Storm's Passage

Right now, outside

there is a large, vivid, double-rainbow arching over my house

the trees seem to be glowing

and the light is magically glowing both greenish and yellowish at the same time.

The storm has passed, the sirens are quiet

and sun is setting.

Storms make my blood pump- in an exciting way- and rainbows give me goosebumps- in a this must be meaningful way.

Both in one night? Cozy and delicious...

What Keeps Me Laughing Lately

I know I am about to share something that a group of pimply 7th graders would love, and perhaps beneath it all, I am just a bezitted 12 year old. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that there are a bunch of us (us meaning ADULTS) that find this song to be... oh, man... just so funny.

(Coughcampingtrippeoplecoughcough)

So I'm sharing it with you. Judge me if you must, but my god, at least watch the video through the first chorus before you make up your mind.

And keep in mind that each chorus gets better and better.

Oh man. Pounding the rocket! Smacking the cracker! Attacking Peru! Juicing the mango! Orbiting Venus! Driving Miss Daisy!

I'm wheezing over here, folks, and I have a side ache.

And since I'm on a roll, may I also suggest this perennial favorite:

Related: Garfunkle and Oats' song "Pregnant Women are Smug" reminds me of you, Swistle. Specifically, their line about "Can't wait 'till somebody says, don't care if it's limbless, don't care if it's brain dead if it has a penis". (Link here.)

I know, I know, this blog just took a turn... for the douche.

(Saucing the taco! Taming the shrew! Oh, you guys...)

Oh! And FYI:

I forgot to mention to you that my children, after spending 4 days camping were NOT TIRED. I'm not sure if you've encountered NOT TIRED yet in the children in your life, but in case you have not, I thought I'd give you a brief summary.

NOT TIRED causes many children to bicker their little hearts out until someone forbids them from speaking, in which case, they then fall into a decidedly NOT TIRED stance such as:

Of course, NOT TIRED related bickering lasts long enough that the alternative NOT TIRED stance is not reached until the children are a mere 15 minutes from home. And then NOT TIRED causes children- blurry-eyed and falling asleep into their dinner plates- to declare with an admirable earnestness that they are indeed NOT TIRED.

Just a little heads up, from me to you.

(The little boy pictured is our neighbor, who is basically a member of our family, and who rode with us camping so that his parents had more cargo space to haul more of our combined camping gear.)

Camping...

Catching toads,


eating s'mores,

taking walks in the woods,

hanging out in large groups, with lots of other kids to play with and torment,

posing for a family photo, to make your mama happy,

going into town to check out the marina where the sailboats live,

wearing goggles for the fun of it,

enjoying blue skies and deep, cool waters,

swimming while sailboats float slowly by,

watching gorgeous sunsets every night...

Camping is good for the soul.

They Left, on a Jetplane

Oh, what a whirlwind, you guys. My dearest friend in all the world (known here as East Coast Anne) was here visiting and now she's not and it went way too fast and it was kind of a stressful visit in terms of caring for our combined FIVE children and we didn't get to talk enough just the two of us and I can't believe the effort she went to, to get here (and then HOME AGAIN) alone, on a plane with a 4 year old and a 1 year old and I'm so sad she's gone.

And to top it off, I forgot to ask her permission to post photos of her kids here, which is really too bad because you guys? They are GORGEOUS.

So they left this morning and we leave to go camping tomorrow for 4 days and we haven't packed or figured out food/meals and I probably need to do laundry before we go and my house is showing the effects of having FIVE feral children little sweeties underfoot for 5 days.

Also? I miss EC Anne already, and she's probably not even back to her own house yet. And I feel sad that there wasn't more blissful fun moments but proud that we team-worked parenting our kids. It sucks that I won't see her again for probably at least a year, and who knows if next time we'll get all of our kids together or if we'll just say fuck it and meet somewhere, just the two of us. Which would be awesome, but then I won't see her kids (nor she, mine) for MORE THAN a year, which just seems wrong and BLERG.

I'm just a little bit pissed (read: MAJORLY PISSED) that life put us a couple thousand miles apart.

HOWEVER.

This time tomorrow night I'm going to be sitting by a campfire, with all the planning and packing behind us. And I'll take some photos of the sunset, and hug some friends that I don't see often enough, and watch my kids run in wild little packs, like hyenas, complete with maniacal laughing and mangier-by-the-moment fur.

And by Sunday, I'll be a whole new person. I'll still be missing my friend, but with more perspective and clarity, and less raw emotion.

I hope.

Strawberry Picking

Delicious! Need I say more?

Neighborhood Excitement

A manned, black car has been sitting outside my house for the past 3 days.

I had noticed the car, but didn't realize there was someone inside it until my neighbor called to ask me what was up with Mr. Black Car. And then I was all that car? has someone inside it? Welllll, that's a game changer...

I was actually pissed off, if I'm being honest. So without Thinking It Through For The Love (sorry Tess!), I put Marin on my hip and marched out there, knocked on the window, and said "DUDE. You are freaking me out. WHAT ARE YOU DOING???"

He was nice, very polite, and explained he's waiting to serve papers to someone "down the street".

I found out my neighbor called the cops on him, and he was permitted to stay, so he must be legit.

But now the neighborhood is all ABUZZ with who is he? what's he REALLY doing? who do you think he's watching? Etc.

I doubt he's watching our house since he's so totally OBVIOUSLY parked in front of our place, and parked in a place where there's never cars parked. There are plenty of places he could watch us (creepy!) and be more incognito, ya know? And besides, David and I have nothing going on in our lives worth surveillance.

As weird as it is, I have to be honest that's it been kinda fun. I really want all my friends to go for a walk by the car, knock on his window, and ask him what's up. (Poor guy... just trying to do his UBER BORING job...) David wants to make him feel really welcome (read: uncomfortable) and bake him cookies or something.

He showed up again this morning briefly and then left. Boo! (Maybe he'll be back?)

Last Day

Today is the last day of school here in Tiny Town. Oh Emm Gee, that did not come fast enough, especially in light of Anxiousgate 2010. But we made it! I am so looking forward to peaceful mornings with Kate, instead of tears and woe, tears and woe.

Here's what we did for teacher's gifts this year (inspired by Joy Unexpected's teacher gift):

Each of the girls' classroom teachers got a pot of begonias (um? I think?) with two little plant markers in them. The girls wanted to paint the pots, but I didn't come up with an option that wouldn't wash off if the pot got wet. And besides, this way, the pots are reusable.

The plant markers are little rectangles of wood that I got at Hobby Lobby (4/pack for $1.99, I think). The girls painted them, and then I added their photo (mounted on card stock) (ha, ha, "mounted" sounds all fancy... how does "glue-sticked" sound?) . I let them write the little note, though I was tempted to do it myself. (You know, CONTROL, and letting go of it.) Then I taped a colored wooden stick to the back and stuck them in the dirt. Easy-peasy.

I like how they turned out. They meet the Teacher Gift Criteria of being a) reusable b) homemade; original, and c) not something the teacher has to keep around for years to come (read: apple themed knick-knacks). Typically, I like to give something consumable, and I guess you "consume" flowers by enjoying them, and- unlike a houseplant- you can get rid of them after a season.

Of course, the girls also insisted on making our usual teacher gift of note cards. They love making them, and above any other gift we've given, these are the best received (cute! original! consumable!). They made one set for their classroom teachers and one for the teacher's aide.

I think teacher's gifts are the hardest to get right. I mean, how do you really thank someone for nurturing and teaching your kid for 7 hours a day for the past 9 months? Are there even words for that? I feel like I could spend my summer weeding their gardens and cooking their dinners and serving them iced cold pitcher of mojitos, and it STILL wouldn't be enough.

And then throw a kid like Kate into the mix- a kid whose teacher has sent countless emails to me and on her behalf, who has comforted her and joked with her and made her feel happy and safe, who has racked her brain and gone out of her way on several occasions to come up with a solution. In short, a teacher who has taken a personal interest in helping my kid.

How do you say thanks for that?

(Spoiler alert: I have NO EFFING CLUE.)

So anyway... the last day of 1st grade. (Last day of Kindergarten here.)

Don't you love how Kate (in green) has a worried look on her face, even NOW, on the LAST DAY?

Tomorrow morning, I am going to sit on my sunny porch with the girls, and I am going to watch Kate happily devour her breakfast, and then I am going to take the girls strawberry picking.

Oh, man, we made it, you guys!

Baby Steps

AHA! I can finally get on my blog! Oh, Blogger, you are not making any friends by acting up all the time.

Anyway, what I wanted to talk about today was Thing We Can Do To Be Green(er) This Summer. I've been a part of many of these types of convos here on the Interwebs, and I think we can all agree that Baby Steps is where it's AT, in terms of being more environmentally conscious.

This topic is on my mind because 'Tis the Season for BBQ's, picnics, porch meals, neighbors over for grilling, camping, etc. And we all know that the average Use Of Disposable Products increase- drastically- for these kinds of events.

So it works like this: I tell you the accumulating baby steps we've made to our lifestyle, and you tell me the baby steps you've made to yours, and then we all have ideas for more baby steps.

Baby steps! That's all it takes!

*We don't use disposable products- at all... ok hardly ever- anymore. We started by buying a stack of plastic plates (12, I think) to go with our already-in-use kids' IKEA plastic plates, and also kids' and adults' size plastic** cups. The cost was similar to buying packages of paper/plastic/Styrofoam dinnerware, and we've been washing and reusing ours for several years now. "Outdoor Dishes", FTW!

(**I know, I know, I'm a self-proclaimed Plastic Avoider. But I made an exception for our outdoor dishes, since plastic is SO MUCH easier to carry back and forth to picnics and porch dinners that our regular dishes. The regular ones are too heavy!)

*We use cloth napkins 100% of the time now. Except for when we use paper towels. Which isn't very much, I swear. I've purchased most of ours at thrift stores. We probably have 30? 40? I'm not sure, a big ol' stack. I have about 12 nicer ones that I "save" from the rest in case we have company for dinner, but that can be used if our regular stash runs low before I do laundry. (I keep a laundry basket at the top of the basement stairs to throw the dirty cloth napkins in. Also, wash clothes and dish towels. When we start running low, I toss the load it in the wash.)

*We don't buy bottled water all at anymore. Ever. Well, ok sometimes we do. But it's expensive! We all have reusable water containers that I keep clean, and sometimes I keep filled and in the fridge for easy grabbing. For times when we have more than just our family in the house, I fill a pitcher with ice water and add some lemon or lime slices. Since we have lots of big plastic cups, this works well.

*We use reusable containers or wax paper bags for packing lunches.

*Last summer we started composting. We compost anything raw (egg shells, fruit and veggie scraps) as well as coffee grounds and the occasional paper towel. It's really easy to do (it goes in an ice cream pail in the counter, and then is carried out to the pile as needed) and has noticeably reduced our weekly garbage quantity.

*We don't buy individual packages of chips, pretzels, raisins, etc. Instead we just throw in the big bag/box, and bring home what we don't eat. I buy the string cheese that comes in one big block, instead of wrapped separately. (We DO still rely on individual yogurt tubes. They are just so! easy! for the kids to grab...)

This summer, my baby step is going to be not buying juice boxes/pouches. I think that spending 60 seconds to mix up a pitcher/thermos of juice and grabbing a stack of kids' glasses will be not too much extra effort... and will produce much less waste.

So, what are your baby steps?

Sports

I have a couple of friends with older children- middle school/high school aged- and all they do is sit at their kids' games.

Softball, soccer, baseball, basketball... every evening, on the bleachers. Weekends? Tournaments. One to two FULL DAYS of more bleachers.

And I want my girls to have the opportunity to play whatever sports they want, and be in choir and band and school plays, and join clubs etc. But with all of those things- minus the sports- it's just a matter of getting the kid to and from the practice/rehearsal/meeting. Any sort of performance happens once a season- at most.

Sports, though. Ugggg. It's like, a game a minute or some shit.

When I was growing up, I wasn't into sports much at all. My dad was a long-distance runner, my brother was in wrestling and cross country, and I stood around in left field with a glove on my head played softball. My younger two siblings did a few sports too, but I was out of the house by then.

I don't even remember if my parents were at my games. I mean, I know they came to some... Then again, I was probably hoping they WOULDN'T come; less witnesses when you strike out and all that jazz.

My own daughters are not exactly athletically inclined either. Their Phy Ed report cards always make David and I laugh: O+ for attitude, participation, etc*. Wonderfully cheerful comments punctuated with SEVERAL!!!!!! exclamation points!!!!! about how lovely they are to have in class. And then, you flip to the other side and see they ran the mile in 18 minutes and could do less than ZERO pull-ups.

(*O is for outstanding.)

For now we have a "one activity at a time" rule. This winter it was gymnastics (which they love and are average at.) Over the summer we relax that rule a little, since lots of things overlap. They are taking tennis, swimming lessons, and a theater class.

I know that at some point, however, they may find a sport that they love. And of course, we'll back them 100%. I'll even buy a big ol' bag of sunflower seeds and one of those fancy bleacher chairs with a back. I'll cheer my little heart out.

(Wait... are the sunflower seeds just a stereotype, or are they actually required? They make my tongue hurt...)

But I can't say I'm looking forward to it.

I can think of 48592904 other things to do with my evenings/weekends. Ya know?