Browns

I know I'm going to sound like a complete jackass for saying it, but I'm reveling in this crappy weather. Recently, it has been so nice outside that the PRESSURE! to enjoy it EVERY SECOND! was getting old. I *did* enjoy the beautiful November that we've been granted, but I'm also happy to be have a wet day worthy of good books and tea. (<--or, ok, FINE, a day of wandering aimless around the interwebs.)

Marin and I were getting a little antsy earlier, though, so we headed out to do some thrifting. However, we didn't start our adventure until after an early lunch, and she ended up falling asleep before we reached the thrift store.

(That kid is seriously gifted in the napping department.)

So instead, I pulled off the road, let Marin sleep, and snapped some pictures.

All of the leaves are gone from our trees now, and we are left with breathtaking, beautiful shades of brown.

Various shades of brown grasses, black-brown newly plowed fields, and big brown branches against the foggy, wet air and grayish gray skies.

It took me a long time to fall in love with so much brown. What I used to find bleak, dark, and depressing, I know find lovely. Breathtaking even.

Soon, all of this brown will be covered with fresh white layer(s) of snow. On sunny days, I'll need sunglasses to drive because of the glare from all of the white.

For now, though, the stark landscape is cozy to me.

While there are so many things- climate wise- that I loathe about Minnesota, there are also quite a few pretty awesome aspects.

(As you can probably guess, I'm quite interested in photography. However, I have a very basic point-n-shoot camera and a laptop that does not even support Photoshop Elements. Can you guess what my fervent [Improbable] Christmas Wish is?)

(Along those lines- do any of you have experience renting a DSLR? I've been thinking that might be a fun way to "test drive" a fancy camera, but I don't even know where to begin... Anyone??)

Edit; Lyrics

Turns out "Posey" is actually spelled "Posie". Well, at least no one had to point it out to me... my own brain kept stumbling over it.

English major, FOR THE WIN!

When I googled the spelling, I also got interested in the many versions of Ring Around the Rosie. Here's how we sing it:

Ring Around the Rosie

Pocket full of posies

Ashes, ashes

We all fall down

At our Mommy-n-me classes, we traditionally end with this verse:

Penny the water

Penny on the sea

Up jumps a fish

And up jumps me

(And, if it's not completely obvious, all the kids jump up.)

On the Wikipedia site, it lists many verses, but this isn't one of them. Tiny Town original? Mysterious.

How do you sing it? Has anyone ever heard of "our" 2nd verse?

Soul Good

Things I did this weekend to counteract the Edge of Sanity (aka: going off Zoloft):

1. Cleaned our house. Which makes my brain feel clearer, too.

2. Ate a (couple) swiss cakes rolls. Yes, self medicating via overly-processed foods that have the same nutritional value of glugging back a few dozen swigs of Crisco... what of it?

3. Watching this girl fall in love with this kitten (poor kitten):


(The other girls are also in love. Um, we all are.)

4. Planned a date, and found a sitter, the very last minute. Thanks to our teen-aged niece, we left for Bigger Town at 4pm! On a Saturday afternoon! It was so lovely to have no agenda, no time-line, nothing to answer to at all. We explored a new thrift store (loved), ate a nice dinner, over-analyzed David's challenging business partner (very satisfying) (why can't everyone be as perfect as we are?), and spent over 2 hours loafing around Barnes and Noble. Ahhhhh.

5. Slept in while the kids Lord-of-the-Fly-ed it downstairs, alone. By the time I got up, they had even fed Marin breakfast!

6. Tried to photograph the kitten* in various cutesy ways, such as:

7. Watched a HA-uge bald eagle in a tree across the street. I am enthralled with bald eagles, so this was quite the treat. (Though not so enthralled that I'd want one pecking at my head or anything. From my yard to the neighbors' tree is close enough, thankyouverymuch.)

8. Re-potted a bunch of plants. In my t-shirt. And felt sweaty.

9. Walked to a nearby restaurant/bar that overlooks Tiny Town Lake, where I sat outside with Beautiful Neighbor and had a child-free, uninterrupted conversation while sitting outside. (It was unbelievably gorgeous). And did I mention sitting outside? By the lake? At that it was gorgeous? Because we sat outside, and it was so lovely. Outside!

10. THEN, as if all of those things were not enough soul food for one weekend, Beautiful Family came over for dinner. It was chaotic and messy and loud and full and sticky... and a great way to top off a weekend. I mean, who wouldn't want to spend an evening with this gorgeous child?:

(Well, you can't. Because I ate her. Whole.)

(All of the other children in attendance were equally gorgeous, btw. Just not as palatable. Squishy babies do not stand a chance over bony children.)

*We spent Saturday calling her "Bean", which is adorable but refuses to roll naturally off any of our tongues. Today we tried out "Piper". This is the name we keep coming back to, but the "Awesome Human Name" aspect is still bugging us (ok, FINE: ME). We have decided that whatever name we choose needs to be two syllables.

Beautiful Family suggested naming the kitten Posey- er, Posie (as in "Pocket Full O')... and I really love it. It's easy to say, easy to "call the lost cat" as Shelly pointed out, and isn't a human name. So Posie? Yes?

(Posie Piper Beany Beaner? Yes, I think that's what'll go on the birth certificate.)

(Well, at least for tomorrow. Naming the kitten! The Neverending Story!)

She's Here... and Still- Sort Of- Nameless!

You guys, she's cuter and smaller than even I had imagined she would be... and Marin and I met her once (about 2 weeks ago)!

When we got Coco, she was not handled much in her previous home. This was glaringly obvious by how skittish she was around us. She spent much of her time in those early weeks hiding from us.

This baby, though much smaller and daintier than Coco ever was, is not afraid of us at all. None of us can believe it!

As you can imagine, the girls are loving her. Aah, a bit too much in my opinion.

She doesn't seem stressed out by us at all. In the first 5 minutes we had her home, she peed and poo-ed, batted around a dust bunny, and cleaned her tiny paws. All while Marin was eagerly bouncing nearby.

She's eating and playing and using her box. Which is a relief, and I don't want to sound any PETA alarms, but a cat that doesn't use the litter box what we call a deal breaker in our house. (A deal breaker that we've never experienced, thank goodness.)

Only remaining detail to her induction into our family is her name. Thank you all for your comments: I read them to the girls after school today. However, we are still unable to settle on THE name.

Tonight, our top names were Scout, Piper, Shiloh, and Bean. The first three on that list are such awesome HUMAN names, that I hate to use them on a cat, albeit a very adorable, lovable, kitten. We decided to call her Bean until tomorrow night at supper, when we will have another name discussion.

I do love the name Bean...

So far, however, "Bean" is just not rolling off my tongue...

Baby News

We have some very exciting news!

Tomorrow morning, after we send Kate and Joan off to school and David off to work, Marin and I are heading over to Bigger Town.

To run a few errands.

One of which will include stopping at a very nice young woman's house.

To pick up our newest family member.

A new kitten!

This photo was taken about 2 weeks ago... little sweetie!

Our new kitten will become the newest Green family member, and our current cat Coco's little sister.

She, like Coco, is half ragdoll. She is just barely 8 weeks old and small for her age. She will come to us still needing some soft kitten food and special care to make sure she thrives. (Oh, BOO! Some tiny adorable creature that needs extra loving. HOW WILL I COPE?)

As you can imagine, we are all excited. We've been having dinner discussions and making lists of names for her.

This one is quite recent. She looks bigger, but still tiny, don't you think?

So, how would you like to give us some input on names for her? (I thought about writing Swistle Baby Names, but I'm not quiiiiite there in my cat-lady evolution- to submit a kitten naming dilemma to a baby naming site, ya know?) Here's our list so far:

*Bean

*Bunny

*Kiki

*Kit

*Pips

*Piper

*Puffs

*Scout

My favorite is Pips (rhymes with skips). David's is Piper. I actually love the name Piper, but I think it's a Potential Awesome Child Name and don't want to waste it on a pet. (Nor do I want others to secretly glare at us for use a Potentially Awesome Child Name on a pet).

Joan is lobbying for Puffs or Bunny. I actually like both of those too. Kate wants Kit (like Kit Kitteridge), which I also think is cute.

David also likes Kiki, which I like. But Coco and Kiki seem a little hard to say. But maybe not? Yeah, on the other hand, it flows really well. Coco and Kiki.

So anyway, if you'd like to humor me naming a CAT (OMG, so embarrassing!) I'd love your input- what's your favorite from our list? What do you think "goes well" with Coco?

Also, if you have any additional names to add to the list PLEASE DO. I will read any input and suggestions to the family tomorrow at dinner. Hopefully we'll be able to name her with peace and harmony. (And fluffy little kitten kisses!)

(Her current "name" is Gramps, which I find hilarious on so many levels.)

This is almost as fun as naming a baby!

P.S. For any of your local peeps that might be interested: there is one more kitten left in the litter (a gray female that looks like ours but with less white).

Plastic

One of the ways our family has tried to simplify our lives is by vowing to not purchase any more plastic. We decided this about 2 years ago now and have (by and large) followed this guideline successfully.

As you can imagine, not buying plastic eliminates MANY purchases. Every time I step into Target and start piling goodies into my cart, I pause and ask myself "is it plastic?". This goes for toys, trinkets, household items, dishes, shoes, purses, party favors, gifts, organizers, food storage containers... you get the idea.

Some areas of deviation: containers that things (like shampoo) come in, toys from garage sales (especially things that don't have a wooden substitute like Legos), things that are only available in plastic (VHS and DVD's come to mind- though we only buy these 2nd hand as well), etc.

We've found that we buy SIGNIFICANTLY LESS with this rule in place. I've also found that the things that are filling up our spaces in place of plastic are so much more aesthetically pleasing: glass jars, cloth napkins and table cloths, wooden versions of popular kids toys, jelly jars to drink from, wicker baskets, etc.

Also, I received several glass bowls with lids for Christmas last year and LOVE them. I've yet to break one, I feel better about storing and heating our food in them, and they wash like a dream. Of course, we still have plenty of the take-or-toss plastic version from yesteryear that we also use. (We are not legalistic about this "rule", but instead use it as a guideline.)

ANYWAY, I know I probably sound like a totally smug asshole for even talking about this. However, I feel like it's been such a positive change for us in so many ways: definitely cheaper as we buy waaaay less stuff (though, TRUE, sometimes the things we DO buy cost more), environmentally friendlier in many ways (less "disposable" of a mindset since things cost more, for one thing), and less plastic JUNK cluttering up our lives.

(Does it help to tell you that we still eat at McD's sometimes and have PLENTY of PLASTIC little ponies around here to prove it?)

All of that said, I wanted to share with you my very favorite-est kitchen... erm, thingy that I currently own, the Bird Tray (not it's real name; I don't speak IKEA):

It's PLASTIC, but it was only $5.99. Despite what it's made of, I strongly feel that you should all buy one too, and then we can all be bird tray twins. And we can all sigh happy sighs together whenever we walk by our prettttttty bird trays.

Deal?

Sunday Drive (Down Memory Lane)

I've been thinking about how we all know so much about each other's day to day lives, as they are right now. However, most of us have not been blogging for more than a few years, so there are many seasons of our lives that we've never shared.

Along those lines, I decided to share with you a few pictures of our life before this blog was born. Since there are SO MANY things I could share, I narrowed it down by looking only at pictures taken in November, over the years.

Here we are in November, 2002 at David's work Christmas party. Keep in mind that my due date was not until FEBRUARY. Notice how the shirt is already almost too small to cover teh bellah?:


My god, I still had TWO MONTHS before the girls would be born (on January 23rd). I remember how Joan was head down, but Kate was transverse (sideways) and under my ribs. And how I would sit with one arm slung over my head and leaning to one side in order to give her more room under my ribs.

These next three pictures are some of my favorite pictures of the girls taken in November 2003. They were 10 months old.

I took this one, trying to get a good "Christmas Card Shot":

I remember having to give them those candy canes to suck on just to keep them both sitting still long enough to snap a few photos. They were walking (or nearly walking) at this time. That means that YES I did have 10 month old walking TWINS. Life is so unfair.

This next picture was taken of the girls and I at a friends house, just before we strapped our pajama-clad girls in their car seats and headed home.

I loved those hats!

Finally, this is one of my all time favorites of Joan and me. It was taken on Thanksgiving Day, at my grandma's house. I remember that I found a quiet spot to sit and nurse Joan, and that she fell asleep, and that my tummy was also full and I was also sleepy. I remember feeling so relaxed and so in love with her.

I also remember feeling so tired. Traveling with infant twins- and getting them to sleep and eat and nap in different places was really exhausting.

Finally, I remember that my brother was in Iraq, and that we made a little video to send him. He was deployed the same week the girls were born, so we always had an accurate time-line of how long he'd been gone. This Thanksgiving, 10 months into his deployment, was the first "big holiday" that we celebrated without him. It was weird.

I have a few more favorite pictures taken in November over the years that I will share soon.

If anyone else wants to show off some November pictures from years' past, please let me know. I'd love to see!

New Life

My god, I spent some foolish time this evening composing (in my head) a crabby post about how awful my life was and WAH.

The truth about being a doula is this: reentering life after being at a delivery is hard.

Last night, I headed to the hospital at 9pm, where I had the honor of being with a sweet couple while they worked (labored!) to meet their daughter. After a long, tiring night, she delivered this morning. It was beautiful. As always, I was humbled by being allowed to witness the start of this new life, new family.

But anyway, I was exhausted when I got home this morning around 10 am. I hadn't eaten much all night, my body was sore, my feet ached, my stomach was acidic, and my eyelids felt sand-papery. I ate 2 tums, changed out of my clothes (hospital germs, ew ew ew), and burrowed under my covers for a long sleep.

My sweet husband was considerate and helpful all day. I was able to sleep until about 4pm, when I woke ravenous and grouchy.

My god! The house was such a mess! Forts covered the entire living room. Every blanket and pillow in the house had also migrated there. So many "attic toys" had been drug down and abandoned. Everything felt out-of-control and overwhelming. And I was feeling groggy and weird boo hooo hooo!

The kids were needy, clinging to me and jockeying over who got the prime "snuggling-with-mommy" real estate. I was, frankly, not up for being elbowed in the gut and smashed in the face by kid-sized skulls.

The rest is unimportant, except to confess of how grouchy and awful I felt all night, and to admit how rude I was to my girls and my husband.

The reality check came when, after everyone was finally in bed for the night, I went to warm a bean burrito for myself (re-entry equals messed up eating schedules too!) and found a spic-and-span clean microwave. It had been driving me crazy forevah! and hanging over my head... and then *poof* it was cleaned... by David.

My life is good, yo. It's too bad I don't always remember that.

So now, I'm going to bed, hoping that I get a "normal" night's sleep.

And tomorrow, I'm hoping to be the kind of person that my kids and husband deserve.

Flat

David and I went to a meeting last night of concerned parents interested in "saving" our elementary school.

My god, things are soooo much worse than I even realized. Not only does Tiny Town now have to cut over two million dollars from next years' budget, but we will also be likely short another three million of funds we usually get from the state.

So essentially we will be short about FIVE MILLION dollars next year, and that's just to keep things at status quo.

All because a bunch of stubborn, ignorant, selfish people voted NO to an extra $25/month (estimated average household increase). A fucking pizza. They couldn't give up a fucking pizza every month.

And look, I know that in the big scheme of things in the world, this is not a big one. I KNOW. However, this is one of only a couple of foundation blocks that a town this size has. We are (WERE) known for our good schools. It's what made Tiny Town what it is (WAS).

Many, many good people are hurt, angry, betrayed, [insert other adjectives here] over this and no longer want to be part of this community. These people are our leaders, our spokespeople, our hope and our future and our town. My friends and neighbors.

I've been involved in politics since college. I've never been so MAD, so ashamed, so disgusted. Ever. I guess because it involves my kids?

I'm going to another meeting tonight to vent and brainstorm. I'll do anything, everything that I can to help. But the reality is: five million dollars. There are NO good choices.

I was going through some pictures of the weekend, in order to do something other than fret and fume. It was really beautiful here, and though I was feeling very sick and achy and tired (see also: weaning zoloft), I enjoyed these joyful beings in my life.

My fervent wish is that our community can come together and overcome. For them- those smiling faces above- and so many others.

But I'm really worried. It might not work out that way. And then we'll ALL pay the price, and it'll cost much more than a pizza.

Haircut; Caramel Apples

My girls have all three been bald babies. BALD. And toddlers. Well, and preschoolers. While my children are struggling to grow enough strands to merit a barrette, other girls their age have braids swinging down their backs.

Kate and Joan were well over age 3 when they received their first haircut. Or "haircut". Because there wasn't much to cut, only a few rogue longer strands that needed to be trimmed back.

Marin has suffered from the same affliction. I swear, after these three, if I were to ever deliver a baby with a head-ful of hair, I'd INSIST that that baby couldn't be mine.

Anyway, Marin has been rocking a mullet for awhile now.

Do you see how there is no hair growing from the sides of her head yet? The hair that is there comes from the top of her head and drapes over the side.

And while I thought she looked adorable with her "business in front party in back" do, I began to realize that a haircut was in order.

So, I made her an appointment at with our local hairdresser (is that the word the kids use these days?) (and have I mentioned that the salon we go to is in an ADORABLE, IDYLLIC little cottage-type building with vines covering the sides?).

I held her, as locks of her baby-fine curls fell to the floor around us. Hair that was presumably on her head the day she was born...

But now, her hair is more even. It looks thicker and fuller. And also? Curlier.

She felt like such a big girl, and LOVES her hair.

+++++++++++

Have you all noticed that there are alot of weird, strange, and sad things going around the internets the past few days? Swistle's MIL (just plain shocking), MckMama's baby boy, Erica suffering identity theft. Just... weird stuff.

I decided the other night that what we needed was some good old fashioned, self-medicating caramel apples. The girls and I made them before dinner, but then we didn't have time to eat them that evening.

This is what I discovered when I woke from a little nap yesterday:

The sounds they ALL THREE were making while eating! It was pornographic, I assure you. Plus Joan (on left) has a suuuuuuuuuuper loose front tooth, so she had to eat hers with her side teeth, which was just perfect.

Which reminds me: do you say "car-mel" or "care-a-mel"?