few things today though.  I learned how to buy and sell stock my very ownself (at a savings of $35 a stock to myself).  Of course, this will not bear me well in the future because I now have no stocks to sell.  My fil feels that (and at this point I most certainly concur) if I don't know what I'm doing with regard to my portfolio, I probably shouldn't be owning individual stocks.  But I know how to sell them, if anyone is interested in this tiny tidbit of knowledge that I gained today.

What else did I learn?  I guess I was brought back face to face with the fact that there is a whole 'nother world out there that I know nothing about.  Less than nothing.  Except for my tiny little expertise with selling off my stocks and buying another, I have negative knowledge in the world of the stock market.  I found myself very curious, though.  I find myself curious a lot, which sometimes gets me into trouble, so I think I'll hold off investigating the world of finance until my fil is removed from the earth or is no longer able to advise me on these matters.

I did have a good time with the guy on the phone though.  I told him that, if nothing else, he'd have a really good story about the idiot investor on the phone.  We also talked a little bit about what I did know about (psychology and children) and I think that I was able to reassure him that children, although terrifying, were not as terrifying as he thought.  I also had time to give him my spiel about why we adopted internationally and why I don't put my children in government schools.  Another 15 minutes and I probably would have invited the poor guy over for dinner to apply immersion therapy to him with regard to his fear of children.

And, in the end, it made me happy to get that off my list and to have a nice conversation with Edward for over an hour.  Even if he did call me ma'am every other breath.

As I told Allison yesterday, I'm trying to sort out a bunch of stuff, online and otherwise.  I'm not a deep thinker at the best of times and I just go whirling around here, thinking.  One of the things I think about is whether or not it is wrong to spend time blogging.  Yes, yes, I know, I am a goofball.  Blog or blog not, there is no thinking.  But there is...and I really really enjoy it.  I enjoy the comments (of course!) and the feedback about how I write and the stuff I write about but I also enjoy the writing.  Just the crafting of the sentences.  It is a wonderful thing to me to be able to write about what you're thinking/feeling/doing and have it resonate with other people.  It's just a wonderful thing to write the way you want to.  And I think that if I keep practicing (blogging, that is), I'll just get better, right?

The catch is that it can insidiously creep and suck up vast amounts of time.  The perfect styling of the words (or just vomiting them out on the screen), the checking for comments, the checking up on everyone else's blog.  This all takes time.  I could be cleaning the house (yeah, riiiight!) or walking one of the many dogs which has taken up residence in our home this week (more on that later) or making treats for the fam (well, I have been doing that) or spending time with the aforementioned family.  Sigh.  It's something to think about, isn't it?

Ok, about the dogs.  We are the resident dog-sitters in our congregation.  I love the dogs which belong to the folks in our congregation.  There's Chocolate Chip, who belongs to our preacher's wife.  She's a giant dog, a St. Bernard, with the sweetest disposition...as long as you're female.  I think that the only males she tolerates well are the ones who live in the house next to her run.  So Friend Husband doesn't go with me when I go to feed and exercise Choc & Addie, the husky who lives with her.  The children don't either, as Choc is not always terribly careful to not knock down the little people.  But there's nothing little on me and Choc and I get along swimmingly.  She's one of my favorite pooches to watch.

Then there's sweet Ethel.  Ethel is the sister to our own Lucy the Wonder Dog.  In fact, we got Lucy from Ethel's owner when Ethel's grandfather was about to ship her off to the pound for her many indiscretions.  We understand them very fully now.  But Ethel is a sweetie pie and we adore her.  Whether she stays at her house and graciously allows us to visit or whether she comes here and mucks around with Lucy in the back yard, she's a joy.

Then there's Snake.  I don't know what's up with Snake, actually.  Maybe he's spoiled.  Whatever it is, he is the most high maintenance dog we take care of.  He's truly a sweet dog...as long as he's in the house.  If he's not in the house, he barks, claws, and bites his way into getting into the house.  His bark is very high-pitched and just gets into the base of your skull and bores right through your whole brain.  After much consideration (and much night-time barking), Friend Husband and I stood at the sink and considered our options.

1)  We could take Snake back to his house and just pick him up at night to stay with us (he sleeps with his owners at night and I really didn't want him to be at his house, barking that brain-rattling bark all night).

2)  We could take Ethel back to her house and hope that Snake would be ok with staying in the back with Lucy.  And that Lucy wouldn't be too irritated that the invader dogs get to run loose while she doesn't.  But we adore Ethel and Lucy enjoys her, so we didn't want to do that.

3)  We could let Snake in the house, stopping his barking and eventually stopping Lucy's.  Friend Husband's response to this was, "But he doesn't deserve to be in the house."

And that brings me back to blogging and dogs and grace.  No, Snake doesn't deserve to be in the house, but he is.  We extended to him a measure of grace, rather than leave him out to bark or to be lonely at his own house.  And we also thought we might extend Lucy that measure of grace, once we're finished dog-sitting.  We really like having a dog in the house.  And I think of all the times that Friend Husband has extended grace and mercy to me, allowing me to flee the chaos of the upstairs in order to have a little piece of quiet down here, blog surfing and playing Neopets games.  What a super-sweet guy he is!  And how undeserving I am...what love he gives me in very practical ways.  And I should return that love by spending more time with him upstairs instead of blogging....right?  Right.  So there I am again. 

To blog or not to blog, that is the question.

I usually post a picture on Wednesdays, especially for Trina, who enjoys them so.  Trina is enjoying her vacation with her beloved but here's a funny snap of the twins, making fish faces.  Y'all enjoy yourselves now, ya hear?

Ok, I forget who made the comment yesterday, but with the new changes, I find it well nigh impossible to keep up with anyone's blog.  It's not easy to find out who has updated.  I've spent way too much time trying to input blog addresses into Bloglines to attempt to keep up with people, only to find out that your RSS is not available.

Please please please, enable your RSS today!  This is how you do it.  Go to your management page, click settings>site feed>publish site feed>yes>save changes.

I know I'm not the grand master of commenting but I can't just randomly check everyone's blog every day for updates.  And if/when I leave HSB, I'd like to keep up with y'all...please enable the RSS today.