altarflame (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
altarflame) wrote2010-04-06 03:49 am
altarflame) wrote2010-04-06 03:49 am
(no subject)
I would like to thank everyone who was posting on livejournal and facebook throughout Lent, and especially on Good Friday, and Easter/Pacha, with Christian meditations, scriptures, links, thoughts, and so on. I've been wayward and out of it and really would have missed the whole journey this year if it weren't for those of you who were sharing on the internet. I like it that this wheel keeps on turning even when I'm too self-absorbed or "in between" to bother to take notice. And I like it when I do notice.
Aaron has laryngitis. I'm not surprised, as it's been going around like crazy. He keeps rasping out things like "The germ-uhs, the germs ah messin around with mah voy-ace!" in a crazy accent.
My brother starts at JobCorps tomorrow. I feel just a little bit guilty about how insanely excited I am at the prospect of him NOT BEING IN THE HOUSE for many hours out of every week day. Mostly though I'm just insanely excited, guilt be damned. Seriously, OH HAPPY DAY!!! Aside from my own selfish glee, this is a huge positive step for him and I'm proud of him as I've watched him do all of his laundry and take a shower and get his things in order tonight. He's been out there 3 times in the last 2 weeks at meetings and appointments, and doing bizarre things before each one like shaving, and asking my brother in law to cut his hair and such. He's taken pains to brush his teeth tonight; I nearly knocked on his head to ask who was in there hijacking his brain.
She came out this way, thinking she was ready to go to the store with Daddy.
Om nom nom. Sugar snap peas sauteed in a little oil with brown sugar and soy sauce are SO GOOD.
This is our new weekday schedule.
Ananda is going to be cutting her hair into a chin-length bob again soon, and so we've let her run amock with the hair that's going to be cut off. This pic is when we first did the bleaching. It was like this for about two days.
The stuff we used was a bleaching and dying kit, and after I put the bleaching part all over her hair I tied it up in a plastic shopping bag because it has to sit for a long time and she didn't want to be paranoid about the furniture. That's what I did the last time we did this with her hair, because it was reccomended by the company on the packaging. This was a different brand, though, and after a few minutes she came to me - "Mom, it's burning my back through my shirt!" "What?" Sure enough, the bag was HOT hot to the touch, and when I took it off, her hair was SMOKING. All I could think was...people put this on their scalps?! Or hair they intend to keep?!
She liked the ponytail being a different color than the head hair.
It makes for a pretty fantastic bun in ballet, I have to say.
So. After SO MANY MONTHS of fruitless hope...we went in the chicken coop the other day and THERE WERE THREE EGGS!! Obviously not all pictured here, the other was on the "shelf" below this.
The kids were over the moon excited about it. It was so awesome to bring them in and put them in the fridge. After![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
breathbox suggested it on facebook, we decided to make a cake with them to celebrate.
I used the recipe out of my plain old Betty Crocker cookbook, +shredded coconut in the batter, and subbing out more butter in place of the crisco they suggest.
This was my favorite for awhile as a kid, but I hadn't had it in forever. The crispy part around the bottom edge is the BOMB. Yes, I still say the bomb. I had a corner and it was fantastic.
The chickens got a generous piece for themselves. Yes, they are supposed to eat eggs. And they LOVE pineapple, so it was very fitting.
We have this "homeschool closet" in our dining room that is always an overflowing mess of board games, artwork, crayons, AWANA vests, schoolbooks, puzzles, craft beads, paintbrushes...etc. After weeks of putzing around trying to organize it, I realized it is a serious detriment to our schoolwork getting done in a timely manner because we ALWAYS have to go on a freaking safari to find a pencil, or the Right Start Math teacher's guide, or some such thing. So I pulled all the school stuff out, threw away tons of old crap we didn't need anymore, and organized the rest into piles. Then Grant took apart this cabinet he made awhile back and made these shelves out of the pieces:
It's perfect. I mean, it will be, once we move the Florida map. In the meantime, starting in the top left cubby and moving across and then down, we've got my massive amount of Which Way USA Highlights books, which will soon be a big US Geography unit; Right Start Math everything; Ananda's stuff; Aaron's stuff; Isaac's stuff; Jake's stuff. With the hole puncher, stapler, pencils and portfolios up top. You would not believe the black hole those items get sucked into most of the time. Now the closet is just a games, puzzles and art supplies closet, and it has an amount of stuff in it that it can actually hold. We also tossed a bunch of outdated and parts-missing things from in there, and FOUND so many things we'd totally forgotten we even had. This is good.
On Easter:
Isaac...I could not quite capture the copper glow in the sun...
We hit it to a big egg hunt event at the zoo. It cracks me up how my children form a real line at the water fountain.
SO HOT.
Action shots.
She was really enchanting me, I could not take my eyes off of her.
Limited though her vocabulary is, she will still start her answer to your question with "Well, um..." and shout "OH BOY!!" when she finds an easter egg. Mostly she lacks basic words (prepositions, transitions, etc) that are supposed to support nouns. So "Lise sto daddy!" is "I'm going to the store with Daddy" and "Mama Annie no home - Bob Home!" is "Mama and Annie aren't home, but Bob is here". The best is watching her pretend. She carries dominoes around pretending they're toy phones, pressing the little dots and holding them to her ear: "Hi Daddy. Daddy work. Me home. Mama home. Jakey Isaac play Lise. Cool. (they play cool games together) Daddy home seep. (he comes home when she's asleep) Yeah. Bye!" It was so awesome to watch her digging through her basket with the other kids in the morning; she loves falling in line and doing things alongside them so much.
HIPS OF DOOM!!
Back at Opa's, to hunt eggs he dyed with Patrice and eat cupcakes made by Mindy - Isaac used to want to conquer this tree SO BADLY. The big kids lived in it and he could never get up. This is his triumphant dismount.
For me, personally:
-I realized I lost a lot of weight and had a lot of success with Eat to Live's 6 week plan, seeing it as a 6 week plan, but trying to go back to doing the "maintenance" diet after the holidays was just impossible to me; it's too strict for me to have that kind of permanence in mind with it and persevere. I NEED AN END IN SIGHT. But, I lost 27 pounds that first 6 weeks and have only gained back 16 of them in the 5 months since, during which I have been glutting myself on Starbucks, cheesecakes, restaurant meals, and late night cooking. So Grant and I have concocted a 6 week on, 12 weeks off plan for me that will be indefinite for as long as it works and I continue to need it. Tomorrow is day 1 of the first 6 week period, and I feel really good about it. The first couple of months OFF ETL were even healthy ones where I didn't gain back at all; eating so healthfully and in moderation put me in the mindset of not WANTING to eat way too much of all the wrong stuff. But I've gradually beaten that mindset back and resumed pigging out, since. So I think if I keep it to 12 weeks off, this could really be a healthy way to live.
-Grant and I are at a bit of a faith impasse that is really frustrating. We've both sort of "slipped" - he interprets that as needing to go back to the beginning, i.e. "remedial christianity". Like very salvation based protestant services loaded with praise and worship music. I understand where he is coming from completely, and respect it. But I also feel like, for me, I need to get back to the deep theology and catholic ritual I let fall by the wayside, because it holds me up so that I DON'T slip. Neither of us are going to push the other one to do something they're not comfortable with, or pull the family in a direction without the other. And I am so FREAKING. TIRED. of this conundrum.
-we're planning a potluck for this weekend. It's a facebook event at this point. I'm psyched.
-and really needing more time to write. And really tired of talking about that, saying it, my gosh haven't we heard this before?! I just hit this wall, this stir crazy wall of pent up mental energy where I always realize, that would help.
-I am BLOWN. AWAY. by my girls' birthdays coming up. My little girl is going to be THREE. And my big girl is going to be TEN. I don't know which of those shocks me more. On so many different levels. Five children, and the youngest one three? Our baby is three (how in the hell have I not gotten pregnant for this long, how nuts)? It feels like we just had her huge celebratory 2nd birthday - JUST. And then Annie in double digits? It feels like we just had her big tea party birthday...just, just. I got my period at ten. Went through Hurricane Andrew. Moved to Jacksonville. Had a journal with long entries. May 1 and then June 1. My daughters, three and ten. *sigh* Then Aaron is June 27, he'll by 9. For months he's been saying he wants a violin and cologne (wth?). Tawanna, his hip hop teacher, thinks that's the sweetest thing she's ever heard and has volunteered to get him the cologne if we take care of the rest.
Today has been a good day. Patrice spent the day since it was a teacher's work day. No dance classes for the same reason. Lots of watching things online with sick Aaron, and laying and reading with Ananda, and cuddling with Elise and Jake, and talking to Isaac (who is way less of a cuddler). It was a sweet, slow day. Tomorrow is the beginning; back to activities, on our new schedule, day 1 of Eat to Live, day 1 of JobCorps for Bob (which will change the whole house for all of us).
This is definitely the song for the week:
I downloaded the whole album. Massachusetts bluegrass quartet. Aaron's watching it too much, with that look on his face. Next thing I know he'll be asking for a cello.
Aaron has laryngitis. I'm not surprised, as it's been going around like crazy. He keeps rasping out things like "The germ-uhs, the germs ah messin around with mah voy-ace!" in a crazy accent.
My brother starts at JobCorps tomorrow. I feel just a little bit guilty about how insanely excited I am at the prospect of him NOT BEING IN THE HOUSE for many hours out of every week day. Mostly though I'm just insanely excited, guilt be damned. Seriously, OH HAPPY DAY!!! Aside from my own selfish glee, this is a huge positive step for him and I'm proud of him as I've watched him do all of his laundry and take a shower and get his things in order tonight. He's been out there 3 times in the last 2 weeks at meetings and appointments, and doing bizarre things before each one like shaving, and asking my brother in law to cut his hair and such. He's taken pains to brush his teeth tonight; I nearly knocked on his head to ask who was in there hijacking his brain.
She came out this way, thinking she was ready to go to the store with Daddy.
Om nom nom. Sugar snap peas sauteed in a little oil with brown sugar and soy sauce are SO GOOD.
This is our new weekday schedule.
Ananda is going to be cutting her hair into a chin-length bob again soon, and so we've let her run amock with the hair that's going to be cut off. This pic is when we first did the bleaching. It was like this for about two days.
The stuff we used was a bleaching and dying kit, and after I put the bleaching part all over her hair I tied it up in a plastic shopping bag because it has to sit for a long time and she didn't want to be paranoid about the furniture. That's what I did the last time we did this with her hair, because it was reccomended by the company on the packaging. This was a different brand, though, and after a few minutes she came to me - "Mom, it's burning my back through my shirt!" "What?" Sure enough, the bag was HOT hot to the touch, and when I took it off, her hair was SMOKING. All I could think was...people put this on their scalps?! Or hair they intend to keep?!
She liked the ponytail being a different color than the head hair.
It makes for a pretty fantastic bun in ballet, I have to say.
So. After SO MANY MONTHS of fruitless hope...we went in the chicken coop the other day and THERE WERE THREE EGGS!! Obviously not all pictured here, the other was on the "shelf" below this.
The kids were over the moon excited about it. It was so awesome to bring them in and put them in the fridge. After
breathbox suggested it on facebook, we decided to make a cake with them to celebrate.I used the recipe out of my plain old Betty Crocker cookbook, +shredded coconut in the batter, and subbing out more butter in place of the crisco they suggest.
This was my favorite for awhile as a kid, but I hadn't had it in forever. The crispy part around the bottom edge is the BOMB. Yes, I still say the bomb. I had a corner and it was fantastic.
The chickens got a generous piece for themselves. Yes, they are supposed to eat eggs. And they LOVE pineapple, so it was very fitting.
We have this "homeschool closet" in our dining room that is always an overflowing mess of board games, artwork, crayons, AWANA vests, schoolbooks, puzzles, craft beads, paintbrushes...etc. After weeks of putzing around trying to organize it, I realized it is a serious detriment to our schoolwork getting done in a timely manner because we ALWAYS have to go on a freaking safari to find a pencil, or the Right Start Math teacher's guide, or some such thing. So I pulled all the school stuff out, threw away tons of old crap we didn't need anymore, and organized the rest into piles. Then Grant took apart this cabinet he made awhile back and made these shelves out of the pieces:
It's perfect. I mean, it will be, once we move the Florida map. In the meantime, starting in the top left cubby and moving across and then down, we've got my massive amount of Which Way USA Highlights books, which will soon be a big US Geography unit; Right Start Math everything; Ananda's stuff; Aaron's stuff; Isaac's stuff; Jake's stuff. With the hole puncher, stapler, pencils and portfolios up top. You would not believe the black hole those items get sucked into most of the time. Now the closet is just a games, puzzles and art supplies closet, and it has an amount of stuff in it that it can actually hold. We also tossed a bunch of outdated and parts-missing things from in there, and FOUND so many things we'd totally forgotten we even had. This is good.
On Easter:
Isaac...I could not quite capture the copper glow in the sun...
We hit it to a big egg hunt event at the zoo. It cracks me up how my children form a real line at the water fountain.
SO HOT.
Action shots.
She was really enchanting me, I could not take my eyes off of her.
Limited though her vocabulary is, she will still start her answer to your question with "Well, um..." and shout "OH BOY!!" when she finds an easter egg. Mostly she lacks basic words (prepositions, transitions, etc) that are supposed to support nouns. So "Lise sto daddy!" is "I'm going to the store with Daddy" and "Mama Annie no home - Bob Home!" is "Mama and Annie aren't home, but Bob is here". The best is watching her pretend. She carries dominoes around pretending they're toy phones, pressing the little dots and holding them to her ear: "Hi Daddy. Daddy work. Me home. Mama home. Jakey Isaac play Lise. Cool. (they play cool games together) Daddy home seep. (he comes home when she's asleep) Yeah. Bye!" It was so awesome to watch her digging through her basket with the other kids in the morning; she loves falling in line and doing things alongside them so much.
HIPS OF DOOM!!
Back at Opa's, to hunt eggs he dyed with Patrice and eat cupcakes made by Mindy - Isaac used to want to conquer this tree SO BADLY. The big kids lived in it and he could never get up. This is his triumphant dismount.
For me, personally:
-I realized I lost a lot of weight and had a lot of success with Eat to Live's 6 week plan, seeing it as a 6 week plan, but trying to go back to doing the "maintenance" diet after the holidays was just impossible to me; it's too strict for me to have that kind of permanence in mind with it and persevere. I NEED AN END IN SIGHT. But, I lost 27 pounds that first 6 weeks and have only gained back 16 of them in the 5 months since, during which I have been glutting myself on Starbucks, cheesecakes, restaurant meals, and late night cooking. So Grant and I have concocted a 6 week on, 12 weeks off plan for me that will be indefinite for as long as it works and I continue to need it. Tomorrow is day 1 of the first 6 week period, and I feel really good about it. The first couple of months OFF ETL were even healthy ones where I didn't gain back at all; eating so healthfully and in moderation put me in the mindset of not WANTING to eat way too much of all the wrong stuff. But I've gradually beaten that mindset back and resumed pigging out, since. So I think if I keep it to 12 weeks off, this could really be a healthy way to live.
-Grant and I are at a bit of a faith impasse that is really frustrating. We've both sort of "slipped" - he interprets that as needing to go back to the beginning, i.e. "remedial christianity". Like very salvation based protestant services loaded with praise and worship music. I understand where he is coming from completely, and respect it. But I also feel like, for me, I need to get back to the deep theology and catholic ritual I let fall by the wayside, because it holds me up so that I DON'T slip. Neither of us are going to push the other one to do something they're not comfortable with, or pull the family in a direction without the other. And I am so FREAKING. TIRED. of this conundrum.
-we're planning a potluck for this weekend. It's a facebook event at this point. I'm psyched.
-and really needing more time to write. And really tired of talking about that, saying it, my gosh haven't we heard this before?! I just hit this wall, this stir crazy wall of pent up mental energy where I always realize, that would help.
-I am BLOWN. AWAY. by my girls' birthdays coming up. My little girl is going to be THREE. And my big girl is going to be TEN. I don't know which of those shocks me more. On so many different levels. Five children, and the youngest one three? Our baby is three (how in the hell have I not gotten pregnant for this long, how nuts)? It feels like we just had her huge celebratory 2nd birthday - JUST. And then Annie in double digits? It feels like we just had her big tea party birthday...just, just. I got my period at ten. Went through Hurricane Andrew. Moved to Jacksonville. Had a journal with long entries. May 1 and then June 1. My daughters, three and ten. *sigh* Then Aaron is June 27, he'll by 9. For months he's been saying he wants a violin and cologne (wth?). Tawanna, his hip hop teacher, thinks that's the sweetest thing she's ever heard and has volunteered to get him the cologne if we take care of the rest.
Today has been a good day. Patrice spent the day since it was a teacher's work day. No dance classes for the same reason. Lots of watching things online with sick Aaron, and laying and reading with Ananda, and cuddling with Elise and Jake, and talking to Isaac (who is way less of a cuddler). It was a sweet, slow day. Tomorrow is the beginning; back to activities, on our new schedule, day 1 of Eat to Live, day 1 of JobCorps for Bob (which will change the whole house for all of us).
This is definitely the song for the week:
I downloaded the whole album. Massachusetts bluegrass quartet. Aaron's watching it too much, with that look on his face. Next thing I know he'll be asking for a cello.