Jimmy's "Ammals"

Sweet Jimmy at 22 months old.

Viva Las Vegas!

Today MJL and I are flying away from the dust and the crops and the babies!

Here's the link to the AASL website announcing the award.

And here's the link to the Telegram article.  (nota bene~  if you are giving a phone interview, ask the reporter to email you your quotes so you can edit out the ridiculous things you say.  The word "stuff" for example.  Sheesh).

And here's our hotel...

AND HERE IS A LIST OF THE EIGHT SWIMMING POOLS AT SAID HOTEL!!!

Oh my goodness.  I'm excited.  I have a little tiny speech.  3-4 minute "Remarks" but after that it's all fun and games.  And swimming.  :)

I'll admit that it's a little scary to fly away-we've never been this far from the kiddos before.  I know they'll be in good hands, I'm not a bit worried about that-but still...

And I've been having nightmares!  I'm not worried that I'll accidentally ruin our lives, but I AM worried that I'll accidentally SEE someone ruining their life.  It keeps waking me up at night.  But I'm pretty oblivious to the world around me, so we'll probably be OK.  :)

Here we go!  Wheee!

Summer 2014 List!

So how'd we do this Spring?

Spring 2014

1.  LIBR 859--Done! One more, Praxis test, all over!!!
2.  Easter!  Have a super fun party hopefully with some friends.  Find the line between making things fun and being ridiculous and making myself crazy.   Lovely and perfect.
3.  Anna's Birthday!  Have a party.  See above.
4.  Clean up (out) my craft room.  Yes, but then Katie came down on her own and torpedoed the place again.  With red glitter.  I'll cross this out too if I clean it up AGAIN.
5.  Make Cover Ups for all three kiddos. This was so much fun that I also made matching outfits.  
6.  Finals Boxes to College Kids.  
7.  Finish Bible Project.   Nope.  
8.  Alleluia Banner I just put the Anna mantle up right after Easter.  Maybe next year.  
9.  Mending Basket  I dread this so much!  But it wasn't bad.  
10.  Mail pile of things to be mailed.    10 things!  Poor postman thought we'd never finish. 
11.  Plant garden.  Be ambitious, but not crazy.  See #2.  Nope, even though poor Spencer finished tilling it up for me, tired Mama never got anything planted.  We'll just cover it with some black plastic and call it a fallow year.  

Not too bad!

Summer 2014

1.  The Fair!  All the projects, all the paperwork, all the events, all the animals-relax and enjoy.  Specifically:  

• Sundress
• T-shirt dress
• Orange Poppyseed cookies
• Apricot Spice Bars
• Pig
• Goat
• Photography
• Art piece
• Crochet
• Field Crops

2.  Finish Grazie's blankie! At the cabin-hooray!

3.  Write "Remarks" for AASL reception in Las Vegas.

4.  Go to Vegas and have a super fun time with MJL.

5.  Swim and hang out with Abby and have fun. 95 passes used this summer!  and 15 sno cone flavors knocked off the list.  :)

6.  2 year portraits of Mr. Jimmy and family pictures-cabin? Oops, no family pictures.  Hopefully we can do that this Fall.  

7.  Continue working on Study Room with Abby.  Really making progress! 

8.  Sort Mom's sewing stuff into my studio. It's not all sorted, but it's a start.

9.  Finish READ 861 and get certified as a librarian! Just waiting on paperwork now.  So exciting!

10.  Make box into "drawer" for Katie's clothes in new room.  

11.  Start a new school year.  Breathe and be easy.  

12.  Father's Day Paintings

13.  Finish Bible project for Jimmy's Birthday?  In progress though!  

14.    Filing in Office I did it once, but it built up again!  Silly papers.    Done again.

15.  Lobmeyer Banner?  I decided it would make more sense to make one the same time as I make Grazie's, once we know names and stuff.  :)

That's enough.  Hooray for Summer!

That's plenty!  Hooray for Summer!

A new project

I've got something new to work on!  

And I have to remember that if it means that other things fall by the wayside, that's just fine.  

Making a new blankie, and all that goes with it, is hard work.  

This one is for someone we're calling Grazie for now.  

And I've got until November, so there's plenty of time.

Hooray for babies.  :)  

Ingleside 6/13/14

I snitched this from Dad's house.  I think it started life as a bedspread, and then when I was little we used it for a picnic blanket, and now it's a nice dark busy tablecloth that doesn't show the mess.  Sisters-let me know if I need to give it back.  :)

I think Abby's taking Anna's twin bed to college.  I figure if it's leaving in August, there's no sense moving it to the basement for two months, so we're just living around it.  Sometimes lazy=happy.

Anna's been changing the greeting every few days.  I think we're on "Guten tag" today.  

I had to read this for my children't lit class.  So many ranty things to say about it.  At the very least, I don't think filthy language is necessary, just lazy, and kids deserve original plot just as much as the rest of us.  What makes me crazy is that when people list their favorite books, they are always the great ones-Little House on the Prairie, Anne, Around the World in 80 Days, Ramona, The Boxcar Children-and none of these resorted to using hot button issues in the news to be controversial and "interesting" to the kids of the day.  So why do we underestimate kids now?  I wish I were a writer sometimes, but I don't want to be one.  

Going to town for the day involves so much planning!  And six bags.  If we have something in town in the morning, and something else in the afternoon, it doesn't make sense to go back and forth so--  We need the swimming suits and towels, the library books and all of the papers for Summer Reading, and jammies to change into after lessons, and any papers for errands that need to be run, and a textbook to read during naps, and blankies for naps...  *sigh*  You'd think with all of this practice, I'd start to enjoy thinking ahead, but not yet.  It just makes me feel crazy.  

But then we go to the pool, and everything is beautiful.  Golly, I love Summer.

Six years

Six years since I first woke up in a world without my Mama.  I think all of the people who said all of the things were mostly right.  It does take a long long time, and you have to be patient, and eventually thinking about her makes you sad and happy and not just sad, and through some mystery, the missing increases but hurts less.  

And I still think I see her, across the park or the church, but it makes me smile now, and reminds me that I'm always looking for her, still.  It takes some of the pressure off of being a Mom, I think.  Because I know she wasn't perfect, and I know nothing could matter less.  She's everything because she's my Mom.  So I just have to do my best, and I really can't screw it up.  I'm everything anyway.    

And someday I'll look across the clouds and there she'll be.  For real.  

A poem from Dad

 What Is So Rare As A Day in June

AND what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days;

Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,

And over it softly her warm ear lays;

Whether we look, or whether we listen,

We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;

Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,

And, groping blindly above it for light,

Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;

The flush of life may well be seen

Thrilling back over hills and valleys;

The cowslip startles in meadows green,

The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,

And there's never a leaf nor a blade too mean

To be some happy creature's palace;

The little bird sits at his door in the sun,

Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,

And lets his illumined being o'errun

With the deluge of summer it receives;

His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,

And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;

He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest,-

In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?

Now is the high-tide of the year,

And whatever of life hath ebbed away

Comes flooding back with a ripply cheer,

Into every bare inlet and creek and bay;

Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it,

We are happy now because God wills it;

No matter how barren the past may have been,

'Tis enough for us now that the leaves are green;

We sit in the warm shade and feel right well

How the sap creeps up and the blossoms swell;

We may shut our eyes but we cannot help knowing

That skies are clear and grass is growing;

The breeze comes whispering in our ear,

That dandelions are blossoming near,

That maize has sprouted, that streams are flowing,

That the river is bluer than the sky,

That the robin is plastering his house hard by;

And if the breeze kept the good news back,

For our couriers we should not lack;

We could guess it all by yon heifer's lowing,-

And hark! How clear bold chanticleer,

Warmed with the new wine of the year,

Tells all in his lusty crowing!

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how;

Everything is happy now,

Everything is upward striving;

'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true

As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,-

'Tis for the natural way of living:

Who knows whither the clouds have fled?

In the unscarred heaven they leave not wake,

And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache;

The soul partakes the season's youth,

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and woe

Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth,

Like burnt-out craters healed with snow.

James Russell Lowell

Victory and Defeat

In Goodwill related news...here's a great victory for the part of me that says "If you love it, you should get it, you'll figure out a use for it some day" and a terrible defeat for the rational "stop buying stuff!" part of me.  

I bought this blanket years ago, it's one of those old, hotel sort of strange bedspreads with the weird polyester on the back, but I just loved this bright summery flower pattern.  I had no idea what to do with it but it made me smile.  I walked away from it several times but kept going back.  It sat in the basement in a sack for a long time.

But then MJL and I were discussing how the down comforter was really way too warm for the summer and I wanted to make a quilt but I don't have time right now to make a quilt and besides I couldn't get it done that fast anyway.  I remembered this blanket and it fit!  So now my happy blanket makes me happy every day and we're not alternately roasting and freezing as we put the comforter off and on all night.  Hooray!

Where do you fall on the spectrum?  When in doubt-buy it or leave it?

Almost a Librarian

My last class started this week!

I take the certification test this weekend.  I took the practice test online and got them all right but this one:

4. A library media center uses parent volunteers
to perform a variety of tasks relating to the
school library program. Which of the following
considerations is most likely to ensure an
effective result from a parent volunteer
program?

(A) Volunteers are expected to be present on
specified days of the week at specified
times.
(B) Volunteers are assigned staff members
to work with who supervise their
activities and provide direction.
(C) Volunteers are permitted to take work
off-site in order to complete it.
(D) Volunteers have prior experience working
in a library-related field.
(E) Volunteers are given the freedom to
select or reject duties at their discretion.

Here's a hint-you have to remember not to answer like a normal human, but like a librarian (very concerned with detail and getting things exactly right).

Cover Ups!

I found this fabric at Goodwill this Spring and instantly knew I wanted to make cover ups out of it.  It's kind of a super light terry cloth.

But that's crazy!  Who has time to make cover ups?  Not the girl who was behind on everything, including her class and her job and her house and her life.

But I got it anyway because it was $2.00 and dreams are important.

I spent the next few bath times perusing patterns and tutorials online and thinking about what to do.  (I mostly play on Pinterest while the kids are in the bath.  I look forward to it so much!)  

And somehow, after the class was done and the office tidied, I started cutting and sewing and a week later they were all done!

We tried them out last week.  They all have hoods, but Anna's is sleeveless.  Not quite enough fabric, and I didn't think she'd be as cold as the little ones.  

 Lately when I ask Katie to smile she says "Let's make a sad face instead."  

I used this pattern for all three, just lengthening and biggering for Anna's and kind of fudging on the hood.  

Yay for Summer!  

IMHO

I have a lot of opinions.  While I'm loading the dishwasher or brushing my teeth, I like to think about the world, and come up with reasons for the way things are.  I come up with grand speeches about any number of things.  I'm tempted to list them, because then you might ask me about them and I could try one out-but I suspect that's not actually good for me, or good for anyone else.

I found this quote last week, and it's been rolling around in my mind ever since.

(In English-"The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.")

I just really love that.

Have you found anything lately that hit you right between the eyeballs?