Inner Domestic Goddess Emerges

Apparently, I have one, an inner domestic goddess, that is.

Presents purchased,

cards sent,

neighbor gifts delivered,

nativity painted (with chalkboard paint, chalk detail by N and S, this by a woman who sends her kids to preschool so she doesn't have to do crafts)

Hat (almost) knit

Couch re-upholstered.

And I blogged about it.

I amaze myself.

Now if someone would just feed those kids.

Ok, you knew it was too good to be true. I didn't re-upholster the couch myself, just picking the fabric and arranging to have it done (by Hector, in Provo, if you want details let me know, he was great) took me a year.

Partly because I was looking for something that would blend with this chair. But it's finally DONE!

Fall Over

This morning we woke up to this:

What? Where did fall go? A reminder that much of life seems to just be rushing by, with little introspection or reflection here recently, and not nearly enough laughing at myself.

S turned eight (EIGHT!) recently. He got baptized this weekend. It was a beautiful day, with three grandma's: two of his, one of mine; a granddad, a few aunts and uncles, lots of cousins, and some friends.

Quote of the week nomination: "Is the lunch just for family? Or can friends come too?" - Neighbor girl, as I'm trying to figure out how thin the post-baptism luncheon soup can reasonably be.

And Halloween? I never shared my Halloween masterpiece with the world... (Okay, make that Blogburn readership, which is at this point, what? Carrie?)

J was a parrot, to N's pirate. I was feeling pretty creative until we got in line at the costume contest behind another pirate/parrot pair.

So, Goodbye Fall. Wow. Look at those pumpkins! All from our garden, another feat of fall gone by.

Say's who?

It's a Say's Phoebe!

I told S at the beginning of the summer that he could pick one thing and we'd study it together over the summer. I was hoping for geography, or maybe, since we live surrounded by brown hills, and everyone in town in supported by the coal mining industry, geology. Nope. Birds. He picked birds.

Okay, I'm a can-do type mom, right? Not my choice, but we can do that, I thought. There were two different kinds of birds nesting in our yard, we'll just identify those and then observe and learn. Hah. Two different kinds of mid-sized brown birds. We watched them day in and day out, we had the bird watchers book on our table for weeks. We'd look at it daily. The birds laid eggs. We looked at the book. The eggs hatched. We looked at the book. We got a new book. The chicks started to fly. We looked at the book. I was starting to feel rather desperate, when I realized that they were no longer returning to the nest. Were they going to take off and leave us stranded? All that time and no identification? a summer's study unhatched and unfulfilled?

And then last Thursday morning, I FOUND IT! It's a Say's Phoebe. I was elated. A friendship cemented by a name. "S!" I exclaimed, "come! look! behold!" I gestured, I may have jumped up and down. "Cool." he said, and he went back to his Legos.

But I am a woman captivated. I took the book when we went camping, we identified two more birds. I kept stopping the car on last weeks youth group trip, making the teenagers LOOK AT THE BIRDS! Maybe he'll choose birds again next year?
Yeah, I only identified one of the birds nesting in the yard.

Quote of the Week

N: Mom, why do some people have two moms?
Mom: Well, some people get divorced, and their dad might get married to a different mom.
N: When will we get two moms?

Reaching for a blogburn post...

Do three unrelated thoughts, a blog post make?

Marital bliss = two copies of The Economist

Tonight when making cookies, I finished off the eggs, the oatmeal, two bags of chocolate chips, the box of butter, the baking soda, and a tupperware of walnuts. Exact quantities called for in the recipe. How cool is that? I love completeness.

I also mowed the grass this evening, which I haven't done in a LONG time. I really enjoyed it. Outside, the smell of the grass mixed with the smell of fuel... All that time with your thoughts, no one can interrupt, it's too loud to hear them if they try. I recently realized that in the last couple of places I've lived, I haven't known anyone that does their own yard work, here I don't know anyone who does not.

Quote of last week : I helped Dad lawn the grass! - N after following Phil around with his toy lawn mower for over an hour, as Phil mowed.

Bluebonnets it Ain't

Bluebonnets it ain't. Front yard it is.

Free is Good

Day Trip to Arches!

We were happy that the government shutdown didn't materialize and we were able to proceed, as planned, with our national park day trip this past weekend.

We pulled up to the little booth, wallet in hand, only to have the helpful ranger tell us, "National Park Week, free admission." What?

Poor policy? Maybe, but besides being the week before Easter (and national parks being packed with spring breakers) it was also tax weekend and we were feeling a little ill used by Uncle Sam. Free admission helped.

It lasts all the way through the 24th, so visit a national park, and get yours.

March Madness

It's been a rough week.

A black eye and a fractured arm.

In separate incidents.

Go Cougs!

And Wildcats and Tigers. And Bulldogs and Hoyas. And Spiders.

S filled out a bracket this year. He choose based on mascot. Turns out he prefers fierce sounding animals, and spiders. Maybe that was due to the NOVA he'd just watched about venomous animals? Long segment on spiders.

K: Fighting Illini or Running Rebels?
S: Fighting Illini, those other guys sound like they're running away.

S: Terriers? Ha!

K: I'm not sure what a buckeye is...
S: It's the eye of a buck.
(Apparently quite cool)

The Craziest Thing

Quite possibly the craziest thing I've ever done? 12 hour drive to my parents,and back
Minivan's occupants? Myself, my three kids, my cousin, my cousin's two kids, my aunt
(or as my uncle said, "a driver and two prison guards")

I haven't spent much time (okay any) with my aunt and cousin in years. We were traveling with 5 children, 4 carseats, and a maintenance required light that insisted we were reckless. In the end, no damage done, except for what results from watching Chip and Dale cartoons over and over and over again. More than no damage done, it was FUN. And hanging out in the sun on the new deck with my parents was just what we all needed.

First Grade Fundraiser

S brought home his Jump Rope for Heart form recently, all pumped about the rewards you can get for fundraising. You know, you remember, the awesome "speed" jump rope, the super cool tee shirt, the...

Does anyone else see these and think, exploitation? I mean how hard is it to get a bunch of kindhearted first graders all excited about "saving lives"? And who's going to turn their earnest little souls down when they come knocking on your door? I did a quick search on where the money raised from jump rope for heart goes. $0.64/dollar to research, $0.32/dollar on fundraising...

Or am I just a scrooge? Or is grinch the more appropriate term?

At least there is some good in the physical activity encouragement. Though in asking S, he wasn't all that clear on where the jumping rope came into it. I remember in Jr. High, the magazine sale fundraiser with all these little fuzzy... were they called weeples? as rewards. 12 year old girls are suckers for little fuzzy things. Not much good in that one.

So, I'm faced with a decision: Try to talk him down, convince him that the jump rope isn't that cool and I don't hate people with heart problems, or go the "I don't know what happened to that sign-up sheet..." route. Or I guess I could just let him go for it? Nah, not this year. Maybe next year.

January. Blah.

I find January a depressing month. Cold and dark outside. Here all the snow has melted, leaving only brown mud behind. Nothing to look forward to except new episodes of Biggest Loser. Significantly less busy than I've been the last few months, feeling unproductive and unmotivated. Plenty of time to blog, but nothing worth sharing.

I've noticed that my view is a good attitude barometer.

At times the view out my back window is pretty dramatic, and on days when I'm feeling optimistic, I look outside and see the mountains and the way the light comes through the clouds. On days when I'm feeling rather more January, I look out and I see the neighbors fence and the expanse of brown between here and the mountains.