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Thursday, October 28, 2004

ALSO.

Tonight I wore this outfit. I think from now on I'll wear it every day. I went from zero "what a cute outfit!"s from strangers in the past five years, to three tonight. Plus I saw a few heads turn casually and stuff. Not that I'm letting this go to my head. But maybe my usual policy of "if I'm not dirty and my clothes aren't stained I'm OK to go out" needs a little updating. Or something.

Also tonight I'm finding out what happens when you eat hot links for three meals in two days. Intestinally speaking, this is not a great idea and I don't recommend it. There's your public service announcement for this evening

ALSO tonight, I am going to fold laundry instead of reading or putzing around on the Internet while I wait to take C for her midnight wet-bed-prevention pee. I SWEAR I AM. As much more fun as it would be to read or even do data entry or (heaven forbid) wash the dishes... must. do. laundry. I am getting those mountains of laundry in the laundry room again. I am pretty well convinced that the clothes are breeding in there.

a banner parenting day

This has been a banner parenting day. My goodness.

First we have the drama queen and her antics, previously discussed.

Also, LT finished his second Henry Huggins book and moved on to Beezus and Ramona. He gleefully wrote his very first book report and was extremely excited to finally get to break time at school so that he could do some free reading. Of course this just broke my heart in a dozen pieces. As did his re-enactment of the Revolutionary War, played out with his army men on his sister's bedroom floor. Because his bedroom floor is, ahem, too clogged up with Legos.

LT quote of the day: "[Sister], I'm sorry. I apologize. I never should have said you were like John Kerry. I was only joking anyway."

And finally, for today's entry in the Things I Never Thought I'd Say As A Mom category, we have:

"Untie your sister's legs this instant!"
and
"I said no torturing each other! Do you children never listen?!"

Can I go to bed now?

daily dose of the drama queen

This is gonna be one of those days, with the kids. They have done nothing but snipe at each other since they got out of bed. This sort of thing doesn't happen often -- really those two are just crazy about each other -- but when it does happen, it REALLY happens. The Drama Queen just punched her brother in the chest. Hard. So he's crying, she's lying on her bed having just been given a perfunctory swat on the bottom and a week's restriction (from videos, bicycles, and friends coming over). On her way to her bed she wailed, "You have just ruined my life!!" You'd think she was fifteen, not five.

OK, I just pictured that -- the drama queen at fifteen -- and I think I need to go lie down....

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

updated to add:

Instead of her usual "This is definitely not my day," she just informed me that "this is definitely not my life." Oh, my dear little DQ. We all think that sometimes.

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

more answers to questions

This is the second entry today with answers to the question "meme"; don't miss the first one.

Some GREAT questions from Paula:

Do you think your kids would be as well off if it were your husband instead of you home with them, assuming you were making as good a wage?
I think they are maybe marginally better off with me home. Mostly, a role reversal would just make their lives different, not necessarily better or worse. But I think our family is better off overall with me the one at home, and T the one at work. Hey, if we could have it any way we wanted it, both their parents would be home all day. Not a lot of work for a telecommuting dad around here, though.

If not, is it a matter of gender or just who would be better at child-rearing and home-schooling? (Because both certainly take talent to do well.)
Well, initially it was definitely a gender issue, because I was the one with the breasts. ;-) Nowadays, well, we each have different strengths. I am more patient, and am more inclined to accept that kids are kids and not to expect them to behave like little adults. I am perhaps better at breaking things down to teach them, although chances are he'd do fine at that, he's just never been tried. I have less of a tendency to expect them to catch on to academic concepts as soon as they're presented the very first time. He, on the other hand, is more organized than I am, and tidier, and probably more attentive, because he's less trusting that the kids are OK left alone for longish periods. It would certainly be an interesting learning experience for both of us to switch roles for a while.

As far as why we don't do it, well, that's more complicated. The simple answer is, we do it this way because the status quo works and why fix it if it's not broken. Also, the fact is that I probably am a LITTLE better-suited to the homeschooling aspects of raising them, because of the patience thing. And he is better at "regular" jobs than I am. I've done "9-5" in a variety of occupations, and I will again someday I'm sure, but if it's one of us going to work and the other not, he's the one to go, because he's better at taking criticism and dealing with the sort of interpersonal stress one encounters in a workplace without getting trembly. Also, husband working/wife tending the home is the Biblical pattern, which is important to us, and it's more suited to our inherent natures. It's not that he's not nurturing, because he is; he's a fantastic and loving father who is seriously emotionally invested in his kids. But he is also tougher and more aggressive than me, which is important in a work environment, and I, as I said, am more patient, which is good for someone who's going to be the sole caregiver for kids. And I'm a better cook. ;-)

None of this is to say that if circumstances changed in some way, we would not roll with the punches and switch roles. I've thought about doing it for a few years just to help T have a little more freedom to find a job that he LOVES rather than one that he tolerates and at which he is competent. But again with the status quo thing -- it's hard to just step out and do that.

Did you have to decide if you wanted kids or was it something you always knew and never questioned?
I have always, always wanted kids. I never ever went through a period when I didn't. I used to pretend I was "having a baby" with my dolls, when I was like three. For a while when I was in high school I decided that I wanted to be a single mom -- didn't want to marry or live with anyone, but still I wanted the kids. My husband also wanted kids as soon as he was mature enough to think about it seriously, and never had to be convinced. When we were first married he wanted to wait a couple years and I didn't, so we compromised and waited one year. :)

answers to questions

yay, questions! (see the previous entry to know what the heck is going on).

First, from Trinity Sixty-Three:


What frustrates you most in life?
Wow. I actually thought about this for quite a while, and I couldn't think of any one overarching frustration as an answer... except maybe some political ones, and those are frustrating in a different way from the day-in-day-out tension-headache frustrations. They're bigger in scale, but less of an actual factor in my daily life. Here's a list of frustrations, though. :-)

• Finding clean laundry in the dirty clothes
  
• Spending hours cleaning the kids' rooms, or coercing them into doing it, and then the next day the messiness starts creeping back in, and a week later you'd never know we'd done it.
  
• My own idiocy and laziness about household stuff. If I would just keep up, my life would be so much nicer. But I seem incapable of remembering that when it's a choice between doing a little bit of laundry and a few dishes and running around with the broom, or sitting at the computer. Until it's a TON of laundry and a HEAP of dishes and a lot of tidying-up that needs done.
  
• Working hard cooking a meal and not hearing "thank you" for it once. Bonus frustration points if the kids complain about it (which is rare, but happens occasionally).
  
• The days when my daughter seems to fall down more than she stands up. And then I feel guilty because hello, it's not like she does it on purpose.
  
• When the car won't start.
  
• When unpleasant things take way, way longer than I thought they would.
  
• My *&^%$#! insurance and its *&^%$#! high copayments for every little step along the way -- $20 to see the doctor, $30 for labs, $30 for x-rays, etc etc. I miss the HMO we had before. boo hoo. Although I imagine the doctors don't...
  
• Repeating myself. It's stupid, but it's one of the things that shortens my fuse really fast.
  
• The way kids "forget" or "didn't hear you" when you've given them a job to do.
  
• When DVDs get left lying around instead of put away.
  
• A messy house in general. Just having the house messy (which it is a lot, and it's my own fault) brings me probably halfway up to what I call my "yell threshold", before anyone does anything.
  

And then from Beth:

Okay, What are your kids going to be for Halloween, what are you going to be for Halloween, and about the home schooling thing: do you have more patience than the average mom? What's your secret?
Well, the first two are easy; we don't celebrate Halloween, for religious reasons. I keep wanting to have a New Year's party with costumes and candy, because I LOVE COSTUMES AND CANDY. But it never happens. Someday. (My kids love to dress up and they have huge tubs of costumes and accessories and lengths of fabric and helmets and belts and who knows what. Making costumes for themselves is pretty much a daily occurrence).

Patience: I don't think I'm any more patient than the average mom, really. There are days when I am frustrated, and at times I even yell at my kids, although that's something I'm working on and I'm way better about it than I used to be. It's just always been my plan to homeschool, since before I had kids. Just like people who get up early and go in to work and face nasty bosses and high stress levels and deadlines and all that -- when it's something that is a necessary part of your life, you just do it; I'm blessed that the thing that is the main focus of my life is also something I almost always enjoy. I do enjoy being around my kids, more than many moms, I think, maybe partly because I have a positive attitude about being around them; I see them as little people whom it is an immense pleasure to get to know, and it's a privilege to be around them as they grow up. And also, it's probably a lot easier because my kids aren't away from the family every day, learning habits and attitudes that cause friction at home. Not that their attitudes or habits never cause friction! (choking with laughter). But I think it's less of a problem than it would be if they were around 300 of their peers for thirty-five hours a week. We fit better together than a lot of families, because we're not becoming strangers as quickly. :)

And then some questions from Jennifer:

Do you find that your faith has led you to discriminate against others?
We all discriminate every day of our lives. "Discriminating" just means choosing, using our values and beliefs to make decisions about what we'll accept, do, etc. We won't all like everyone; we won't all want to be intimate friends with each other. So in that sense, and in the sense of 1 Corinthians 15:33, yes, my faith is one of the factors on which I base my decisions about who I will allow to be an influence in my life. What you mean in asking this question is that you think that Christians look down on others and think we're some kind of super-special people and that everyone else is not "good enough" to be one of us -- which is not the case. Christians know that nobody is "good enough", ourselves included, and that's why Jesus came in the first place. Sinning is equal-opportunity. So is salvation.

Have you ever wondered if perhaps the way you treat people isn't exactly what Jesus wants of you, even though the common practice of your religion calls for it?
Again, you're trying to make a point here, not ask me a question, but I'll pretend that's not the case and answer it anyway. Every Christian wonders about whether our actions in every arena are what Jesus would have us do. We try to follow Him. We're also flawed human beings, and yes, we'll screw up from time to time, and we don't have all the answers so sometimes we're floundering around trying to figure out what to do. Sometimes, just like everyone else, we make the wrong decision, or make the right decision but go about things the wrong way, and hurt people. Sometimes there's no visible way to make the right decision without hurting people. We are all called to be compassionate and kind to one another. That doesn't always happen.

Did you ever find a dress for that scarf I made for you?

No, I have put off major clothing purchases (in other words, anything that isn't either absolutely necessary, or free) until I finish losing weight. Which I sometimes think means I'm just in denial, because I'll be a size twelve until the end of time.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

you ask, I answer

I am feeling like doing the three questions meme again. You just ask me questions in the comments or via email -- however many you want, really -- and assuming they're the kind of questions I can answer in here, I will. And I'll return the favor in your journal or what have you, if you'd like.

Monday, October 25, 2004

yay for fall!

Usually my self-image is pretty ordinary. I think of myself physically as a kind of ubermom; the way I look doesn't really matter because most people, as soon as they see me, see my mom-ness, and that's all. And that's fine. Then there are days when I think of myself as looking more like, oh, say, something that was once alive (and probably furry) but then was run over by a truck.

And then there are the weirdest days. Days like today, when I get dressed and look in the mirror and think, wow, I'm actually really good-looking. All day I've felt like this about myself. To commemorate the occasion I put on makeup and wore my red plaid skirt and a cozy, thick, cable-knit red sweater and black tights... all day long. And all day I was very aware of my legs and my hair and my cute little outfit. And the thing is, I look just exactly like I do every other day, except the clothes. I have no idea what it is that gives me a mood like this, but I am grateful to God that it's rare, because I would annoy the living daylights out of myself if I went around thinking like this all the time. I wonder if it's hormonal. I should track my moods like some women do their bodily fluids and basal body temperatures, and see if this goes in, ahem, a cycle.

We have been having such fantastic fall weather. Red-sweater-and-bowl-of-apples weather. Soup-and-French-bread weather. Snuggling-down-by-the-woodstove-with-a-book weather. My goodness, no wonder people gain weight in the wintertime; everything that sounds appealing involves eating and relaxing. Tonight there's supposed to be a good cold storm coming in. Tomorrow we should have really nice hard cold driving rain. T gives me the evil eye every time I say stuff like this, because while I get to sit by the woodstove in my red sweater with my apples, soup, French bread, and book, (oh, and kids), he has to go out and do who knows what uncomfortable work sort of things, in the nasty cold wet (or snowy) weather. Then I feel all guilty... for about three seconds. I just can't help it. Autumn just suits me.


Meanwhile, even though (or maybe because) I got an obscenely luxurious quantity of solid sleep last night, I am really very tired. So I am going to very virtuously not forget to wash my makeup off, like I usually do on the rare occasions I wear any, and I am going to go snuggle up under a nice thick stack of blankets, next to my nice warm husband. yay for fall. :)

Saturday, October 23, 2004

what. a. day.

Ever have one of those days where the ending scene in "Thelma and Louise" not only makes total sense, but seems to present a plausible, acceptable, even pleasant solution for what ails you?


Yeah. Me too.

I'm taking my stress headache, two Advil, and a diet Coke to my bedroom, and I'm going to try to drown my sorrows in a paperback novel until I can't keep my eyes open anymore. Tomorrow will be better, I am sure. (this is because I won't be going anywhere near the automotive department of Wal-Mart, or our screwed-up local Burger King which tends to run out of things like hamburger meat precisely on the days when I NEED to magically exchange a twenty-dollar bill for a completely unhealthy but refreshingly effortless dinner solution. It is my fond hope, in fact, that I won't be going near those places ever again.)

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

thank you kitty. also plumbing. and other stuff.

Our bigger, more aggressive cat has strong hunting instincts. However, due to the dearth of mice at her location, she's turned to June bugs. And I hate Junebugs. So I will leave you to imagine my reaction when she hops up on our bed and offers me an enormous, twitching, oozing, spiky-legged, furry-antennaed specimen, like a gift.

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

Also, our plumbing (actually the town sewer system) is freaking out again. It happens when we get a lot of rain. Last spring we called a plumber, and he and the public utilities people passed the buck back and forth like it was some kind of new rainy-day elementary-school game. So today, when the washer drained onto the utility-room floor instead of into the sewer system like it's supposed to, I took matters into my own hands, and went out and checked the sewage access myself, while it was (here's a brainwave for the public utilities people) actually still raining. And lo and behold the pipe was full to the brim of rainwater, along with a lot of other nasty stuff. THEN I called them, told them it was definitively their problem, and supposedly they're going come out as soon as possible. I've no idea what they're going to be able to do about the situation, though. The water and sewer systems in this town were outdated in the forties when this development was built.

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

Dawn got me thinking yesterday about things I've lost. I started to make a mental list and I know I'm forgetting a lot of things, or blocking them out, more likely. But here are a few memorable ones.

• My high-school class ring. Last time I absolutely knew I had it was when I got engaged (October of 1993). The first time I missed it and absolutely couldn't find it was when I got back from my honeymoon (March of 1994). So there are six months during which, at some point, it vanished into thin air. For years after the wedding I would remember yet another place where I thought maybe I remembered setting it aside to keep it safe; I would check that spot next time I was at my parents', and I would be wrong. Finally I gave up. Old habits die hard, though; the other day I found myself wondering if Mom and Dad had ever had the traps out of their drains since then. Nevermind that the house was new when we moved in, and the drain covers have all been intact the entire time; the brain of a chronic thing-loser doesn't care about things like that.
  
• A ring my mom gave me in high school. This one makes me just sick. The ring wasn't worth much monetarily, but my mom bought it for me when she was on a work-related trip, and brought it home and gave it to me during one of the rare periods of my adolescence when we were just not getting along at all. I was so touched by the gesture, and then I lost the ring not two weeks later at a beach by the river, when I went there with "friends" late at night (that whole night was a total disaster). The next day I went back and looked for it for hours, but it was gone.
  
• A Zip-loc bag of crochet squares. This is the biggie. This is the item that we are still kind of actively looking for, because it just HAS to be somewhere, a gallon ziploc bag full to bursting with six months' worth of work doesn't just disappear. Except apparently it does.

Like I said, I know there are more things for this list. Someday when I die I will march straight up to God and ask Him where the vast repository is for all this kind of stuff that people lose and never find again. Because surely at least He must know.

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

Yesterday I was looking over my shoulder to back up while I was driving, and my neck totally spazzed. The pain got worse for an hour or so until I just couldn't move my head at all. So I spent the day lying around on a heating pad, reading. You may or may not recall that Sunday afternoon was spent the same way, minus the heating pad. Interestingly enough, one day of lying around leisurely plowing through a library book feels pleasantly decadent. Two days feels like I'm a lazy bum who needs to get off her couch and get something done, for crying out loud. Who knew my laziness tolerance would be quite so low? I've always craved a week where I could just do whatever I wanted, that being mostly sitting around and reading. And yet I get the opportunity and I can't even last two days without getting fidgety. Another of life's little dreams destroyed. **sigh**

Sunday, October 17, 2004

I am so spoiled.

This is a link to a news story about the freaky stuff that was going on in Yosemite the other day. Although the most horrific part wasn't known about until last night.

T came home late last night, after the arsonist's body was found and the weather made it evident that the fire suppression crew wasn't going to be needing his services. We were in the midst of a really big sleepover -- our neighbors' babysitter backed out at the last minute and they had a concert to attend, so they asked me if they could send the kids up to our house. It was fun, and a little crazy. It made me think about those dreams I used to have of having a family that size (we had six kids between three and ten here for the night, counting my two), and how different our lives would be if God had had things work out that way. Even just having that many kids at the table for a meal is an adventure and takes substantial planning. My hat is off to both my grandmothers, who dealt with that sort of thing every day.

And to the neighbor kids' mom, who brought us a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts as a thank you. Diet forsooth!

Today we had just a nice quiet lazy Sunday afternoon in the house. We're having our first rainstorm of the season, and we built a little fire, and I read an entire book (Good Hope Road by Lisa Wingate -- I recommend it. It's somewhere on a line between Jan Karon and Elizabeth Berg, if a little bit less professionally-done), and I don't know when the last time was that I read an entire book in one day. Oh, wait, it was Friday -- except that took part of early Saturday morning too -- when I read the new Maeve Binchy, Nights of Rain and Stars I think it's called -- which is a little less poetic than her usual books but still a good story. So, wow, two whole library books in one weekend, and a fire in the woodstove, and a "shooting-down" (C's phrase) rainstorm. I am just plain spoiled rotten, that's all there is to it.

Saturday, October 16, 2004

a book quiz

It's been a long time (in journal years anyway) since I did a survey/meme kind of thing. I was starting to have withdrawals. So here's one I lifted from KiwiRia.

Hardback or Paperback?
I like both.  If I'm buying new I get a paperback.

Highlight or Underline?
I'll occasionally do either, but not very often.  High school was a different story -- all my novels from those years are highlit wherever I read a line that really spoke to me (use of hushed awed teenaged know-it-all hyper-pseudo-sensitive-intellectual tone advised here).  In my Bible I'll highlight if I have one handy, which generally means that I underline.

Lewis or Tolkien?
I like both but I think I only love Lewis.

E.B. White or A.A. Milne?
Both!

T.S. Eliot or e.e. cummings?
Honestly I'm not terribly familiar with either.  I liked cummings in high school.

Stephen King or Dean Koontz?
I used to read King in junior high.  Never read anything by Koontz.

Barnes & Noble or Borders?
Whichever is handiest.  B&N has the Starbucks caramel brownie advantage, while Borders has a better educator's discount and very slightly better prices.

Waldenbooks or B. Dalton?
I've never been to Waldenbooks.  There was a B. Dalton in the mall we frequent until a B&N went in down the street (they are owned by the same company).  You know my very favorite small bookstore?  The one that used to be in my little town until I was in high school.  It's been gone ten years and I still mourn its loss.

Fantasy or Science Fiction?
I really don't like either, much.  I'll read the lightest of fantasy -- Lewis and Tolkien -- but the more stereotypical fantasy stuff even in Tolkien leaves me a little cold.

Horror or Suspense?
Suspense.

Bookmark or Dog-ear?
Generally a bookmark.  I'm not above dog-earing though.  My books are for reading and enjoying, not reselling, and paper's not sacred.

Hemingway or Faulkner?
Neither, ugh.

Fitzgerald or Steinbeck?
Again with the neither.  Although I used to really like Steinbeck, in my highlighting days.

Homer or Plato?
If I'm ever in the mood for either of these I'll let you know. :D

Geoffrey Chaucer or Edmund Spenser?
Chaucer

Pen or Pencil? style="font-weight: bold;">
A sharpened pencil or a fine-point pen; either's fine.  I do write
in my Bible a lot and I'll use either.

Looseleaf or Notepad?
Looseleaf.  My notepads always end up a hodgepodge of various
stuff anyway.  Which makes them more interesting when I find them
years later, but not terribly useful as an organizational tool.

Alphabetize: By Author or By Title?
Right now my books are alphabetized by author and then arranged in
chronological order by publication, except for series which are in
series order where that differs from publication order.  Sometimes
I'll reorder them all strictly by publication order, with no author
alphabetization, but that's more complicated.

Dustjacket: Leave it On or Take it Off?
Off for reading, on for storage.  For the few of my books that
have dust jackets.

Novella or Epic?
Either.  I like some of both.

John Grisham or Scott Turow?
Neither.

J.K. Rowling or Lemony Snicket?
Neither.  (L.M. Montgomery!  Cynthia Voigt!  Beverly Cleary!)

John Irving or John Updike?
I've tried both and liked neither.

Fiction or Non-fiction?
Usually fiction.  I'll read non-fiction when it's pertinent to something I'm interested in, and I like a biography now and then.

Historical Biography or Historical Romance?
I like a few really good historical romances -- Donati and Gabaldon mainly.  I also like a few historical biographies but I have to be in the right mood for them.

A Few Pages per Sitting or Finish at Least a Chapter?
Oh, the joy of having a choice!  Usually I just steal a few minutes to read whatever I can manage.  On my late-night reading binges I sometimes try to finish chapters before I finally stop, and sometimes don't.

Short Story or Creative Non-fiction Essay?
Each has its place.

"It was a dark and stormy night..." or "Once upon a time..." ?
Generally neither.

Buy or Borrow?
Both.  I usually borrow a book from the library first, and if I like it really well, I'll buy it used, and if I LOVE it or have a gift certificate to spend, I'll buy it new.  Occasionally if a book is a classic or one by an author I like, I'll buy it without ever having read it, but almost always used or at a serious discount.

Book Reviews or Word of Mouth?
Both, mostly word of mouth.

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

the reason for that "ravings" word up there

[ed. note to explain title of this post: my previous journal, from which these posts were imported, was titled "Blissful Contentment: ravings of an unquenchable optimist"]

Sunday during Bible class a friend of ours was closing in prayer and he prayed something that really stuck with me. It sounds very simple; among other things, he just thanked God for the week to come. The reason this has stayed in my mind is because there have been so many times that I was not thankful for the week ahead of me at all -- times when I was mired in a depression that made living through a week seem like a unique and abysmal kind of endurance test, when I wanted to just pull a gray haze around myself and not deal with anything. The best I could do at these times was to thank God that I'd gotten through another day; the idea of being thankful that another day was coming to be faced and dealt with was just ludicrous. I know I'm far from the only person to ever feel this way, and I'm not asking for sympathy; I think everyone goes through times like that. Heck, if I can get depressed, even though I'm usually the most annoying of Pollyannas, anyone can. I'm just expressing the joy I felt on Sunday when I realized that I do look forward to the week ahead, and the year ahead, and the rest of my life, with pleasant anticipation, like each day is waiting there wrapped in shiny paper, waiting for me to open it. And looking back, I can honestly thank God for the times I was depressed in the past (which, when I was in the middle of the depressing times, I never EVER thought I would say), because it is only by contrast that I know what a gift it truly is to feel the way I do now about the future.

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

the key to happiness in day-to-day life is to be easily amused

Remember Mad Libs? Such a clever idea -- not least because they are fun for everyone: prudish grandmothers, groups of friends, teachers and students, gutter-minded thirteen-year-olds (I remember with disgusting clarity the Mad Libs session that went on in the seats behind me on one particular seventh-grade trip to Roller Land), parents and children. We just spent an extremely funny two hours here -- first just LT and myself, and then when T came home from a meeting, he joined in. I don't know when I've laughed so much. Now we have to buy some actual pen-and-paper ones, to take in the car -- so that I can relive yet another of my many beloved family memories from when I was little. And I was always annoyingly proficient at parts of speech, too, which was entirely the fault of those many car trips spent in the company of Mad Libs (on one memorable occasion, 'he drove off crazily in his sports mattress with his makeshift wife' had my mom laughing so hard she could barely drive).


In other news...

We got a new (used) washer and dryer today. These are in very good shape, pretty new, very clean. We found them thanks to an ad in the paper, placed by a woman who'd just combined households with someone else and hence had an extra set. We paid $200 for them. We had decided not to go into debt to replace our dryer, and to pray and see what the Lord did to provide a functioning one for us, and then the total money I earned this past weekend doing web design and data entry, added to the $10 check I got for my winning fair entries and the $18 we got out of our old dryer, very nearly made up the entire $200 required to buy the set in the paper. So we took that as our answer and had a strenuous morning moving the old ones out and the new ones in. Yay God. :)

And also: C at ballet today and LT sleeping just now. Such beautiful, wonderful people; it is amazing that they started out growing under my skin.

various weird things

T and I were in Wal-Mart today with the kids and I was picking up some dry-erase markers for school. I was insisting on the $8 8-pack even though it cost more per marker than the dual-ended 8-pack -- 16 colors -- for $5. I mumbled reasons like "the brand is better on the more expensive ones" and "with that double-ended thing I KNOW you get less ink" and "where would I put the lid for the color I was using with that set? There's no room for it!" Finally T wrestled it out of me (well, not literally; we were in a public place and all, but you know what I mean): the real reason was that the cheaper ones were low-odor and OK so sue me, I like dry-erase smell, it's half the reason I use markers instead of chalk, what's wrong with that, huh? huh?

T didn't buy it until I came up with a comparison involving a 440 engine that sounded like a 225 6-cylinder.

Speaking of T, as soon as we got home from the city this evening, he got a call that whisked him off to work for who knows how long. Not only is there a series of new fires in Yosemite, and not only is there a new arsonist setting the fires, but also, apparently, there is some even freakier stuff going on that I am not going to be sure I have the liberty to post about on the Internet until I see it in the news first. Suffice to say that it all makes me (selfishly) very glad that T is just a radio guy.

Our TV is hooked up to the antenna right now, because of the presidential debates; we'll unplug it again after the election. Tonight I turned it on to see if there was anything on the news about the aforementioned freaky stuff, and "Jeopardy!" was on. This is the first time I've seen the infamous Ken Jennings. He doesn't do anything for me now -- after all, I'm a happily married woman -- but if I'd seen him do his thing when I was seventeen or so, he would have been serious crush material. And now you know exactly how weird I really am. In case the dry-erase odor thing hadn't already clued you in.

Monday, October 11, 2004

quick little kid funny

Was just playing Mad Libs with the kids again; it's C's first time and I was explaining the concept of "abstract noun" for her.

I: "It's something that's a thing, but you can't touch it. Like... love, or happiness. Or elegance."
She: "Or hot glue!"

ba-da-ching.

Saturday, October 09, 2004

kids'-eye view

Today my dad came over to help me take apart our dryer, and see if it could be saved. It couldn't. But during the repair-attempt-turned-autopsy, we found no less than $17.90 in loose change in the space outside the drum but inside the dryer. LT, upon seeing the Mason jar filling with money we were pulling out, exclaimed, "That's why we've been poor for so long! Our money was getting lost in the dryer!"

If only that would solve it all. :)

Friday, October 08, 2004

if bad things come in threes...

Did I mention that the engine in T's truck died an inglorious death on Sunday? It did.

Did I tell you that we accepted a hand-me-down couch from my aunt and uncle who are remodeling, sight unseen because they always have good taste and it would HAVE to be better than the one we had, and then after we moved the old couch into the schoolroom where, basically, we won't be getting it out again unless we just want to destroy it -- anyway, after that, my parents brought over the new couch and it is totally, wretchedly ugly? Yeah, that too.

And then today, our dryer died. It has always been an old, noisy dryer; we got it for free when we moved into this house eight years ago. Today I turned it on and the noise changed, increased, and then was accompanied by a suspicious burning odor. So I just spent two hours and TWENTY FREAKING DOLLARS at the laundromat tonight, because wouldn't you know this would happen when the laundry had, er, been backing up for a while.

If bad things really do go in threes, I sure hope the couch counts and we're done. sigh.

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

a website after my own heart

I love this website. That is all for today. Thank you.

Unless of course someone wants to buy me the book. (Control yourself, Rachel; you're drooling.)

Monday, October 04, 2004

snippety snippets, again (including an update on T)

Yesterday I bought fabric-softener sheets. I bought them at Costco, so they're in a two-pack, sealed in shrink-wrap, sitting on my dryer behind a closed door, and yet the smell of them has now completely pervaded my house. I am more than a little afraid to take the wrapping off, let alone actually -- egads -- open one of the boxes.

An update on poor T: He ended up going to the doctor today, because the pain in his jaw (which, I don't remember if I mentioned this yesterday and I'm too lazy to check, was really sore after his fall, even though he hit the back of his head, and it wouldn't close properly for a while, and won't again now) got worse and worse. The doctor thinks it may be dislocated, and sent him for an X-ray. In looking at the films, I think the doctor is wrong, but then, there's more than one reason (like, say, six or eight years of schooling) why I'm not the person who's paid a six-figure salary to read X-rays, and we'll know what the actual professional says probably tomorrow. Meanwhile T is on muscle relaxants (read: T is sleepy, and a little loopy) and is off work until at least Thursday. Good times.

With Daddy home, as usually happens, we got almost nothing at all done today. C did go to her first ballet lesson of the year, looking as cute as it is possible for a little five-year-old girl with positively enormous eyes wearing a pink leotard and pink tights to look, which is pretty darn cute. And she had a good time. LT spent a great deal of time playing Legos with Daddy. Tomorrow, even with him home, we're going to have to get back into our routine or the house will be unlivable by the end of the week, and the kids will have totally forgotten how to sit still at school and, you know, learn stuff.

I'm trying to read Mr. Darcy Takes A Wife, which is one of many sequels written to Pride and Prejudice. I will just say that Jane Austen rotates furiously in her grave every time anyone picks this book up off a shelf, and not just because it is full of really explicit sex scenes (complete with phrases like "torch of love" [yes, that means what you think it means] and "piercing a maidenhead" and "emit his seed". I swear I am not making this up). The author makes a very painful effort to use Austenian language, and fails utterly. In fact, she crashes and burns. And she is apparently about to write in an illegitimate son for Darcy. I do not plan on finishing this book. Isn't it great about books -- I've always thought this, since I was a little girl -- that the lives in them are just words on paper, smashed between covers, until we do that magical thing where our brains read the words and flesh out the stories in our imaginations, and then they are as real to us as the lives of real people whom we just happen to never see? I love that. And conversely, by not reading this book, I am effectively making its execrableness cease to exist in my own personal world. Bye-bye.

A final snippet: Our cats' collars have bells. As annoying as this sometimes is (say, when one of them is sleeping on our bed and decides to vigorously scratch her neck, at that awful moment which is ten minutes before the alarm goes off), we have left them on as a kind of protection for the quail families who live in the field next to our house. However, I frequently remind myself that the sound I'm hearing is just the cat's collar only after I have freaked out, thinking there was a dog in the house with its tags jingling. Sometimes my own mental vacuity astounds me.

Sunday, October 03, 2004

injured T, cute 5-year-old pictures, and Turkish Delight

You know what isn't fun? When your 8-year-old son walks into the kitchen and says, "Daddy fell down and he wants you to come." No, fun isn't what I would call that. It turns out that T was working on a carcass of a car on a trailer, and stepped down backward forgetting that he was four or five feet up in the air. He landed flat on his back and his head was a little whirly for a while. We called the nurse hotline provided by our insurance company (a couple more incidents and we'll be exchanging Christmas cards with those nurses) and now I have a long list of faculties to check, every two hours for the next 24 hours. Fun times. But it could have been much, much worse.

and now for some astoundingly cute C pictures*:

That's the nightgown I made her for her birthday. Because having a daughter is so darn much fun.

*I need to get some pictures of LT up here too. Not that he has ANY idea about what is here... oh please God let it stay that way... but I just feel guilty that the vast majority of the pictures are of C.

Watching "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" (or more specifically, being in the room typing at the computer while T and the kids are watching it) has reminded me of one of life's greatest disappointments: Turkish Delight. I've read that series over and over, starting when I was seven or so, and up until a few years ago I pictured Turkish Delight being a sort of cakey, fudge-consistencied confection, tasting sweet, and with the flavor of coffee and spices. (I can hear non-North-American readers laughing already). Imagine my surprise when a European friend sent me some, and I found it to be exactly like if I were eating my grandmother's rose-scented hand lotion, thickened and dipped in chocolate. Another of life's little disappointments...

Friday, October 01, 2004

a really easy question

For a sappy picture, see the entry I just put up a few minutes ago.

And now for something completely different...

I have a question. I tried Googling it and it didn't work too well, and I'm too lazy/tired/mentally spent to work too hard for an answer. What the heck is meant by the phrase "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition"? I know it's from Monty Python but it's passed into common use and I don't know enough about the original context to understand the reference. At least I'm cool enough to ask about things I don't know, right? can I get a little credit for that, even if I'm apparently the only person on the planet who is ignorant on this particular issue?