Things I love...

Sometimes it's important (especially during the month of March in MN) to reflect on the things that make a person happy and content. Not necessarily material things, although those will be included in my list, but I also mean *things* in the broader sense of people, places, events, instances and situations.

• My boys. Even Ludwig who is currently doing his best to fumigate the house with his flatulence.
  
• Chocolate. Because really, what's not to love?
  
• Spring. It will come, I just need to be patient.
  
• The smell of fresh baked bread.
• Being married to a man who bakes the aforementioned bread.
  
• A warm summer night where the temperature and the breeze are just right so you are neither cold nor hot but *just right*. Those are my most favorite summer nights.
  
• Books. I really do love to read and am fascinated by people who don't read. They don't know what they are missing and I feel sad for them. Kind of like how I felt sad for the accounting majors I knew in college. Their subject matter was so boring and I felt sad for them because they spent all their time learning about numbers.
  
• Comfortable shoes. For me they are my Dansko Mary Janes, Asics running shoes and Merrill sandals. At this point in my life all other shoes are not worth wearing and I usually don't.
• When Owen tells me he loves me "so much" and that I am the snuggler because I am the softest.
  
• Photography. It's my favorite art form. It's the only way for me to take what I see in my mind of something and put it on paper. I couldn't accomplish that with drawing and painting.
  
• Potatoes. Cooked any way. Even raw, although that is my least favorite. Like chocolate, what's not to love?
  
• Growing veggies in our yard. I love that some of our food has traveled mere yards to our table rather than miles. And knowing that what has gone into the growth of that food is water, sun and some tender loving care. I also love that Owen enjoys working in the garden with Morgan (I like to pick but I'm not much of a gardener).
  
• All-wheel drive. It's seriously awesome.
  
• Being able to stay home (mostly) with Owen since he was born.
  
• Baking. While not the healthiest of hobbies I do enjoy it. And I love to eat what I bake!
• My fuzzy blue blanket. My grandma made it long ago and then it was given to me and became so worn that I had to take it apart and make a new patchwork top for it and then sew it all back together. Someday it will be passed to Owen, he loves it too, and he (or maybe his wife) will need to fix it again!
• Friends and family who love me despite my quirks.
• A clean kitchen.
• A supportive and mostly not irritating bra. So hard to find.
• When I find clothes that fit me. I don't mind being short. Really, I don't. I mind that the fashion industry tailors clothes for women who are 5'10" and weigh 100 pounds and have limbs 3 feet long. That is like .5% of the population and I honestly don't care if they can't find clothes to fit them, it's time for the little women to come into fashion power!
• Recreational fires in the backyard.
• When all the laundry is done and put away. I love that feeling of accomplishment.
• Good fitness instructors. The classes I attend at the Y are taught by great instructors and that can make all the difference. (Not unlike having good teachers in school!)
• This little blog. It contains record of many small but important things that have happened over the last 4 1/2 years and I like that I can go back and read about them.
• Music.
• Living in an urban area but not in the city. We are close enough but not so close that there are drunks stumbling down the street at 2am. I don't miss that.
• Sunshine. Especially when it's barely in the 30's.
• Good neighbors. We paid very little attention to the school district or neighborhood when we bought our house and got so lucky.
• So many more things that I cannot list!

The many kinds of flour...

I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this before but I don't cook. Wait, I don't like to cook. I WILL cook, if I'm asked or if I have to. But it does not fall anywhere on the list of things I like to do. And I will now publicly admit that I CAN in fact cook, I just find it tediously boring. It requires attention that I cannot devote. It's rather like juggling, which I would like to learn to do, but not with knives. I do however like to bake. It doesn't require as much attention and it involves sugar , and often chocolate, which I'm sure I've mentioned that I LOVE!

Today while rummaging around in the freezer for enough ice to put in my Diet Coke I found a bag of flour, or what I presumed was flour. Now most of our 40 kinds of flour are contained in our pantry cabinet or the freezer downstairs. So I was a bit surprised to come across this lone sack of flour lying in the freezer. It got in the way of the ice cube tray while I was returning it to the freezer and my initial thought was "WTF is this!?" (I've started cussing more in my head because I can't do it out loud. It's rather unlady like and Owen picks up everything now. And while we did briefly consider teaching him to cuss about everything rather than cry so much, we finally decided against it). So I turned it over to find it was Sir Lancelot Flour. Oh, yes, of course. The Sir Lancelot Flour! That we use for...I know, right!? I don't know either! Which brings me to my point (but slow and rambling like. Don't worry, keep reading, I'll get there. I usually do).

When I was growing up we had all purpose white flour. It was used for baking when flour was needed. I think when I was in my early twenties and learned to bake something besides chocolate chip cookies or banana bread I tried out some cake flour. Beyond that I knew nothing about flour. I'm sure I knew about whole wheat flour because I ate whole wheat bread but I didn't bake it. My baking is in line with my philosophy of cooking. I try to avoid it unless it involves sugar and/or chocolate. Recipes for me rarely call for more than all purpose flour or cake flour.

At this point you may be wondering how on earth does this girl eat!? (If you know me personally you aren't, because you know the answer and have probably stopped reading!) I married a man who can cook. Yes, I hit the "girl who hates to cook" jackpot. My man CAN COOK! And sometimes he even makes things I like to eat. And if that weren't a great jackpot in and of itself, he also likes to bake. Mainly bread. He came into this passion around about the time I was doing the Atkins diet. Yes, he's so supportive. I can't recall the exact reason for this desire to bake bread... oh, wait, it's that he likes to sabotage every dietary change I try to make. Okay, not really, but it seems like it! And because a true Holle boy can't go at a hobby half hog he invested in the good stuff as far as supplies go. Which means we have Sir Lancelot Flour. When I asked WTF is Sir Lancelot Flour and why do we have it, he replied that it is a higher gluten flour that helps crusts like pizza crust be crispy. And in my mind I see my celiac afflicted friends wretching at the though of this flour. (I have an over active, highly visual, imagination.) We also have all purpose flour (Dakota Maid), bread flour, whole wheat flour, rye flour, white whole wheat flour, masica and a whole lot of other flour that I don't keep track of because as I mentioned it doesn't apply to my repertoire of recipes. And you may wonder where one would get Sir Lancelot Flour. That would be from Morgan's dealer, I mean the baking supply website of King Arthur Flour. It is a wonderful website devoted to the art of baking. They have gadgets and all kinds of hard to find things like active yeast (that we buy in a pound block) and double dutch process cocoa (which we can't find anywhere in a store).

We are a household devoted to flour. It can be found all over the place. the cupboards, the freezers, and in almost every nook and cranny of our kitchen (because Morgan cooks and bakes like the Muppets Swedish Chef). And on a floor, it's almost as slippery as ski wax (which is another post altogether!).

Sometimes things are bigger than you think...

One of my pet peeves is solicitors. And to deter the solicitors I have a sign on the door that says "no soliciting". It would say much more than that but Morgan would probably roll his eyes and take the sign down. The sign does a pretty good job. So long as the person knows what soliciting is. Lots of children don't so we get the kids in the neighborhood selling whatever the school fundraiser is. (Which is another post altogether.) The kind of solicitor we get in the neighborhood the most are the tree maintenance companies. They don't ring our doorbell because of the sign. But if I am outside they will get me. Such was the case yesterday. Our neighborhood is filled with huge old trees so I'm sure it's a great place for prospecting. Our yard is probably a bonus as we have two huge trees in our yard that are in desperate need of some trimming. Because of this I always let them look at the trees and tell me what they think and give me an estimate. One of the trees is an Ash and has a lot of dead wood and we knew that at some point it would need to be taken down so I always ask what it would cost to remove it, and I've gotten some really outrageous estimates.

Two days ago there was a guy in the neighborhood drumming up business. He hit up the neighbors across the street which is when I noticed him. At that point I had drawn the shades so I could pretend I wasn't home if the sign didn't deter him. Yesterday the same company was back in the neighborhood to work on the neighbors' trees and while we were leaving to go to Owen's ECFE class they got me. One of the guys approached me as I was backing out of the drive, very polite, gave me their card and said I could call if I'd like an estimate. Of course the moment I got home they were back! So being that I like to hear the trees guys ridiculous quotes I told them to come back in a bit after I got some lunch ready for O.

Back they came to look at the trees and give me an estimate. Surprisingly it was reasonable (in comparison to the other quotes I'd had) and I told the guy I'd talk to Morgan and I'd let him know. We decided to have them take down the Ash tree and trim up the Maple. A few minutes later they got to work. I was thrilled that this was finally going to be taken care of.

Owen was very excited that there was going to be some excitement in the yard and he was thrilled at the prospect of new sticks for his collection. It was a nice enough day that we took our lunch out on the step and watched the climber go to work. I'm sure he appreciated the audience!

After he had trimmed off a lot of the dead wood and was way up high in the tree I realized just how big the tree was. And just how much wood was going to be left behind for us to deal with. (We opted to keep the wood as it was cheaper than having them haul it away and since we have 2 fireplaces and fire pit we thought we could use it). Owen and I went back inside to watch from the safety of the living room. Where O determined he could not see the guy, which was unacceptable, and went back out to the breezeway. He spent the better part of the afternoon watching out the windows and make "compost" in the breezeway. (Also another post!)

While I was getting dinner ready (they had been at the tree of 3 hours now) there was a loud boom and O yelled "MAMA! Come see this!!!" I joined him at the picture window where I saw the tree down in the yard. I hadn't realized they were at that point in the process and I had missed it. Which kind of made me sad.

I think the sadness had actually been brewing while the whole thing unfolded in the yard. First, I had a bit of buyers remorse set in. I don't easily part with large sums of money and paired with having made the decision so quickly, I started to feel sick. Morgan and I hadn't spent a month discussing the decision, which we often do with large expenditures, and then if it's not an emergency or a necessity we usually put it off. Which we would most likely have done with this if we'd given it more time and consideration. Morgan has a price limit on most things, $20 to be exact, and if something exceeds his limit it's not worth it.

(The tree shortly after it came down)

(Owen did find some new sticks!)

After this point I started to feel uneasy and sick. And I wasn't quite sure why. Was it the parting with money? Or just the tree? I felt like what we were spending was reasonable. And the tree was going to need to come down at some point. It had a lot of dead wood and we'd already had some branches come down during storms and it was forever dropping sticks and such. Not to mention it was a squirrel hotel. (Take that rat bastards!) But throughout the evening and night and even when I woke up the morning I felt sick about this. And I think far more than spending the money, it's the tree. I'm sad about the tree being gone. It was a huge tree. It was at least 70 years old. It had been here before our house was. It makes me sad that we cut it down. And I suppose it's rather silly that I'm sad about this tree, but I am. It makes me sad to see it lying all cut up in the yard destined for the fireplace or fire pit. Now it's just a stump. (My personification of this tree is probably sad too!)

I know the money will be replaced and the tree will be cleaned up and we can plant a new one if we'd like. Owen thinks that's a great idea. But for today, and maybe tomorrow, I'm going to be sad for the ash tree. (But not sad that the squirrels have to move!)

Around the house...

March is my least favorite month of the year. It's long and dreary and gray and I am so ready for spring. When I was pregnant with Owen I swore up and down that I would not have a baby in March. Although having a baby in March would probably brighten it up! It was also the longest slowest month in the academic year and now that I don't teach it doesn't bother me as much as it did while I was teaching.

March is a month that doesn't provide me with much in the way of creative inspiration. I realized I hadn't picked my camera up in quite sometime so the other day I made a purposeful attempt to capture some of the things going on around the house. While they aren't artistic they are still a representation of our daily life.

Owen playing a game on the PBS website.

I believe this was day 3 of a Scrabble game Morgan and I are playing. It's still in progress. I think it's my turn.

Ludwig is also quite ready for spring. He loves to lie in the sun and has had to make due with the sun coming in the front window.

A paper globe waiting to be hung in the dining room with the other two.

Art projects and school papers on the dining room table waiting to be sorted and filed.

Chocolate waiting to be chopped up and used in a recipe for cookies. They have since been made and mostly eaten!

Dishes waiting to be put away. Our dish washer is out of order so this is an almost daily chore.

Owen's room in need of some tidying.

The trimmer waiting to be put away after Morgan's haircut.

I believe this is a Gedesa. I found it at the grocery store. It's a bit like a plum but lighter. I loved the sort of heart shape to it.

I also have some pictures I took during the outdoor adventure Owen and I had at the arboretum after school last week but I will post those another day.

A stack of books...

I have a little problem. I've had it for a long time. I love books. I like to read and I read a lot. I've always read a lot. Except for perhaps in graduate school where I mostly read what was assigned and not much else. After graduate school I was so happy to read books of my own choosing.

I am not however, a person who loves to collect books. Morgan is also a reader and between the two of us we own a large number of books ranging from religion (Catholic and Lutheran) to juvenile fiction. If we are to include Owen's books that probably doubles our collection. In short, we have no shortage of books. But one rarely rereads books from ones own collection. They are good for loaning to friends but for the most part they take up space and collect dust. Excluding cook books, dictionaries, and gardening books we could probably do without most of our books. That being said I am a faithful devotee of the library. If I can get a book at the library I will. Sometimes I wait for a very long time but it's the price I pay for not wanting to own the book.

For Valentine's Day Morgan gave me a Nook Color. I have several friends with ereaders and even though I like to have a book in my hands I thought an ereader might be a handy sort of thing. I'm also a technology junkie so that contributed to my curiosity. The purchase was painful for Morgan but his desire to do something nice for me overruled his inherently cheap nature. Morgan's philosophy about purchases includes a $20 limit and a trip to the thrift store. Neither of these rules applied to the Nook.

I have enjoyed finding cheap books for my nook and also downloading books from the library. We are fortunate to be in an area with a large library system and it has a nice collection of ebooks. Although I've found they don't have a large number of copies to loan out. As with hard copies they need to purchase the e-version and lend it the way a hard copy is loaned. I thought owning the ereader would remedy some of my wait time for books from the library but I was mistaken.

The ereader has also contributed to a situation I seem to frequently find myself in. The large stack of books waiting to be read on my nightstand. These books are often at various other places in our home but eventually I try to corral them to my nightstand. Once there I am able to see how many books I've amassed and then determine the amount of time I have to read them. Because inevitably there are several that are on request by other people and I generally have a few of these that I've checked out at one time. What happens is I keep a list of books I want to read and then one day I'll sit down at the computer and look them up at the library. Then I make my requests and all of the sudden I will have 4 books waiting for me. So I pick them up. But since I always have a book or two ( or maybe 4) in process I don't get to them right away. And I may have made a trip to the library with Owen where I will have browsed the shelves and found more books to haul home to add to my pile to read. And on top of that will be my Nook with even more books in it for me to read! And if the library and the Nook don't contribute enough to my stack I am also in 2 books clubs and have friends who are readers of good books that lend me the good books to read! And since no one else really reads their books over the ones from friends don't generally have a due by date. Although I try to return them in a timely manner.

Right now here is the stack on my nightstand:

Currently Reading:
Stiff: the curious lives of human cadavers
The art of non-conformity (due in 15 days)
Truth & Beauty (on the nook from the library)

Waiting to be read:
Final Verdict:What really happened in the Rosenberg case (due in 15 days HAVE NOT started!)
Fragile (due in 15 days HAVE NOT started!)
House of Sand and Fog (started but found it slow, no due date as it's from a friend)
The Hunger Games (from a friend as well)
The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner (started, lost interest. I think I'm done with the Twilight Saga)
Bringing Jon Home (from the church library!)
The Unfinished Angel
Replay
Spook

Book Club books to be read:
The Paris Wife (hoping to get in electronic format from the library but there is of course a wait!)
Room
Wench
Cutting for Stone
Water for Elephants

On my own wish list (on the Nook):
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
Bonk
Breakthrough
Big Girls Don't Cry
Frank & Eleanor
And 5 other books I've requested from the library!

As you can see I tend to create a bit of stress and drama surrounding the reading of books. And I suppose some of this would be alleviated by owning the books because then I have all the time in the world to read them. I can get to them when I am able to. However, since I don't like to have the clutter of books and I like not spending money on books I choose to keep the stress & drama.

Sometimes it's easier not to read! Which happens too. I fall into a slump and don't read much for months.

It's March!

Wow! I've written 2 posts this year. Two. And it's March. I'd love to tell you that the year has been filled with amazing and exciting things. We've traveled, we've had amazing adventures and lived life to the fullest. But I can't. The truth is that each day brings the daily stuff that an ordinary life is made of. Meals, chores, laundry, dishes, laundry, dishes (oh, wait, I repeated myself) work, school bedtime wars. But we've also had some great gatherings with friends and family. We've read some good books and I've discussed some of those books. I may have created something but I don't actually recall what it may have been, oh, a paper globe at Mom Scouts, but it's just like the two other ones I have in the dining room. Oh, wait, I have a picture I can share with you!

We had a week of warmer weather and Owen spent several days playing in the puddles in the yard in his green frog galoshes.

One day he fell asleep in his burrow. Which is a corner behind a small couch where he piles couch cushions, blankets and throw pillows. He calls it a burrow.

We've also been trying to decide where O will go to school in the fall. Which would be easy if it weren't for school lotteries. Lovely sort of concept. School choice is really more about having the choice to fill out an application, send it in on time, and keep your fingers crossed that your not yet five year old child's name is picked out of a hat. Incidentally we are #21 and #10 on the waiting lists of two spanish immersion schools. #10 is for the school in our district. O would actually be able to ride a bus to that one. The other one is 18 miles away. ONE WAY! But a really very nice school. He is also #34 on the waiting list for an elementary school in the district south of us. He could of course go to the neighborhood school which is less than a mile away. He would have to walk there. Even in Kindergarten. And that thought brings to mind the statement OVER MY DEAD BODY! Maybe when he's 10 he could walk to school. But only after he's successfully walked to the neighbors house by himself a hundred times. WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND THINKS A 5 YEAR OLD COULD WALK TO SCHOOL ALONE!? No, there are not, to my knowledge, crossing guards. I can safely say this because in the 9 years we have lived here I have never once seen one. EVER! So the school that would include transportation (other than my car) has a wait list. Nice. Public education at it's finest. You can go to school, and in MN, provided you fill out the application, wherever you like...so long as you provide your own transportation. This however, is not the thing about this process that has bothered me the most. What has bothered me the most is the lottery. I've not seen Waiting for Superman but I've heard that the lottery process is talked about in the movie. Education is a hot issue for me because I'm an educator, but it's intensified now that the parent role has been added to my life. Up until this year I have felt fortunate to have access to the educational opportunities available to us in the school district we live in. The ECFE (Early Childhood Family Education) program is wonderful. It is a nationally recognized program. I am not feeling that way about the actual school system Owen will be going through. Perhaps it's their marketing. It's shabby in comparison to other near by districts. And while I feel like the neighborhood school would be fine, I don't want fine for Owen. I want to know the education he gets is going to be good. Great even. Excellent would be best. And I know that a large factor in his success in his education will be our support and advocacy but I want to feel like the school district will be stepping up to the plate too. And I don't feel that. I don't get that impression overall. The principal at the neighborhood school seems great. Enthusiastic, energized, and motivated. He knows the challenges of the population he serves and he's doing things to promote growth and achievement. As a teacher I found it to be motivating. But what does that mean to me as a parent? Maybe I can yet determine that because I'm still at the beginning of the journey. Oh, and it's March. But despite it only being March I've been spending a significant amount of time investigating, touring researching and worrying about where O will go to school 6 months from now! I've spent the last 4 years not planning ahead and now I have to start planning ahead again!

I'm hoping for spring to come soon. Very soon. I'm done with snow and gray and blah winter. I need something to take pictures of!

Cake...

Is there any more glorious baked good than cake? Okay, cookies are a good rival, but cake really is the most celebrated of baking marvels.

There are countless websites and blogs dedicated to the formulation of recipes, baking of and eating of cake. Cake is beautiful and delicious and everyone has a favorite.

For Christmas I got a set of 9" round baking pans. We have a wide variety of baking pans but no 9 inchers and I have a lot of recipes that call for them. I was excited to try them out but didn't want to put in the time to make a *great* cake so I opted for a dark chocolate mix with dark chocolate frosting.

The pans worked nicely and I am looking forward to using them again for a wonderful cake. The mix cake turned out fine and Owen approved of it! But the best cakes really are made from scratch!

Wordless Wednesday...

2010 in Pictures...

I love going back through iPhoto at the end of the year and reviewing pictures. After I review I also delete and archive onto my external hard drive. Which is a good thing because I noticed I'm down to only 10 GB of hard drive space on the computer.

One interesting thing I noticed when I went back through pictures for this post was that the snow seemed to melt fairly early in the year. The picture of the bleeding hearts was from April 19th. A lot of times we Minnesotans feel like the winter goes on and on when in reality I don't think that's the case. My mom would probably disagree with me.

This year seemed to fly by quite fast. And looking back I don't feel like I accomplished much. But on a day to day scale I suppose I did. We were all fed and clothed and arrived in a timely manner to wherever we needed to be. Bills were paid. Laundry done and put away. When ones primary role is to take care of a child and a home and all that goes with that, accomplishments looked at over a year's time can seem quite small. But when looked at closely they are not. At the end of this year we are all happy and healthy and have much to be thankful for.

Simplifying in 2011

I've been thinking a lot about the *stuff* that has accumulated in our home since we moved into it. When we moved in it was just the two of us and we didn't have that much stuff. At least it didn't seem like it we did. Now that we have lived her for 8 years there are things that we have accumulated over those years that aren't being used, take up space, and that I just plain don't like. Books, dishes, toys and varied other junk.

I have read a number of books on clearing clutter, simplifying or down-sizing. One rule of thumb (in variations) that is often applied is don't have things in your home that are not useful, beautiful or bring happiness. As I sit here typing this post there is a stack of magazines 2 feet high in our magazine rack. The ones on the bottom have likely been there since summer. There is another 2 foot stack to my left under the book case. Stacked on the book case are books in front of books because they don't all fit on the shelf. There is also a basket of *papers* that may or may not be important. And a stack of papers on top of the printer that need to be dealt with.

One of the worst culprits of clutter for us is paper or media. Mail, books, magazines, the bulletin from church, newspapers. I receive 2 photography magazines, 1 parenting magazine, and 1 home/craft/lifestyle magazine, 1 scrapbooking magazine and one local magazine a month. So that's 6 magazines per month coming into our home. They don't leave that quickly either. I have all the issues of Martha Stewart that I've received over the last at least 9 years. I keep thinking I might need them. And I do get out the Christmas issues in November and December. We also have a nice collection of magazines downstairs that I've been meaning to go through and tear out recipes and other ideas so I can get rid of the magazines. But then I'm left with piles of magazines pages to organize. And I have a system to do just that. But it just makes work. And then I have to sift through that to find an idea.

Some days I feel suffocated by the clutter. And it's not that our house is over run by it. I am fairly organized. It just seems that there is too much in that organization. Before we went away for Christmas I did all the laundry and put all the laundry away. But I was unable to hang up all of Morgan's pants because I ran out of hangers. We do not have a tiny closet but it is also not a walk-in sort of deal. Morgan's wardrobe takes up roughly 3/4 of the closet space. I take up more dresser space. I'm not sure one man needs 40 shirts. And I'm pretty sure he doesn't wear them all. We each have things we accumulate or collect. I have a collection of rubber stamps I rarely use. As well as dishes from our grandmothers that I feel I can't part with because we may use them someday. Morgan collects coffee cups and has an issue of almost every newspaper he had an article published in when he was a writer.

It's probably this time of the year each year that I feel this way. Burdened by stuff. Things accumulate without us noticing much and then I begin to realize that we need to go through things and clean out and get rid of. I just think this year we need to do it in a more major and thorough way!

Incidentally, I had to leave this post for a few hours during which time Morgan came home, read the post and decided he'd go through his shirts! I can check that off the list!

Awesome giveaway...

Check out BC Designs a blog by Becky Conley for a great giveaway! And while you are there check out some of her beautiful creations!

A poor neglected blog...

My poor little neglected blog. If you are a regular reader here (are there any left!?) I apologize! This fall I realized I am a working mama and some things fell by the wayside. My blog was one of those things. I write on it a lot in my head. But I don't think there is good technology for getting my thoughts onto the blog without me having to do more than think about it! And I write really well while I'm lying in bed trying to fall asleep. And some nights I'm tempted to get up and write but then I won't get any sleep at all. This night might be going in that direction too.

Owen is busy enjoying preschool and many other adventures that befall a 4.5 year old boy. He's busy planning for Christmas. Mostly wishing for everything he sees. It will be hard work this Advent season directing and teaching him about the reason and meaning of the season rather than focusing on the gifts. It is very important to us that he have some understanding of what the meaning is. It is so easy for children to get caught in the whirlwind of commercialism and want given their self-centered natures already!

He is also loving the snow. Although after tonight it will be mostly gone. We've had about 6 inches I believe but it was warm and rainy today which isn't good for accumulation. It's inevitable now though, there will be more!

Now that Owen is in preschool I am working 3 days a week. It's only 1 day more than I had been working but I had always considered myself a stay home mama with an unimportant part-time job. Now that part-time job, while still part-time, has become much more demanding and important. I am happy to have a job and a boss I like and who appreciates me but I was quite overwhelmed this fall when I realized I was a working mom and I had a lot more to juggle now. Then add a small but growing photography business on top of everything and I was just not prepared with all I had on my plate! It's good preparation for next year when O begin s Kindergarten though. Which I can't believe is going to be happening. Life really just keeps hurdling forward whether we are ready and willing or not.

I am almost a year behind on my scrapbooking. It's not for a lack of trying. It's mostly due to a lack of creativity and time. I've done two retreats this year and that is when I've done all my scrapbooking. The first one in the spring I finished up my pages for 2009 and started on 2010. At the fall retreat I putzed around on 3 mediocre layouts. So not like how I was working on pages last year! And I felt like I had a lot of boring or lack luster photos for pages too. I was just not inspired by the pictures I had. From the pictures I had it appeared we are a rather boring little family! I want to work more on recording memories too which sometimes doesn't involve a photograph. Maybe that will be a challenge for 2011. And maybe 2010 will have fewer and scaled back layouts!

Now that it's past my bedtime I will leave you with a little picture of O enjoying the snow!

A Wish List...

Today's Mama is sponsoring a giveaway for Game Stop. So here is my Mama's Holiday Wish List.

1. What is your holiday wish for your family? That we are able to enjoy the holidays in peace and quiet with minimal stress and hustle & bustle and focus on the joys of being a family.

2. What is your Christmas morning tradition? Our Christmas morning tradition when we are able to be home for Christmas is to wake-up, open gifts with Owen and then have a wonderful breakfast together. Then we got to Mimi's house.

3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be? As much as I love technology and gadgets I think I'd ask for a family membership to the YMCA.

4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money? I love to bake and make things with my crafty skills using the supplies I already have and share those hand baked and handmade things with others.

5. What games did you play with your family growing up? I loved playing rummy with my grandpa. He was the best to play cards with.

6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood? Our family traditions have changed with the passing of people in my family. But I think what hasn't changed is trying to be with the people who matter most to us.

7. Where would you go for a Christmas-away-from-home trip? A lovely cabin up north somewhere where we could sled and ski and cozy up by a nice fire and read and be together.

8. Check out GameStop and tell us, what are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year? XBox 360, Kinect with Kinect Adventures, and Kinect Fitness Bundle. These are all items we would never buy for ourselves but I think they would be pretty fun if we won them!

One year

It's been one year since my friend Nikki passed away from leukemia. Not one of those days have I not thought about her and missed her. In the beginning it was a horrible realization every morning. I would wake up and not long after remember that she was gone, and my heart would sink. After awhile I began to know that when I woke up. And my hear would still sink. It was no longer a daily realization but part of the reality of our lives. And I would continue on. Because what else is there to do? But I would still have moments when I had to remind myself that I couldn't call her and tell her what Owen had done that day. Or ask if she and Marc wanted to come for dinner. And gradually I've stopped having those moments. And I no longer cry every day. I can talk about her and tell stories about her and share her with others without breaking down. But there are still plenty of tears.

This quote basically sums up how Nikki touched the lives of everyone who had the pleasure of knowing her.

“Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for awhile and leave footprints on our hearts. And we are never, ever the same.”

We will never be the same for having known her and loved her. She was joyful and passionate and full of life and she left that with us in our hearts. And while I will always miss her every day I know that where she is she is spreading joyfulness and passion and humor and love.

Must see video...

The sequel to the Pink Glove Dance! My friend, who is a nurse at the U of M, is in it! And the survivors from MN are in the Walker Sculpture Garden in front of Spoon Bridge that I have posted pictures of before.

I dream of peace and quiet...OR why I stay up way too late...

When I was still teaching I drove to work listening to public radio or a station that actually played some music in the morning rather than just the chatter of a couple of idiot DJs or hosts as they like to call themselves. On the way home I listened to nothing and tried to breath deeply while driving. Now when I go to work I listen to public radio or music and often the same on the way home. Perhaps that says something about my job. There is a lot less talking involved and I'm only there for 4 or 5 hours at a time.

Teaching was a very emotionally draining job for me. Maybe emotional isn't the right word. Mentally draining. My current jobs (mortgage assistant, mama, wife, homemaker) aren't as mentally draining but they still take something out of me that only peace and quiet can restore. The things is, though, there isn't a lot of peace and quiet in my day. I'm bombarded for most of the day (while I'm home) with Owen's requests for a playmate (me or someone), food (small but frequent portions) or any number of other things that he can think of from turning on a light because he's scared of the dark (even though the sun is streaming in the window of the room) to wiping his butt (we are working on that!). Then there is the dog. He spent a large part of this morning wandering the house whining because he knew Owen had a PB sandwich and he desperately had to have some of it. I hate whining. From all forms of life. Especially my child and my dog. Eventually I let him go downstairs to sniff out the sandwich remains, that I had hid, until he came to his own conclusion that he wasn't getting the sandwich. That dog eats way too much bread. And anything else he can steal off the table.

It seems that most of my life is spent responding to the needs of others. Child, boss, husband, friends. I get a little overwhelmed by how people don't seem to be able to do things for themselves. Getting dressed, printing documents, finding keys or cell phone. I am by no means perfect but I do pride myself on being able to be mostly self-sufficient. Maybe it's because I don't like to rely on other people. Because I want things done the right way so I figure out how to do them myself. Because I don't like to be at someone's beck and call all the time so I'm not going to do that to someone else. I don't mean to sound heartless. I do help Owen when he needs help but I also want him to know that he can turn on a light on his own. Or that he will, at some future date (but soon), be required to wipe his own butt! And I want Morgan to put things in a place where he can find them so I don't have to be called upon to find them for him. The real issue is that he needs to learn how to actually *look* for things and not just survey the scene.

I feel like a lot of my time is spent with some form of chaos and I don't like chaos. I prefer order. Neatness. No unpleasant surprises. So at night, after O is asleep and Morgan has wandered of to bed to read or sleep I find myself wide awake doing whatever I want. Watching episodes of Mad Men one after the other. Enjoying a much to large dish of ice cream. Surfing the internet for creative inspiration. Reading a book uninterrupted. I love these moments of solitude. I sometimes day dream about them during the day. It's kind of like the carrot that keeps me going. Unfortunately I pay for these late nights the next day. When I can't drag my butt out of bed or get motivated to get anything done.

I'm hoping that once O starts preschool we will find a better balance of all the things our family needs. More playtime and learning for Owen with people his own age. More peace and quiet for me.

I guess this is the nature of an introvert raising an extrovert!

Random...

I found this website with a bunch of journaling prompts and while I think they would be awesome for some scrap pages I also thought they would make good blogging material! These are just the first 4 on the list.

Where did you live as a child – town, country, suburb, etc. I grew up in a tiny suburb of Minneapolis that grew as I did. At one time there was farm land around us but that is mostly gone now. It is also the town and house that my mom grew up in. There are lots of memories in that place.

What is your greatest joy? Your greatest sorrow? My greatest joy would be Owen and motherhood. Motherhood is something that you cannot explain to someone who isn't a mother and until you do it you don't understand. I think marriage is similar! My greatest sorrow would be the loss of loved ones. Especially Nikki.

What do you feel has been the most significant world events that have taken place in your lifetime and why? Well, the things I remember the most are:

1. the explosion of the space shuttle in 1986. I was in the sixth grade and the entire grade was at a winter camp up north in MN. I remember our teacher coming in and telling us. I was sitting on the top bunk writing in my camp journal.
2. Princess Diana dying in 1997. I was home on summer break from school before going back to do my student teaching.
3. The September 11th attacks. I was in a staff meeting when it happened and we found out after the meeting while students were arriving at school.
4. The election of President Obama.
   

Describe your yard as a child. As I mentioned I grew up in the house my mom grew up in. When I was younger there were more trees than there are now. Many of these have died or had to be cut down. It was a huge yard. It's not as huge to me now! My great uncle lived with us and we would sit in his car after he came back from work eating fruit that he had brought home under the big pine tree by the driveway. It was a wonderful yard for playing in and even though our house was on a busy street it was always a safe place to play because there was so much room. It makes me happy that Owen gets to play in the same yard as a child.

Creative style...

According to this quiz, for me, creativity is a release. I would tend to agree.

For you, creativity is first and foremost a form of expression: it creates a special link between the internal and external worlds. It allows you to get a grasp of your powerful emotions, by molding them into a physical form. In fact, the most important thing for you is to be able to release your emotions. You need to be able to touch them or look at them in concrete form, and to do that you have to find a way to make them come alive. This is how your desires and anxieties take shape. Keeping things bottled up creates a tension that can only be resolved once you have expressed how you feel. This means you have to be strong enough not to let yourself get swept away by chaotic impulses; if you turn your creative urges on everyday life — making a picnic, singing to the baby, choosing what to wear — you can express yourself while staying rooted in reality. Creativity is principally cathartic. It relieves a deep need, an almost primal, archaic impulse. For you, being creative is about having the power to give form to something you feel, to those deep personal issues that are often raw and disorganized. For these reasons you are usually attracted to art that demands physicality, that allows you to express what’s inside, and that unites spontaneity, strength, freedom, power and movement.

Funny stuff...

I think I've mentioned before that I love Owen at 4. He's funny. He says funny things and does funny stuff. Although he talks about butts and farting and poop a lot.

The other day he and Morgan were making a trip to the potty while we were at a restaurant and he said to me, "We'll be back in a jippy mom!" A jippy! I loved that.

On the way to a friend's house last week we were chatting while in the car and he said, "When I grow up I can be a mailman, a doctor and drive a car." I said, "yes honey, you can do all those things if you'd like." I grew up being told I could be anything I wanted to be "even and Indian Chief". I don't know where my mom came up with that but I knew she meant I could do whatever I wanted to do. Unfortunately I let some fear and some outside influence limit me and I think I may have done a few other things had I had a little bit more confidence to do them. Like study abroad or dance more or take some art classes.

I love how cheerful Owen is. Most of the time anyway. Yesterday he wasn't so cheerful. He was mad because we couldn't go to Donald's (Mc Donald's) after the eye doctor. We had to get home and have a quick lunch before my sister arrived and I had to go to work. I explained that we had food at home and we would eat there. Except that he was "so-so-so-so hungry" and wanted to go to a "quick drive-thru" rather than eat at home. This kind of set the tone for things. He got mad because I asked him to close the car door before he came in the house, which he didn't do, and ended up having to go back out and do that. When he came in he was just too tired to move and ended up laying on the floor in the kitchen. He couldn't possibly get up on the chair to eat and started throwing a fit so he ended up sitting in his room crying while I ate lunch and he threw a fit. My sister arrived while he was still carrying out his drama in his room. When I went in I told him Naunee was here and asked if he was done to which he replied, "yes, I'm done crying now". He came out and ate his lunch. Shortly after I got home from work he decided he was starving again and brought me a banana that he wanted made into a smoothie. I asked if he could just eat the banana and he said no. So I got out the blender and together we made a nice strawberry -banana smoothie. I put it in two glasses and put his on the table for him. He sat down and said, "I want a banana to eat with my smoothie." I said, "No, we are not eating a banana too. You wanted a smoothie with the banana so I made a smoothie. Now drink the smoothie." "But I'm hungry too. I need something to eat while I drink my smoothie!" "No, we are just having smoothies." The crying began and the whining about how he's so-so-so-so hungry AND thirsty! I told him he could drink the smoothie that we made, which he HAD TO HAVE but that wasn't good enough. More crying ensued so I carried him to his room and on the way he wails, "Not again!" I went back out to the kitchen to get his smoothie so he could cry and drink it in his room and while I was leaving his room he says, "MAMA! Don't forget to close the door!" These things drive me nuts and make me laugh at the same time. I swear sometimes he's a little bit crazy.

This morning at 2am he comes into our room and says, "I'm so hungry guys!" Like we weren't doing anything in our room besides lying there waiting to serve whatever need he had! He gets this starving gene from Morgan and since Morgan can't go hungry for more than a nanosecond he always gets him something to eat or drink. Or makes sure I do it if it's 2am. So I got him a snack and some juice and put it in his room. After he ate it he came and crawled into our bed. He laid there for 15 minutes and said, "I want some water please." So Morgan fetched him some water. 15 minutes later he says, "I want something juicy." So Morgan got him more juice!

But he really is quite cheerful and friendly. Today we were at a friend's house and the neighbor came home. Owen's friend was saying hi to the neighbor and Owen hollers over, "I'm Owen! Hi! I'm Owen!" I just love watching his personality and sense of humor and his sense of self developing.

A little cuteness...

Last week Owen and I had a little time to kill while my phone was being looked at (again). We wandered around the outdoor mall not too far from us. I love that place, but not in the winter. How or why anyone decided these would be great to build in MN I'm not sure but they don't seem to be doing too poorly.

While out and about we wandered into Anthropologie where I found this cute little 4x6 album on clearance.

I didn't NEED it but it was so cheap I couldn't pass it up. Almost thrift store priced! I am going to fill it with photos from our summer.

It was hotter than hades here today with tropical dew points and humidity. We spent the morning at the splash park with some friends. O had PT this afternoon and then a swimming lesson this evening. He has not been excited about swimming lessons at all this summer. NOT EXCITED. He's missed more of them then he's attended I think and he only had 4 left so we decided he had to attend these last 4. Last week he got so upset about having to go he threw up. Which pretty much cemented the deal in his favor. This week we prepared him well in advance. We started the preparations last week on Thursday! It probably didn't help that I wouldn't remember that he had a lesson until Morgan got home and asked if he was ready to go. To which I replied, "where?" That mostly has to do with me not knowing what day it is on a regular basis! A hazard of only working 2 days a week and it being summer. This week I took him to the lesson and we arrived early enough that he could play in the wading pool before his lesson and "warm up". He still got a little pouty but I kept encouraging him and reassuring him. When it was time for the lesson we took him to the instructor who seems very nice and left him sitting on the edge of the pool with him. The lesson went fine and he had a great time! We still don't know what all the apprehension was about but hopefully he's over it. I still find it baffling. He loves being in the water and does quite well with holding his breath and diving under and all that stuff that I dislike about swimming! Just three lessons left! Which I will have to set an alarm on the computer to remember!