The Weather Outside is Frightful......

....but let it snow!!!! Wednesday was our first snowfall in Iowa. It wasn't supposed to do much but flurry in the afternoon, but at sunrise (Lil'Bug's new found waking up time) she ran to the window and declared snow! No kidding. We got 3-4 inches. She watched it on and off all day.


She had no snow pants or boots and so soon after a cold there was no way she was going to get to go outside and play. I'm a mean mommy. I heard about it quite a few times. We went out and bought her both today (Thanksgiving at Walmart) but today was too busy and frantic to let her loose outside.


Ah yes. The haircut. This is the first time I got a good picture of it. She hated her long, beautiful hair. Maybe she hated having me fuss over it, brush it, wash it, whatever. She's asked to have her head shaved "like Daddy's" over and over again for the last month. I took her to get a hair cut and let her pick out the cut. She eventually settled on a short bob BUT the hairdresser had ideas of her own. At the end of it Lil'Bug was almost in tears because the lady didn't take enough hair away. The lady also did a crappy job putting in "layers" that I specifically said "no" to. Next week we will go get it fixed IF Lil'Bug decides she still hates it. So far she's gotten a lot of compliments and I haven't needed to coax out knots so she's pretty happy. The thing that really rattled me was how her self expression is so much different from what I would have chosen for her. I like long hair, she wants a shaved head. I like jeans and a T-shirt, she likes pretty spinning dresses. I don't know. It was really hard for me to let go and let her choose, but I am glad I did. Everyday I get to know her better.


This is the view of snowfall from one of our front parlor's picture windows. It's a pretty view.


This is the tree Lil'Bug was watching. There were her friend squirrels running up and down and a red cardinal family. It's a White Oak that is over 100 years old. It's the only tree left in our yard still holding on to its leaves. Which is funny. All of our other trees shed them during a wind storm, which means we did zero raking this year. Didn't need too. See that lovely house and yard across the street from us? Yeah. I think they got all of our leaves and then some.

Secret Shopping Tip

The Wednesday BEFORE Thanksgiving......all the sale signs for Black Friday are out and have to be honored, you have good selection, AND you pretty much have the stores to yourself. Run quick.

Better Blessings

I know people who are like this. I've been guilty of it a few times myself. Nearing Thanksgiving, a time to count out loud the things we give thanks for while gearing up for the gimme gimme's of Christmas, I think this situation gets exacerbated.

My challenge for myself this week is to not compare my blessings to others. To simply appreciate my own home, family, and health.

All She Wants For Christmas

She talked us into this at 11 am while at the mall getting a replacement Nano case (mine fell out of the car near Bethany, MO. Gah....) and she was so excited. She really was confused about asking Santa for presents though. It took her a while to think of something so he read her a book for a while. Very cool, not very busy.


So, all she wants for Christmas....are some Christmas Cookies (to share?) and a Christmas tree (ha ha Dearest Husband! We definitely get a tree this year!). She added at the last minute that all she has is a princess crown and would like a Queen hat since she is the Queen of Queens.


We do a traditional Christmas holiday. I still believe in Santa. When I had doubts as a child, I simply doubted that I was being good enough for him to visit. Now that I am older (I dare not say wiser), I fully believe that the spirit of this man lives on. His good deeds are exactly the kind of thing a good Christian would have done- he saw the needs of suffering children and worked hard to bring joy into their lives. What are you doing to bring joy into the lives of your loved ones and friends? I worry about the commercialism of Christmas and all of the holidays BUT we choose to celebrate the giving and the friendship. We are not piling the toys on the tot this year but focusing on others. She will have presents under the tree, but not so much that we have to make two trips home from Nana and Pawpaw's! This year we will share craft days and cookies with friends and offer refuge to those local mamas overwhelmed by their own stuff and chaos: just email me and come on over. Their will be a cup of tea waiting. :)

Happy Birthday (Great) Grandma!

Here are some memories and pictures from our recent trip to KC:

Happy 85th Birthday Grandma!

Grandma was one of the first women to train at Camp Dodge, IA to be an Army medic for WWII. Below are her graduation pictures, her dog tags, and her diploma.

Lil"Bug practiced and practiced Happy Birthday To You only to at the last minute add the "you live in a zoo" verse. Lucky for us, she was too excited when the time came to sing to remember the added verse! Her Great Grandma is one of our best supporters for our homeschooling decision- for that we are grateful. In the below picture, Nana (Lil'Bug's grandma) holds her while she squirms. Nana organized the whole birthday party in KC from at home in Iowa. She did an awesome job. I'd like to add here that my MIL is wonderful. I am so grateful not to have the adversarial relationship so many have with their in-laws. I feel so blessed that they welcomed me into their family!

The pinata. Lil'Bug tentatively handed back the big stick to Dearest Husband in exchange for a more appropriate sized one. Then she whacked at it with all her little might. Too cute. Later a big kid managed to bust it and it was a free for all for candy. Dearest husband gave the littles cups to aid their collection efforts and Lil'Bug got all the mints because the bigger kids hate mints. She thought she was getting a good deal, let me tell you!

I had the opportunity to meet people and family that knew Dearest Husband when he was a wee tot. I met his preschool Sunday School teacher. Her stories about him were so sweet and really capture the core of his personality. I can definitely see why he misses this particular church community.

This Weekend

Tot and I are in Kansas City for a birthday party this weekend. It's a family reunion of sorts, which is really cool. KC is where Dearest Husband is from and the party is at his childhood church. We'll post pictures later tonight.

Simple Tree

Several years ago I worked for a museum. It was a living history Victorian museum dedicated to celebrating the story of corn hybridization. Every year I worked there I was in charge of creating Christmas for tours. There were several criteria of authenticity: no electric light, firesafe, simple, under 25$ total.

I worried over these many weeks. People expect pretty twinkly lights. People expect elaborate schemes and themes. Ugh. Then a good friend brought me a box of ribbon, some wheat, pine cones, and old post cards. Ah ha! She grinned. We spent a good Saturday tying, twining, and stringing. We invited some neighborhood kids to help, we sat by the fireplace and chatted, we drank hot chocolate until we could burst!

The tree ornaments, tree trimmed by friends and children:

• Red glass balls, each with a ribbon tied at the top
• Wheat, wrapped in bunches with wire and tied with a ribbon
• Pine cones, looped with wire. Sometimes tied in bunches and garnished with ribbon or glass balls
• Postcards, hole punched and tied with ribbon or rafia
  
• Candy canes! Given as gifts to all who visited
  

Gearing Up for the Holidays

I love Christmas, oh let me count the ways.......

Growing up I had some pretty rotten Christmases. My family was not religious, but dragged us to church, the big Catholic Basilica, for midnight mass some years. Some years certain relatives spiked the punch or the turkey stuffing (thus my dislike for stuffing). One year, I was 16, no one in my family remembered to wrap or set out any gifts for me. They were there, but were not found until February when someone cleaned out a closet. Other years, the family dysfunction was at its prime. Tears were shed over the not perfectly trimmed Victorian tree, the family pictures, presents not wrapped in the right paper.

There were goods years/moments too. That's what I wrapped myself in. I was really good at wrapping presents. I was also pretty good at wrapping myself up in holiday spirit and reminding myself what the spirit of Christmas is/was all about. It's not about presents, it ia about celebration of faith, friends, and family. It's about giving not receiving. The good years were spent trimming a fun tree and baking cookies while watching the ABC family movie or helping my little sister write letters to Santa. Trips to the mall to find gifts, thoughtfully picked out, for everyone that I loved..... AND the best Christmas memory, a gift shared by my Dearest Husband and I, our first kiss: Christmas Eve 1996. We've been inseparable ever since.

Now that I am a mom, I get to make memories for my daughter. I get to share with her the gathering of friends and family and memories of holiday cheer. This year we are baking cookies and decorating a Nutcracker tree and hosting craft days, the monthly IHE meeting, the cookie exchange, and other things yet undecided too. I get to help her make cards, decorate boxes, and generally have a good time. I get to take pictures!

Sometimes I get a little haunted by Christmases past, but this year we have much to be thankful for. Our little family is happy and healthy, we will enjoy the company of friends and family again this year, and many other things too many to list. I will be posting our crafts, past fun crafts, and recipes in the following weeks. I'm so excited!

Life Lessons

I've been deeply concerned that I do not model friendship well for my daughter. Don't get me wrong, I am a good friend to people but I have never been able to recover a friendship from a disagreement or fight. This was not a big deal before I had a little one who looks to me for example and deeply bonds with people that I choose as my friends.

Recently such an incident occurred, it hurt us both very deeply and we've taken a long time to grieve the passing of the friendship. Today I met with a new friend who had a different perspective on the situation: I modeled for Lil'Bug a refusal to accept some behaviors by friends as acceptable, that people change and move on, and that we all grow as people. Not exactly her words, but certainly the point. This will certainly serve Lil'Bug well when she matures and encounters friends who will experiment with drinking and drug use and other such dangerous behaviours. She will encounter friends who are mean to her or influence her in negative ways. I hope to set an example by modeling action in the face of hard decisions, decisions that can bring immediate unhappiness but are the best for self and family.

If I continue to brood over it, that is what will set a bad example. So here's to new friends, a happy holiday season, and new beginnings.

Easy Peasy Turkey Dinner

We eat turkey all year, mostly because I found an easy recipe that makes enough for the three of us to eat one night and freeze enough for one more meal (so approximately 8 servings).

1 Turkey Breast
1 stick of salted sweet cream butter
Crockpot, low setting 8-10 hours
Cracked ground pepper

I make mashed potatoes and steamed peas on the stove top, but sometimes throw carrots in with the turkey.

So then we decide that it is cheaper to buy whole chickens and turkeys. Well, a whole turkey doesn't fit in the Crockpot. So it has been in the freezer since we bought it. I have an excellent recipe from a friend but I have to buy a roasting pan. I like the whole chickens, but I do like the simple turkey breast much better.

I'm about to get tossed......

You Are a Fruitcake!

You taste like nothing else in this world. And get ready, you're about to get tossed!

What Crappy Christmas Gift Are You?

No matter how I changed my answers (some were very close) I always came out a fruitcake.

Those We Remember

When I was 11 I wrote a poem for my paternal grandfather Popo about his time served in the Navy in WW 2. He was on a ship approaching Pearl Harbor when the island was attacked. His captain decided to turn around and head for Australia, but the crew stood on deck and watched the whole thing shipside. He fought in most of the major pacific theatres after that, but watching Pearl harbor, knowing there was nothing they could do but sail away, was the story he always told us. Perhaps the only age appropriate war story. He kept my poem with all his photos of grandchildren and reminded me to be a great writer every time I talked on the phone with him. He really wanted me to write country western songs.

My maternal grandfather was not a vet, but during WW 2 he was conscripted to serve at a lumber camp in Washington State. He carried tiny books of poetry in his pockets. He was away from his family for over a year doing hard labor. He was a carpenter, a cabinetry guy, by trade. He also encouraged my writing but I did not know he so loved poetry until he left me all of those little books when he died.

Those two heroes have passed on, leaving a shimmering light in my fondest memories. The following still have stories to write:

My father served in Army during Vietnam, but never left stateside. He learned his trade through the Army. Though he served stateside, he never talked about it.

My cousin is a Naval Officer right now. He does something with submarines and has three young children at home. Many prayers to them right now.

My second cousin is re-enlisting in the Navy in January. He loves to travel. His family will miss him so.

I have various other relatives in various degrees of service right now, some of them with new babies and young children.

They are all serving by choice and with honor.

My husband's grandmother was in the Women's Corps in WW2 as well. I don't know much about her experience there, other than her picture is in a local museum. Over Christmas holiday I plan on asking her to interview with me so I can record it for our family history. She turns 85 this year!

Cold Remedy

I've had suggestion after suggestion since being inflicted with this awful cold (which is actually a sinus infection). I can't take medication because I am pregnant and just drinking lots of fluids wasn't cutting it so I sent my dearest to the grocery store for Kosher salt and made a baking soda & salt warm water nose flush and gargle. It worked. I cleaned out all sorts of gunk and dried up so much mucus that my headache went away. I'm not entirely free breathing yet, but continuing the rinse at night before bed is working wonders. My sore throat is gone too.

Funny thing is, a few years back I was going into see our family physician what seemed like every other week, every time with a different complaint: nausea, hurt leg, head ache, infected toe, bug bite, etc and every time the verdict was......drum roll please....sinus infection. Geesh. She's the one who wrote the prescription out for the salt and baking soda rinse. Kudos to her.

Blogging Break and Neat Project

I took a break from blogging over a long weekend. I was not in any way in an emotional state to write. So I wrote draft after draft of emotional vomit and then deleted instead of published. No one would have wanted to read that drivel anyway.

So instead, over the weekend I cleaned the house, painted the upstairs long hallway, and watched X-Men 3. Dear Husband and Lil'Bug tiled the front parlor fireplace. It will be gorgeous when it is finished.

Both our fireplaces and surrounding tile were stolen by urban miners long before we bought the house almost 8.5 years ago. It was not on our priority list (as were floors and ceilings) but now they are. We have to set the tile before placing a mantle. I'll show the after pictures when we finish it (cross your fingers, next week!).

*Edited to Add:
Tile setting is a perfect project for a tot like Lil'Bug. She is great with shapes, color sorting, and placing puzzle pieces. She is incredibly eager to help Daddy at every opportunity and is now pleased that she helped with such an important project. It is one of those moments that I am so happy I remembered to take a picture!

Dangerous, Tot Chasing, and we're all Sick

Thoughts for the week:

There are homeschool blogger awards going on and here are my thoughts on them: anything that further divides and isolates a group of people that should be uniting and supporting each is not a good thing. At first I was disappointed that our blog doesn't qualify for a variety of reasons (though the fact that I am writing from "Mars" may have got me at least nominated in the geography category), I was then mad about other parts of it. The hostility and further division of our growing, yet still small, community is not good. One of the problems that we have with labeling the kind of schooling we do or don't do is that it further others us from the community, we're not radical enough or not normal enough or not religious enough or too religious or or or....we, as all families, are unique. Labels are the first step in othering.

That said, I am seeing similar things happening locally and to the children of some families. We talk good talk about becoming an individual and celebrating what makes us unique, but when it comes down to it a certain level of conformity is still expected. Guess what I think about that? In my daughter's wise words: boo boo to them. I have boundaries, I stand up for them, but I can still accept people as friends who are way different from me, even disagree with me on key issues, to a rational extent. I'm not passive about it either. But I am 30 and watching children explore this dynamic is heartbreaking, even when it is not my own.

On a totally unrelated note: we are all still sick. It has been almost two full weeks that the evil snots and fatigue and off and on fever have ransacked our happy home. Now it's a cough. Something must give. Why is it that wee tots can still have the energy to run and run and jump and jump and tear apart a clean room in a single bound....while they are dripping with snot sick? I can barely lift my weary, nauseous, pregnant self off the couch to turn off the hated Barney and she is feverish, yet dancing and tearing it up old school.

Birthday Girl!

My Lil'Bug is finally 3. She is insisting that she is four when you ask her though. :)
Funny things she still does:

• She plays with ears, mine or her own, to fall asleep. When she was a baby she would play with her fingers. So cute.
• She hates shoes. If I turn around she's barefoot before I turn back.
• She is so wise and kind and full of life.

I am so blessed to have such a child in my life. So, on to the birthday pictures! My sister, Aunt Beezer to Lil'Bug, made a cool three layer tie-dyed style rainbow cake. What a cool surprise. The big day with friends we had planned with only a family party at the end did not really work out as there was another formal birthday party that day and many people felt more comfortable with that idea and then other friends were ill. Lil'Bug was sad, but the few friends that came to art co-op and the science center were very appreciated. The e-card Lil'Bug received made her smile! The family party was good, but Lil'Bug wanted her friends there. I still don't think that the big deal themed parties are a good idea for little kids, but next year will just do one thing instead of making such a big day with so many things. We invited friends over the following Saturday to share the leftover cake. That seemed to make up for it.

The Farm Thing/Dream

Today is very very busy with Birthday Girl activities so you all get a post I've been working on.

Ok, the farm thing. I grew up on a farm/ranch sort of, in rural Colorado, off and on through my childhood. My dream then was to live in a concrete flat with metal furniture and lots of abstract paintings and weird music. Funny now. For a wedding present a neighbor taught us how to garden our 25 X 17 ft yard. We quickly out grew that and bought a bigger fixer upper house, with a bigger fixer upper yard, then bought an adjacent lot for more garden space.

There are problems with gardening/farming in the city. Livestock restrictions for one, though some places allow 10 or less chickens, if housed and penned. Lead soil contamination is also an issue. Exhaust, dust, noise, etc....

We built raised beds and planted fruit trees. We have yet to get any fruit because of the hooligan children who live next door; they keep vandalizing the branches before blossoms set. We have a 6 ft fence to no avail.

We garden the veggies and trees organic. This means picking off pests by hand (or shop vac) and composting.

We've been visiting farms and talking the business side of things with the farmers. Two sites I am following, both are unschoolers: Pile of Omelays and Sugar Mountain Farm. There is actually a homesteading unschooler's ring too; I found it on Doc's Sunrise Rants.

We are moving soon so we started looking at farm properties both near and far just to get a good idea of what we will need. Here is what I have learned so far:

1) Check for urban growth and development encroaching. 10 acres is a minimum for us, but it has to be away, away from housing (I don't mean other farm houses.)
2) Ag near by: no hog confinement lots please. Corn fields are a potential hazard too because of "drift" or over spray of pesticides. A slightly windy day could take out all of your vegetables. Pasture is good, but roaming livestock will require good fences. Wooded can also mean shelter for predators.
3) Out buildings. What we decided we need is a good multipurpose barn. One property we looked at had a 3 level: hay loft, main floor for pig, cow, horse, poultry, and a walkout basement level with more horse/cow stalls and a sheep/goat pen. Perfect. They had a milk house that had been converted to a smoke house. Then a machine shed/4 car garage. the multipurpose barn is something we are now looking for. We saw another property with twice the acreage but a separate building for each and it seemed sooooo much smaller. We also want a pond.
4) Viable well water. Past wells surveyed. Old farmsteads just covered the hole when a well dried up. In Iowa we have aerial maps for the past 80 years to tell us where these are and back fill them. Very dangerous.
5) The house itself. Electrical wiring, heat source, etc.....Farmers like to do their own repairs. Sometimes good, sometimes not. A modern update can be more detrimental than one done in the 1950's. Good, fast, or cheap: pick two. Can you guess which ones our "peers" like to choose?
6) Flood plains. Check.
7) Generator and food stock. Winter storms can really bury you in.
8) Internet access. Some places in rural Iowa are actually wire-less as in there is no way to get a wireless signal or even dial up. Satellite connection only. Can be very expensive.
9) Nearest hospital? Get trained as an EMT first responder and volunteer with the fire department. This alone may save your life or someone you love's. In rural Colorado, the nearest neighbor was 20 miles and the nearest hospital was 120 miles. My aunt was the paramedic and they owned their own firetrucks. I can remember more than one occasion where someone knocked on the door and said their been a car accident. Sometimes, they were a bloody passenger/survivor who walked 5 miles to her house on the hill. Sometimes it was too late. I also remember when my baby sister ate a bottle of heart medicine, there was no trip to the ER. We had to work fast. Cells phones (where there is a signal) and helicopters have made this less of an issue, but not much less. Ah, and fires? If your house goes up, it's likely a loss since you'd hope someone is close enough to see the smoke, call it in, and then wait for the volunteer fire department to gather.
10) Gas prices are only going up up up. Cost of commute and activities with friends will too and might be impossible in adverse weather. Consider changing vehicles (though what we drive will work rural too...)
11) An added concern in Ohio are the natural gas well pumps on almost every rural farm we looked at. Bonus is that some of these homes get free gas from the gas companies as a kick back for the pump and royalties, downside is how dangerous the pumps can be.
12) Check for meth labs. Check in the woods, in the outbuildings, in the basement/crawlspace, in the bathtubs. Those chemicals are very very toxic.

We've been practicing for years now. We are so ready. We will not be doing it as a business though. We will be "homesteading" and producing only what we will need and maybe selling meat to friends or setting up a booth up at a farmers market on a whim. We will start with chickens and a pig, then add a cow, and go from there.

Ok, that's all I have for now!

Happy Halloween

I'm quite certain not many other places do what Iowa, or rather Central Iowa, does for Trick or Treat Night. It's called Beggar's Night and it is not even on Halloween. The "trick" you have to do to get a treat is tell a joke. We skip that part, in fact we skip the entire door to door thing.

Last night we went to the mall. *SCREAM* Oh the horror! I hate malls. I hate crowds. I hate shopping and being pressured by pushy sales people. I hate kids hyped up on too much sugar/ poor parenting. I have come to the conclusion that the whole ordeal is one big photo opportunity since every 3 or so feet some parent stopped their kid to pose them and take a picture. I hate that too. I like natural joy/action photos. I like real smiles. Blah. My camera ran out of juice after two unfocused pictures. Guess what we couldn't find at the mall? Batteries.

Lil'Bug was very overwhelmed by the kids, the noise, and the crowds. The thing is though, we had a good time just being together as a family. She liked playing on stuff. She loved getting candy. She liked getting gooey with tootsie roll drool. Her happy= me happy.

So, even though it is Halloween, we are done with Halloween stuff! Today is a day of rest. Oh and of banned book debate. That's for another post.

Fibroids, the Mystery

I spent the morning researching uterine fibroids because their absence really bothered me. I'm glad they are gone, but why and where?

I found several medical journals that talked about post menopausal disappearance of fibroids. That's not me...BUT, the why is interesting. Abnormal estrogen can cause their growth. I also had these same growths in my breast tissue 4 years ago. Gone now. Why?

There are several theories:
1) Unresolved anger accelerates growth of tumorous tissues. I certainly had a lot of that 4 years ago. I'm at peace with those issues now, working towards forgiveness, and only get riled up now and then instead of stomping around angry all the time. I still get mad sometimes about the injustice but it is not ruling my life nor calling me every day. I'm not sure that that's why the fibroids are gone though.
2) Added hormones in milk and meat cause, not only early onset puberty in girls and infertility issues in young women, but also fibroid growth. When Lily was born we switched to organic milk, yogurt, and cheese. We've also switched to no hormone chickens and buy our other meat locally. I can't remember the last time we ate a microwaved TV dinner. We opt away from buying convenience foods.
3) Pregnancy and long term breastfeeding adjust hormone levels and normalize the fibroid causing conditions. We certainly did that, long term breastfeeding, Lil'Bug weaned herself this summer. I knew that longer breastfeeding minimizes chances of breast cancer, but I'd never read about the other effects before. Speaking of hormones, I was on the pill for almost 10 years, a low dose estrogen, exactly the hormone that is said to trigger fibroid growth.
4) Exercise. I am certainly more active than pre Lil'Bug. I used to sit at a desk all day and watch a lot of TV or lay around and read books. I was not over weight or lazy per se, but in retrospect I was not very happy or healthy.

I'm not sure if it was one or a combination or all of the above, but the fact is that right now I don't have fibroids. Fibroids complicated my pregnancy with Lil'Bug, hindered labor, and complicated C-Section recovery. Here's to a healthy lifestyle!

Yup, Still Tuesday......

Our appointment went as well as we could have asked with an almost three year old at her nap time in tow. Whew. I am really glad I had help!

I love my husband. He is totally awesome. He took us out to lunch and for a walk, and even turned off his phone, just to alleviate my anxiety before the appointment. He really wanted to stay in the exam room, but Lil'Bug was pushing buttons, bouncing off walls, and biting! She really needed to run around and he made that happen for her.

There are a lot more tests available for pre-screening. I was a little in awe with how much they added since Lil'Bug was born and how much earlier things can be screened. The rules for fish consumption have changed again. I can eat cod, which was on the banned list. I can eat little tuna too. If I wanted to eat Tilapia, I could. Salmon is highly recommended. I was reassured that VBAC is very supported in the medical group I've chosen. Whew. My BP and weight are perfect, though I am to watch weight gain since I am so small.

We couldn't hear the baby's heartbeat in the exam room. The Midwife arranged for an in-house ultrasound when she was made aware of my anxiety over this. Thank you Dear Husband for articulating my fears. Did I mention that I love him!

The ultrasound tech is a lady I know from serving on the Historic Preservation City Commission. She's also the tech that ran the Doppler for my breast biopsy 4 years ago. It was a little comforting, and weird too, to have someone familiar running the probe cam. Ah! The baby has a good heart beat and measures 8 weeks 3 days. Calendar dated baby at 8 weeks 6 days. So, early June is what we know. Heartbeat was upper 180's. Lil'Bug said it sounded like Boo-Gah Boo-Gah Boo-Gah. She was so good and calm through this part. I am glad she was. The tech gave her the pictures to take home.

Also, no fibroids were found. ??? None. It is not like they just disappear! I had huge masses of them. Where did they go? Maybe it is best not to think to much about this and simply say I am grateful. Incredibly thankful.

So that's what we know. I'm more at ease now, but still tired. I'll write more later.

Tuesday Morning in October

Last night there was a big chemical fire in Des Moines. Actually a chemical plant exploded and fire, smoke, and toxic water runoff ensued. My sister's live in boyfriend's father works(ed) at the plant and was one of the first evacuated. My sister was home sick from her job at the ARL which is next door to the industrial park where the plant was located. The smoke was drifting and toxic. The runoff was heading towards the Des Moines River and our main water source for the region. The ash is toxic.

We harvested the last yesterday afternoon, but anyone who hasn't in this area should call it a loss. We already buy drinking water bottled, but especially now it is important. The news is trying to make people panic less but I studied chemical toxicity in my grad program at Iowa State for preservation technologies, the things that are burning are nothing to be shrugged off. It's serious stuff.

We're fine here, so far the ash cloud is blowing east, but we have many friends (and most of my students and colleagues) in that direction.

On a lighter note, we are heading for our first pre-natal visit this afternoon. I'm not worried much. I feel nauseous, have chicken pox acne, and mood swings aplenty so all is normal there. But there are so many things that could go wrong, so I am still worried a little.

Everyone is sick but me......

For the past 5 days Dearest Husband and Lil'Bug have been sick. It started with her,"Bad poopies!" and went downward to fever and coughing and snot and more snot and the very worst part of it all: crankiness.

Everyone is cranky, or was cranky, over the weekend. This was very much not fun. It made me cranky too. It made nothing get done. Not the second fireplace stone, not the window repair, not the cleaning, nothing. My sister took me shopping on Sunday and I was a bowl full of joy, let me say. 1st a lady ran a stop sign, we both stopped in time, AND THEN SHE FLIPPED ME OFF! and went. Why? I clearly had the right of way. Then, once my heart slowed down, we parked and went in to shopping complex. When finished and returned to car, a HUGE SUV parked so close to my driver's side that the SUV door was touching my side mirror. I had to climb in the passenger side. This would not be a big deal but for the fact that because I am 4'10" the seat has to be adjusted very close to teh steering wheel for me to see out. Imagine pregnant lady trying to circus bend just to get into driver's seat. I was pissed. I couldn't do it. I got out and re-examined the situation. It made me even madder. I looked for a handicap tag (none) or something that would explain why the SUV had done this. On SUV's driver's side, there is 6 ft of space between them and the next car. SUV is parked at an angle and 3 ft over the line (that's supposed to be) between my car and theirs. Sigh. I try again. I have to readjust my seat all the way back just to get in.

I hate driving. When I started my car to leave the parking lot of rudeness, my transmission when CLUNK. Waaaaah.

So, I spent a lovely afternoon watching my sister shop for things she may or may not have actually needed, but I was with her and that was nice. I didn't grade papers because it is unfair to my students to grade while cranky. Oh, and my cell phone is not working properly, so I ended up more cranky with Dear Husband when he was late home because I missed his call that he would be late.

I've been thinking this morning how to combat the itch of crankiness that is again creeping over my day. Lil'Bug is feeling better, my kitchen is clean, laundry caught up, floors mostly vacuumed.......today we are cleaning out the car before taking it to the shop, stopping at the library, and having lunch with grandpa. All very nice things. Today it is supposed to be 66 degrees out: we will come home and spend the afternoon working in the garden. It's time to pull down the last harvest and compost the plants this week. It's time for the change of seasons.

I'm a Halloweenie....

When I was a kid I, and my siblings, had some pretty cool Halloween costumes. One thing my family went all out for was Halloween, every year. We took turns having an elaborate costume. Now, elaborate doesn't mean expensive but it did mean time consuming and labor intensive.

1984: I was Bugs Bunny. Sounds pretty simple and I had the standard poly plastic mask but......I also had a cardboard box made up like ground with grass, a hole cut in the top and I would pop out and say, "What's Up? Is it trick or treat?" and take a bite of a real carrot. Cute.

1985: My brother was a mummy. Pretty classic BUT they made him a cardboard sarcophagus, painted gold and lavishly decorated, and wheeled him around on a dolly. Too cool.

1989ish: My sister went as a mermaid. Pretty standard. Little Mermaid was her favorite Disney thing of all time. However, the tail had its own wheels and her feet were decorated like sand and sea life. Very cool.

1991: The eyeball. Favorite all time costume. I went as an eyeball. My head was the eye and my body was the ocular nerve, complete with blood vessels. The eyeball part was paper mache and painted with glow in the dark paint and was bloodshot. So very cool. Trick or treating, I looked like a floating eye.

1993-1999 ish: my sister went as dead people. She would choose a person and then go as them dead. People she knew and by dead, I mean, zombie slaughtered. One year it was a dead cheerleader, once a dead paramedic, a dead doctor, a dead prom queen. In light of school tragedies and rescue workers heroics, these motifs are no longer as funny as they were. She still goes all out. Last year she as a martini and this year she's talked bunches of people into going as bees and they are collectively a swarm of bees. Cute.

As for me? When I was pregnant with Lil'Bug, she was due on Halloween. I was huge. The only thing I could fit in was a butter yellow cotton jumper. That was the year of the butter cow. Yes, I just told people I was one of Duffy's Iowa State Fair sculptures. :)

This year? I really wanted to have a Halloween party in celebration of living in the perfect haunted house (looks like Adams' Family house but with a gabled roof), but alas we are too busy finishing up house projects to get ready to list with an agent to even have time to plan a party let alone hide the laundry pile. So tragic. I had big plans too: Sprinklers on the roof for a rain storm, strobe lights for lightning, Creepy organ music playing over thunderstorm sound effects, cobwebs, dry ice at the double doors spilling out fog every time we opened the doors, and our family dressed as the Adams family. Bah. Someone should so steal my ideas and take pictures. Please. :)

Weirdness MEME

Ok, I've been tagged for a meme. I love memes. :) This time it was whimsigal over at The Road Less Traveled.

So, the meme is to list 10 weird things about myself. Oh boy, only 10?

10. I would have purple hair (again) if I could. First it was that my job would be affected, but now I am going totally online but I'm pregnant, and then I'll be breast feeding. So, purple hair will have to wait 2-3 years. The purple I love is a deep velvet purple, very Victorian. Even so, when I worked at a museum there was no way I could convince tours or my supervising board that purple hair was appropriate. Now, I joke that I either need or get tenure or go online. So close.

9. I really like fruit with meat sandwiches. Cranberries on turkey, apples on turkey, cherries on ham, strawberries on chicken salad. Oooh. Grapes on chicken salad too. I discovered this taste when I was pregnant last time but it didn't go away. Yum. Sometimes I forgo the fresh sliced fruit and just use jam. Peach jam is really good with turkey too.

8. My OCD thing I worry about doors being locked and the oven being turned off. Whenever I talk myself out of checking, I'll come down in the morning to an open flame on a burner or the back door unlocked. I've been known to drive around the block and run back to the house to check the front door. I also hate when my family leave lights on in rooms they are not using....or in closets, I really hate that. I follow them around and turn off lights. I mean, come on people, I have laundry to do! Flick the switch yourself!

7. If I go to a home that I see has cockroaches I will throw away the shoes I was wearing. Why? Bug eggs. Easiest way to bring them home with you. I used to go into a lot of homes that needed restoration survey or demolition. I lost a lot of shoes that way. No, they can't be cleaned to my satisfaction. I also have a roach related fear of sticking my hand in oven mitts. Both things can be blamed on my childhood. That said, I have never had a roach in a place I have lived as an adult, knock on wood. No, I've never had pesticide sprayed either.

6. I tend to not finish things. In fact it is amazing that I finished my thesis to satisfaction. Honestly, I didn't. I don't think it is complete, but I turned it in anyway and passed with honors. ??? I fretted for weeks that the advising committee must not have actually read the thing, since it is not finished!!! I have one chapter left to write. 2 years later, I still have not worked on it. It may well be an Oprah book of I could just freakin' finish it.

5. Along the same lines as #6. I got a not rejected letter from the New Yorker. It said to revise. 8 years later....the revision is actually in a stamped envelope next to my thesis. I likely have to update the postage now. I think it still has a 32 cent stamp. Never. Finish. Anything.

4. I have foot in mouth disease. I say exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person, if the opportunity arises. Sometimes I even blog like that, but I can always delete and hide the evidence. Emails, not so much. In person, well that I have to hope can be lost to memory. I have a really hard time in groups because of this.

3. I over think things. I had to ask my sister about that one. It is her biggest complaint about me. When we are watching a movie or such, I ponder out loud at the inconsistencies. I know, that in itself is weird and annoying. Details bug me. In fact, when I read HP 7, at the end when Tonks and Lupin are listed amoung the dead I went back and re-read very carefully to see when they entered the battle. That still bugs me. Why would Tonks do that with a baby at home? After that big scene with Lupin and Harry? I blame JK Rowling. I think that it was inconsistent writing. Fine, I may have had extra sentiment towards Tonks, purple hair and all, but still, to make a big deal out of it and then not really address it again 'cept for killing them both off? Bah.

2. I like to spell things the British way. I'm not British and have never even been to Canada. I just love words and some words look better to me spelled the way that they do it: favourite, amoung, colour, theatre, dialogue, grey, to name a few. I just noticed this one while running spell check for the list and began the old out loud dialogue with the spell check, "No, I will not drop those letters! It looks better, it sounds better, why doesn't blogger have an add a word feature!!!!!" Bugger. What exactly do Americans have against the letter U anyway?

1. Did I mention, I never finish anything?

I tag:
Mama B.
Wheelchair Mama
Dreaming Laura
Sugar Creek Abby
Gookins
The Chefswife
My Cousin David (just checking to see if you started reading here!:))
Lisa @ Because I'm the Mama
Zamozo

I think that's it. It seemed when I checked that the others I read on the unschooling ring were already listed, but if I forgot someone, let me know! (I purposely left out those who I am pretty sure loathe meme's.....)

Thursday Thinking

Today Lil'Bug woke up with a slight fever. She didn't feel good last night or yesterday and today she's just kind of ornery. This means no swimming, the fever not the ornery tot thing. Usually a dip in the pool chills her out, but that's exactly what I'm worried about today: getting chilled.

So today we are off to buy a new mop head, some juice, and look for birthday presents. I'm still not sure what we are getting her. 1 week until the big day. I already purchased a few board games and some outdoor stuff. Mostly things she said she really wanted but then never mentioned again. Gah. Back to thinking about the mop I guess.

We are getting ready for a busy month of November. Lil'Bug's B-Day, NaNoWriMo, a big celebration for Great Grandma in KC, Thanksgiving, ect. I'm thinking ahead to the food. Mmmmmm.....holiday food. My favorite kind.

How Sometimes Some Things Go

I woke up with energy this morning. :) Yay. We got up, had breakfast, and I graded papers. Got them done. Wow. 9am. I decide to make 5 lasagnas. Some to eat now, some to freeze. I thaw meat, get all ingredients out, saute the veggies, and......I can't open the sauce jars. Dearest Husband suggests a pipe wrench, then popping a nail through to depressurize. Both hammer and pipe wrench are in the room that I got shot at in on Monday, (whole n'other story involving forgotten, yet still plugged in air compressor and nail gun....) I forgo those suggestions in favor of his co-worker's idea of running the lids under hot tap water, which worked BTW.

Cool lasagnas made, all 5, in the oven bubbling away, when little one screams, "Bad poopies!" and takes off running. She made it and oh my was it an accurate description. I get her cleaned up, me cleaned up and head downstairs. Cat is vomiting. Cat talks like a people when she vomits, which is a freaky thing. I decide to leave it. I waivered a bit and decided to leave it. Dog decides to be helpful. The thought of that makes me vomit (morning sickness is soooooo misnamed!). So now I might as well clean up cat vomit since I have to clean up my own. "Mom, bad poopies!" Oh child.

All is calm now and I decide I should also actually clean the floors. I vacuum but brown sugar clogs the vacuum up (last week Lil'Bug spilled a whole bag, the vacuum seemed like a good idea at the time.....) Fine. I sweep. Then I get out the soap water and flood the tile. That's what I usually do and then mop it up, wringing the mop out in the sink.....

Except......my mop broke. The sponge head fell off. I had to mop on my hands and knees with a towel. I can't well leave puddles as tot and animals would track it all over like snail trails. Mopping is Lil'Bug favorite chore and she was mad mad mad that we were not using the mop bucket and mop. She stomps off.

Sigh. I no longer have energy. I have to go to work tonight and I won't be home until 10 PM. So much for good intentions........oh wait, I smell lasagna....

Update on Soap Nuts

Edited to add: Wikipedia's entry on soap nuts AND an article on soap nuts.....

Edited to add more: Here a link to the company I buy from.

The truth is that I was getting frustrated with the soap nuts so I switched to Method brand detergent. Then my husband's skin issue came back, painfully so. He asked why, why, why did I stop using the nuts. Well, 1) they didn't lather up the 3rd use like they do the 1st (supposed to get 3 wash loads from every sack) 2) that made it expensive 3) the bag kept breaking open in the wash and then I was picking nut bits out of the clothes or out of the dryer.

He didn't care. He wanted his skin back.

So I researched a cheaper nut source. I found a supplier in Illinois that sells a lb for 18$ plus 3$ in shipping. That's 150 nuts as apposed to 60 nuts. Way better deal if the quality is as good. It is. Bonus, they now sell on Amazon too! So, then, what about the other issues?

While searching for a different supplier I found a couple blogs and a couple product reviews. One said to brew the nuts in a tea and use that for shampoo. ?? Well, wouldn't that work to get a more consistent laundry detergent too? And eliminate the nut bits? Hmmm, yes.

And so......I brew with 4 cups of boiling water in a mason jar, 10 nuts. I use 1/2 cup of the "tea" for each load at the beginning of the week and 1/4 at the end when the concentration gets stronger. The mason jar should have a lid to prevent spilling, use as a pouring strainer for the nut bits, keep the cat/ flying bugs/ laundry lint out, and keep the mixture from going rancid. I don't make more because I don't use more than that in a week. I get 10 loads from 10 nuts or 150 loads from the lb bag. Excellent. I get the sudsing I needed, no bits, and my husband's skin back. :)

An added bonus is that I cut the cost of laundry. I only need one rinse cycle and dry time seems to be 1/2. We don't have to buy fabric softener or a separate wash for delicates and wools. No phosphate ground water contamination, so I can feel really good about the waste water not adding to water pollution.

Also, did you realize how many non auto related products have petroleum? Forget SUV's, our dependence on the stuff goes way deeper: cosmetics, lotions, plastics, soaps, shampoos, conditioners, hair product, detergents, air sprays, candles, Fells Naphtha, preservatives....my goodness, I am still surprised when I find yet another petroleum product. So many go on our skin, the most absorbent organ we have. I am certainly glad to eliminate one more from our use, since that is likely the basis of our family's allergic reaction.

I also get the label of "hippie" from my husband's friends. Fine. It's possible my friends think so too.... ;) If only I could grow my own nuts, then I'd be truly, truly deserving of that label.

Brain Spurt

Some mornings Lil'Bug wakes up and is suddenly bigger and none of her clothes or shoes fit. Sometimes she is suddenly smarter or more mature. Today was one of those days. She woke up, got dressed, went to the bathroom, and headed downstairs to get food. She usually yells for help at some point much earlier than the kitchen, usually before getting out of bed. Today she raided the fridge for strawberries and found her bowl of dry Cheerios (snack). Lest you think I was neglectful, I stealthily trailed her to all activities, after all she's not yet 3.

She noticed me and smiled. "Look mama, strawberries!" I just grinned back.It was no big deal to her, why should I make a huge thing about it?

Some days she just amazes us with her observations and her sense of humor.

Lil'Bug has a vocabulary that is growing by leaps and bounds and sometimes adds new words to our repertoire: "Snuzzeling" is a snuggle and a cuddle initiated by a nose rubbing. She says it's what giraffes do. Ok.

Then there is Afrog the lallygagging alligator. She saw Muppet's' Treasure Island and loves the word lallygagging. Not sure she knows what it means, but still very cute. Afrog, she says, is a funny name for an alligator because he's not a frog. Chomp chomp chomp, mmmmm, yum yum yum.

She named a pair of hotwheels, Dog and Cat. Dog is the orange one and she says a girl gets to drive Dog. Why? Because it's fast! I think it is funny that she gets amusement by "naming" things other things that they are not. Does that make sense? :) She's also swimming and singing and dancing and drawing and many other things. No wonder I am all tired out!

Now for what we have been doing:

We spent almost all day yesterday at the Science Center. They have a new exhibit that is like ChuckECheese's arcade with a gross body function theme. They have a clown at the entrance that freaked both of us out. Once past that, Lil'Bug pretended to be an apple, and slid down the digestive track slide to come out poop. They also have smell stations for various body excretions. OMG yuck. For someone with morning sickness, it almost ended outing just walking by that part. For Lil'Bug it was all about playing with friends. She was so happy to see everybody. Me too.

We also went to see the IMAX Sea Monsters. It was really cool. I had never been to an IMAX before this year and I think I am hooked. A regular theatre just won't cut it anymore!

We came home and she wanted to watch her PMK DVD on zoo management again. She prefers this over anything else right now and I think she's seen it 10 times since we got it from the library the first time.

Ok, we're off to make lasagna!

I'm really mad....

How's that for a deep and ominous title?

Another blogger has been posting (with the same dismay as I have) about some of the darker issues in our world: racism, bigotry, homophobia. Why don't people keep their stupidity to themselves? The hard truth of it is that they don't. They are proud of their hatred. They don't view it as such or as ignorance.

Recently a mom in a playgroup that I don't know why I go to was boasting about a method she chose to discipline her child's sleep issues. It involved locking the kid in a room and letting her cry and vomit herself to sleep. She seemed to be asking for input and so I said, "Yuck." I said that it was evil and cruel and would have long term consequences for the baby. I said she should research the harrowing statistics that are associated with the method including fatalities. I said yuck again. I said she should be a better mother. I said all of these things with more eloquence than I am relating it now. It should be no surprise that the other moms pounced on me. They thought the method was yucky too but that moms should not judge each other.

What she is touting amounts to child abuse. I had to say something. I had to write something.

I try my hardest to be a kind mother, one who respects her child's needs and personhood. I don't hit (or pinch or flick). I try not to yell. I try to be attentive to her interests and curiosities and provide safe environments for her to explore. I never force her to cry alone. Even our time outs are not punishment, but a cool off period. She is getting to the point where she will sometimes even realize she needs a cooling off period and initiate it herself. If the behavior warrants it, privileges are lost and we discuss why. It is more often than not a natural consequence.

Do most families really do things so differently? Is it really about "showing the kid who's boss"?

On my first day as a fledgling, yet (perhaps overly) eager teacher, my provost expressed a sentiment about teaching that is easily applied to parenthood - they may try to rile you or outwit you, but remember that you are the professor (parent) and you know things they don't that they need to learn from you. They need to know you are confident and calm and, more than anything else, that will bring peace to the dynamic.

Sometimes I get cranky (I know, I know . . but it's TRUE!) I always try to remember - screaming hasn't helped before and never will. But while I struggle sometimes (remember a blog entry about paint all over the kitchen floor?) I try to put it in perspective, and often end up being able to make a lot of fun, or a good lesson out of the situation. No matter what though - I'm doing my best to Parent (a verb!!), instead of playing dictator. If one mom went away from the group questioning the cruelty, I shone a light into a dark, dark place. I sometimes get the feeling (hearing a mom at a hair salon talk about how she left her 4 year old at a mall play place alone so she could get some 'peace for once' for example) that children are viewed as an accessory to be brought out when convenient. Perhaps that's overly harsh - perhaps it's overly honest.

The same goes when I stand up for my friends who chose love that is not accepted by some, or when I speak against racism (race itself has no biological basis... I mess with the census people insisting that I am all things on their list (why not? Its all made up anyway, why should my skin color matter to the gov't?)) and most of all when I speak of love: love for a child, a spouse, friends, or something you believe in.

Farm Crawling: Inch by Inch

In the sunshine is a little brown caterpillar inching through imminent danger, aka a chicken house full of hungry chickens:


Freedom! Well, almost. Not chicken dinner, but caught (we like to think rescued) by a boy.

What kind of caterpillar is it? What kind of butterfly/moth will it be?

Farm Crawling: Getting Your Goat

We hope to have sheep or goats someday. This was a neat milking parlor set up. The goats were very kind to Lil'Bug and the goat cheese so very yummy. It didn't keep well in the fridge though, much to my disappointment.

Farm Crawling: Don't Worry, Bee Happy

Many of you who know me, know that I love bees. I used to be a little afraid of them, I used to get stung. My husband and daughter are bee charmers, which I thought was a biological thing. I have since come to the suspicion that it is more of a learned fear issue. I can't tickle bees like Dearest Husband can but they crawl on me and then fly away. We have an apiary set up in our basement (don't worry, vacant) and it is one of the few things moving with us.

Of course we explored the apiaries at one of the farms:

This is a friendly hive, the farmer informed us:

This one is more grouchy. The more grouchy ones are placed farther out in the fields away from the tour traffic. Perhaps they are grouchy from just being honey harvested?

This is a freshly scraped honey comb.


I can't wait to bee on a farm!

Farm Crawling: Meeting Thanksgiving Dinner

I have this thing about food. I like to meet my food, or at least know the people who have cared for it. I like eating happy pigs. There is accountability that way for all of us.

Have you ever toured a factory or mass producing meat place? The animals can be forced fed, kept in small pens, force bred, treated like animals, and then lined up for slaughter. Conveyor belt processing of their carcass into food. Chicken nuggets for example: made from chicken slurry. OMG. Yuck.

Anyway, we found this great event through an announcemnt on our locl homeschool idea board: the farm crawl.

This is Lily meeting the father of our Thanksgiving dinner (I hope we order in time!)


This is Lily viewing the flock in which we hope to get our heritage breed Turkey. Yum.


I'll post more, see the following posts. :)

Friday Freewrite: Suprise!

I promised my students that I would do the Friday Freewrites too, since they are tortured weekly by having to, um, write for a writing class. Fair is fair. This week's freewrite is about how I would react to a surprise party that I knew about. Would I play along? Would I ruin it?

I would be really flattered if someone threw a surprise party for me, but I probably would end up canceling out on the pretend thing they'd try to use to get me there. I've been bad about that lately (sorry Heather!). Oh, but if I knew about it? Then I would just really fret about the social aspect, but I would play along. I would also buy a box of Stam's for the offending organizers!

Really, I'm not a fan of surprises. I like to know. I like to know just about everything I can about a situation before going in. As a youngster I used to map out how I thought phone conversations (topics, questions) were supposed to go before calling friends. I still hate calling people. If I didn't have email I'd never leave the house!

I will find out if the baby is a boy or girl if I can. I like to know as much as possible and there are so many unknowns in life. Some people say there are too few surprises left in life....I say good. I like to know.

Thursday Thirteen

1) We made two pumpkin pies from real pumpkins on Wednesday.
2) Eating pumpkin pie gave me gas that felt like contractions and I let class out early and drove home very upset. It was just gas. Yuck.
3) It has been raining for 14 days in a row. It is wet and cold and rainy. Forecast calls for more rain.
4) We are going to fetch a new (free!) swingset from an unschooler family in rural Iowa on Saturday. Yay! Free swingset AND a visit to a farm. Neat.
5) Lily swam today. No floater suit. 12 feet distance. She grabbed the side of the pool and pushed off and....swam back to me! We spent another hour just doing this and swim to the bottom of the pool exercises. Too cool.
6) We saw the IMAX "The Human Body" this week. Very cool, but scary to an almost three year old.
7) Cats are weird. Cats get even weirder in the middle of the night.
8) I love soup!
9) I'm excited about NaNoWriMo.
10) I had never seen Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. It is really different from most Disney movies. I loved it but.........Lil'Bug learned to spit at people from watching it. Gah.
11) Farm eggs taste incredibly different from grocery store eggs. I know that grocery store eggs are like 80 days old, but I never knew that the taste was so different. Yum.
12) Sleeping toddlers are bringers of joy. She played hard and now she's giggling in her sleep. Neat.
13)I am totally enamoured with my husband. He has made himself an expert in prenatal nutrition and trouble shooting. When I cam home last night upset, he researched abdominal pain and comforted me. It was nothing, but it hurt. He is truly amazing. As annoyed as I was previously, I am really glad I married such a wonderful man.

Nanowrimo

nanowrimo

National Novel Writing Month. 50,000 words in 30 days. Can I do it? Sure. I wrote my thesis in as long and it's longer. It may take some additional planning, but I can do it. It averages to 1,667 words a day. Easy peasy. Right. I plan to write a little and paint a little each day.

So here's my dilemma: which novel should I work on? Choices are as follows 1) The Bridesmaid's Guide to the Neurotic Bride and Her, um, Interesting Family. 2) finish Gen X'ers Guide to How to Use a Hammer 3) A murder mystery involving a dam break and a drag queen. 4) some other idea. Any idea. Suggest something. 5) an extension of a short story I wrote, a love story in the bayou. Lots of magic, folklore, and food in the mix.

I'll put the character profiles up prior to Nov. 1st so I am ready to go. I am thinking about creating a separate invite only blog and posting a chapter a day. Thoughts? Would anyone be interested in that?

Blogging Pregnancy

Dearest Husband pointed out that I am not really blogging this pregnancy much, as in I am not really writing about being pregnant. At first, I had the excuses: the people I know who do that eventually get really obnoxious and end each sentence with, "because I am pregnant."- but that is not true, it only annoyed me when we were trying and not pregnant, really I think its cute. Then, I said, we have too much going on right now and my students read my blog and NO ONE wants to know what and when I am vomiting.

But really, this blog is not a newspaper column or a business blog, it is a personal record of our family's life and right now the facts of when and what I am vomiting are very much a part of our daily life!

So here are my reflections on this pregnancy so far:
1) I am worried about different things this time. With Lil'Bug I was worried about family, being a new mom, my job, and finishing school. Now, done with school, job is not dependent on daycare, family issues are resolved, and I am a pretty good mom. Now I am worried about medical complications I know could happen, Lil'Bug's adjustment, moving, and pants that fit.

2) Vanilla ice cream with chocolate and caramel chunks (Cow Tracks) is THE BEST ice cream to use in a root beer float. Try it. Especially if you are pregnant. It is crazy delicious and the only dessert I have had in 7 weeks.

3) I am really tired. I wasn't with Lil'Bug but I think she is why I am tired this time. Last time I sat at a desk all day now I am chasing her. Also, I had been more of a caffeinated mom prior and absolutely no caffeine this time is really wreaking havoc on my energy level. Why absolutely? Anything with caffeine, aspartame, or hazelnut makes me vomit. I can smell aspartame from yards away. If I don't eat breakfast, vomiting is a sure thing. 50/50 chance if I eat something. Dearest Husband reminding me that lots of nausea is a good sign is obnoxious.

4) Lil'Bug is pretending she has a baby in her belly too and has started up again feeding her dolls "mommy milk" and carrying them in slings. I plan on ordering from Wallypop matching ring slings, one for her and one for me. I won't do that until the Spring though.

5) Last time I was wiggy about used baby things, now I am marking my calendar for the big baby rummage sales. We just sold 80% of our baby things in June. Gah. We'll need extra car seats and...you know what? I don't know what else. We didn't use 1/2 the stuff we had last time. Before the big sale on Saturday we will have a family talk about what is needed. Last time I had Pottery Barn visions floating through my head and now I am a bit more practical.

6) Last time I was set on using a doula, this time I'm not. I love doulas, I loved my doula, but this time I think that I will be just fine. It's early. I may change my mind. I'm going to try a VBAC but I have the same medical complications as last time and this time we know what that actually can mean in terms of scary medical things. I'm ok with another C-Sec, it is just not my first choice. I will also use a hospital facility (see above reference to scary medical things). I think that home births are awesome, but I hope that the community of women I belong to will support and understand my choice as I support theirs. My medical condition is part scaring from an adolescent abdominal surgery and part genetic abnormality (PCOS).

7) Breastfeeding. It took almost a month for Lil'Bug and I to learn how without aids. Most women I know quit when or if it was that hard for them. Not me. This time I know I can do it and I don't have to worry about pumping 3 hours a day. Goodness that sucked (30 minutes each session x 6). Yay for working at home!

That's it for now. If I don't get back to cleaning right now- my whole week with be thrown into chaos!

Under Budget?

So, Lil'Bug gets the idea one morning after breakfast that she needs to make a grocery list.

Ok. Bananas and cheese-noodles.

I needed to go to the store anyway, so we load up the car. As we were doing this, she gets the great idea to take her toy grocery cart. "Ok," I say, "but that means that you can't ride in the Beepbeep cart." She's all smiles.

We get there and she happily scoots the aisles looking for her bounty. She ponders the bananas, picking the perfect bunch. She contemplates the cheese-noodles before deciding on her old standard. She asks if we can add a bag of vegetable chips and at the last turn grabs purple Gatorade and fits it in the small space below in her plastic red cart. She looks at me and says, "Ok, I'm done. Let's go pay!"

At the check out she unloads everything on to the conveyor. She practically had to lift the Gatorade over her head (she's a tiny two). She asks for the money so she can pay, the lady gives her change and asks, "How was your shopping experience young lady?"

Lil'Bug beams, "Great! I came in under budget!"

......Um?

At this point I was laughing so hard tears flowed. So were all the people in line. That's what I say. I thought she was shopping, but I didn't realize exactly how much and to what great detail she was imitating me.

Also, later, she was upset. She was "sad and angry" that we laughed at her. I explained that we were laughing with her and that she was just so incredibly smart and articulate that everyone was awed. She smirked at me and squinched her nose. I must remember to be more sensitive to her feelings. :)

There are Noses, Noses!

A song by the Crossing was changed ala tot this morning as she belted out over breakfast, "THERE ARE NOSES, NOSES!"

One Thing Led to Another.......

Ok, so a little task like laundry.....today exploded. It's not that I have a lot of laundry to wash either. Here's what happened:

None of my clothes fit right. Time to change out to winter/fall clothes. New closet door hung over the weekend but closet floor surface finish damaged by drywall dust. Hmmmmm. I will change all my clothes to this closet, sorting them into Goodwill/packed away/or keep out as I move them. Simple right?

I am currently staring at two empty closets, a huge pile of clothing on hangers, and a small quart of floor stain. I started all projects simultaneously. Why? Yeah. I don't know.

The bigger weirdness might be that I stopped to blog about it....

How we Harvest and Freeze our Peppers

It's simple really. That said, note that we didn't know how easy it was and it took us a bit to perfect what is common sense to most people.

Wash them. This seems like a pain, fresh from the garden BUT where we live there is high lead content in the soil. While the soil we grow our vegetables in is imported and amended, our neighbors soil isn't and the dust that blows and settles from that can be really dangerous. So we rinse with water before we eat anything. It is kind of a letdown that we can't pick and eat and graze through the garden......but not as big of a deal as getting lead poisoning.


Cut off the top, then cut the pepper long ways. To de-seed we use a spoon and scrape them hollow. We learned that if the seed flap isn't removed, it turns black in the freezer. It's still ok to eat, but looks icky.


Then we pack in freezer bags, suck the air out, and seal. We try to store in quantities that we will use, but peppers can be used a bit of a time out of the bag. I also discovered that the pepper will shatter when they are frozen. Pounding the bag is much more fun than chopping!

Now, it is also important to note: wear gloves when prepping hot peppers. The oil is really hard to get off and if you wipe your eyes of eat a cracker (stick your fingers in your mouth) or change a baby's diaper....all are in for a not so nice surprise. We have wiped an eye on more than one occasion. Wearing gloves solves this post pepper (unless you continue wearing the gloves the rest of the day and that is just weird...).

What if you forget to wear gloves? We have experimented with several remedies. We have tried baking soda, toothpaste, dish soap, flour, milk, ice water.....The most effective has been to take a big handfull of baking soda, use water to make it into a paste, then vigourously rub that all over your hands, or to wash hands with baby oil. Either way, once your done wash hands with regular soap. The one time I got it in my eyes I just rinsed and rinsed with cold water. Any other suggestions are welcome!