Simple Woman's Daybook Entry

Outside my window... Duke, our visiting dog (see last daybook entry), is running laps around the backyard.  He continues to be a very good house guest - we will miss him when he goes home on Tuesday.  I don't think, however, I will miss him lifting his leg and peeing on my tomato plants.  Now I remember why I only have female dogs...

I am thinking... about a terrific article I read on using Positive Activity Interventions to help you work through depression.  Here they are, in no particular order:

• writing letters of gratitude
• counting one's blessings
• meditating on positive feelings toward others
• using signature strengths
• practicing optimism
• performing acts of kindness

I am thankful... (see?  Already starting...)  for good friends.  Several months ago one of my bookclub members moved to my neighborhood - just a couple of streets away.   Last night she had a bbq, and I loaded up the stroller and walked over with Rylan, Owen, Colin.  We had such a good time - the food was awesome!  It was nice to have a plan for the evening, since Dean and Jordan were gone on a campout with the scout troop.  It makes me wish that neighborhood bbqs were a regular occurrence.  I may have to come out of my introverted shell and organize one.

From the Learning Rooms... We spent last week wrapping up summer for Jordan and preparing for the scout campout.  Lots of playdates and very little 'learning'.  Jordan leaves on Wednesday for Oklahoma.  I am ready to jump in with both feet with Rylan - full blown Kindergarten schedule will commence on Wednesday.  Yeah!!!  I also need to prepare Jordan's NOI (Notice of Intent) for this year.  I always send it mid-August.  A new twist this year - it will include Jordan's testing results from the Spring, so it won't be just the standard update file and print thing.  I will not be filing one for Rylan - she is only five, and even though she will technically be a Kindergartner, I don't have to notify until she is six years old.

In the kitchen...  Last night I made a pasta salad for the bbq.  Very easy.  Tri-color rotini, quartered cherry tomatoes, very small cubes of pepperjack cheese and about half a bottle of Caesar salad dressing. 

I am wearing... nightgown.  Standard early Sunday morning dress code!

I am creating...  a beautiful ceramic pasta bowl! Here is my finished product!!

Before firing...

After... 

I used a bowl design I found on the web (I googled ceramic bowls) as my inspiration, so the design isn't uniquely mine.  I chose it because I suck at detail work - large, simple shapes are hard to mess up!

I am going... to a family gathering this afternoon.  My grandmother and great aunts are hosting a dessert party as a way to bring together the family while my cousin and her daughter (who is the same age as Rylan) are in town from Florida, and my other cousin (her brother) and his partner are in town from Seattle.  The last time we were all together (well, most of us anyway), was two years ago, when, again, my cousin and her daughter were visiting.   I greet this event with a great amount of trepidation - for reasons I may or may not post about later. 

I am wondering...  what this afternoon will bring.  I may just retreat and spend the time in my grandmother's garden.  My happy place for my introverted self.

I am reading... Watermelon by Marian Keyes. Still. I haven't cracked a book in over a week.

I am hoping... that today goes well.  That my children behave and don't add to my already burgeoning discomfort.  I already have two strikes against me... boatloads of sugar and missing afternoon naptime.  Sh!t.

I am looking forward to... about an hour from now I will pick up Dean and Jordan from their weekend scout campout.  When I was tucking in Rylan last night, she said "I can't wait until tomorrow.  I've really missed 'those boys'".  Me too.

I am hearing... the neighbor using a jackhammer to break apart his old concrete patio.  Owen and Colin fighting over a wagon.  Rylan asking for applesauce over and over again like a broken record.  Adele, singing Rolling In the Deep.  Which one of these things is not like the other??

Around the house... Washing and drying Rylan's porcelain tea set to take to the party this afternoon.  My way of helping Rylan and her cousin connect since they don't really know each other.

I am pondering... why I set up such massive mental roadblocks about past hurts.  It just makes getting over it and moving on that much harder.

One of my favorite things...  is working in the garden.  I spent an hour pruning and weeding my tomatoes yesterday, as the kids played in the sprinklers, and it was truly wonderful.  It is one of the few activities that can take me to a Zen-like state.  I think of nothing else but the task at hand.

A few plans for the rest of the week... pack Jordan for a six-week stay in Oklahoma.  Finish up the last four swim lessons of the season for Rylan and Owen.  Start schoolwork in earnest with Rylan.  Prepare for camping next weekend.  And oh yeah... celebrate my 40th birthday next Monday.  Uugh.

Here is a picture for thought I am sharing...

Hangin' out at the pool..

New haircut.  Short and sassy.

To read more entries and visit a variety of other blogs, go here...

Art takes time. A lot of time.

Hooray for us - we finally wrapped up an art project!!  Last year, when Jordan attended a one-day-a-week enrichment program, we took advantage of the ability to take home some curriculum for the school year and made Atelier Art one of our choices.  We had to give it back when we left the program in April - which I was pretty bummed about - because it is expensive.  I didn't really start using it until January, so we were just starting to get into it.  So forgive me, this post is so embarrassingly overdue and I have no idea what lesson this project is, or what level it is from.

There are 8 levels, 3 modules each, in Atelier Art.  I know this because I just looked it up.  :)  We belong to Homeschool Buyers Co-op, and they are running a 40% discount on it that ends August 22.  Each module normally retails for around $150, so it is a very good deal.  I can hardly speak with authority here, but the four lessons that we did do were pretty cool.  I *think* we were working within level 4, module A... We first did a lesson on the color wheel, and practiced mixing secondary and tertiary colors.  Then we painted a picture of a hot air balloon with all of the fabulous colors we made...

Then there was a lesson on washing the background with sweeping watercolors in a blue/purple hue, and then cutting out shapes of trees with bare branches, people with umbrellas and birds from black construction paper and arranging them on the background.  It was to depict a rainy day.  I didn't take any photos, unfortunately.  I'm lame like that. 

Then we sort of combined the third and fourth lesson.  I didn't like the finished product in lesson three, but I liked the idea...  Here is what we came up with.  We began in early February.  Yes, February.

Watercolor still life

We began by creating a still life for our inspiration.  We kept it simple but rich in texture: a vase with flowers, a bowl of apples, and a fish sculpture.  I am mostly pleased with this arrangement, but I am bothered by the two 'low' elements, and one 'high' element.  If I were to do this again, I would ditch the fish and go for another item that would be about medium height, in a blue or purple hue.  I think the artistic composition would be more balanced that way.



Hey look!  There is 'Rainy Day' above the flowers!  I'm not lame after all!!

 Then we used several sheets of white tagboard, and gave each one a colorwash using watercolor paints and lots of water, one sheet for each color represented in the still life: yellow, red, blue/green, brown and speckled brown.  We made the speckled brown by washing the paper with brown first, and then taking a brush with a darker shade of brown and flicking it at the paper.



We didn't need a lot of red or yellow, so we divided the sheet in half.

 

Close cat supervision is required at all times for a project of this magnitude.



Owen, of course, doing his own thing...

 Then when the paint is dry, approximately 77 days later (give or take a day), tear the watercolor papers into the shapes you need for each element of the still life.  Small bits for the little yellow flowers, a large red piece for the bowl, long, skinny strips for the branches... etc.  Then arrange them on the paper and glue them down.

You can see the speckled brown in Jordan's paper pile.  He did a great job with that technique.



This part of the project proved difficult for Rylan.  Not quite enough finger dexterity to be able to exert enough pressure to do semi-accurate tearing of the paper, so I helped her with that component.



This part of the project must be supervised by a toddler eating leftover Chinese.

 Then after waiting the required 96 days for the glue to dry, you can then begin the final phase of the project.  Outline the shapes using a pen or pencil (the video showed the instructor using a black felt tip pen, we used plain 'ole black colored pencil), to give further definition to the shapes.



Jordan's finished still life.



Rylan's finished still life


I am very pleased with how they turned out.  I love the rough edges of the torn shapes, and the way they give dimension to the finished piece.  I also love how the color wash gives lots of different color values across the painting, giving a soft, yet cohesive effect - and it lends an element of realism.

So in our household, it takes approximately six months to produce a piece of artwork.  We painted one day, glued the next, and finished by outlining in pencil.  This last push took all of 12 minutes to complete.  I am so tired I think I need to recharge with a cup of coffee and a nap.

What is really silly about this whole thing??  This is the best part about homeschooling!  It's fun!  It is so relaxing to pull out the materials, put on some good music (We listen to Nora Jones on Pandora) and just create.  And I can only seem to manage to do it once every couple of months.  Shame on me.  Shame. shame. shame.  I love doing art.  I don't even mind the mess - unless it involves a small child running through the house with a loaded paintbrush.  It's been known to happen.

Meet the Family: Kitty

I never thought I would own a cat.  I am allergic to them, so I have typically avoided them in the past.  But I do have a weakness for them.  There is just something about a sleeping cat.. for me I just want to snuggle up to one.  I love the purring and the funny kneading that they do to get a blanket or pillow just right.

During the fall of 2007, when Rylan was in the 15-18 month range, there was a juvenile kitty named Calliope that would visit our house every day.  We spent a lot of time outside in the front yard playing in the leaves and such.  Little Calliope would come over from a nearby cul-de-sac and rub up against Rylan and Jordan.  They just *loved* her.  Rylan would ask for a kitty all the time.  Some time around November Calliope stopped visiting.  We don't know why, but I suspect that she fell victim to either a car or a fox.

That January, on a bitter cold late afternoon, a couple who were out on a walk knocked on our door.  The gentleman was holding a small grey tiger cat and asked if the cat was ours (she had a collar but no tags).  She had hunkered down by some bushes near our garage door and looked pretty pitiful.  I said that she wasn't, but that we could take her and contact the humane society, since they were out for a walk and couldn't very well carry around a cat.  Big mistake.

Abby was thrilled to have a cat in the house.  And not in a good way.  Rylan was thrilled to have a kitty - and thought it was now hers.  Jordan wanted to keep her too.    I called the humane society and found out they closed in forty minutes.  We drove her down there and they scanned her for microchips and searched the database.  No chips, and no one was looking for her.  I turned around and there were two little kids, looking at me with sad, "Can we keep her?" eyes.  I called Dean.  And then I paid a visit to PetsMart. 

I had no idea what a cat needed.  We were allowed to keep her during the mandatory waiting period for her owner to come looking for her.  If she was still unclaimed at the end of two weeks, we could keep her.  So I didn't want to spend a ton in case it didn't work out.

So as you can probably tell, it worked out.  Abby had a sore nose for about a week, until she and Kitty reached an 'understanding' and Kitty showed she was boss.  They now get along quite nicely, and even play once in awhile.  We named her Chloe, but for whatever reason we all call her Kitty.  We go to the vet and and she asks "How's Chloe?", and I respond with an intelligent sounding "Huh?".  Kitty has never bothered me or Dean allergy-wise, and we give her frequent baths to keep it that way.

She is a very expensive kittycat too.  A couple of years ago, I was working on a sewing project, and she batted loose a pin from the fabric and swallowed it, all in about 10 seconds.  If I hadn't been sitting there and seen her do it, I would have had no idea.  Forty-five minutes later, in the vet office, the x-ray showed that the pin had already traveled through the stomach and into the top of the small colon.  She is now the thousand dollar kitty.

I have to say that my favorite thing is when she curls up in my lap.  Absolute bliss.

40 Things I've never done before: #1 Mammogram



There's nothing quite like celebrating your impending 40th birthday by getting your boobs squished as flat as a pancake.  Twice.  Each.  Good times.  I went to the same clinic  for my mammogram that I went to for each of my pregnancies (midwives) and I still go there for my annual.  They really do have excellent care there, and the staff are fantastic.  This appt. was no exception.  I was there a total of 22 min. from start to finish.  The technician (female!) really knew how to push, pull, smooth, flatten, wedge, squish and coax things into just the right position for each scan.  I should have felt molested - but it is for a good cause.  And forget about dignity...You lose that the first time you give birth, and a whole second team of Dr.s (male) arrive to survey the scene and all of a sudden you have twelve different people looking at parts of your body you yourself haven't been able to see for at least six months.  Nice.

So, the results should arrive in about a week.  I'm not nervous, but I am glad to finally have one under my belt.  Thank goodness for the fact that so far, (knock on wood), no female family member of mine has ever been diagnosed with breast cancer.  If they found anything - anything - I would get a double mastectomy in a flash.  Are you kidding me?  The chance to get a total breast reduction - and get it covered by insurance - yes!!

So what is 40 Things?  I saw a post  (go right now and read it... I'll wait) and I thought that sounded like a great idea!  Don't you love that cake tower?  I am going to make that for my 40th birthday cake.  Unfortunately we don't have many coconut fans in the family, but I don't care.  It is beautiful, I love chocolate and coconut, so I am going to make it.  I guess that can be one of my 40 things because I have never made lamingtons before.  I am going to spread the challenge across the year - because some of the things on my list are pretty ambitious.  I've only got seven things on my list (okay, now it's eight... the cake!), so I need to get some more ideas.  I suppose that it is a good thing I am having a hard time coming up with stuff - I've been a busy gal for the past 40 years!  I've experienced a lot, I've traveled a lot - but I know there are several places to go yet, and lots of things to do.  I've also got to keep the list realistic and doable.  "Go on a cruise" isn't going to work...  But I have already done that, so never mind.  I was also four months old and don't remember a thing about it.

So I am going to go back to this cake post for a second.  It is crazy where Internet searches lead you to.  I was initially looking for a recipe for Bavarian cream.  A cake this blogger made, featured in another post of hers, was filled with Bavarian cream, so it came up when I googled it.  It was maybe tenth on the list?   But what a food blog!!  She is amazing.  I can't pronounce anything, but she is amazing anyway.

Only Fools Rush In...

July 24, 2005

Cue the music!!



Happy Anniversary to my wonderful husband!  Words alone cannot seem to express how thankful I am to have you in my life, but, alas it's all I have.



Dean's Grandmother Liles (in blue)... a beautiful lady, inside and out.  She passed away in January.



I appreciate the wonderful family support throughout the years... and I miss those who are no longer with us.



My grandmothers Betty (in blue) and Bobbie.  Grandma Betty passed away in April.

 I can't believe how much our family has grown!



From one....



To four!

Over the past six years our family dynamic has been in constant flux as kids were added to the mix.  As they grow, and as we share each and every new experience, we have proved to be a very good team.  I love the ever-expanding collective experience that we share - it makes us stronger and wiser as we navigate parenthood together.  I love to watch you give a tender hug and kiss to the child that needs it, I love that Colin greets you with a "Hi Daddy", whenever you enter the room... I love that you are such a good example for Jordan as he grows older... and I love that you are such a fun and playful parent.  I am such a lucky wife to have a husband that takes such good care of me.  You have had to put up with a lot in the past six years - three pregnancies??? - you are a candidate for sainthood.  You never fail in remembering my needs, and always go the extra mile to make me feel special. 

Wise men say only fools rush in, but I needed love in my life.  I needed happiness.  I needed a family.  You appeared on the horizon, and that was all it took.  You were the missing piece that made me whole again.

So take my hand, take my whole life too....

Because I can't imagine it without you!



Using straw for garden mulch: a cautionary tale...

I am a gardening genius!

At least I was until I did this a couple of weeks ago....

Oh yes, I know... the straw mulch looks very pretty!

Oooooo.... Ahhhhh...

And then this happened....Am I growing oat grass or tomatoes?

If you squint really hard, you might see the tomato plants that are supposedly there...

There are only about 10,000 of these little bastards... I might finish pulling by next month.



Yeah, I know my beans are small.  Shut.  up.  I've been busy!

Straw does, in fact, make GREAT mulch.  Just let it overwinter first.  It needs to get nice and brown and moldy.  I read the cautionary tales about using it fresh, that the seedlings would sprout in a nanosecond, and that you would be pulling weeds for the rest of the season.  It is not that I didn't believe it... I just chose to ignore the warnings because I needed a cheap mulch and I needed it NOW.

If you need me, you know where I'll be....

(Drinking large umbrella drinks in the shade, watching the kids pull weeds.  Pays 25 cents an hour.  Interested??)

"What if" Scenarios...

What if...

You took your children out for lunch.  Your stepson will be leaving in a week to go spend his customary six weeks with his mom and stepdad, so you practice the art of conversation while eating by asking him what kinds of activities are planned for while he is there. 

"None". 

"You aren't going to go anywhere?"

"Well, no, I don't think so.  Well, I don't really know."

"Will you go back to that Lake that you visited last summer?"

(note - we had next to no information about this lake he had gone to last summer.  He couldn't tell us the name of the place, what it looked like, how long it took to get there... even who he was with.  Just a fountain of information isn't he??)

"Maybe.  I don't know.  I hope not because I don't really like that place.  It's all dirty and stuff.  I found a whole bunch of garbage there."

-Pause- 

(Breathe)

"What do you mean by, 'garbage'?"

"Well, in this barbed wire fence area, underneath the edge of the road, there were all these bleach bottles.  A whole pile of them!  Why would there be so many bleach bottles?"

**YES INDEED!  WHY???**

(breathe in, breathe out.  repeat.)

"You didn't touch them did you?"

"No!!  But why were they there?"

"Did you tell your mom?"

"Yeah, she just said it was some garbage.  Somebody must have been cleaning something."

"Jordan, have you ever heard of Crystal Meth?"

"No.  Is that some kind of rock?"

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

So what would you do?  What would you say?  If you don't know why I am so upset by this, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.  But just this one time.  (I will not, however, be giving it to Jordan's mom, WHO SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

This scene took place in eastern Oklahoma, at Lake Eufaula. (We just found that out last night)  In the United States, in rural areas all over the country (but concentrated in the South), people are constructing Meth labs.  They use old trailers, houses, even apartments to conduct their dirty work.  A wide variety of toxic chemicals are needed to make Methamphetamine - bleach is one of them.  You need a lot of it.  This creates a lot of waste that you need to get rid of, and because the sheer volume and unique contents of the garbage, it is a calling card that you are cooking meth.  So what to do?  Drive out on some rural road and dump it.  It is not just plain 'ol garbage though.  It is contaminated.  It is freakin' toxic!  When you see clean-up operations on the news, the authorities are wearing Haz Mat suits. 

(breathe)

So now you know what Crystal Meth is - and how to recognize the toxic waste that the whole operation leaves behind.  Jordan knows this too....now.

But wait!  Our scenario gets worse!

Jordan was brought to this **lovely** place by his mom and stepdad.  This is supposed to be a really nice lake.  Huge in fact.  The stepdad's family (a sister, I think) had just purchased some land **For real cheap!! What a deal!!**  (THREE GUESSES AS TO WHY IT WAS SO #$%@! CHEAP!) at the lake.  That is why they were there - to see the place and have a family gathering/picnic kind of deal.  Land that has a toxic meth dump site on it.  Land on which the previous owner had a trailer that was trashed while he was in the hospital.  He sold it soon after.  To step dad's relatives.  Gee.  I wonder why the trailer was trashed?  You don't really have to bit hit over the head here, to connect the dots.

We listened to Jordan talking on the phone with his mother last night to try to at least glean a few more details.  To sum it up, she thinks that we are accusing stepdad's family of cooking and dealing meth.  She is fuming mad, and asks Jordan over and over again if that is what we are saying.  That is, of course, NOT what we are saying.  She is totally missing the point.

Here is the important information that she is NOT processing:

1)  Her son, while in her care, discovered a potentially dangerous (if not deadly) pile of trash, and she did not tell us. (What was his degree of exposure?)  Or him, for that matter.

2)  He did the right thing by telling her right away what he had found.

3)  She did the wrong thing by either a) being truly ignorant and not recognizing the danger OR b) being completely negligent in making this an educational opportunity to discuss what it was that he actually found and to discuss the wide variety of dangers posed by Crystal Meth.  I think I will go with 'b'.

4) That her son is curious - and if they go back there this summer (which they might), he will look for more - just to see if he can find it.  Despite being warned of the dangers, he will go looking.  That is just who he is...

Step parenting is so hard.  I am so glad that there is this physical distance in place here, because I can imagine I would be standing on her front lawn with a bull horn quite frequently.  The nine weeks throughout the year that Jordan spends there are difficult for us to bear.  We constantly fear for what he is inadvertently being exposed to.  He has to stay in a rough neighborhood.  He has no playmates there (that is actually a good thing), but he does have one that lives near his maternal grandparents, who he plays with a couple of times a week.  We have never met this boy, so we don't know what he is like.  Jordan is not always a good judge of character.  He also lacks common sense and falls prey to pressure way to easily.  Given these circumstances, we know that it is just a matter of time of 'when' Jordan will be offered drugs.  Not 'if', but 'when'.  All we can do is educate him, educate him, educate him and hope for the best.  What Jordan does have going for him is that eventually he always tells the truth.  If he sees something odd, he will ask about it.  It may take a full year (as with the case of the bleach bottles) but he will eventually tell you.  He knows right from wrong.  He is not openly defiant.  But he is eleven... and he doesn't always stop to think before he acts.  His impulsivity could very well be his downfall.

I have no idea of the readership of this blog.  I may have touched off a firestorm here (and caused my inlaws to permanently hate me), but you know what?  I don't care - Jordan is partially my responsibility and I have to say something when his safety is jeopardized.  They don't live this life day-after-day (and see how messed up he is after a visit), and I can't hold my frustrations in any more.  I'm in therapy remember??  It isn't healthy to keep stuffing it down and hope that it will get better over time.  I am Jordan's stepmom.  I promised to love him and devote myself to his well-being the day (tomorrow!) I married his daddy.  She won't ever change.  She is who she is, and Jordan loves her and that is what is important.  All I can do is be the best mom I can be when he is here, parent my ass off, and hope that it is enough to keep him going when he is not here.

Simple Woman's Daybook Entry

Outside my window... I am looking at some very tall grass - tall enough to wave in the wind!! Time to mow. I see no storm clouds brewing over the front range, so that means no rain tonight. Boo. I'll have to water.

I am thinking...  about my mom.  Two days ago she had surgery to remove her gall bladder and a surprise benign tumor on an ovary, about the size of an orange (they were expecting a small cyst).  I will do some shopping for her today.

I am thankful... that Jordan's swim team ended yesterday.  Today is the final meet, the big City Meet, which is a very large event that we will not be attending.  It will be a madhouse of activity, and there is no way I am willing to try and keep track of three little ones in all that hub-bub.  Jordan is not a very strong swimmer, so he would have come out on the losing end of every race anyway, so I think it is better this way.

From the Learning Rooms... We get to do a full day of school today!!  We did about 3/4 on Monday, and snippets of time during the week.  It has been quite a productive week, actually.  Yesterday Rylan received a sight word book with about 80 magnetic words in it from a retired teacher friend of my mom's.  Her granddaughter is about two years older than Rylan, so she frequently passes on some of her granddaughter's things when she outgrows them.  Several of the items are educational in nature, and have been wonderful surprises!  We brought the book home and added all of the words to our All About Spelling magnetic white board.

We spent a good half-hour organizing them all sorts of ways.  By color, by letter, by favorites and by length.  We settled on a combination of length and alphabetical as a good way to keep track of our words.

We worked our way through a couple of pages in the reading book the magnets are used in conjunction with.  Rylan read through the sentence, selected the missing word from her organized word list, and placed it in the book.  I can see a multitude of activities that we can do with this.  Many thanks to Margaret for the wonderful gift!

In the kitchen...I have some pretty bare cupboards.  It is time to go grocery shopping!  The kids had instant oatmeal for breakfast, and Rylan had some cottage cheese.

I am wearing...robe and pj's.  As soon as I am done it is shower time.  No idea what I will wear tho'.

I am creating...a beautiful ceramic pasta bowl!  Look what I made last night at Mom's Night Out!!

It will look much different after it is fired in the kiln.  I will pick it up this coming Tuesday.  Last night was our homeschooling group's Mom's Night Out.  We chose to go to Artisan You.  We spent a very lovely two and a half hours creating wonderful, functional pieces of art.

It was nice to hang out with fellow moms Gail and Shawn - we haven't seen each other in awhile!  Picture if you can:  A long, rectangular working space with brick walls and wooden floors, in an old, downtown building.  We were surrounded by displays of finished ceramic and glass artwork, supplies and lots of tables for other groups.  Soft 'coffee shop' music in the background, an evening breeze blowing through the building as both back and front doors were open - as well as a fan... We could bring in drinks and food with us, so I brought a Samuel Adams Cherry Wheat with some cheese and crackers, and munched as I worked.  It was heaven!!  It as quiet, peaceful and I could actually concentrate on something!!  It has been so long since I have been able to engage my brain like that!  I miss that part of my brain... glad to know it is still operational.  There is hope for the future!

I am going... nowhere at the moment, but grocery shopping is on the list at some point today.  I want to get lessons done first.

I am wondering...how my bowl will look.  I can't wait!

I am reading...Watermelon by Marian Keyes.  Still.  Jordan and I are also reading The Omnivore's Dilemma - The Secrets Behind What You Eat (Young Readers edition) by Michael Pollan.  Jordan reads it out loud to me whenever we are in the car.  It is very enlightening and yes, disturbing.  A good read so far.  We have watched Food Inc., SuperSize Me and others - and this just goes along in line with it.  Right now we are reading about the evils of corn.  Jordan is also reading A Dog's Purpose - A Novel for Humans, by W. Bruce Cameron.  I got it from a Scholastic Book order last year, and we are finally getting around to reading it.  Well, at least Jordan has.  I still need to.  It is a tear-jerker apparently because I will routinely find Jordan crying as he progresses through the book.  The dog goes through several reincarnations, so there are several 'deaths' to work through.

I am hoping... that Jordan will remember how to calculate surface area, without me having to remind him that he is working with two dimensions, not three, for the thousandth time.  He keeps trying to do it by using volume.  We are building elaborate polyhedrons out of base ten blocks and then using them to figure the surface area during part of our lesson today.

I am looking forward to... Sunday!  It will be our 6th wedding anniversary.  Date night is roughly planned for tomorrow night, but waiting on the grandparents' availability...

I am hearing... Rylan pounding on a make-shift drum of frisbee + empty metal dog bowl.  Colin looking on and adding sound effects.  Owen running through the playroom with one of those push-popper toys.  Annoying.  Jordan has now taken over the drum and discovered that the frisbee is stuck to the dog bowl.  (air vacuum).  He is excited but can't figure out why it can do that.  Time for an impromptu physics lesson. 

Around the house...Disaster in the form of laundry awaits me upstairs.  And the second tomato bed needs to be pruned and tied again.

I am pondering...when to get outside today.. this morning would be best.  It is supposed to hit 100 today.

One of my favorite things...is creating art.  I don't do it nearly enough.

A few plans for the rest of the week...start working on the mound of laundry, mow the lawn, enjoy an evening out with my husband and get the drainage channel filled in with soil again.

Here is a picture for thought I am sharing...

This is Duke.  He is staying with us for ten days while his owner is on vacation in California.  He is a really good boy, except for when he does this.  Off!!!

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Meet the Family: Abby

Dowdy Lake, August 2010

Abby is our soon-to-be seven year old husky.  She was ten weeks old when I drove up to Wyoming one sunny Saturday in October to a ranchette to pick her up from a couple who had two breeding pairs of huskies.  She and another female litter-mate where the only ones left.  She seemed the more lively of the two so I chose her.  (Which is a laugh because Abby is the most sedentary laid-back dog you could meet).  She is registered as an agouti/white husky, but I never filed the paperwork with AKC, because I had her spayed. 

Abby is my third husky.  After raising three different dogs, I know I prefer raising a dog from as early an age as possible.  Kai, my first, I got as an 8 week old puppy.  She was 1/2 husky, 1/4 malamute and 1/4 wolf.  She was the best dog ever.  She had the most mellow disposition but she was also very loving and playful in a bit of a wolfish way.  She exhibited the best qualities of her genetic soup.  Yuki, my second, was from the shelter.  She was a husky/malamute mix.  We guessed she was just under a year old  - she was a stray.  She had evidently been through some trauma in her young life because she didn't like vets, she would bare her teeth at times, and she didn't take well to sharing anything food-related.  Kai and Yuki lived out their remaining lives together, Kai was put down in June of 2004, when she was almost thirteen, and Yuki in July of 2006, when she was thirteen.  I got Abby in October of 2004 because Yuki was pretty lonely without Kai. 



October 2004, Abby's first week at home




November 2004, Aurthur's Rock, behind Horsetooth Reservoir



Sacked out while mom is painting, Christmas Eve, 2004

 Abby did just fine after Yuki passed, she had my mom's dog, Molly, as a frequent playmate.  To tell the truth, she was probably relieved - Yuki ran the house with an iron fist, and Abby had to keep a wide berth! 

Abby is a wonderful dog, with a quiet, mellow attitude.  She sailed through obedience training, and got along with other dogs just fine, but she prefers quiet.  She developed several medical issues after I got her - most of them are immune response related - most likely from an auto-immune disease due to her genetic makeup (because she is purebred).  She is almost blind due to severe cataracts, again due to genetics.  Because of the auto-immune issues, the only vaccine that she receives is rabies, and we don't go to the dog park.  It may sound like she is a sick dog - but that was only in the first few months.  Now that we know what the triggers are, she looks healthy and has pretty good energy.

She is awesome with the kids - Colin especially.  He loves to grab fistfuls of hair... he won't really pull, I think he just likes the feel of it.  She will perk her ears up, stare at him, and then eventually get up and move if he doesn't stop.  She never really took notice when we brought each of the kids home as newborns - she gave a sniff and that was it.  She does love the highchair and the foody goodness that is certain to come, and wants inside as soon as she hears a kitchen chair scrape on the floor.

She loves to go on walks, and went camping with us for the first time last summer.  She did great.  We kept her on a long rope and she just mostly curled up and surveyed the scene.  I really like having a dog with us - they are the best barometer when something's up.  She does not jump, and actually has to be helped into the van.  Lame.  But then again, that is a good thing.  Yuki was an escape artist, and she could jump fences in her younger days... brat.

Abby's favorite place now is the new sandbox.  I think she likes the coolness - she is a husky afterall!

What a Melon Ale, belts, ugly armpits and fishing for pennies

I began my weekend early by enjoying an evening out with friends last Thursday.  We met under the pretense that we were going to discuss our latest bookclub pick, Don't Breathe a Word, but we all know that it is really just a monthly excuse to get together to eat, drink and discuss other stuff.  I saw 'What a Melon Ale' on the menu, a seasonal offering (we were at a local brew pub afterall), so I tried it.  Oh. my. goodness.  If you can imagine summertime in a glass, complete with a watermelon wedge as a garnish, then that, my friends, is What a Melon Ale.  (A blonde ale, with fresh watermelon juice).  Yummy!

Friday was a pretty light day, just swim team and swimming lessons, and a playmate came over to spend the afternoon.  She brought her American Girls dolls, so Rylan was one happy little girl!




Colin looking on as Rylan and Owen have their lessons



Saturday morning was devoted to karate belt testing.  Rylan was moving up to purple, and Jordan was earning his orange.  Testing lasts about an hour for each of them, so it was a full morning.



Naomi and Jordan demonstrate behind-the-back wrist grabs  (the girl that Jordan likes...)



Saturday evening was a night out for Dean and I - we were off to a concert!!  A few years ago, Harley Davidson built a huge complex just off of the interstate, near Loveland.  They constructed a large amphitheatre as well, and put on about 5 concerts each summer.  Several weeks ago I saw that Kenny Wayne Shephard was performing there and I snatched up tickets faster than a biker can hop on his hog.  The concert was wonderful - he performed several of my favorites.  The lightning show all around us was fantastic, and we got rained on a little - but we were prepared.  It was entertaining to watch the ones who weren't.  KWS is a blues man, but the concert goers were a (ahem) rather colorful group of people.  I saw a lot of women in tank tops that were exposing a lot more than they probably realized.  I tried to just focus on the stage.  Dean also pointed out the sad fact that we always seem to get stuck behind a group of stupid drunk women who are still single for obvious reasons.  My Droid took terrible pictures, this is the only decent one I got..  That's Noah in the white, and Kenny in the black.



Kenny finished the concert with a ten minute long performance of Hendrix's Voodoo Child.  I remarked to Dean, "No wonder Woodstock went on for days.... the songs are never ending!!"

If you aren't familiar with KWS, I included this audio treat just for you - an instrumental number called 'While We Cry'...  Lean back, close your eyes, and just let the music transport you - think of it as a six minute mini-vacation!

On Sunday, Jordan and I participated in the Mother & Son Amazing Race, put on by our city's Parks & Rec. department.  We were one of seventy teams that attended the event.  We had to complete 10 different tasks, plus a couple of extra surprise ones.  It took us a little over an hour to finish.  We had a lot of fun! 

Here were our tasks:

(Extra) - Join up with the next team to arrive at station, and 'toss' a water balloon back and forth, using only a beach towel stretched between each team.

1. Fish around in a baby pool filled 8 inches deep with green oatmeal and locate 10 pennies.

2. Water bucket brigade - transport water from one bucket to another, using just a plastic cup.

3. Indoor obstacle course.

4. Choice between spoonful of 'mystery food' inside a can labeled 'Dog Food', or transport six dumbbells, one at a time, across a room and back.

5.  Keep a balloon up in the air, hitting it back and forth for 30 seconds, without using your hands.

(Extra) - shake two different step counters to a combined total of 200 'steps'as quickly as possible

6.  Lego building challenge (just assembling and then disassembling a small lego kit)

7. Newspaper leapfrog - get across a gym floor using only two pieces of newspaper.  BUT.  You both have to be on the same piece, at the same time.  So you stand on one (holding on to each other helps), and then scoot the piece you just stepped off of around from behind you and get it in front of you again.  Repeat.

8.  Scooter canoeing.  Kneel on a little square scooter and use a rubber-tipped stick to push yourself across the gym floor.

9. Toilet paper toss.  Toss a roll of TP through a target (much like a football)

10.  Remember each and every helper's name that operated each station (we were given the advice before hand to remember their names) and write them down in order - that was hard!

We each got a t-shirt and enjoyed some bbq afterwards.  It was a very hot afternoon, and we both sweated and panted as we raced back and forth, but we had a good time!  It was interesting (and a little sad) that we witnessed some mom and son teams blatantly cheating - what kind of role modeling is that??  You could also tell which moms were in it TO WIN, and dragged their sons along to do so.  Kudos to the teams where the moms made it fun and exciting.  This was the inaugural year for this event, but alas, Jordan was at the top of the age range, so he won't be able to participate again.  Hopefully the event will be bigger and better when Owen's turn comes around in a couple of years.  Boys K-5 can participate.



In the meantime, my dear husband worked and worked on the computer all weekend to get a project for work finished on time.  He had to man the little ones as well, while I ran back and forth to all of our events.  Thanks hon!  I am now making up for lost time on the computer.... can you tell?