Meet Balto the Wunder Dog

He is the Source of, well, of a lot of things. You may have seen him in such pictures as...

Autumnal shots of the children, playing the part of "Dogzilla, The Rampage"


Or,

Playtime in the yard photos, doing his Gladiator role.


His cameo crotch shots would make the leading stars in *ahem* a certain industry blush.

And there's been no stopping him. He. Never. Quits.

Until Sheba came along. If I had any technology skills at all, this is where I'd post a photo montage along with audio of Flock of Seagulls singing in the background,

And I ran, I ran so far away. I just ran, I ran all night and day. I couldn't get away.

And then they left. And he tried to go with them. But none of us evil humans could understand his angst. He circled the van, waiting for one of the Small Ones to give him an opening, any opening, through which to join his Precious.

That was Tuesday afternoon. It is now Friday, and he's looked like this ALL WEEK LONG: He occasionally varies the location of this pose, say, onto my feet, or the boys' laps. He even tried the living room chair once. But for the most part, he is the image of heartache.
They Broke My Dog!
Poor Balto. (He misses you, Sheba!)

Dy

Homeschool Field Trip Today

That would be the only reason I'm up, showered and dressed right now. Barely beat the sun in rising.

We're going to see bee hives. Thankfully, it's cold, so I'm hoping the little critters will be s-l-o-w. Kinda like I am right now. That'll make us evenly matched.

The boys keep asking the strangest questions, too:

Can you get stung in the exact same spot twice? (Theoretically, yes. But you won't.)

What happens if you get a wasp sting on top of a bee sting? (I have no intention of finding out.)

Why don't wasps make honey? (?? I don't know!)

Do you think we'll make them angry and they'll swarm us and we'll die? (Lovely thought, but no. I don't.)

It could happen. (Would you stop chaneling my mother and eat?)

Do you think your mother's a ghost now? (Ugh. OK, I set myself up for that one.)

We leave in an hour and a half.

What was I thinking?

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

About the bed

Andie asked (because otherwise, I'd have *never* brought it up, of course!) how the bed handled company. Well, like I said, we really like these folks and so we took the risers off. (Which doesn't mean if you come to visit and there are risers on the bed, that we're inclined not to want you back. It means we've managed to create non-life threatening risers. Or, probably, at least.)

And so, there were no collapsing incidents. And no injuries. They even left the room tidied and almost the way they found it.

Almost...


Did ya see that? How about a close up?



So... I'm guessin' they had a pretty good visit.

We Made It Another Year

I know, bad picture. It's a photo of a picture. We weren't digital yet when that was taken. However, hey, sometimes procrastination pays off, because now I can do the wedding meme everybody else did last month.

1. Where/How did you meet?
Oh, if only we had any idea how much of this story we'd have to modify when we told the kids. *sigh* But, you're not the kids, so I can tell you. We met in a little cowboy bar in a border town. Zorak was in town on work, and had taken his cousin out for a drink. I was... well, I pretty much lived there, so I was there with friends and guys from work. He sat there at the table next to us, in his Dockers and dress shoes and button-up shirt, looking so handsome. I kept thinking how absolutely adorable he was, and that he's got to have a lot of hutzpah to come into a place like this in those clothes. He never looked my way, and then he and his cousin left.

He was back in an hour. (I found out later that he'd dropped his cousin off and said he was "going back to ask that blonde to dance". I guess he had looked my way.) Walked right up to me and asked me to dance. I was hesitant, because, really, it didn't seem as if he could dance... in a country bar... in those shoes... but I said yes, and WOW OH WOW, could he dance! I knew I had to get to know him better when I asked him where he'd learned to dance like that and he laughed and said, "I grew up on a sheep ranch." He was interesting from the first moment we spoke (and he's never stopped being interesting to me, not once).

2. How long have you known each other?
11 1/2 years

3. How long after you met did you start dating?
We never discussed it. We simply began spending all our spare time together and one day just realized this is it.

4. How long did you date before you were engaged?
You know, this meme really highlights how poorly organized we are. Again, not really something we spent a lot of time discussing. We knew we'd marry. Everybody else knew we'd marry. It was just a matter of getting it all done.

5. How long was your engagement?
I dunno. (See #4)

6. How long have you been married?
Nine years. But it's supposed to be ten. We had planned for a Cinco de Mayo wedding in 1997, and had almost everything set to do it then. But the morning of the Cinco de Mayo festival, we realized we'd forgotten two important things: invitations, and a wedding license.

So we rescheduled for September 1997. But we were in the Gila hunting that week, so we forgot to get married then, too.

And then, well, we had to get married sometime, right? So we finally did.


7. What is your anniversary?
April 11, 1998

And for those who've followed the weirdness, no, the pastor never did file the license. So, according to the state in which we were married, we are not married. But we have the signed and witnessed certificate, and warm bodies to testify on our behalf. No worries. We're good.

8. How many people came to your wedding reception?
Um, I don't know. 50-75, I think.

9. What kind of cake did you serve?
Oh, my mother-in-law made our cake. It was sooooo pretty. Three-tiered with ivy designs, and... I'll have to find a picture. She makes amazing cakes.

10. Where was your wedding?
The little Nazarene church in town.

11. What did you serve for your meal?
Um... barbacoa? Beans, rice. I don't remember. I do remember that the reception was at a brewery with frou-frou management who thought we all wanted to be Santa Fe Cool, and I had a hard time getting across to them that we did NOT want the black beans, corn and pimento dish. We just wanted pintos. With nothing sparkly in them. Just. Pintos.

12. How many people were in your wedding party? 8.

13. Are you still friends with them all?
Oh, yes. You can't run from family.

14. Did your spouse cry during the ceremony?
I don't think so. It was hard to tell through all the sweat (it was HOT in that church, and no a/c).

15. Most special moment of your wedding day?
Dancing our first dance together as husband and wife.

16. Any funny moments?
Oh... yes. The one that sticks out the most is that the pastor called me Lindsay. Zorak's family thought perhaps Dy was just a middle name or something. My family thought the pastor had been drinkin' and that's why we should've gone with a good Baptist preacher instead. Zorak and I just needed to confirm that he was, in fact, married to ME, no matter what name I was called in the service.

17. Any big disasters?
Nah. We're married, and we didn't set anything on fire at the reception. Life. Is. Good.

18. Where did you go on your honeymoon?
We didn't have a honeymoon. We stayed at a hotel there in town and headed back to work on Monday.

19. How long were you gone?
:-)

20. If you were to do your wedding over, what would you change?
Ay-yi-yi-yi! We'd have pulled it together enough to get married when we meant to!

21. What side of the bed do you sleep on?
In theory, the right. In reality, in whatever wee little space I can squish out for myself among the bodies.

22. What size is your bed?
Queen

23. Greatest strength as a couple?
We're in it for the long haul. When that's a given for both parties, you can pretty much make it through, or accomplish, anything.

24. Greatest challenge as a couple?
Well, it's a good thing we're in it for the long haul, because as bad as we are with procrastinating and organization, it's gonna take us a while to get it all hauled.

25. Who literally pays the bills?
He earns the money. I dole it out to the people who follow us around asking for it.

26. What is your song?
I don't know. The super-awesome band we had at our wedding learned to play "Fraulein" for us. But when I hear, "My Own Heart's Delight", by Ian Tyson, I *always* think of us. I'll ask Zorak if he thinks we have a song.

27. What did you dance your first dance to?
Fraulein, which is why the band learned it.

8. Describe your wedding dress:
Ivory, with... eh, you can see it for yourself in the picture-of-a-picture up above. I'm bad at that.

29. What kind of flowers did you have at your wedding?
I have no idea. My sister did the flowers. I tried to help pick some out, but after about the fourth time I picked something that evidently would have been disgusting, she handed me the basket and told me not to help anymore. LOL.

30. Are your wedding bands engraved?
No.

31. How old were you when you got married?
I was 24. Zorak was 29.

Homeschool Blog Awards

Hey, it's that time of year! I heard from KathyJo, who heard from somebody (or perhaps she tracked it down all on her own, the multi-tasking fool that she is) that the nominations for the Homeschool Blog Awards are up and ready to go!

One kind reader nominated me for Funniest Homeschool Blog, which means several things:

1) I cannot think of a single humorous thing to blog about now that I know this.
2) Have ya seen the list? Amy! Chris!
2a) I'm in good company. Really good company. Thank you.
2b) I haven't a chance at winning. And that's okay, too. (See 2a)

And, evidently, I've been showing my, erm, mortality in public, because I noticed I was also nominated for Best Nitty-Gritty Homeschool Blog. I'm assuming (er, hoping) it wasn't the same person, but if it was... Does that mean y'all are laughing at my challenges?

Anyway, all that to say, the nominations are up, there are literally DAYS worth of good blog reading all compiled into wonderful lists, waiting for you to go, enjoy, and vote. (Because we can't always be busy homeschooling, right? I mean, we do get the occasional inservice day, don't we?) Voting ends Friday, so it's a short run. And, as Jessica, at Trivium Academy (who, by the way, was nominated for Super Homeschooler - I suspect due to her ecstasy-inducing book lists and resource files, although it could also have something to do with her terrifying stamina) said, "encourage them to keep encouraging you".

And I am going to just wallow in the fun of it all. I've got a handy-dandy logo, see?



And great readers who make it fun to blog, make me laugh and think, and encourage me to kiss my babies, too. It's good stuff.

Thanks,
Dy

Eight Years Ago

Eight Years Ago, Jess and Geo stayed at our place to watch James for us so we could go out for our anniversary. James was fine. We were a mess. And we went back to the house first thing in the morning for breakfast, then took everybody back to the hotel to swim. Know what I remember most about that whole thing?

Jess said she will never again stay at my house because we had no junk food and it was the healthiest house she'd ever seen.

Jess' quote from this visit?

ACK! There is candy everywhere you turn in this place!

Well, that year Easter hadn't fallen the weekend before. I swear that's my defense, and you can't prove otherwise!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

A Refreshing Visit

But first, a public service announcement for Hillary. Zebra Cakes, made by Little Debbie and her high fructose corn syrup kitchen crew. The official description (straight from Deb, herself):

"A delicious yellow cake with creme filling covered in white icing and trimmed with fudge stripes.
Twin-wrapped 10 to a carton."

Well, as with most advertising, that's a little misleading. In fact, a better description would be something more like this:

"A semi-stale, crack-filled cake wrapped in a concoction of mostly wax and sugar. Five tiny two-packs per carton. Buy two."

My blatant coffee addiction aside, these little delicacies may have contributed to the current condition of my teeth in no small manner.

However, I've had better than Zebra Cake Therapy over the last 24 hours! Yes, better. I've had children *everywhere* - stacked up, spread all over the place, running in and out and up and down. Geo is hilarious. Jess is just as wonderful as always. Her children make me want to scoop them up and pretend I have no idea what she's talking about when she wants to take them home. No. They're mine. Go find some other kids somewhere. I'm keeping these. And now I know for a fact that they'll all fit in the house! (And most of them fit on the tractor, too!)
We didn't get nearly the pictures I thought we would. The bags weren't even unpacked before the children grouped up and dispersed. Did you know you can lose a lot of children on six acres? We couldn't even find them for breakfast. (Although I swear they were all safely in bed last night. Honest.)

I don't know about her children - we'll have to let her tell their side of the story - but mine had a wonderful time.
James was particularly thrilled to find somebody to play Monopoly with him!
This is the only one I have of the two Mommies.

And here's Smidge and Belle, "drivin' to town".


Jess got more pictures than I did, so hopefully she'll share when they get home. And I have a few more to post, but I need to make use of her mad Photoshop skills to remove some redeye first.

We should all have friends in our lives like they are. Friends who will laugh with you, at you, and for you. Friends who'll shoot you straight and love you anyway. Friends who will encourage you and cheer you on. Friends who will not be afraid to tell you if you have eye boogers. Friends who are willing to extend and accept a pre-emptive apology for anything the children may do. The only thing that would make their friendship better is if they didn't live so stinkin' far away. We love you guys!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

What was that?

It's only 10-something here, and I'm ready for some intense Zebra Cake Therapy. James has been on Strong Prophet mode this morning. ("But I didn't ask because I KNEW he wouldn't let me", "I KNEW it would work now, because we've talked had a long talk", and my favorite, "If I did that, then I KNOW it wouldn't work." Yep, just call him Jonah.) With that, the plastic egg/land mines on the floor, and the discovery that Smidge "shared" his egg (more specifically, the egg yolk) with Baby Girl this morning... I'm getting a little twitchy. Life, or at least my life, is a fine balance, and I can feel the scale starting to tip.

We've accomplished quite a bit, but it's not been smooth. It's been more like that weird uncle's scalp - bumpy and scaly, with a few hairy bits here and there. And we haven't even done anything that requires a pencil yet! So already, I'm on High Parenting Alert. Some days are just. like. that. I know. I know.

But when James disappeared after history, and I couldn't find him to come unload the dishwasher, I immediately dug out and donned my "Authoritarian Child Herder" hat and went to find him.

"JAMES! Where are you?"

"I'm in my room."

(Oh.) "Well, what are you doing in there?"

"I'm reading."

(Oh. Um. Huh.) "Uh... what are you reading?"

"Something from my 'To Be Read' Shelf. It's really good."

(Now I'm getting suspicious - both of his earlier antics, and my own sanity) "Ah. Very well, then. Carry on."

"OK. *pause* Did you need me to do something for you?"

"No, you're good. Thanks, honey."

(Crap.) Why doesn't he ask that when I CAN think of something I need done? I mean, he'll help any time we ask, but it'd be nice if I could take him up on his offers once in a while. The minute he offers, it's as if he's performed some Jedi mind trick, and I turn daft and can't think of a thing to suggest. I simply turn around, trip over the next load of wash in the hallway, wander past the living room with its Bedouin-style blanket decor in the living room (I think there are camels in there, so I don't mess with the tents), and start unloading the dishwasher myself. But did any of that dawn on me when he asked? Of course not.

This better not be one of those things he confesses to me when he's 30. "You know, Mom, when I used to offer to help out while I was reading? Yeah, I knew you'd never take me up on it if I had a book open. It was just a safe bet and an easy way to score brownie points."

I'm going to go see if I can catch him between pages and get him to hold a pencil.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

A delightful day

We have so much to be thankful for...

A beautiful family with a world of love.

A world to explore.

A world of adventure, and friendship.

A world of awe.

Happy Easter!

Snippets

Well, the forward-facing carseat is clean and ready to put into the Suburban in the morning. *sniff* The last of my backward-facing carseat days is gone. (Yes, I know, she turned one in January, but her legs are short and we had some wiggle room.) Weird. I still haven't quite let go of the idea that this is what I do. Which is probably even more weird, considering. *shrug* Anyway, life is like that, sometimes.

Now that the guest room is all cleaned up and ready for company, it looks a little barren. I scrounged in the basement for something bench-like, or even table-like that I could put in there to make it less like a hostel for traveling nuns, but to no avail. We were going to raise the bed a bit, so we made risers for it. As we fitted them on, they seemed a bit wobbly. I asked Zorak, "It won't collapse if they, you know...?" He laughed and said if they're comfortable enough to, you know... then we've done our job, and what's a little collapsing furniture going to matter. Good point. (But we didn't test the theory. The bed has been returned to its non-collapsing position.)

Smidge petitioned us last night to move him back into the boys' room. He said he misses James and John, and the dragon prints, and the trains. We talked it over, passed it by the boys, and tonight we put his bed back in there. Truly, that room is better suited to hosting three bodies than the nursery is for two. Still, I'm not sure EmBaby really needs to be 1) the only girl, 2) the baby of the bunch, AND 3) always have had her own room while the boys always had to share. Some small, wee voice in my head keeps whispering, "Just start calling her Princess now and get it over with." We'll see. She seems to be holding up well so far. :-) And she makes great sound effects!

The boys actually all petitioned to have EmBaby moved into their room, too, but that room won't quite hold four little bodies and all their accessories. Plus, 8yo boys enjoy toys that pose quite a threat to 1yo babies. Too many logistics to try to finagle just now.

Well, everything's ready to go for tomorrow. The kids' clothes are layed out. The menu is set. The house is mostly done. I've got to go forage for my shoes, iron Zorak's shirt, and then I'm done. WooHoo!

OK, Zorak's channeling the Weird Idea Fairy. Time to go brainstorm with My Love and see what weird, wonderful adventure we're up for next!

More Grandkids!

A truck pulled into the drive today. We thought for a minute that it might be the brush hog guy, coming to retrieve the tractor we've been fostering for almost a year, but no. Turned out to be another grandson of Old Mr. Cook, and a friend of his. We suspect they'd heard the place had sold to foreigners and they wanted to check it out, as their initial introduction seemed a little off. (But then, all our initial introductions thus far have been less than encouraging, when it comes to this house and its former owners.)

Zorak popped his head in the house and gave me the Ten-Minute Warning. Then he ducked out to show the guys around while I cracked the whip and got everybody to help me do the panic tidy. It wouldn't have been bad, except we've been working this morning. Wiring, sorting, moving, nailing, sewing, trimming, and washing... I didn't figure "backwoods sweatshop" was a very inspiring theme for visitors.

The guys came in, and they were very nice. I'm sure all the changes were a bit of a shock. The first thing the young guy said when he came in wasn't "check out that cool arch" or "wow, it's so open and inviting". Nope, he swore under his breath and said to himself, "I can't believe you took out the bookshelves". Um, yeah, the bookshelves that harbored billions of mold spores. The bookshelves that had rotted away under years of bong water spills and incense smoke. Yeah, they had to go. Sorry. But still, it's hard to reconcile memories with reality. And even though *we* love all the things we've done to the house, we really don't like being the harbingers of death for fond memories.

After a while, though, hanging out at the island, drinking coffee, sharing stories of the place, seeing the work, and hearing about how all the choices had been made, he was happy to know that his family home is being loved. He dug the coat closet conversion, and could appreciate why we took the laundry out of the kitchen. He understood the importance of having the floor vent in the bathroom *not* wedged between the toilet and tub.

We now have two standing offers to buy the place should we ever decide to sell it. Both would put the property back in the hands of the original family, which gives us warm fuzzies. But that's not an option for a long, long time. We understand and appreciate that it was their home, but it's also our home now. Our Forever Home. And it means more to us with each month, each memory, each new discovery. One day it'll be our children who have all those memories attached to the creek, the barn, the Scary Room. And, like the young guy said, we "aren't from here, and aren't family, and no matter how nice (we) are, (we'll) never be from here". That's okay. The children are, and this is their heritage just as much as it is someone else's.

It does make me miss the Southwest a bit more, though. You don't have to be "from" there to be From There. You can be naturalized into the Southwest, by loving it and living it, by absorbing it and sharing with it. You don't stay a foreigner long in the Southwest. And while we do love it here, and this is where we're putting down roots, our roots don't go back three generations on this soil. So, no, we probably won't ever be From Here. But at least we're here.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

High of 44?

I don't think I'm the target audience for most gardening books. Me-Tae gave me this wonderful book on gardening in Alabama, and it is just filled with great information. I do love it. But there's a disconnect for me in the author's style that I just cannot get over. It happens when the author makes comments such as,

"Sometimes you find a really great plant and just have to buy it, although you don't know where you will put it. It happens to all of us."

Oddly enough, I've never had that happen. I don't think I've ever walked through a store and said, "AH! Something else to leave laying around because it has no home! I MUST buy this! And even better, it's something I'll have to keep alive in the interim!" Just doesn't happen. Truthfully, I hope it never happens. Zorak may call a time out for mental health reasons if it does.

There is also one phrase I keep running across which, I suspect, is designed to weed out the transplants from the natives. In discussing when all danger of frost is past, she says, "The weekend of the Auburn - Alabama game is a sure bet."

Do you have ANY idea when the Auburn - Alabama game IS? I don't. Or, I didn't. So I googled it. That took a while. Best I can figure, it's over already. And yet, last night's low was 25, and tonight's temps are going even lower. I know, I know, it's just a rule of thumb. But my thumb isn't green, my home isn't decrated in orange or crimson, and to be honest, I don't even know which is which. So, obviously, I need something a bit less intuitive. Right now, I just know it's cold, and the little greenhouse we planted during The Week of the Hormones isn't faring well *at all*, and what was I thinking??? We'll give the County Extension Office a call on Monday. Hopefully, they use a slightly different means of averaging. We've got amateur beds waiting for amateur gardeners! And I know what we'll do with all those plants, too!

In other news, we'll be trying a different church this Sunday. I don't want to leave our church, but it's getting more and more difficult to attend as a family. If we go on Sundays and Wednesdays, it takes about $200 in gas each month, and it's just not working for Zorak to come with us as often as we'd all prefer. I am thankful that he will come at all, and it doesn't help to make it more difficult for him to agree to go. The killer point was when I mentioned "sunrise service" to Zorak. He instantly calculated drive-time, child-wrangling time, and food, and realized we'd have to leave here around three AM to make it. In that split second, I could see the "Not just no, but..." phrase forming in his head. So I called Claudia (they're back - did I post that? They are! Yay!) to see if she and her herd wanted to come with me and my herd to the PCA church in Hartselle. It's only 11 miles from the house, instead of 50. I hope it's where we need to be, but boy, oh boy, do I hate uprooting everyone *again*.

Zorak is putting baseboard down in the bathroom this morning!! We were going to go outside to burn more leaves and spray the poison ivy, but, as I've mentioned, IT'S COLD. So we'll be working inside. I'm off to tidy and see if I can kick a path in the guest room for our guests. (Joking! It's more of a nudge than an all-out kick.)

Kiss those babies, and stay warm!
~Dy

I don't think that's what it means.

When the Bible says we should encourage one another, I don't think that means encouraging them to do certain things...

like dropping stuff in your milk,

or putting tabasco on your cereal,

or eating something you found and cannot identify.

Funny, but you'd think that would be a somewhat instinctive understanding.

Evidently not.

Ah, well, this is why they don't live on their own, right? ;-)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Sweet Success

Today, John finished reading Fun With Dick and Jane. Smidge was so proud of him that we all got hugs. Then we got ice cream. (I love Cerrone Cones - wheat free ice cream cones! As you can tell from John's face, he's not accustomed to eating from an ice cream cone. Obviously, he views this as some type of edible makeup applicator.)

The ice cream wasn't a reward for finishing a book; the excitement of finishing a book, of knowing a story, of meeting the characters, is reward enough for that. The ice cream was a big pat on the back for the hard work John has put into his reading skills so far this term. By the last chapter of Dick and Jane, he'd added character voices, made up jokes and puns on the reading as he went along, and generally had a delightful time of it. Since the second chapter of the book, he's been reading it to Smidge, and that's become their special time each day.

What cracks me up is that he thought that was his reading "lesson" each day, yet all the while he's been reading aloud to me, Among the Forest People, by Clara Dillingham Pierson. Yeah, check it out. Not quite Dick, or Jane. He has worked his furry little forest tail off on these. He works hard to put the story out there, to absorb it into his mind, and to put into practice all he's learning along the way. He enjoys them, but he knows they're Work. And while he doesn't read these with the silly, completely fluent inflection he's able to apply to the basic readers, he is gaining invaluable skills along the way. He's improving his decoding and comprehension skills in a way that allows him to read the brain candy for fun, and to know it's fun. To read the more challenging material, and know that it, too, is good.

It's like that with everything we try. The things worth achieving and perfecting, are worth the effort it takes to attain them. Sometimes it's pure fun.


Sometimes you have to stretch yourself to reach your goal.


This Spring has been John's season to soar, to stretch his wings and see what he can do on his own. He's doing so beautifully (if a bit stickily), and I couldn't be more proud of him. This is why we do what we do.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Funny, What's Important

I'd intended today, after...

working in the garden, doing my math and Latin, setting up the school room (yes, finally - but no pictures yet, it looks hideously cramped at the moment), running numbers and investment options for the finances, wading through miles of laundry, listening to stories, reading stories, taking a walk around the property to see it through Little Eyes, attending baseball practice, preparing supper, reading more stories, tending to the character training (for me and them, right?), writing letters, and finalizing lesson plans for the rest of the week,

to blog about the various knocks and dings being dished out this week to stay-at-home moms and homeschoolers.

But you know,

I was too busy

enjoying my life

to really be bothered.

I suppose that's enough, in itself.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

*Garden note: I actually know what those are all pictures of!! WOOHOO!
The first is an iris. I'm so excited to have an iris!
The second is a tulip. It's pretty beat up from the storm, but it is one of THREE now. Each one a different color, and each one on a different side of the tree. :-D
The third... oh, this is my favorite. See the heart? That's the leaf of the redbud. They grow wild out here! The flowers are a gorgeous purple, growing all down the branches, and then the tree erupts in hearts! Isn't that beautiful?
And that final one is the elusive North American Smidge. While not difficult to find, Smidges are often quite difficult to photograph. They move quickly and make very little noise, so you have to shoot fast.

Great Paper Folding Site

OK, one more post and then I'm going. I've been trying to jump start my creative battery, but it looks like it isn't going to happen this morning.

Somebody posted this link on one of the boards, and it's really quite neat. Paper folding projects of the Wonders of the Ancient World! You can have your own Colossus of Rhodes. And I know you've been wondering just what centerpiece to put on the dining table. Now you have it.

This blurb from the main page tells a little about the project's inception:

The Small Wonders Project was originally planned to provide free paper models for rehabilitation therapy purposes to hospitals and rehabilitation centers. This idea came up after Delta 7 Studios chief designer saw how building models helped his Father in Law recover important motor, reasoning and reading skills in the wake of a major stroke. Since the inception of the project many others including educators have asked that we make these models available to everyone.

Neat stuff, no?

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

New Card, No Photos

Zorak grabbed a new XD card for the camera so we could take pictures of the kids playing ball over the weekend. He got a big card, too (so now I can go years between uploads!) and we took a bazillion pictures. Some movies. Lots of fun shots, too.

We put the card in the uploader, presumably to upload. Nothing. We got crickets. With a lot of wiggling and finagling, we did get a message that we don't have a high-speed USB port, and it'll be slow. OK, how slow? (I honestly doubt we could tell the difference. We aren't big 'puter fiends.) Well, two days seems a bit on the ridiculous side, but still nothing happened.

Then we found it.

"Would you like to format this card?"

Honestly? No. No, we wouldn't. We'd like to get to the pictures that are currently ON it! ACK.

And so, no pictures. I know we'll most likely have to format the darned thing and will lose the pictures. And that makes me cry. We didn't know. We put the card in the camera, and the camera recognized it. The camera and the card worked together beautifully. Was it all a hoax?

ARGH.

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Garden Update

Hey, hey, what do ya know, the guys were busy while I was gone yesterday! They got the border to the melon patch levelled. Zorak laid the first row for a retaining wall down there. He and the boys moved about a ton of sand and a few wheelbarrows of manure into the boxes in the upper meadow, and down to the barn. They played a lot of catch, and ate a lot of otter pops. In all, it was a very productive day for them.

Those kids slept HARD last night.

It's good to be productive. ;-)

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Dentist Update

Well, it went okay. They are pretty upfront, which is nice. There's still a lot of work to be done, which I knew, and yet the other dentist had said, "You're all caught up!" Huh.

This dentist seems to think that root scaling would be a better route to go than the flaying-grafting process the other one wanted to do. I don't know if the damage isn't as bad as the first guy thought, or if the things I've been doing to help repair some of the tissue damage have actually had an impact. He also recommends extracting three teeth. I started to freak when he said that, BUT, they're the same three teeth that two different orthodontists have told me would need to come out in order to do braces.

So, now we've got to get going on it. I am glad to be healthy, but please pardon me if I don't leap about and do the happy dance. I'll dance when it's done.

Dy

Almost Productive

"Now that fear of yours makes more sense."
-Zorak, to me, as I lay sprawled out on the ground today in the melon patch.

I'm just not cut out for things that require coordination. Simple tasks, such as baking, installing brake pads, or chasing herds of small children, I can do. The more complex tasks, like, say, pulling weeds while keeping my balance, will do. me. in. I had a good one, too. I pulled and yanked and hauled. I braced my feet and bent my legs. Perhaps that was my undoing, because no sooner had I thought "It's coming up! It's coming up!" than I began to lean and twist and slide... in slow-motion, too. Up, up, aaaannnnnd, OVER. Face first into the freshly turned dirt in the middle of the patch.

And my brain, ever ready to defend me and prove that I am fit to survive, warned me that I was about to impale myself on a sapling stump on the way down. Wasn't that nice? Of course, did it also send the message to LET GO of the rooted devil plant that was taking me down? No. No, it did not. Evidently, my ever ready brain is only wired for one signal at a time. Thank God we don't have tigers here.

And when I landed on my side, with a most satisfying thud, I looked up, laughing, at Zorak, who looked either bewildered or concerned. And that was when he, oh so eloquently, referenced my big hairy fear of malevolent vines creeping in to kill us while we sleep. I would like to get offended and huffy over it, but it was funny, that was a stoopid thing to do (on my part, not his), and really, I'm just glad he understands me a little better now. I'm also glad we're a family that can laugh at ourselves (and, obviously, each other). That we can have fun doing what we do.

And we worked today. We worked hard. We dug half a dozen tree stumps out of the melon patch, and easily ten old railroad ties. Some of the trees had grown up through the wood. That was wild. The melon patch (13'8" x 22') is now ready for a border and compost.

If I've learned nothing else in this adventure, it's that landscaping should be kept simple. Sure, those trellised wisteria vines looked great behind three tiers of monkey grass and blackberry bushes. And yes, the whatzits definitely set off the dogwoods -- back when they weren't 30 feet tall. If the next people who own your home don't happen to have the Better Homes and Gardens Gene, well, a decade can make for some pretty nasty wrangling for the ones who follow after that. So we're learning to keep it simple and easy to maintain.

Well, that, and "let go" when you're going down.

Never stop learning!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy