That Was Exciting!

A friend on Facebook put out an offer to her local peeps to join them for hiking once a week. Nothing formal, nothing fancy, just a chance to get out there and go. I don't know if it's the winter chill setting in, or the aforementioned reading of trail blogs, or the creeping knowledge that if I don't get on it I'll soon be at a place where I won't be able to get up and go... whatever it was, her words inspired me.

So I offered the same thing here, locally. We're going to go. We're going to hike. We're going to be out there every week. Come hike with us.

And for a very brief moment, I felt like the nerd at a tailgate party, suggesting we all get together to discuss Star Trek action figure history and development. (Which is funny, because I know nothing about action figure history and development, unless you count Lego Ninjago. I know more about that than I wanted to. But hopefully you get my point. I was certain I'd just lobbed a lead balloon over the social wall and everyone would stare at me like I was lost.)

But it was out there. No taking it back. I gave myself a pep talk ("What are you, twelve? Suck it up. You like this stuff. Someone else might like it, too. Go get more coffee and chill out.") And then I didn't check my email for 24 hours.

You know what happened?

Yeah, you're smart. I'm sure you do.

Scads of people want to go hiking! The response has been so positive, and much larger scale than I was anticipating. I'm so encouraged and excited! This is going to be fun! Maybe a little crazy (that's a lot of people...), and a titch chaotic at first (I don't know what I'm doing, really), and I'm braced for a learning curve (on my part - I'm relatively certain they're not all as uncoordinated as I am)... but FUN!

If it wouldn't be entirely weird, I'd drive to each home and just hug each of them to tell them thank you for being willing to do something new. I might just ambush people at the trailhead and hug 'em then.

Or, you know, not. If you're among those going and have a strict No Hugging By Ambush policy.

Heh.

Still, totally stoked!

I hope you'll let my dorky story serve as a voice of encouragement for any of you who are holding back on putting yourselves out there. Do it. Smile, say hi, say what you want to say. Invite people to share in something that excites you (except MLM sales pitches - nobody really gets excited about people sharing those) to play games, go for walks, learn something new. Even if they decline, you'll have put something good out there. Go for it.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Trail Blogs

This morning, as Z and John were getting ready to head to TN for a youth hunt, I sidled into the kitchen and mentioned that I need to quit reading trail blogs.

"Why's that?" Z asked.

"Because it makes me want to drag you all out there and do some HIKING!" I explained.

"Heh. Yeah, you do need to stop."

But I couldn't. And as I kept reading, I realized I have at least a couple of potential hiking buddies in the house. Let's take a look, shall we?

Z: Not a hiking buddy. He will go if there are deer, elk, hogs, or varmints he can shoot. But for general Going Into The Woods Just For The Heck of It hiking, he is not the one. As a matter of fact, he can go long periods of time without making eye contact just to assure he's not asked to participate. The up side of this is that I know someone will feed the children while I'm gone.

James: Ohhh, not so much. He'll go, if I ask. And he'll try very hard to find something nice to say about the experience. He's a lot of fun to be around, and he's the most likely to say yes to trying a new restaurant or campfire meal, or venturing off the beaten path to see if there's something new around the corner. But on his go-to list of things to do "for fun", hiking does not factor in anywhere on the list, at all. So, he's a good emergency call, and I would gladly throw a few extra bucks on his Starbucks card as a thank you for going, just because I really enjoy spending time with him. (He would say that if I really loved him, I wouldn't make him go, at all.)

John: He'd go. He'd out-hike me and have to worry about leaving me breathless and dehydrated somewhere on the trail. But he'd have coffee and dinner made when I finally got my sorry, out-of-shape self into camp. Actually, he'd likely come back for me. And maybe would bring chocolate and jerky to share. John's a definite hiking buddy. Plus, he remembers the first aid kit. I always forget a first aid kit.

Jacob: He has never turned down an adventure. There have been a couple he's asked afterward if he could not do ever again, but for first time attempts, he's usually game. And, he scampers. He still gets that rocks are for climbing and stones are for skipping, and that exploring is the bulk of the fun. He might not go more than a few times, or he might go with me anywhere, any time. But I can almost guarantee he'd be willing to give it a shot at least once.

EmBaby: She's really more of a Let's Make Something Pretty girl. She loves walks, and nature, and pretty scenery. But I'll have to tread carefully introducing her to hiking as A Thing. And not ever let on that she could be home, crafting, instead, because that will always win out. Always.

Jase: I don't know. He hates everything new, but as soon as it's over he wants to do it again. He complained through the entirety of Swallows & Amazons, but the night after we finished it, he staged a protest that we weren't reading it for bedtime. When I explained that we were done with it, he insisted, "Well, then just start over again from the beginning! It's my favorite book, ever!" He did that when we visited the Nina and Pinta replicas, when we visited a new church, and when he had to get new shoes (because he had outgrown the previous pair), and when we watched A Town Called Panic. (For the record, it's an adorable movie, but we are now thoroughly sick of it because every time he gets to pick, that's what we watch.) So he might go. And he might love it. But there is a likelihood that we'd end up hiking the same stretch of the Pinhoti over, and over, and over again... Of course, he's five. Maybe if I get him hooked now, he'll be a hiking buddy for life?

Buddy: When I used to hike, I thought it was so neat to come upon other hikers who had a trail dog with them. The dogs are generally friendly and well-behaved, and of course they're healthy and active. It seemed like a great way to live life, if you're a dog. Well, Buddy didn't start out as much of a traveler, but he's come SUCH a long way this year! Over the Summer, we took him for a well check, and he didn't throw up in the car. Then, last month, we went to hike with friends and he jumped in the car. Considering our previous means of getting him in the car involved treats, bribes, Benadryl, and a pulley system, this was a shocking turn of events. So we took him. And he hiked. SUCH a happy trail dog. I think we'll ease him into trail hiking this year so he can enjoy the outdoors, too.

And so that's the plan for 2014. We're going to hike! Get out there, and have fun! At least, until the ticks are active. Then we may default to water-based activities. We'll see. I'll bet James has some helpful alternative suggestions...

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Library Day

When we first moved here, we got library cards. Of course. The Madison County library system is wonderful, and it made the loss of the St. Mary's library system sting a bit less (although that's still the most amazing library system I've ever seen in action).

Well, when we bought this place and started tearing it out, and tearing more out, and rebuilding, and... next thing I knew we were on the Most Wanted list of offenders for late fees. Oops.

And then, I forgot. And when I did remember, it was usually at eleven-thirty at night, and it was really embarrassing. So I forgot again. (Not intentionally, however well that may have worked out.) So I just bought books as we needed them.

The main library in our county has the monitors on the unfiltered computers facing toward the children's section, readily visible to anyone who is unfortunate enough to glance up at an odd moment. And our wee local library really isn't the place for people who read a variety of things. It tries, but it's small, and it has some organizational issues. So, we stopped going to the library in general.

But after a while, I ran out of bookshelves, and Z seems reluctant to take up what little square footage we have left with yet more bookshelves... (Something about moving and books and heavy and books and boxes and books.) What are you gonna do? In my case, I wrote myself a note about the fees and started saving bits here and there to repay.

By December, I'd pulled together the funds to repair our reputation with the big library system, plus fees for membership since we live outside that county now, and we went to the main branch. It was worth it just to see the kids' faces when we walked in: three beautiful stories, an atrium, a dedicated children's section, a huge variety of resources and options. Plus, it's just a beautiful building. The aesthetics are delightful. James whistled lowly and whispered, "You weren't kidding about real libraries!"

Yeah. :happy sigh: It's beautiful, isn't it?

We're on our third round of checkouts, now, and no late fees. (Knock on wood.) The older boys are quite comfortable venturing out on their own, finding books and curling up somewhere to peruse them at leisure. James has found a happy spot somewhere quiet, where he can read in peace, and it makes him very contented. Em and Jase are a little overwhelmed with so many books, and we spend a lot of time exploring the shelves as well as sprawled out at the tables reading and talking. They're having fun.

Returning our books today, Em leaned over and whispered to me, "The Bearskinner was a really wonderful story." The librarian smiled.

Is there anything quite like a great library? I don't think so. There are many delightful things in the world, but a home for books is something special.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Not Since May??

I knew I hadn't blogged in a while, but since May? Wow. That's going to leave a dent in the kids' memory album (because honestly, I gave up on keeping those about two weeks after John was born, so the blog is pretty much it).

2013 wasn't a great year. It wasn't horrible, and in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't even A Bad Year. It was just hard. It was a year of upheaval and disappointments, of finding out people don't always care about your children like you thought they did. And that you weren't as diligent about protecting them as you thought you were. It was a year of remaining in limbo. There wasn't much positive I could say about much of what was going on.

That year, my entire family decided to take it in turns so that when I sat down at the computer someone took it as the Prime opportunity to talk to me, or sit next to me and eat things that make a lot of noise when you eat them, or just sit and stare at me (oddly, that wasn't the most bothersome of the three choices. weird.) Since I couldn't write about what was going on in general, and it seemed weird to make them Go Away so that I... didn't write, I turned off the screen and spent more time with them. We talked. We ate. We sat and stared at each other. It was good.

That turned out to be the best thing possible, and it contributed to our getting through 2013 without alienating each other or running off to Juarez to apprentice as streetside bootmakers. I'm glad for that. Not that some of the boys wouldn't make excellent bootmakers, but if that's the path one of them chooses, I want him to be driven by passion rather than a desire to get away.

I did get to take a road trip for my birthday (complete with stops at interesting places, a schedule that only needed to coordinate to grown up bladders, and really great travel food). It was a week filled with lovely people, a fantastic seminar, and so much wisdom and beauty that my brain wanted to explode. That was an amazing experience. I am so thankful to Z for helping to make that happen.

As of right now, we're still in limbo. Z is still looking for openings out West. The house is still a work in progress. The boys are no longer in Scouts (although it has nothing to do with the national membership changes - it was local and general issues - the timing of it made the whole thing a little bizarre, though). Jacob completed his Arrow of Light, and James and John managed to earn Life rank, although they didn't have it awarded to them before they left the Troop. I don't know what that means for the future, or for their plans. If it's important to them, they'll let me know.

The positives we have on our side are in droves, however. The house is keeping us warm and safe during "The Polar Vortex of '14". Everyone is growing and maturing beautifully. Z and I are on the same page most days and having a great time with each other and our family. We have a somewhat-viable-kind-of-sort-of-plan (with a thousand contingencies) to deal with the choices that remain. (Ha! Limbo!) We have beautiful friends, many blessings, and hope for the future.

That's not a bad way to start the year. Not bad, at all.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

That 11th Hour...

Our deadline for submitting the Troop's cancellation for Camp came at noon on Monday. We had no one to fill in. We needed to cancel. Of course, nobody wrote the letter, and normally, I'd be torqued, except that that evening we had friends over. I heard one of the kids (:snort: Kid - he's 18, an Eagle Scout, works his tail off, and is very responsible - but in my head, he's a "kid", I know, I'm getting old and weird) -- anyway, heard him say that he had to leave on X date to get some time in visiting family and friends before Staff had to report at Camp SomethingOrOther. Hmmm...

So... when is Camp SomethingOrOther?

It's the week after yours. (I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically how it played out.)

Would you like an all expenses paid trip to the lovely mountains of Camp TheOneWeGoTo, *and* get to be A Hero for saving Camp? :eyebrow waggle: (Not paraphrasing. I was desperate and gave him the full pitch.)

He laughed at me and said yes. (He really did laugh. I've mentioned he's a great ki-- erm, guy. But also, he said YES!)

So, WOOHOO! Once again, that Blessed 11th Hour came through. We now have two adults for camp and meet all the requirements of the BSA.

That means we should probably consider packing sometime this week...

And, I think I overbought on groceries. The Littles could live for a month on what it takes to feed the Bigs for a couple of days. The last time the Bigs were gone, I cooked one meal and the three of us ate off it for the whole weekend.

But, CAMP! Yay!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Gathering for a Pounce

Many (most? all? I should look that up) animals gather themselves together before they pounce. I'm pretty sure this is a mental phenomenon, also. (Though I haven't researched it, because honestly, it's just a picture in my head of how I feel before we have to tackle something big. So it could just be us.)

Anyway, we've had a busy week or so, and neither of us gathered for it, so it's been more of a swatting than a pouncing. Z ran out of steam on the soffits as he got farther around the back of the house and started running into rotted wood on the frame. And more brick work (not our favorite thing to do, regardless). It's been a week of sawzall work and framing, mortar and priming. It'll be good, in the end, and solid. But... nasty things fall out of the eaves when you start sawing on them. *gag*

Our Scout Troop had a weird confluence of TDY assignments for all our adults, and we found ourselves two weeks out from camp with only one Adult leader able to go. It's been a week with a flurry of emails, brainstorming, and stress. We were hoping to get information on a provisional troop arrangement at the camp, or perhaps to have the boys and our one adult appended to another troop for the week, but the camp office isn't open yet, the lady we generally deal with is on vacation, and we're having a devil of a time making headway. I could to go, if we could come up with a way to hide three bouncy Littles in camp for a week. So far, no brilliant ideas on that front. So it looks like the boys may miss scout camp this year.

Our Webelos built bat boxes. That was a "Z to the rescue" kind of thing. He's incredible with the kids - they learn so much from him, and they have fun doing it. Once the cedar dries out a bit, and they don't weigh so much, the boys will finish them out and get them hung. Based on the volume of mosquitoes we have this year, I'm betting we'll have the fattest bats in the state, and plenty of them.

I lost my glasses at some point last week. The Suburban was spotless. The house was immaculate. Still no glasses. Then I realized we hadn't tackled the Baby Dragon Lair. We waded through the paper treasure and bead bullion and other valuables in the hoard. I almost didn't do it. It's daunting for a non-crafty person to delve into an artist's space. Especially when she's small and has a minion. And, dragons. But I'm glad I did. The glasses were there, on a pony. Under some homemade pillows (paper, cotton balls, and staples). I also found my stapler.

On a related note, as much as I want to do the ceiling next, that child needs a non-carpeted room to work in. I'm thinking gunite. If you have ideas, toss them up on Pinterest. I'll be researching next week.

And graduations! We've had three beautiful, amazing young people in our lives who graduated from high school this week. Every one of them is the kind of person you can't wait to turn loose on the world: kind, hard working, generous, thoughtful, upright young people. I know their paths won't always be easy, but we are so very proud of them and excited for them to get out there and share themselves with the world. When people complain about "kids these days", I want to share these kids with them, so they'll know what to look for. They're there. And they're fantastic!

Kiss those babies, no matter how big!
~Dy

They did it.

The Bigs: 25 mile route on the Tour d'Arsenal. They were the youngest riders on that loop, and they didn't come in last. (That doesn't really matter, as this wasn't a race, and there were people of all fitness levels and cycling experience on the ride. But it did feel kind of good for young men testing their mettle.) They were all a bit shocked and awed (in a good way) when they got buzzed by a group of septuagenarians about the mid-way point in the ride, though. I guess it was pretty impressive and left quite an impressions on four young men, sucking wind up a hill, when the whirr-whirr-whirr of fast bikes comes up from behind and whoosh~~~ there they go. Good stuff.

Jacob: 18 miles. The youngest rider in the Tour. (The next two youngest being the Bigs.) It didn't even dawn on me that kids wouldn't do it. Didn't dawn on Jacob, either, until he ran out of steam at about the 15 mile mark. He'd done everything right, really - he was well-rested going into it, ate well before hand, and was staying hydrated. But it was hot-hot-hot and sticky beyond belief, and I think that got inside his head and made him question everything from the origin of the universe to why we didn't hire a rickshaw and take a scenic drive. We slowed our pace, I asked a few questions and then just listened as he talked his way out of his own head. He took a few deep breaths, and you could just see this kid center himself and refocus on his goal. It was amazing, and humbling, and uplifting all at once. The other riders were fantastic and so very encouraging with a kind word and a cheer of encouragement as they passed.

One lady, in particular, offered to share an energy drink packet she'd brought. I checked the label and it didn't have anything we'd find objectionable in it, so I said yes. By that time, Jacob had decided he could see this through and enjoy it, but the psychological boost that gave him -- both the generous gesture and the idea that he was getting a beneficial drink -- he flew the last few miles and could have happily gone another round if only it had been under 90 degrees. And burritos. We had burritos in the car for the riders. He said he felt great when it was over. "Probably the hardest thing I've ever done, but it felt good." I... have no idea where he gets it, but am so glad he's got it!

James wrecked near the start of the ride. Poor kid - he went over the handlebar over the weekend, too. Anyway, best I can make out from their stories, he and John needed to veer around an obstacle, but someone came up on James' right so he had to veer back left and they (James and John) collided. They must be pretty proficient at bike repair and first aid, though, because they got it fixed, treated their wounds, and were back on the trail before Jacob and I could catch up. We only heard about it later. There were a couple of more gnarly wrecks later in the ride, but thankfully nobody was seriously injured (and we weren't a part of those).

For Z and I, it was a great experience. Of course, you can tell we're not hard-core cyclists. When they start down a slope, they lean on the handlebars and streamline their forms. It's serious business. When we hit the crest of a hill and start back down, we put our heads up and our elbows out to catch some air. If you listen really closely, you might be able to make out a faint, "Weee!" I hope we're still doing that together 40 years from now, wherever we are. And that the kids will still want to come with us.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

While I wait for the phone to finish backing up,

I watched YouTube videos on how to fix a laggy phone.

I read a couple of articles on the dangers of sleep deprivation.

I stared into space for a little bit. (Kind of confirmed some of what I'd just read. Weird.)

Then it hit me, "Hey! Nobody's up! I could blog!"

Which is not to say that I'm blogging anything I don't want them to read. It's just that I'm not good at holding multiple thoughts coherently in my head. Funny, you'd think I'd be better at that by now. That, and getting to bed at a decent time. But, no. And no. Ah, well.

Tomorrow (today) we ride the Tour d'Arsenal. (There will be napping before hand, seeing as it's already after two in the morning.) It's a neat cycling tour of the Arsenal that goes through some of the older, more historic parts of the area. We've pretty much milked the liability waiver for all it's worth. (The boys, in particular, thinks it's hilarious that I won't let them sky dive, but have no problem sending them into something that requires I acknowledge in writing that they could DIE in the process. Of course, they could die doing anything; I'm just acknowledging that if they die doing this, it's their own fault and my responsibility. Plus, if your bike malfunctions, you get road rash. Order of magnitude in the different probable outcomes.) But we're stoked. It'll be fun.

We rode the Alabama section of the Natchez Trace this past weekend. We didn't have logistical support for the Littles, so Z and I split up the trek. I rode the first portion with the boys, with Jase in the child seat on my bike. He's a fun cycling buddy. I'm going to be a little sad when he's too big to ride along like that. We stopped at a ferry and fished for a bit, then Z took Em on the trail-a-bike and rode with the boys for what turned out to be the entirely uphill portion of the trail. Didn't see that coming. He's so good-natured, though. Jacob and I drove past them on our way out of the park - going up this steep, steep incline - Em was standing on the pedals of the trail-a-bike, just pumping her legs as hard as she could to help get them up the hill. Of course, she was whipping that thing side to side and you could see the back end of Z's bike flailing left and right. It probably felt like trying to climb a mountain with monsters shaking him by the ankles. Yet as we drove past, Jacob and Jase waved and cheered them on, and Z had a smile and a wave for the boys.

Jacob rode 17.1 miles of the trail on a 20" bike. Holy cow, that kid is good-natured... and wiry! He didn't complain at all! Even when he collapsed in the grass and announced that he felt like that was a pretty good ride and he was done, thanks - still, no whining. Z and I were exhausted just watching him. (Well, and because we're old and out of shape.) But he loves to ride with his brothers, and they love to have him along, so we bought him a bigger bike this weekend. They've already taken him on an inaugural ride to the square and to Gina's for a soda. He was all smiles as he explained that he's just as tired, but he goes a LOT faster.  He can hardly wait to do this next ride with the new wheels!

It has rained and rained and rained. When it's not raining, we're outside working on the house or the meadows. Then it rains and we come back in and watch it rain. As quickly as the grass and poison ivy are growing, I'm rather thankful we don't have kudzu. We'd have to hack a path to the car and defoliate the drive just to get to town. It's crazy. We've lived here eight years, and still I'm awed every Spring by how quickly things grow here. It's so green and lush and just beautiful.

We're about three days away from kicking into full-on Summer Schedule. Math, Foreign Language, Reading. Call it a day. It's just too beautiful to stay inside. We'll get down to business in August, when it's not so beautiful anymore. Right now, though, it's time to be outside, digging in the garden, building things in the meadow, and playing in the creek.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

And the rain came down...

And down, and down, and down.

The boys had traded their planned backpacking trip earlier this month for a make-up trip to Tannehill Iron Works. It's a favorite, and we missed our normal Fall trip because nearly everyone had conflicting obligations that week, so we were all looking forward to this. There was rain in the forecast, but all the Scout leaders heard that and thought, "Oh yeah, camping in the rain with a good book..." Even the boys weren't daunted. Then the thunderstorms decided to show up, so we had to punt to the following weekend.

Normally, in Alabama, if you can't go this weekend, you can go the next weekend. Not this time. The storms were bigger the following weekend. And the next! Not wanting to end up on national news with the lead-in, "A Scout from Alabama was struck by lightning/washed away in a flash flood/lost in a mud bog..." we ended up scrapping the trip. Now everbody's antsy to get out and get some woods time. It's like cabin fever, in that it makes everyone irritable and sensitive. It was the right call, but dang...

So, we've been piddling around here between downpours. The mower slipped a belt, and we fixed it. We've lost the Kindle, so the house is absolutely spectacular from the thorough clean-as-you-look approach. The creek flooded and we checked out all the neat animals that seek the high ground - it's amazing how many things live in the beautiful meadow!

The deck may never get stained. If we build another balcony while we still live in the South, I'm going to stain all the wood before we put it up. When it warms up enough to stain, the pollen comes. When the pollen stops, the oak fuzzies come. When the oak fuzzies stop, the rain comes. When the rain stops, the temps drop too low to stain. With this cycle, we might have a week sometime in November when there's nothing falling from the sky and the wood dries out enough to stain it.

Jacob's Den slipped out for a City Walk earlier this week. It was a gorgeous day for it (probably should have stayed home and stained the deck...) We started our walking tour of the historic downtown area with the last stop on the tour -- in part because it's such an important structure in the town's history, and in part because we hoped to end up at the Farmers' Market instead of back on the same end of town. Well, as we walked around the building, looking at bullets still lodged in the walls, and the mortar holes in the columns, the bank door opened and Judge Breeland (who leads the Citizenship course the boys took last Spring) stepped out to invite us in for an official tour of the Old State Bank building! What a treat! Our one-hour city walk turned into a fantastic, two-hour, hands-on tour of one of the most amazing buildings I've been privileged to explore. Everyone who takes a tour appreciates having a guide who loves his subject and knows it well enough to make it come alive. Judge Breeland is just that kind of guide.

The deck can wait. I'm glad we didn't miss out on that!

Through Fresh Eyes

It's easy to look at our own lives and see all the things that need doing, all the things that need repair, all the things that are lacking. It's easy to take for granted the things that work just the way they're supposed to, to forget the hard work that's gone into setting up our lives, and the beauty in the natural function of life.

So when our company arrived yesterday morning for a day of shooting and eating and visiting, and I was only barely dressed, the house wasn't company ready, and we hadn't prepared food, I kind of wanted to curl up and die in the corner behind the Hoosier. (They were invited. Z just has a Jimmy Buffet Gene that makes communicating actual time values to me a bit tricky.)

All I saw was a group of strangers standing in the foyer, trapped by the My Little Pony Picnic Barricade. My instinct was to invite them in, but how do you make it sound inviting as you request someone navigate past the leaning tower of books, around the marker mine field, toward the kitchen... the one I don't really clean unless company *is* coming, because it's always in use? Well, no, I take that back. My instinct was to hide, but that proved logistically impossible, so I went with Plan B.

Plan B: punt. Maybe you laugh a little nervously. You announce there is coffee, and wonder if it's too early for beer. You do a quick mental check to see if you've at least got on a bra, then take a deep breath and acknowledge that if they can walk in on this and still have a good day, they're probably Really Good People.

And they were. We had a wonderful time. They didn't freak out over the child-debris. They visited and chatted and laughed and shared stories. They are absolutely delightful. We did what we do -- we fed them, and then fed them again, and then made kettle corn and sent them home with a big bag of it. We made a lot of coffee and tea and wandered here and there. MeWa came out after a few hours and added to the fun. Jacob took them about to show them his favorite things and places. We just had a good, old-fashioned day with friends. (I did send James back to run a brush in the toilet bowl... some things, you just don't want to punt.)

And when they left, we were sad to see them go. Their daughters made plans to come back over Thanksgiving break to learn to make tamales. The parents will be back for cookouts and bon fires over the Summer. The best compliment we received that day? "We just feel so welcome."

*whew* Nailed it. The key? Pick Really Great People to invite over! They'll help you see your world and your home through fresh eyes, and will remind you about the things that truly matter. And relax. You've got a neat life, and you don't want to miss out on fantastic people because you can't see through the mess to enjoy them. At least, I don't. I'm thankful for the reminder.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

In which I nearly set fire to my new mattress...

We got up and at it early this morning. Got the trash out, all the Bigs dressed and moving on the day's work immediately after. We cranked the radio and let the Littles sleep in while we worked. It was awesome. Even the Bigs were impressed once they were fully awake. We were about two hours into lessons when Jase came staggering into the living room...

"Morning, love. Did you pee in my bed?" (It's a ritual. I've learned that sometimes you just have to ask.)

"No. But I killed a tick. It was on my head. Can I have candy?"

All movement in the room came to a halt. We stared at him. Hard. I'm pretty sure each of us was willing him to be joking.

"You... what? Where?"

"It's in the Hoosier."

"What!? No, the tick. Let's talk about the tick."

"Then can I have candy?" (For the record, this child never has candy first thing in the morning. He doesn't even have candy every day. This doesn't stop him from asking, first thing, every blessed morning of his life. He's a born optimist, I guess.)

"Um, yeah, fine (yeah, I know, but there was a TICK in my BED - it caught me off guard) but first can you show Mommy where the tick is?"

"It's dead. I squished it."

At this point, James can't quite make eye contact with anyone. John and I are fighting the full-body willies and shaking off visions of last Fall's adventure. Jacob is on the floor, howling at the awfulness. The funny, uncomfortable awfulness.

Finally, we convince him to take us to the scene of the critter's so-called demise. Yep, in my bed. Except, there was no body. There was no living tick. Gah, I wish this kid were prone to over-exaggeration or hallucinations. Stripped the bed. Checked the seams. Vacuumed everything. Never found it. I told myself it could have been a fly, or an ant. And we put garlic on the shopping list.

Fire still isn't entirely out of the question...

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Over the River and Through the Woods

... to the doctor's place we go!

I'm thankful that we can have these visits when we need them. I'd much prefer more time with family and friends and a little less face time time with the doctors, but once again, our Amazing doctor rose to the occasion.

Buddy stepped on John's toe shortly after we got home. It blew up - just ruptured. I put on my business face to deal with it, but on the inside I freaked out a little. It was beyond an order of magnitude for just a cut from a doggie nail. We cleaned it and treated it at home, but that just made it angry. Of course, this happened on a Friday. If you want, think of it as the opportunity to try a home remedy first without guilt, right? So, come Monday, we took him in. The doc looked at it and figured out that he'd had an ingrown toenail, and Buddy cutting it had just released the pressure. Oh.

:awkward pause:

Ew.

We left with a prescription for antibiotics (booyah for modern medicine!) and instruction in a fascinating technique for treating an ingrown toenail. If that doesn't fix it, he said to come back and he'll take it off. Just like that. As if he were saying he'd remove a splinter or a stray eyelash.

John and I shared a full-body shudder over that one.

Then we asked about biking, since running is off the table until this is dealt with, but we've got three big rides coming up in the next six weeks. Doc said, "Eh, get out there and bike 25 miles and see how you feel." His reasoning is sound - you pedal with the ball of your foot, not your toes. If they're taped properly, it shouldn't be a problem. If you're in actual pain at the end of one ride, don't do the other. So reasonable. Like I would be if it weren't my baaaabbbyyyyyy! This is why we picked him. He keeps me sane.

And yesterday, James got braces. Just across the top and part of the bottom right now. They need to get those out of the way so that they can put brackets all the way across the bottom without them bumping and coming back off. He is handling it like a champ, like he handles so many things that are unpleasant: acknowledge that it's a good thing, embrace the benefit, muster just enough belief in that so there's no whining or drama. I didn't expect that he would become such a rational young man, and I'm proud of him. He is light years ahead of where I was at his age. Or within a decade of his age. Gosh.

Still, it's a pretty big job and it's going to take a while to get him squared away. So Z ordered a Raspberry Pi for him. Because Z's a softie, and he knew that would take the focus away from pretty much anything else going on.

Probably also school, but we'll deal with that as it comes. ;-)

John had his records done this week, also. We'll figure out Tuesday what the plan is for him.

I think our next family project will be selling plasma to help pay for all these plans.* Maybe we could bike down to the blood bank?

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

*kidding!

What Do We Do All Day?

There is no way our daily activities are what trash this house every. single. day. OK, the socks are ours. I'll own that. But the amount of dirt that finds its way onto the living room floor would normally require a contractor and a liability waiver. Maybe for my birthday I'll ask for a fleet of Roombas.

Z's replacing the soffits and fascia this week. That's a somewhat thankless job, from what I can tell. While it is good, and it needs doing, what will be most obvious when it's complete will be the old roof and the nasty hillbilly porch off the back. He gets serious bonus points for doing things just because they need to be done.

The kids did the first mowing of the season this week. Now that? That's a high-reward job. Fewer ticks, gorgeous view, low resistance job, and instant gratification. Love a freshly mown meadow.

I did... laundry. And swept. Mostly. There was other stuff, but it was about as exciting as that, really.

We did drive up to Tennessee to buy Z another Volvo. This last one had... fatal flaws. After several trips to George, the car whisperer, and three weeks in the shop, it was up and running, and then, in the middle of a normal morning commute, there was metal on metal noise. Even our laid back mechanically-inclined buddy shuddered when thinking about the noise. But the Volvos are a fave, and so off we went. Z seems happy. He can't wait to retrieve his beaded seat cover, and the a/c needs to be charged, but everything else is good. Plus, it doesn't leak in the rain. (He's a trooper, but it gets tiring driving to work with your feet in a puddle of water after every rainstorm. Maybe not such a deal breaker in the desert, but it'll wear on you, here.)

Oh! And our anniversary was last week. We thought about going to the drive-in theater, but decided it would be hard to hear the movie over the tornado sirens (not a euphemism for children - actual tornado sirens). So we opted for a night in with the family. Romantic, flashlights-at-the-ready dinner, nervous dog, anxious weather-following child. (Jacob. He discovered the weather news. And now he joins James in the general uproar over how seldom we go to the basement when the weather guy clearly states that's where we should be rightnow. I'm not sure how best to handle that. I don't want him to think we hold no regard for the weather warnings, because we do - that's why we have the radio on. But if there are no tornadoes on the radar and the winds aren't that strong, I'm just not convinced we need to hunker down with the damp and the basement critters until there are... uh, no tornadoes on the radar. I could be missing something. It happens. Sometimes more often than I'd like.) But all in all, it was actually pretty great. Z and I looked at each other, looked around at the kids, the house, the dog, then back to each other, and felt giddy.

"We're doing it! We're probably even getting good at this!"

w00t:

Thank God for grace and mercy. I've received it in spades.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Scholaric and Such

We had a great weekend, filled with a little productivity and some really good family and friend time. MeWa and MeTae came down to celebrate Jase's belated birthday. She made him a cooking apron and brought him goodies to make (or, put together). There were all kinds of things in his little bag. The one thing he loves, though? The red rubber spatula that is All His Own. Pure joy. He used it to make the spinach yesterday morning and just chattered away about how great his spatula is. It's crazy what they zero in on.

And, now that he's five, he's decided it's time to learn to read. I don't know. I still need to get him in to see the ophthalmologist. And convince him to hold his pencil properly. But Em gave him the Classical Phonics books she's already done with, and he's happy drawing in them, tracing over her work while we do her lessons. He's got to be picking up some of that, and he's happy and engaged. I look around and realize that's a good half the battle, right there. (Also, we're loving Classical Phonics! If you aren't going to use Writing Road to Reading, and you have a child who loves to draw, but you worry that you'll pull your hair out with some other phonics programs, give this one a look. It's a delight to use.)

I got a wild hair last week and signed up for Scholaric, for our lesson planning and tracking. (Wild Hair Academy -- would that be too hard to explain on transcripts?) It's a very plain and simple program, and I wasn't feeling the love at first, but then we used it last week, and we like it! It's straight forward and easy to use. Set up didn't require that I haul out every title we plan to use for the term and enter all the details for that title before I could get started. (Something that drove me to some serious hard drive cleansing in the past.) The printouts seem to be a good fit for both my list maker and my schedule hater. (He doesn't hate schedules so much as he's just easily overwhelmed by myriad things to check off in the course of a day. The simpler, the better, for that one.) It's just customizable enough that I can make it comfortable for each of them. And if they :aherm: lose their pages, I have a digital copy on hand. So, theoretically, this will also be good for my blood pressure. After the trial period, the cost is $1 per month, per child. This maybe just what we were looking for.

In the rest of the news around here, no chicks have died, no children have wandered off, and I'm sleeping like a proverbial baby (not like any I ever had, but, you know). We've been going 90mph since we got home, though, and we're all in desperate need of a full week to just be *home*. I don't know what I was thinking when I scheduled ALL the things for right after we got back. Braces for James, braces for John, extractions for Jacob (the new teeth came in way behind the baby teeth and never triggered the roots to dissolve - he wanted to keep them and pretend he's a shark - we nixed that for what I hope would be obvious reasons, although he's still not convinced), groomer's for Buddy, clothes shopping for all the people who keep growing. I want to stay home and have tea, dangit! Maybe next week...

Z suggested we skip the garden this year. His reasoning make sense, but it feels like defeat. *Everything* grows here, often without any provocation at all. It shouldn't be that challenging for me to grow a garden. :sigh: But it is. And we do have other things to tend to this summer. So, we'll see. John suggested square foot gardening in the upper meadow. We'll have to do something about the moles, first, but that may be the way we go. The boys have already said they plan to plant their earth boxes. That's a ritual that doesn't get messed with. I do love that.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

What passes for exciting around here...

After years of making do, and more than a few months of threatening to just buy a hammock and sleep in the yard, we've finally bought a new mattress. Our old mattress is probably 25 years old. It's served us well, but it's been a long 25 years, and the other furniture never said, "Oh, you look so good for your age" or any other thing furniture would say if it were animated. I'm pretty sure even the leaning, saggy, 18-year-old chipboard bookcases just politely refused to make eye contact with the bed. And we slept about as well as one might expect on bedding in this condition. When Zorak would travel for work, he'd call at night and I'd ask him to tell me about the mattress. And he would, because even though he probably thought that was odd, he loves me. (By the way, Marriot does sell their mattresses to the public, just in case you're in the market - best night's sleep I've had in decades on one of those.)

So. This is huge. So huge that I must admit I'm probably just old, because a new mattress shouldn't be this exciting.

Yet it is.

And the only reason I'm not wallowing on that thing right now is because the sheets are still in the wash. Even that took some mustering to force me back up.

In other news, we finished the week strong for school, in spite of three dental visits, two hair cuts, music, and the constant need to buy more food.

We bought five new chicks, all "guaranteed to be pullets". (I am not strong on my farm knowledge, but the lady seemed to feel that answered my question, so I had to smile and nod and just trust that "pullet" does in fact mean "you'll get eggs from these if you can keep them alive long enough". Looked it up. It does. Yay!) The kids got the brooder box set up with a divider (we still have one of our older hens convalescing in there after a horrible near-death pecking by the roosters shortly before we left), and they're all enjoying the fun of raising baby chicks again.

And now that the last freeze of the year looks like it's past, it's time to start gardening! That's pretty exciting, too.

Kiss those babies, and sleep well!
~Dy

Moving Right Along

I stayed up way too late the other night re-reading Charlotte Mason. The irony (of going headlong into sleep deprivation to read up on the importance of balance and healthy habits) wasn't lost on me. So I chuckled at myself and poured another cup of coffee (because when it's already too late to go to bed at a reasonable hour, you might as well really go for broke, right?) It was a good refresher, and a great reminder about the purposes and goals of education. With our extra-curricular schedule reined in, and a decent head of steam going on our routine academics, I thought this would be a good time to formulate some simple steps we could take to get back to the things we enjoyed when the Bigs were smaller -- things like afternoon teas, regular nature study, oral narration (well, nobody enjoyed oral narration, which is a big part of why we don't do it anymore, but that doesn't mean it lacks value. It just means it's really hard to get water to run uphill without a good pump.)

The next morning, I pitched some of my ideas to the kids. The littles are gung-ho. Art study! Afternoon tea! More stories! More time outside! (The narration bit didn't really ping the wee radar, which is probably a good thing.) The bigs... well, they're polite. They smile, nod, offer input and suggestions, and ultimately agree to give pretty much anything a try. I have no idea if they think this is brilliant or if this will be one of those memories that causes them to smile gently when they're grown, and think, "Mom was so quaint with her quirky educational theories..."

What caught my attention the most, though, was the input.

J: Wow, why didn't we do these things when I was little?

Me: Um. Yeah, wow. :pause to see if he's joking: You really don't pay attention, do you?

J: What? We DID?

Me: Regularly.

J: When? Was I four?

Me: Noooo... we still did them when we moved here. You were probably eight before I gave up and started drinking.

J: Oh? Huh. Did I start drinking, too? Maybe that would explain it.

He makes me laugh. That helps. (And for the record, no, my son has not taken up drinking. He's just naturally not aware of his surroundings. But he knows this, and I'm not telling tales out of turn, here. He also fixes all my electronic problems and makes a magnificent omelet. We all have our strengths.)

So, anyway, I blew all our grocery money on books. Had to pick up the usual suspects - biographies and Omnibus titles, some more history and a little literature. Plus a few goodies "just because" -- another Andrew Lang Fairy Book (red, this time), an interesting Shakespeare book (the two we've had haven't been big hits, and the older kids dig Shakespeare, but the littles shuffle off to watch My Little Pony in James' room whenever we start discussing it). I'd like to bring Em and Jake into the book-fold a bit more. Jase still gets to run his barefooted little backwoods heart out. And if we do this right, we'll all get a little more barefooted outdoors time, too.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Upending All The Things

So. Here we are, huh?

A while back, Zorak and I talked about whether this is where we want to stay. He's aching to go back out West. I'm pretty good with whatever we do. The biggest thing for me is that we're together, and we're in it together. Because things can get weird if everyone isn't on the same page.

So we began the search, keeping it fairly quiet for the most part. He had an interview back in January, and although it fell through, it cemented our General Plans. If you read back very far on this blog, you'll see we're well-versed in how quickly Plans can change, but as general sort of positioning thing, "We're trying to move back out West" is a pretty good overview. He also outed the plan online, so then the cat was out of the bag. And, now that I can talk about it, blogging should come significantly easier!

We just returned from a trip to New Mexico. This was a nice visit, but the occasion was somewhat dampened by the purpose. Z's Granny passed away earlier this year. This March would have been her 99th birthday. In keeping with her wishes and the way she lived her life, there was no traditional funeral. Instead, the family gathered for a celebration of her life as they laid her to rest in the New Mexico Springtime Wind. Everyone shared stories of playing Scrabble with her (even when she was mostly blind, she could beat the pants off anyone who sat down to play), Granny's open door policy (door's always open, there's a pot of something on the stove), and memories of growing up on a sheep ranch (nobody knew what lamb tasted like, but they sure knew how to make the most of the old ewes). They had a pot luck with people from all over the place, and an Easter egg hunt for the next generation of children to start building their memories of the old homestead. And then, there was a dance. Granny made it clear she wanted a good band to play at the dance, and her heirs did just that. It was a lovely way to remember a lovely woman, and although she is certainly missed by those whose lives she touched, there's a lot of her still milling about in the 70+ grandchildren and great-grandchildren she left behind.

On our trip, we also got to visit the Bob Wills Museum with the kids' Granny (Z's Mom), play in the Brazos river with friends, and stay up way too late visiting and laughing. All things we love, and they remind us that we're just too far away right now.

But we came home to tulips and redbuds in bloom! And rain! So pretty. It was the morning after we returned before I stopped saying, "Oh, look! We got rain!" and realized... we always get rain here. It's still beautiful, though. Everything's coming in green and vibrant.

In the meantime, we're finishing up a few little projects here and there so the house will be ready to list when Z finds the right job. We're plugging along with Scouting and music and trips to museums as we try to keep everything as normal as possible. The kids are good sports about it. James and John remember living elsewhere, and they trust that we aren't going to drag them off to a miserable existence. Different, maybe, but still good. Jacob knows vaguely that he's lived elsewhere, but pretty much relies on his brothers to assure him that it'll be okay. EmBaby and Jase are fairly overwhelmed with the whole idea and keep asking questions to help them make sense of how moving works. "Will we take the dog?" (Yes.) "Will we take our stove?" (Uh, no.) "Will we get to take our clothes?" (Yes. I never thought about that, but yes, you get to take your clothes.) "Will we take the chickens?" (I'm... *phew* I honestly don't know. I've never moved with chickens, and to be honest I'm kind of hoping we can pitch them as part of the pastoral appeal of the property...) "But what about Tame*?" (:squirms uncomfortably: I, uh, gah. I have no idea! Maybe he'll want to go live with Peter and Elizabeth? Or Me-Wa and Me-Tae? We'll, uh, see... :cringe:)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

*(Tame is our "special" chicken. He survived an early dog encounter, and has since become somewhat human-endeared. He would be a house chicken in a heartbeat if I'd let him. He's very content to spend time with people, and has become a bit of a party prop when we have cookouts. It's like having a weird dog.)

Project Round-Up

Wow, all that light coming in through the window highlights every little thing that needs finishing around here. I have a list, however, and we have A Plan. So, on we go!

There's a cabinet/bookshelf that's been languishing in the dining room for years. It held the printer and ALL the paper I didn't know what to do with, but couldn't part with, either. As of today, it's out of there, and we have room to put a coat rack by that door. It's going to be swanky and practical. I'm so excited. Overall, this is a win. However, turns out we never put baseboard behind it. I think Zorak built the cabinet shortly after we put the flooring in, and the baseboards came a year or so after that, so... we blew it off. Well, no longer! The house now has a contiguous line of baseboard around all the walls in all the rooms. It's almost like living with grown ups.

And, the cabinet is empty. That, in itself, was a project. All the paper hoarding tendencies got dealt with head-on this week. Ouch. There's a therapeutic glass of wine waiting at the end of one of these projects, I hope. I'm going to savor the living daylights out of it, if there is.

We started the late-winter limb debridement, as well. Mother Nature tends to the most urgent limbs for us, but she's pretty bad about just dropping them anywhere. I like to think they're good to have around - they're natural, and composty, and provide a sense of wild adornment. Zorak insists they give the place a neglected, mildly haunted look that's unappealing to all except the least desirable visitors (namely field mice and squatters). OK, that's a fairly compelling argument. He wins. We'll pick up. I'm hoping to visit the landscape guy this week. We have friends who visited him and followed his advice, and their front yard went from Random Woodsy Front Yard to Lovely Rural Garden Vista in a weekend. I want that. Of course, we're slower than they are, and not nearly as motivated, so I'll be happy if we do in a year what they did in a weekend. As long as it gets done, there will be fistbumps. Maybe even high fives, if I'm feeling particularly geeky.

The basement, ever a source of manual labor requirements and probably the biggest reason Z and I avoid making eye contact from time to time, is also in our sights. Cull, clear, clean, burn, donate, give away, sell, burn a little more (the burn barrel is *right there*. No excuse, really.) You'd think that we would eventually have an empty, open space we could let out for dances and weddings, but so far, it's not looking like that's going to happen. Someone is sneaking stuff in there. I don't know who, or what, exactly, but... it's uncanny how much stuff is still there after several years of culling, burning, and giving away. We're blessed, that's for sure, but we need to be blessing others a little more fervently, I think.

That, school, and playing in the freak snow we got this week have pretty much been all we're up to. Hard to make that interesting, so it's easier to skip. There's a lot going on, but I'm not ready to spill it here yet. And of course, the minute someone says, "Don't think about the Stay-puff Marshmallow Man," that's all you can think of. It's funny to be human. We're so weird.

Tomorrow, it's back to the basement. I think we've got some bathroom vents to do maintenance on, as well. But I promise that if I do blog, it won't be the equivalent of a checked off to-do list, like this one was. If you're here, and you're reading, you deserve better than that. Or at least more effort. No guarantees that the quality will be much better, regardless.

Kiss those babies, always,

Dy

Week 1, We Owned It. Or rented it...

The feedback from the kids has been good. Both the older boys enjoy knowing their work is getting done, and they appreciate having free time to apply as they choose. Actually, they like the free time, and they appreciate that I'm not stressed out over unfinished work. But at these ages, I'll take it. John's been hunting daily, and he's in heaven. James has started learning Python - also in heaven. Different ends of heaven, I guess.

Jacob, for whom I blocked in huge swaths of intentional free time throughout the day, seems happier and more able to focus than I can remember him being since... ah, since he mastered speaking English, really. This is kind of exciting. Since he's not spending all his energy trying to slip past before I can give him something to do, he's got a lot of time and energy to build/find/exhume things. And, again, since he's not trying to slip past me, he's eager and excited to share them with me.

That's what I was after. That's good stuff.

The staggered reading times are working out, and since each boy has at least something on the Kindle, they can pass it around without a backlog.

The early morning quiet time for work and preparation is paying off in the quality of my own function. The house is tidy. We've had dinner regularly and fairly well-planned. Bills paid, grocery made, laundry caught up... it nearly looks like one of us knows what we're doing.

The weak link in the plan is me. I'm flipping exhausted. If I can't force myself to bed earlier, there is no way in the world I'll be able to pull this off past Easter. *yawn*

But it's good. We're all learning something new this Winter.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Back to School Day

The pencils are sharpened, the planners are filled in, the kids are asleep. For now, that'll do. I got up early this morning so I could have a little peace and maybe tackle the day head-on instead of letting it clothesline me.

So what are we doing this next block? It looks like we're reading. A lot. James is reading the Orestia and the Theogony, as well as The Last Days of Socrates. He'll read some histories (Early History of Rome, History of the Peloponnesian War). And then some fun reading. Right now, he's enjoying Piers Anthony's books, and some of the Jasper Fforde titles.

Before he dives into Physics (doing a non-Calc based Physics this time around), he'll read a translation of Euclid's Elements of Geometry and Archimedes' On the Sphere and the Cylinder.

He's going to finish up Memoria Press' Traditional Logic (yes, it's taken us way too long to do that, but we will finish), wrap up pre-Calc with MUS, bebop through some Henle, and get some good, solid writing under his belt with MCT's writing course. He asked for some of the Art of Problem Solving books before we move into Calculus. I can't say that sounds 'fun' to me, but he thinks it sounds a lot more interesting than the next level of Logic. Perspective matters.

John's set to wrap up Zeta, finish First Form, push his way through the end of Essay Voyage, and follow us through the rest of the Ancients. History isn't as hands-on-fun in the Logic stage, but it is more interesting once you have those pegs tacked into the wall. There aren't a lot of fascinating titles for that stage, though, so we're cobbling, mostly. He's reading through the Yesterday's Classics collections, and some of the Memoria Press titles. He's got the outlining down, which is far ahead of where I was at his age. I'd forgotten how much of a skill it is to be able to pull the main idea out of a collection of thoughts. Good skill to have, though. He may not appreciate it much, now, but he will when he's trying to make sense of the world.

He's nearly done with the Thinking Toolbox and we'll play with The Fallacy Detective for the rest of the year. I think that's one of his favorites. He's been reading poetry and short stories this year, in his free time. Haven't had to add much assigned reading to it. He's found a few new-to-us authors, and we hope to hit the Booklegger sometime this week to pick up some more titles. He's also hoping to get the forge fired up a bit this block, and get some projects done with it.

JakeRabbit is flying through anything I give him, which I don't understand because every time I turn around, he's outside doing his Peter the Goatherd impression. Kid's happiest when he's out there with his satchel, walking stick, and hat. The chickens and dogs follow him everywhere. He's always out there, and he'll come in when I call, but the second he can feasibly excuse himself, *poof*, he's gone again, collecting insects, finding birds, identifying plants, tending the critters. But... his work is done, he knows more now than he did in the Fall... :shrug: I guess that works. When I put together his schedule for this block, I tacked in large chunks of blank time. Why fight it? If he starts to slip, we'll reconsider, but the out-of-doors seems an appropriate place for a 9yo boy to spend his time.

EmBaby is reading, writing, doing sums. She's loving Granny Fox tales and stories from The Blue Fairy Book. So much drawing. Drawing, sketching, painting. More drawing. Such a content little learner. Then she goes out to follow Jake around the property. This level feels downright magical.

Jase is feeling the pressure of not being able to read. So he's asking, now, "What does this say?" and "What's that?" It won't be long before they'll all be readers. Wow.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

So, it's a new year...

That would explain the look of bewilderment Z gave me when he asked what our plans were last night, and I said, "I don't care what we do, but we better get on it, because they are not staying up until ten-thirty again!"

It was a long day, okay? In the post-Christmas lag, with the ongoing parenting, feeding, cleaning, general wrestling of the feral cats (and rounding up the slippery one), my brain shuttled any knowledge of a pending celebration and instead focused (somewhat intently) on curling up with a roaring fire, some Bailey's in the coffee, and a Jasper Fforde book. I love my kids, but none of that scenario included having the children up until all hours of the night.

But, it's New Year's Eve!

Aaanddd, they're old enough to know what's going on. I kind of miss the days that I could point to the sunset and say, "Alrighty, kids! It's almost time for bed!" Not so bad in the summer, because they're outside, and in the winter, hey, half the population of Florida eats dinner at 4:30 and hits the hay by five. Nothing wrong with that. But they grow up, learn to tell time, read a calendar, and eventually look at you expectantly because they *know* there's a holiday on. And, as I explained to EmBaby when she asked what the big deal was about marking a full rotation around the Sun, humans are celebratory creatures. We like to come together, we like to mark the special amidst the mundane. We look for any opportunity for a feast or a gathering, and we set those opportunities aside. They become special because we make them so. It's good stuff, this being Human. The reminder didn't hurt me one bit, either.

Luckily, it only took a little recalibration on my part (made easier by Z taking everyone with him to the grocery and the video store, so I had a few minutes to think in full sentences and not have to mediate the cabin-fevered children - bless him!), and we were off for an evening of fun.

We had jalapeno and green chile cheese dip. We had fish tacos. We had root beer floats and Christmas candy. (Evidently, our theme for the New Year is, "Eh, why not?") Then we put the two littles to bed, and we had zombie movies and sparkling cider. We chased down some good ideas for 2013, and sketched out a plan. I thought back to when I was 12 and 14, already ready to be gone from the house for NYE, instead of stuck at home, not talking, just sitting there, staring at each other. And I thought how thankful I am that we have a different dynamic in our home. That the boys are forgiving of their aging mother and her desire for quiet in the wee hours of the night, but that they're not surprised that she can get in there and laugh and fisk a good zombie movie, too. We laughed. A lot. We ate a lot. They shared some of their ideas, and they have good ideas. We shared our ideas. (Have I mentioned that the boys are patient? They are.)

We don't know what this coming year will bring, but we know we'll give it our all, and we'll do it together. That's enough. That's actually more than enough. It's going to be an amazing year!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Kitchen Adventures

We had such a lovely Christmas with friends and loved ones. I didn't bother trying to take many pictures on Christmas Day - that was my "gift" to my family. I'm not a fun photographer, and it's just no fun to have Beulah Balbricker yelling at you on Christmas. So. That was fun.

But I *did* get some pictures of Em (aka: The Compliant One) as she put her Christmas gift from MeWa and MeTae to good use.

They brought her a little bag of kitchen goodies - some mixes, a pretty little apron, her own whisk and spatula - Oh, she was elated!

And keeping the camera in my hands forced, erm, helped, me to let her do it all on her own. That was important, in keeping with the spirit of the gift.

We had a really good time.

Thanks, MeWa and MeTae!

I hope your Christmas brought you together with people you love, to do good things and make lovely memories!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

An Early Christmas

It's 11:07, and we're done! Stockings stuffed, Santa gifts laid out, cookies eaten. Normally, it's a little after one in the morning before we get this far.

The difference this year? Jacob is in on the project instead of us having to wait for He Of The Iron Will to fall asleep. Now we have three Christmas Eve helpers. In just a few more years, it'll be a full-blown party when Santa stops by! They grow up quickly, but it doesn't have to be sad. There are so many neat ways to enjoy them, no matter their ages.


However, now that nobody's looking, I do believe Z and I are going to call it a Date Night and watch a movie. Alone. (It's a Christmas Miracle!)

Kiss those babies, and have a Blessed Christmas,
~Dy

A Hobbity Holiday Outing

We saw The Avengers earlier this year, and we try to keep treks to the theater to a minimum (it's SO expensive!), but we really wanted to see The Hobbit in theaters, too. So we splurged and called it a Christmas present. The three older boys - who have all read the book many times and know and love the story, and I - who would watch Martin Freeman read electric bills - hit the theater on Friday afternoon.

They are so fun to be out and about with, but I think on this outing, Jacob was the most fun. You could see the frustration on his face at every change and deviation. He'd whisper the original to me, then glance my way, as if to say, "You see that, right?" I started to worry that this had been a bad idea (while also quietly celebrating how dearly he loves the written word. I admit it.) The screen went black, the lights came up, and then you could hear a lone little voice gasp (had he not been breathing this whole time?) and whisper-shout, "That. Was. Awesome!"

Yeah. It was. It so was.

We thought it would be fun to make it a Full Adventure for the Whole Family, so I got tickets for Zorak to take the Littles to Santa's Village at the Early Works Museum while we were at the show. The program material said there would be crafts, programs, Santa's reindeer, an elf workshop. It sounded neat. Guess it turned out to be a bit of a dud (no real crafts, or interactive or hands-on activities, but plenty of stations with different winter scenes to take pictures in various settings. At $5 a head, they at least paid for the cut-out snowman, right? Weird.) The reindeer were cold and sleepy. But the letters to Santa were hilarious (Jase marked that he had been both Naughty and Nice), and Z did enjoy the time with them. They consoled themselves with sushi and miso soup while they waited for our show to let out.

We ate sushi, too, because really, who turns down the chance to eat? Then we drove through the Galaxy of Lights at the Botanical Gardens. The wait in line was about 45 minutes. The drive through, itself, was nearly an hour. It was beautiful, but I'll tell you, if you want to enjoy the full experience, let me know and you can borrow Jase. He was like this at the sight of every. single. display.

A CANDLE!!! A TREE!! A BUTTERFLY!!! OMG, THIS IS THE BEST LIGHT SHOW EVER!!  I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!

We didn't think he could keep up that level of intensity for long, but we were wrong. He did start to short out a bit at the end, but he was still at full-throttle. It was magnificent. I'd happily pay $20 for anything that elicits that response.

Then we hit Krispy Kreme. The light was on. We were distracted by the pretty doughnuts. It was worth it.

We didn't manage to get a picture of the family, but everyone wore their non-holey, non-camo clothes just in case there was a random photo shoot. Three of the kids were sound asleep before we hit the edge of town. We pulled into the drive around midnight, feeling our ages, but really glad we ran with it. The movie was fun, the food was good, the lights were pretty. Most of all, though, the kids are neat, and they are so much fun to be around. The whole outing turned out to be more of a gift to myself than to them. It was a good gift.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Learning in the New Year

I've been quiet about our plan since the Big Epiphany. Sorry about that. We were thinking, and working, and wondering how to pull this off. I still don't have a taker for the Committee Chair position, but I'm hopeful. Beyond that, though, I think we have eliminated much of the extraneous mess and have a good, solid plan in place.

Starting in January, we have three strong, traditional, academic days a week carved out. These days will carry the brunt of the hard labor - the math, languages (both foreign and domestic), and the science and history. We still have to go through the lesson plans and make sure this will work, but it looks good.

Wednesdays will be our heavy literature day. I'm considering making some Ozzy or Metallica book covers to go with it, and of course I've got a soundtrack in my head. This will be a day of reading, music, reading, and literature discussion. We will probably re-institute afternoon tea for wrapping things up. History is still tied to literature, so there's a thread of continuity, there. And we already have memory cards in a travel case that we've been using for foreign language and poetry, which we'll use on Wednesdays, as well.

Fridays - and this is where we went off the rails a bit, but I think it could work - Fridays will be our Independent Learning Days. This is the day the boys take charge and lead us on adventures they want to explore. We have Cubs in the mornings, and one Friday a month we have Skate Day, which is only slightly less inviolable than, say, Easter. So we needed to find a way to work with Fridays that wouldn't make the entire day a wash. The boys are old enough, and engaged enough, that I decided to give this day to them. This is the day we'll hit museums, do volunteer work, visit artisans and shops. This will be the day for projects - to make movies or write games, to build models or develop interpretive dance routines based on the Abyssinian military model. Whatever. And I've given the boys a heads up that there are plenty of things *I* want to learn about, so if they don't step up and make suggestions, well, then we're going to have an entire semester of architectural history and more literature!

We've discussed how often people complain that learning this or that is dumb, yet when you give them leave to study things that aren't "dumb", they don't know what they want to learn. They cannot fathom that learning is fun, or that you can sometimes wield your own carrot and stick. There's a disconnect between the mere idea of learning and the joy that it brings. Mine don't, and I appreciate that -- although they've been known to express skepticism about the validity of a lesson or two, they acknowledge that there's probably shizzle they aren't privy to, and they trust me -- that good faith goes a long way. Still, I want to make certain we keep those two ideas connected, without sacrificing the rigor of a quality education, or sucking the joy of a delightful journey from them. We lost some of that this past year, and we aim to get it back. (Way to set the bar at just the right height for a good clotheslining, huh? I hope it doesn't take us down. We'll see.)

And there we are. Now to get to the lesson plans and shuffling of the shelves. Zorak has agreed to build a coat rack for the new dining room similar to the one in the foyer, but with a shelf below it where we can stage our things for each day's adventures. (Now that we use the balcony to come and go, the foyer is less relevant and ends up being more of an open-sided storage cubby than a functional staging platform, so this will be great!) Theoretically, we are set for a fantastic year ahead!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

90% Done!

Which, for us, is like 110% done. We seldom get this far. I still have the kick plate to put back on, and the wood putty in the nail holes is drying. We may, or may not, get those dealt with in 2013. For now, though, here it is -- The Window!

It's like having a whole new kitchen! We'll add upper cabinets, now, and put up the beadboard ceiling and trim, and then... I think that's it. The inside will be, dare I say it? :whispers: Complete. That's hard to comprehend. Oh, no. No, I take that back. The boys' bedroom windows still need to be replaced, Em's room needs new carpet, and we need screen doors. OK, that feels more like it. (I'm not sure I'd know how to behave in a finished home!)

So, I tried to find the original before photos of the kitchen, but it looks like I'd uploaded them to a Flickr account, which has since been... emptied? sucked into the ether? eaten by Yahoo? :shrug: I don't know. I could log in with my normal account, but they had an old address for main contact info, so I'm sure they warned me that they were deleting pictures, but I don't use the ISP email, so I never saw it coming. Hopefully, there are some tucked away on the hard drive James salvaged from the basement.

And then, because it's more fun to play in a well-lit kitchen, we've been busy in there...

The spiced nuts would make a wonderful gift. I think. We can't keep them around long enough to package and give away, so it's only a guess. The saltine toffee, of course, is a natural favorite. James has reached a Zen-like mastery of the Russian tea cakes (aka, Snowballs, or Mexican Wedding Cookies). And a dear friend brought the mock Turtles to the Troop meeting last week (pretzels, rolos, and she topped hers with M&Ms, although pecans are traditional, and almonds are not bad at all!) So Jase and Em have been making those. Rice krispy treat wreaths, and old fashioned chocolate chip cookies round out this week's adventures. I might make some of my Mother-in-Law's amazing candies the week after Christmas. (The kids need to be busy doing something else for that. I don't have it down well enough to supervise helpers, and there would be scalding. She would probably rescind my rights to the recipes, and rightfully so, if I scalded the grandbabies.) We're on the lookout for more ideas to make together, though. Do you have a favorite recipe you'd be willing to let me know about?

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

A Busy Day in December

Z and I did quite a bit of shopping today, finishing up the majority of our gift purchases. Coffee, quiet time in the car, no bickering over what to buy or where to go. It. Was. Wonderful. Long-term monogamy is handy for us slow learners. Give us another 15 years, and we are absolutely going to *rock* this living together thing!

I'm finally entering the... whatever century this is... and actually used my Amazon app to buy books. In the car. On our way home. I don't know why that felt like such a milestone, but it did. :tinylittlefistbump: Had this phone for two years, and it's only been in the past few months that I've figured out how to use it. This is why I'm not an early adopter, right? But, yay, Amazon loves me and there will be books beneath the tree!

James watched the siblings for us, which was huge. He wants to babysit, and so the experience is good for him. Plus, it's not a bad gig - they played Apples to Apples and Battleship. He made lunch. Jacob made smoothies. Then James and John read to the little ones, and spearheaded the video game rotations, all without wielding the Staff Of Power, or any other nonsense. Just a good, warm, gentle time of watching the Littles. They were all quite content and safe. Plus, he called to check in while we were out. :happy melting heart: He's such a great big brother. And a neat kid, overall.

The Unclaimed Baggage Center is here in Alabama. I'd feel silly if we lived here a decade and never made it over there. (Kind of like not making it to the Walls of Jericho, Chattanooga, Atlanta, Buck's Pocket, Rock City, and a few other places on our To Do list...) So that's where we went today. Wow. Oh, wow. That is a cool little place. They have a museum, with displays and information on the more interesting things that have come their way. They have a central pillar display done up like ancient Venetian plaster, with money and pictures from around the world worked into the columns. I'm pretty sure I couldn't go on a highly hormonal day, as there were a few things that you just *know* someone really, really missed, and I couldn't imagine not trying to find out who and where, to reunite them with the lost item. So. There is that warning. But if you're of a less sentimental nature, it's a neat little place to find interesting things. No pictures from there, though. They do have a hashtag and posters for Instagram users who want to tag them. I nearly took a picture of that, but couldn't decide if it was weird or ironic. If you can't tell, it's best to pass, I think.

And the window trim is up! (As of two minutes ago.) I have to clean, and we need sunlight, but then I'll share a picture of the end result. This project is as big an improvement as pulling the carpet was! (Z says not quite, from a health standpoint, the carpet wins. That's a fair assessment.)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Late to the Festivities, but Getting There

It's taken us a while to push through this project (the paint on the trim is drying, but as soon as it's up, I'll post photos - it turned out really well, and I'm so happy with it), but we're finally kicking into the Holiday Spirit. Our Advent readings started out well, then we got into discussions of prophets, Israel, Jacob wrestling with the angel... now we're reading through parts of Genesis, and I'm not entirely sure how we got there. But it's good, you know? We're thinking, and talking, and sharing. So, yeah. Yeah, that works.

Zorak brought home a tree a couple days ago. It was pretty scrunched up, so we left it to unfold overnight. It, um, never really unfolded. It just is the size it is. Z likes it, though, and the kids think it's beautiful. I like them, and think they're beautiful, so it's a win-win if you look at it like that.

The boys tested all the lights today, fixed the broken ones, and decorated the bathroom. (Priorities are important, and a festive bath is a happy bath.) Then we got to the tree. They handled everything; I mostly wandered about taking pictures of the backs of people's heads. It's like trying to make two magnets align when they're not facing the right way. You can get close, but one's going to shoot off at the last minute. 

Every once in a while I can use the zoom to capture a moment that's honest and wonderful. That makes me smile.

They make me smile.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Wow.

There is a window in the wall, folks! It's IN. It's not foamed or trimmed, but I don't particularly mind. It's IN! It's so pretty, too. We may get up early tomorrow, just to enjoy the light as the sun comes up.

Also, that was just in time. We have a Scout meeting here tomorrow. The boys will be down in the meadow (additional serendipity: meteor shower tomorrow night! WOOHOO!), but the committee members will probably appreciate meeting indoors before that. It will be nice for there to be a marked difference, yes? Yes, we thought so, too.

Standing back, taking in the progress, I'd wondered aloud if we could find before-before pictures of the house, and Zorak mentioned that he's pretty sure there are some on the blog. I'll bet he's right! That will make before/after shots significantly easier, but it also got us thinking about how much we've done, and how much we've learned. We're really quite fortunate to have one another -- it's a good combination. Although I am excited about living in a normal, finished house for a time. At least until we have the opportunity to take on another Big Project.


Kiss those babies!
~Dy

1GB

It's crazy how quickly technology has advanced. I remember buying a new computer with a 111 processor and the salesman assuring us we wouldn't need anything faster than that, ever. For years later, the slowest thing we could find was a 4... Something, something... Now, we're into bigger memory and faster speeds than the craziest of dreamers would have speculated just 15 years ago.

I'm sitting at a table at Rosie's, blogging while I wait for Z. And that's not even new technology!

And although I do not have Instagram, I'd post a picture in a heartbeat...

Except I've blogged a full GB worth of images in seven years. (!!)

So, until the technology catches up and we can blog smells, you'll just have to trust me when I say this place is great!

So much paper!

Right now, I'm glad I don't have any girlfriends who come over to help me with the redecorating. It would be awful for them to have to stage an intervention in the middle of the Christmas season.

I'd put all the stray papers from the school room, including those in, around, on, near, behind, and underneath my desk, into a box. That box has sat atop the rocking chair, blocking the kids' shelves and mocking me, for a week. Tonight, as we watched a movie, I rolled up my sleeves and tackled the box.

It took two movies for me to get through that box. And just as I'd emptied the last piece of paper, James looked up, gasped, and said, "Oh, man! Someone trashed the living room!" He was right. It was bad. It took another half hour for us to put away the little, sorted piles. The kitchen trash is full, and all the things have been dealt with, thrown away, or set for burning.

I also found a dozen clean, brand new spiral notebooks, four composition books, pictures spanning three decades (just random photos -- not an actual cache of cool, lost photos, which would have been neat, and not terribly surprising), a ream of lined loose-leaf paper, and two dozen empty file folders.

Oh, and a rocking chair! :weak smile:

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Spoke too soon.

No pictures. I can't find the camera!

It's just been that sort of week, really. Thankfully, it's over. And while I'm bummed about the camera going missing (although it's *got* to be here, somewhere -- it's just got to be -- we had it at the Troop Christmas Party, then came home... didn't go anywhere else or do anything else. It's crazy.) -- really, it's not going to upend our world. We have a lot to be glad for, and we are. (Although I did push pretty hard on the Clean As You Look For It rule, and the house is quite tidy, now.)

Zorak and the boys got all the brick off the wall, got the sheathing prepped, the bricks cleaned, and started re-bricking where it needs to have a wall. That's crazy-scary, watching that. Brick dust is tremendous, and duct tape is a total godsend for sealing off leaks and keeping the dust out of the house. Bless the engineers at Johnson & Johnson. (As a side note, I read several articles that stated the Germans called it Panzertape. Now that's an endorsement, isn't it? Good stuff, by any name.) We ran out of mortar today, but will get some tomorrow, and hope to have it done by the end of this weekend.

EmBaby has begun to suspect that we're trying to get out of Christmas decorating. (She asked the other day, "Are we having a tree this year? Should we just decorate the bookshelves?") I guess we do need to put that on the to-do list for this week. The kids haven't exactly nixed the idea of cutting their own tree again this year, but they haven't made eye contact when we've brought it up, either. Z and I figure this may be the year to buy a replacement tree. I geeked out over one last week that has little, fake pine cones on it. James and the littles were with me, and it's not clear whether they thought I was joking or not. (I wasn't. It's truly just ugly enough to be wonderful! Whimsical! Perfect!)

Meanwhile, we're still loving the new arrangement. EmBaby did her schoolwork in the Dining Room. We aren't even doing school this week! We need some actual furniture for the living room, now that it's the size of a living room, but that will come. Eventually, we get things done.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Why? Why, Spambots?!

The comments on this blog are moderated. It's not like I'm going to assume you're legit just because you write something sweet before your spammy links!

This is not a clothing blog. It is not an accessories blog. It is not a knock-off shoe blog. To be honest, it's supposed to be a homeschooling blog, but it's more of a family scrapbook. (I apologize for that, but it's all the kids are likely to have - I have PTSD from my mother's post-depression keep-all-things reaction.) But whatever this place is, we are not your target audience!

Now, if Indiana University Press or the nice folks at Yesterday's Classics wanted to leave a link or two, that would be one thing. Or Amazon. (Amazon is always welcome, here. I think that's a given.)

But the rest need to give. it. up. I'm not falling for it, folks. Not falling for it one little bit.

That said, I love the new camera! And there may be pictures tonight! (If I don't fall asleep watching a movie. That's kind of my new hobby. Not terribly satisfying, but very easy to keep up with.)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

It's like having an illness!

We got the kitchen painted and the cabinets reinstalled. They look lovely. Also, the kids are stoked to eat like normal again. Meanwhile, the voices (I don't know if it's the house, the caffeine, or what) started up again. That dining table... needs to be shorter, and wider, doesn't it?

Yessss....

And then it would fit in the school room, wouldn't it?

Mmmm, yes...

I wonder if we could put the computer over in that corner?

Oh, yes, my lovely...

Ohhh! And then (THEN!) we could put furniture equidistant from the wood stove on the right, doubling our living space!

Yessss, you're mine, now. You won't be able to think about anything else until you try it...

SURE! All we have to do is move those two bookshelves, dismantle the computer desk and the shelf over that... empty the corner hutch, and... why, we can do this before dinner! It's brilliant!

It's a good thing I've never done drugs. I can't imagine how much worse this could be. The kids didn't even flinch, and when Zorak got home, there we were, wading mid-calf deep through books stacked in the living room, vacuuming up dead bugs, maneuvering around empty bookcases parked caddywompus in the dining room. He's such a sport. Mere mortals would, at the least, use a tense, hissing voice as they inquired what in the name of all that's holy is going on here. Lesser men might even have asked about the voices. He just threw some pork steaks in the oven and helped schlep books back and forth.

For hours.

But we ate in the new Dining Room! It's echo-y and bare, but pleasant and intimate. (Definitely need a different table, though.) And after the kids went to bed, we sorted and shelved books. I have about 90# of books that don't have a home now that we've taken down the computer shelf, and the corner between the hutch and the tea cart accumulated a shocking amount of crap in the last five years. (None of which I have any idea where to put.) And then there's that paper addiction we haven't addressed yet. So really, it looks worse. Much, much worse. And the voices would be laughing, but they gave up and went to bed two hours ago.

The window will be here next weekend (not the one coming, but the one after), and I hope to have everything looking like it's meant to be this way by the time the window arrives. We'll see how that goes.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Watching Paint Dry

Turns out, it won't dry any faster if you watch it. (And yet, I stare. Go figure.)

As of this writing, the kitchen has been textured and primed. I wanted to paint tonight, but that's not going to happen. Of course, I wanted to put the kitchen back together tonight, too, so admittedly, I had ulterior motives at work, there. Still, we are moving forward, keeping our spirits up, and our debris to a minimum. If I can get two coats on tomorrow, then Zorak can do a few things under the cabinets when he gets home and then we'll be in business. I can't describe how giddy I am over this project.

We bought enough paint to do all the living area spaces that are currently Heavy Cream. (Fresh paint does wonders, even if it's the same color you had before.) I thought I'd run into a bit of a snag, though, when I pulled the paint chip for it. It's... tan. According to the paint chip, Olympic's "Heavy Cream" is a tan color. I stuck it under the wonder lights, to see if our lighting must be making it look different. Nope. It looks tan under all the different lighting options. So I called James and asked him to read the label to me. It matched. No extra letters, numbers, or runes anywhere on the can? Nope. :shrug: OK, then. Since we're redoing everything, I guess it wouldn't matter if it were way off. It's just unsettling to think you've been living in a creamy yellow house for seven years, only to find out it's tan and everybody you know just smiled and nodded when you described it as yellow.

The guys began the brick work today, removing the bricks from within the space for the new window. The boys helped get them off, and took turns cleaning bricks (some of the old window space will now be wall, so we want to re-tread bricks to match where we'll have to build new wall.). If there is a patron saint of lungs or respiratory systems, I need to know. The dust is astounding! Even with filters and tarps and a good breeze to keep it moving away from the house, everything is covered in abrasive dust. Blech. By the time we're done with this project, it's going to take another six months to get it all out of the house.

Anyway, the boys worked their fingers to the bone this weekend. Zorak declared they did a steak-worthy job, so we splurged on steaks and turnip greens tonight. So good. I wish we could afford for them to work this hard all the time!

The window will be here in 13 days. That's plenty of time to finish what we can of the brickwork, have the rest of the kitchen back together, and start another project. I love this time of year!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Eggs!

The hens aren't using the nesting boxes for anything other than naps, so these were a pleasant surprise.

James came back from putting up the chickens and announced, "We have 18 chickens, and FIVE EGGS!" It took us all a second for it to sink in, but then we were excited.

Unfortunately, the roosters are all pretty into doing their jobs, and we have no clue how long those eggs have been there... so we'll have to crack them outside, in case they're bad. Still, it's exciting to have some progress.

(This was last night. Jacob found another one today. We don't know who is laying, but they're all in the same place so far, so that makes it easier. How exciting!)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy