Sparking Like Static

Happy Birthday, Mom...

2008-06-04T22:24:00.002-04:00

My mom, Sandy, was born in the same bed her mother and grandmother had been born in, and she was raised on the same farm that had fed and sheltered all the generations of our family as far back as our written history in this country records...back to our Cherokee fore-mothers and Gaelic ancestors. She was the 3rd of 6 children, and lived in her head quite a bit more than the others. She loved books for as long as she could remember, and read across genres with great curiosity. She was kind-hearted and had gentle hands, and longed to heal the broken things she saw in the world around her, both human and animal.

She was a healthy, happy, and homeschooled child who grew into a quiet, intelligent and interested young woman who decided to become a nurse. Her life changed dramatically on this day 37 years ago, on her 17th birthday. She was home after her first semester away at college, trying to recover from what everyone assumed was a lingering strep infection and exhaustion from a busy term, when she collapsed and was taken to the emergency room in the adjoining county. That day she found out that she had Hodgkin's disease, which is a type of lymphatic cancer. Today, Hodgkin's has a nearly 95% cure rate, but in 1971 (and especially in rural Appalachia) she was given a less than 10% chance of survival, due to the pervasive nature of the cancer in her system.

The oncologists told her that her death was imminent, and that they were going to give her a month to "get herself together" before doing an all-out assault on the cancer in a last-ditch effort at remission. She went home and shaved her head and then got married to my father. He was the boy next door. They'd known each other all of her life and had been dating for a year. He told her that he'd marry her for 6 weeks or 60 years, no matter how hard things might get, and he lived up to that promise even when nobody around her would have faulted him for giving up.

They told her she wouldn't survive the radiation, but she did. They told her the treatments made her barren, and that she would never survive to parent, so she gave birth twice and raised three motherless children into adulthood. She went into remission early in treatment and was declared "cured" on her 21st birthday.

Chemo and radiation had left her lungs and bones weak, and she was sick throughout much of my early childhood. She frequently taught our little crowd of kids from her bed. When she was well, we followed my father's ministry to the deep, dark, and horrible corners of the world. She brought the light with her. Her laugh was infectious and her voice in song would silence a room full of chattering people.

When she was 32, she got cancer in her left breast. There was more chemo, more radiation, and a partial mastectomy. I rubbed her aching feet as she prayed to live, and held her trembling head as she begged to die. Her chest wall was fragile from previous harsh radiation, and this second set was brutal and bordered on illegal. She literally reached the legal limits for lifetime exposure to radiation, and then got a bit more before the authorities caught on to the plan.

She survived again. Three times in her early thirties, we sat vigil at her bedside when they told us she would not survive the night. Each time, as morning dawned and she still breathed, she would look us in the eyes and say, "~I~ will tell you when I'm leaving, and today is not that day."

That was her mantra for the rest of her 30's and her early 40's. "Today is not the day I die." That was frequently followed by, "and I will rejoice and be glad in it". The second was her favorite line from a frequently sung hymn. When she couldn't walk or care for herself, and when her voice was so burned from chemicals that she could no longer sing and was barely able to whisper, she'd sign "REJOICE" to each of us as she sent us out the door to our lives. We sang for her. We lived big and open lives because she needed that for us. We rejoiced when most of us would rather have been weeping.

Her mid-40's brought uterine cancer, a 3 valve heart bypass, and the loss of her second breast. She was bed-ridden completely by 47, except for one miraculous year in 2003, where she had a completely stunning recovery and managed to travel the country, see Disney World with her grandchildren, and make good on lots of plans that had been on hold for decades.

In 2004, her cancer returned (metasticized breast cancer)in her head. She battled it via surgery and injected chemo, since she could no longer tolerate radiation. She won that battle, even though nobody expected it, but it was a very shallow victory since it left her entirely bedridden again and unable to care for herself. It took her freedom, but it did not take her faith or her sense of humor.

Throughout that period, and right up until November of 2006, she ended every conversation with, "I love you, and I'll let you know when I'm ready to go." In November of 2006, she started ending conversations with, "I'm so tired, and I love you so very much." We found out in December that the unthinkable had happened. After 25 years, her ORIGINAL cancer had returned. She had Hodgkin's lymphoma through her entire lymphatic system. Doctors told her to fight it. They told her that Hodgkin's is the most curable cancer on the roster. They told her she could fight again, and maybe win. It would be hard, it might be useless, but she COULD fight.

For the first time in her life, she said no. In her journal she wrote, "Life is a journey, and sometimes the road take you right back to where you started out walking. Hodgkin's disease formed the life I lived. It was the fire that forged my strength and my soul, and now it's the fire that lifts my ashes into the wind. Cancer isn't winning, because I am walking away from the game."

She told me she wouldn't die before Christmas. She didn't. She promised my father she would not ruin January, because it was his favorite month. February is the month for big changes in our family. Half of us have birthday then, and all of our closest relatives have died in that short but busy month. My mother last spoke to me at 8pm on the 31st of January. I was in Florida, and she was hospitalized for a routine procedure to ease reflux pain. During our last conversation, she told me to not let my emotions ruin my children's vacation, to kiss them all and tell them that she loved them, and to make sure that my Dad was not alone in February. When I protested and pleaded, she ended our conversation with the word I had feared for my entire life. "I'm ready to go, and now I've kept my promise to let you know. I'm tired and this isn't fun any more, and I've got bigger things to do that this body isn't made to handle. I love you. Get some rest."

She kept her promises. Always. She died on February 1, 2007. We didn't tell the children until we returned home. My Mama came home to the home she'd been born in, and she rested there until she was buried a few yards away under the dogwood she'd had planted for that very purpose when she was 17. I kept my promise and stayed in Kentucky until mid-March. It's what she taught me, and it's what I'll teach my children. I'll teach them that life isn't always fair, and it sometimes hurts even if you're doing the best you can to do what is right. I'll teach them to laugh, to sing, to keep their promises, and to REJOICE. And, most importantly, I'll love them just as much as my mother loved me.

Thanks for reading, if anyone actually made it to the bottom.

He didn't even get dizzy!

2008-04-10T19:42:00.004-04:00

Tonight Nate was surprised with a prize basket at gymnastics for the most cartwheels or forward rolls in the boy's division during their yearly fundraiser. More than 50 in two minutes!! Dave and I had known for a few days, since Dave had a peek at the results sheet, but we managed to keep our excitement a secret.

He was so thrilled that his little smile was a mile wide. Nate's the child in our family who rarely gets recognized for outstanding achievement. He has only recently been able to blend and achieve positive results socially, especially in things like organized sports.

His prize was a huge Super-soaker type water gun, a slingshot with three balls and a roll of Shocktarts. I hope that this is the first in a long line of successes for our boy Nate.

Sticky, Squishy, Sweet and Gooey

2008-04-07T18:30:00.001-04:00

PisecoBabe can alway be counted on for a fun playdate, and she's more than willing to share her sticky, gluey gooey fun with us. The kids had a great time making yucky artworks and then squishing them back into blobs.

Princess DibbleDibbleDoo had no interest in the dough after a couple of minutes, and fell back to her favorite passtime...eating!

What was she eating, you ask? Well, pretty much anything she could get her fingers on, but the treat of the day was Rice Crispy squares made from PisecoMom's recipe and decorated by my three rugrats prior to our playdate.

All-in-all, not a bad way to spend a Monday.

Why, yes, we DO homeschool...

2008-04-07T12:34:00.002-04:00

Just a little tidbit from the homeschool trenches:

Me (to Anna): What is the opposite of fast?
Anna: SLOW is the ossopit of fast.
Me (to Anna): Yes, slow is the OOOOPPPPIIIISSSSIIITTTT of fast.
Me (to the big kids): What is another term we use for words that mean the opposite?
Em (proudly): Oh, that's easy, it's an ANTONYM.
Me (to Em): Yeah! Great Answer! So, what is the antonym of antonym?
Nate (looking up vaguely from Super Smash Brawl): You're kidding, right?
Me (curious): Nooo? Do you know the answer?
Nate (bored): DUUUUHHHH! The antonym of antonym is........

CINNAMON.

I'm still laughing 15 minutes later. P.S. I did tell him that the word is synonym, not cinnamon. He's still not speaking to me because I laughed.

~L

Old McDonald Had A Farm....

2008-04-04T17:26:00.004-04:00

We spent our day today visiting farmers and their animals and wares in the most unusual of situations. Today was the annual Farm Days celebration inside the local shopping mall.

Our friends the Piseco Peeps were supposed to pick us up and explore the festival with us, but they were having bouts of feeling generally unwell, so we made it out on our own....

OR SO WE THOUGHT.

We started in the mall proper, and the kids took a quick ride on petal tractors near the doors.

After a moment, we made some crafty cotton ball sheep.

It was just after taking that picture with our fuzzy sheep that Nate began freaking out and bouncing around and screaming, "JediBoy, JediBoy and PisecoMom"* at the top of his lungs. I thought he had seen them somewhere in the mall because they'd decided to join us belatedly, but then realized that he wasn't quite seeing what I'd expected. Instead, we'd found the following on the board the kids were posing in front of for their photo op.

After our excitement wore off, we continued through the mall and enjoyed such varied activities as tasting Stone Soup and watching a sheep get her winter coat sheared.

It was a grand day, and we came home with loot bags full of crafts, snacks, and assorted treasures.

For more pictures, you can check out the album...

Like Clue...only, Better

2008-03-07T15:33:00.000-05:00

We've recently begun hosting a Saturday night board game gathering for our grown-up friends (and their wee ones, too). We gather and play games together while laughing, snacking, and generally having a grand time being social. Many of our gatherings are themed, but some are just "let's play something awesome" type of nights.

One of my favorite games from our recent nights is Mystery of the Abbey. PisecoBabe did a great review of it over on her blog that I thought I'd share with everyone. I absolutely love deduction games, and Days of Wonder makes some great games in this genre. PisecoBabe does a great job with her game reviews, too, as well as having a generally adorable family.

HAPPY LEAP DAY!!!

2008-02-29T22:00:00.000-05:00

And Happy 2nd birthday to Cousin Kendall, who was born a week after Em, but is 6 parties behind her in the present-opening race.

We celebrated the LEAP day but doing lots of jumping around the house, off the steps, and in and out of various hoops. Dinner was a celebration at Moghul, where we ate far too much lovely Indian food. There were more tikka masala, paneer, and naan variations than our family could eat in two days.

Here's for a great and peaceful March into Spring.

Swimmingly Good Times

2008-02-24T15:16:00.000-05:00

The big kids celebrated their birthdays last weekend in a joint YMCA swimming pool party. We had a small crowd, mostly girls, and lots of great fun. The PisecoClan came, with PisecoBabe hauling her wonderful camera. There was great enthusiasm about the swimming, the home-made cakes, and the gifts.

Those wacky Pisecofolk also gifted Emily with the promise of a future Daisy Rock guitar (shipping times were lagging and it did not arrive for the party) to match the Hannah Montana wristwatch in her gift bag. She was ecstatic when she found the note on the back of the watch after the party was over.

All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend an evening celebrating the completion of one more year of crazy living for two of our growing monsters.

Very Veggie Congratulations...

2008-02-15T11:23:00.002-05:00

Congratulations to Annick, who won the random drawing for Dave and the Giant Pickle. The kids and I had a great time choosing a random-number engine online and using it to select from our very small pool of applicants.

Annick, if you read this, please email leigh@oncraftcreek.com to schedule delivery of your prize. Alexa, if YOU read this, pass on the information to Annick, please.

~L

A Very Green Giveaway- Veggietales

2008-02-10T12:11:00.000-05:00

There are few things more inspirational than singing vegetables. Despite our shunning of traditional religion, my children have a strong love of Big Idea's Veggietales. We have the entire collection on DVD, and they've been playing regularly for many, many years. These movies probably have the longest "lifespan" of anything in our rather generous collection.

My kids love the novelty of talking produce, and the crazy music. I love the none-too-subtle wordplay and the irreverent way the introduce morality lessons.

We've ended up with a spare copy, still unopened, of Veggie Tale's Davey and the Giant Pickle.

This is our first bloggie giveaway since we switched to Blogspot. Just post a comment, including a valid email address, to enter. The contest will run through February 14th, just because that's easy for me to remember. The winner will be chosen via random number selection (courtesy of the internet).

Have fun!

~Leigh

Kung Hey Fat Choi/Gong Si Fa Cai

2008-02-06T23:30:00.000-05:00

May you all have a happy, prosperous and wonderful New Year.

Anybody else celebrating Chinese New Year tonight/this week? We had a wonderful New Year's Eve tonight, and my kids finally crashed after midnight which, according to tradition, means DH and I should live long lives.

Tomorrow we're eating a huge veggie feast and playing games all day. I've hidden the brooms, knives, and scissors and gotten the last of the dishes clean before putting out the disposable dinnerware. Everyone bathed and I've ironed and laid out the new clothes for morning. There are 2 dozen GORGEOUS roses on my dining room table, and a stunning orchid in our living room. Oranges, clementines, mangos, coconut, sesame balls, lychee, and candy are tucked in into their red and gold boxes on the table.

The kids went to bed happy and tired, and clutching their lai see (hong bao if you're Mandarin-speakers) in their hands. According to them, they're "richer than kings today".

Tomorrow there's no cleaning or cooking and I'll be trying to abstain from internet since I've promised myself that I'll try my best to be completely in the moment with the family during this holiday, which is the most important one of the year for most of our family. It will be good to feel almost obligated to simply enjoy time with family and not be rushing around to sweep up crumbs or wash dishes or do another load of laundry. Of course, I'll pay for that on Saturday when I have a 2 day backup of everything....but that's Saturday and today is the first day of the New Year so I'm not going to dwell on tomorrows until I've fully experienced today.

Here's a link to see the dragon:
Dragon Dance

Sweet dreams and, again, Happy New Year to all of my friends!
~L

How about some cuteness...

2008-02-01T18:28:00.000-05:00

Christmas came and went in it's normal whirl of insanity, and I forgot (again!) to get cards ready to send in time for the holiday. I think I've made the mistake of trying to do it all myself, from photography to design and printing, for the last time.

The Purple Stork is a great place to get custom designed holiday cards, party invitations and adoption or birth announcements.

Rosemary is creative, affordable, and her work is always professional. Next year, with help from The Purple Stork, I think I'll have my holiday cards out just after Thanksgiving. It will be a holiday MIRACLE!

~L

What a crazy cool day...

2007-10-13T21:48:00.001-04:00

Since our swimming lesson was tossed aside due to parade blockage of the road, we tossed all our plans for the day up in the air and winged it completely.

We went to The Spot for a delicious lunch, then drove out to Black Bear Winery and picked up some booze. On the way back from the Winery we stopped at Coldstone Creamery for some super-de-duper ice cream creations.

It was a super-expensive but incredibly fun afternoon.

Post-fun time, I mopped the kitchen and took a reading break. Then we loaded up the van full of kids and headed off to Wegmans for groceries. After spending even more money, we came home and absolutely crashed. The kids ate random bits and pieces of leftovers and filled in the corners with rotisserie chicken.

There has been some watching of DVR'ed television and some wishing for sleep to hit the kids.

Through all of this, there's been a tiny electrical spark of excitement because it's less than 24 hours till the Piseco Clan end up in Guatemala to pick up their baby girl.

Oh, what a wonderfully tiring day.

~L

It's the Creeping Crud, Dang It!

2007-10-03T18:35:00.000-04:00

We're so stinking sick and miserable. The kids are dragging around, and trying to kill each other over absolutely nothing in particular. They're all just easily annoyed today because of their various aches and pains. Also, they're being incredibly loud at all times. There is a overkill of loud screaming and complaining. My personal observation is that my children get really loud when their heads are congested because their ears fill up with fluid.

The good news is that the grand-paternals are arriving tomorrow to give us some much needed backup in the parenting realm. This means there is a chance for some actual sleep in my future. I can use it, too. In retrospect, I should have known that we were heading toward a case of the sicklies when the three kids took turns having sleepless nights last week, complete with screaming night terrors and grinding teeth.

The bad news is that being sick means that we had to miss a whole lot of opportunities for fun today and probably for the rest of the week. In other bad news, Em's orthodontic work looks like it's going to run at least $1000 for extraction, spacers and a retainer. I'm sure the cost of services will rise as they determine what else she needs in the future. Did you know that being a mouth-breather (while awake or asleep, but especially asleep) causes alignment/orthodontia issues? I didn't really, until Dave told me today. Emily has always been a mouth-breather and a tooth-grinder, which is apparently a very bad combination....expensive, too.

We are officially entering the phase of parenting I like to call "the era of the leaking bank account". It's scary and depressing. I'm hoping we'll come through it well, but we don't feel at all prepared.

~L

Who Cut The Cheese?

2007-09-22T12:03:00.000-04:00

Sorry, but I couldn't resist the impolite title opportunity.

The correct answer would be that JASON cut the cheese. He cut a 75+ pound of imported Parmigano Reggiano, specifically. Anna loves to be at Wegmans, our local grocery store, for their cheese wheel cracking ceremony. She's watched several of these big suckers get cracked, and she enjoys a little bit more each time it happens.

First the cheesemonger (or, as Anna calls him, the Cheese Mama)scored the top and sides with his hook-bladed knife.

Then he inserted almond knives into pressure points on the wheel and prepared to use leverage to crack it open.

With a lovely and satisfying crack, the wheel of deliciousness popped open.

Then we ate lovely cheese and continued on with our grocery shopping and the rest of our day.

The Parm was a lovely, creamy cheese with a melon overtone and a sharp finish. It was aged 28 months and tasted absolutely the way that a good Parmigano Reggiano should taste.

Comments are on again...

2007-09-18T12:36:00.000-04:00

Thanks to Alexa for letting me know that the comments button wasn't available, even if it was only because she'd intended to heckle me publicly and was thwarted.

It's on again now, and I'm open to any and all insulting of my intelligence...~laugh~

~L

Happy 12th Blog-iversary!

2007-09-17T21:56:00.000-04:00

This is the 12th anniversary of the day I started my first blog. Only, at that time it was called an online journal and there were just a few of us hanging around in cyberspace together. My journal was located on Geocities, and I was one of the original homesteaders in the Paris suburb. It was hand-coded in HTML and included a handful of carefully designed graphics. It was full of angsty poetry, angsty journalling, and uhhhhh....angsty angst.

Every year on this day I recommit myself to journalling/blogging. The urge to post usually lasts for a few weeks or months before I disappear into the walls again until the next blogiversary.

~L

Edited to keep my stupidity from showing: So, yeah, for anyone who saw this BEFORE the edit, I'm well aware that 1995-2007 is 12 years and not 22 years...really, honestly, I PROMISE that I didn't really think I started using the internet 22 years ago. I AM NOT AL GORE! Did I mention that I am not best of friends with the maths?

Go to Church and Climb a Tree...

2007-09-16T22:09:00.000-04:00

That's what my kids did today. And did they enjoy it? Yep, you betcha! Well, the tree climbing part, at least. The churchiness was a mixed bag, with some thumbs up and some thumbs decidedly down.

Here's a pic of my three monkeys with their pal Campbell in the tree outside of UUCB.

Message for Paula

2007-09-03T21:31:00.000-04:00

More to come in the near future, but Em declared that this couldn't wait.

It's FINISHED!!!!

2007-07-18T18:21:00.000-04:00

I have done it! I've finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There's so much that I want to talk about, but I'm going to be very carefully monitoring my words for the next few days/weeks until those around me have had a chance to catch up.

Emily's not trustworthy when it comes to keeping spoilers to herself, so I've not even let her know that I finished reading. She'd be all over me, then spreading the details as fast as she could get her mouth open.

All in all, I want to say that I was very pleased with almost all of the major plot points in the book, thought the ending was a little fan-fic(ish) for my personal preference.

~L

A Fine, Fine Festival

2007-06-23T22:56:00.001-04:00

We had the priviledge of spending the majority of our day today celebrating the 5th birthday of Nate's best friend JediBoy. JediBoy has recently become a very big fan of the Middle Ages, most especially Arthurian tales, and his brilliant and creative mother devised an awesome Knights and Castles festival at a local park with a wading pool and carousel.

There was wonderful food, awesome conversation, and plenty of blow-up plastic weapons. We are still having a great time tonight with our inflatable morning-star.

Of course, my children had th greatest time on the ponies and in the pool. Anna rode the carousel till all the adults under her command were too dizzy to spin.

After the carousel, there was some splashing in the pool. I'm not sure how those crazy kids could stand swimming on such a chilly day. When the wind was blowing, it was downright cold, and yet they still ran in and out of the water.

Every now and then, you'd see a kid lounging beside the pool like a lizard basking on a rock in the sun.

Of course, Emily and Ben both found bugs to rescue during their swim. This came as no surprise to anyone who knows those two bug-loving nuts.

Ben was very proud of the bug on his hand, and immediately sent his mom off for an empty bottle to hold his new pet/exhibit.

The two littles had a great time just splashing around in the water. I was thrilled by how brave Nate was in this pool, and how confident Anna was in the water without any adults.

By the time the party was winding down, all of the kids were starting to hit their point of exhaustion. There were kids laying on benches, resting under trees, and quite a few were stretching out in the sandbox. I got quite a kick out of seeing JediBoy stretched out in the sand with his chainmail glimmering in the sunlight. He looked like some treasure dropped in the sand.

All in all, it was a wonderful day and we felt priviledged to be allowed to spend such a special day with our friends.

Now all of the kids are sleeping that totally drop-down tired kind of sleep and I'm getting ready to join them and see if I can actually get a night off from the crazy insomnia I've been having recently.

~L

Let Freedom Ring!

2007-06-21T13:22:00.000-04:00

I'm days behind in posting to the blog again. I'm pretty much internally reconciled to the idea that I'll never manage being a daily blogger, but I do want to post when something cool and/or different happens in our family.

Our Freedom party with Paul, Ben and that other Dave was such a great time that I definately want to keep it down in written posterity.

On Tuesday night, Ben and his folks came over for a night of food and fun to celebrate the end of Emily's public school career. I cooked upsome quick and easy Mexi-American food and Ben helped his mom out with dessert. They baked an awesome vanilla cake and Ben decorated it with all the style and panache that a 7 year old boy harbors in his wonderfully creative mind.

Ohhhhh, and they brought vanilla ice cream, too. Of course, Dave still made some yummy ice cream for us older folks (banana with pound cake, candied walnuts and semi-sweet chocolate swirls)to enjoy, just because he loves to show off his ice cream making talents.

It's awesome to share a meal with good friends, since it makes eating and talking a comfortable social experience instead of an evening full of tension and worries about whether or not your children's terrible table manners are going to be the talk of the town after the night is over.

After dinner, while the kids got on with their maniacal destruction of our downstairs, Paula and I gabbed and gabbed about random topics from the sublime to the insane and the Daves messed about with their instruments.

My Dave is very, very new to the guitar but began playing violin when he was a child and "other Dave" (his official title in this house) plays guitar very well and collects all kinds of awesome guitars as a side hobby.

Sometime in the late evening hours, we realized that Emily had hit her fun limit and crashed out like a college freshman during Sorority Rush week. Poor girl, I put her to bed mostly naked after I realized that she'd sat in her dessert at some point and had a lovely collection of light pink frosting spots all across the back of her skort.

By the end of the playdate, which started breaking up a bit after midnight, the only kids left awake were our two night-owls, Ben and Anna. There was lots of thank you'ing and goodbye'ing and a smattering of gloriously inappropriate inuendo and a few late-night, too tired tears from Ben at the door when he discovered his father's misspent youth as a murderer who sentenced caterpillars to death by water fountain drowning.

Finally, when the house was quiet and everybody was in their appropriate sleeping place, I sat down with a cup of hot tea and a good story and read till I could feel my eyes drifting shut.

It was, all in all, a most wonderful celebration of the end of a era in our house. An era that was, thankfully, short and not too incredibly disasterous. Now we're on to the next great adventure...Homeschooling TWO kids at the same time.

~L

Sometimes He Leaves Me Speechless...

2007-06-14T15:17:00.000-04:00

Nathaniel has always been part enigma to me. He has flashes of a near-brilliant understanding of the world, just drifting around in that haze that is his particular brand of autism spectrum disorder. He sees this "big picture" of the world sometimes that I can't see, even though he has trouble understanding interpersonal relations on his own small-world daily basis.

We had one of those moments today, when we were cleaning the living room before Dave got home from work. While we were working, we were listening to a mix of some of my favorite songs and he got very quiet and contemplative while listening to our .mp3 of Josh Groban and Ladysmith Black Mambazo singing 'Weeping'. When the song was over, the Boy had tears in his eyes and he said, "This song is too scary. I think we live like this in America. Maybe it's like this in every country that has a war. Our boss people, like George Bush, tells us it's ok because they are guarding the evil, but maybe they ARE part of the evil. Maybe EVERYBODY who fights in war and kills people are wrong...and maybe we're being tricked into believing it's right because it makes us feel safer than knowing we're just fighting against other scared people who want to believe the same thing."

I'm still reeling. He does this to me frequently, but I never get used to it.

Unexcused!

2007-06-08T19:00:00.000-04:00

There's really no excuse for not blogging with more regularity. Sometimes, when I think back to those years (decades, really) when I churned out 2000-10,000 words EVERY day, I'm floored by the realization that I just don't have the energy or enthusiasm required to write a few hundred words about our very "regular" lives.

Last week was like the ocean, periods of quiet and calm broken up by waves of activity and fun. We had a great play-day with Piseco and JediBoy and Paula and Ben on Tuesday. There was a pool about calf deep of toys and blankets in Nate's floor that they were "swimming" through during their visit. I had a great time watching Paula and Piseco play Wii...my face hurt from smiling so much, seriously! Emily became an adoring Ben-fan, and is plotting any excuses she can conjure to get out of these last few (under 10 now) days of public school so she can spend some of those days with him.

Wednesday and Thursday were recovery days for Nate, whose allergies had gone out of control on Tuesday night. He's finally feeling better, though the addition of a second rescue medication on top of his daily allergy meds has left him feeling a bit more groggy than usual.

Today, Dave came home from work at about 10:45am and played some Legend of Zelda with Nate, then went up to practice some new music on his violin before taking a nap. The kids played outside for while with neighbor K., but the heat was taking their breath so they ended up back inside challenging each other to Tennis in the living room.

After his nap, Dave went out to his classes (tonight is Wu TaiChi and and Shaolin Kung Fu, I think) and I decided to make some Wings and corn on the cob for dinner. While I was doing that, Emily made a lovely mess in the clay while working on the concept of "cave painting". After that was cleaned up, she sat down and made a list of her top five activity choices for the summer.

The list read (non-edited)

1. Crafs.
2. Go to Popos house.
3. Go to see Omo and Ogon at home.
4. See my frenis.
5. Roller skate place.

Translated it reads:

1. Crafts
2. Go to Papaw's house. - That is visiting my father in Kentucky.
3. Go to see Ah-mah (Grandmother) and Ah-gong (Grandfather) at home. - That is visiting
Dave's parents in Rochester.
4. See my friends. - Self-explanatory, I think.
5. Roller skate place. - Also fairly self-explanatory.

Nate added his list verbally:

1. Make a video like Jeff Corwin.
2. Swim somewhere outside.
3. Collect bugs, maybe an ant farm.
4. Watch a movie at the Drive-in.
5. Go to someplace in a hotel.

Ahhh, the drive-in. We've been trying to get to Elmira to watch Pirates of the Carribean 3 for several weeks now and are constantly thwarted by either the weather or the health of our children. We were going tonight, but this crazy severe storm warning just won't go away...of course, it's not RAINING either. Blah. If it's going to keep us home, the least it could do is rain and cool everything off.

Tomorrow is groceries and maybe a restaurant for lunch. We're still debating having a friend over tomorrow evening for some visiting and dinner. Sunday will be back to our routine of chores in the morning and bowling in the evening. Next week, beyond Sunday, is still a total mystery. We'll see what life brings our way.

~L

Just Another Weekly Roundup, Folks!

2007-05-31T22:57:00.001-04:00

Oh, what an incredibly busy (and yet, relaxing) week it has been. Last Friday, the Chen grandpeeps came down for a long visit. We spent Friday night catching up with them and teaching Grandpa Chen how to play games on the Wii.

Saturday morning was swimming, and Saturday afternoon we went with Dave to his martial arts studio so that his parents could watch video of some famous, now-deceased, Kung Fu masters. After Kung Fu time, we treated the grandparents to our new favorite dessert from Joey's Italian Ice. We're big Gelati fans!

Sunday began casually, with some reading about snails and contemplating where we were going to plant the flowers and trees Grandpa brought down from his house. The kids helped with the planting while I did some internal cleanup and knocked the top off of Laundry Mountain. Sunday evening was our normal bowling night, minus JediBoy who was off at camp. The grandpeeps were very amused by the bowlers.

The week was filled with a great deal of playing out in the yard, watering the plants (and Grandpa) with the hose, taking walks to the grocery and the park, and reading lots of game F.A.Q.'s and walkthroughs online.

On Wednesday, Daddy surprised the kids with the newly-released Mario Party 8 for Wii. We've had a total blast playing the party games. Tonight we had Kelly and Davy over for a grill-up and dessert along with lots of Mario Party. The kids love having K and D over to play with them...we can't thank them enough for their generous gift of the Wii to our family.

Tomorrow MAY be kite day with the homeschoolers, or it may be a rainy indoor playdate with one or two friends. It's a toss-up to me which I'd prefer at this point. I'm a bit fried from all the fun this week, but we could really use some time out in the park with friends.

Ok, I'm going to take this opportunity to post and then get to bed. Emily fell asleep at 7:30pm on Wednesday night and woke up FOR GOOD at 2:30am. And, of course, I'd just gotten Anna down for the night at 12:30am, so I got a grand total of 2 hours of sleep. Thank goodness Grandma let me come up for a 2 hour nap today!

Goodnight and good weekend to all...

~L