Up, up and away

Jordan is up in the air, as I write, hurtling towards Oklahoma City.  It always cracks me up that he will have completed his flight before Dean is even home from the airport in Denver.  The high for Oklahoma City today is around 108 degrees F.  The high for us today is around 85 degrees F.  Poor baby.  I teased him mercilessly yesterday about the drastic climate change he was about to experience.  He wasn't enthused, but nothing would dampen his excitement about getting to spend time with his mom, and that is as it should be.

Rylan is already missing him.  She spent the better part of yesterday hugging him at every opportunity she could get.  Now she gets to be top dog for a few weeks - that always makes things more interesting around here.  Owen will only put up with that for so long.

We have two more days of swimming lessons (today and tomorrow) and then I get my summer back, and my regularly scheduled life back.  I.  Can't.  Wait.

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.

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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??)