Why I Didn't Blog Yesterday...

Because I couldn't laugh until today.
Just the highlights, though...

8:30 AM:
"Hey, Mom! Emily looooooves tea!"
- You gave her tea? In a cup?
"*snort* NO. I gave her the tea bag."

9:45 AM:
Smidge cries.
"Smidge somehow got shoved".
- Somehow? Was this, perhaps, a miraculous shoving? Shall we call the papers and the priest?
"Um, no. It was more like he was in our way while we were rough housing. And he hit our bodies with his head. When we landed on him."
- Uh-huh.

9:47 AM:
Smidge, crying again.
- What happened this time?
"Smidge sort of got hit with a bat."
"A bat? In your ROOM?"
"Yeah. It was weird."

10:15 AM:
Well, no, from 10:15 to about 11:00 wasn't bad.

12:25 PM:
"Why do we have to pick up before we can make candy?"
- Do you want to make candy, or not? I thought so.

1:10 PM:
-Does it MATTER who gets that particular wrapper off the floor? There are, after all, THREE OTHERS waiting to be picked up!

2:00 PM:
-OK, gather all the materials on the list and let's gather around the breakfast bar.

2:01 PM:
"Mom, we're out of cornstarch."
- We can't be! (search, search, search) then,

around 2:25 PM -
- I guess we are. Let's pick another project.
"OK. What do we need?"
- I don't know... since you have the list. ;-)

2:28 PM:
*bringing me the baby* "Hey! Look who's up?"

2:38 PM:
We've now finished the changing of the baby, which also included -
1. having to find the wipes Smidge "put away" for me. Seems simple enough. "OK, where are they?" (NO ME NO!) :-) Aww, he's so cheerful about it...
2. wiping the poop from everything the baby could contaminate while we tried to retrieve the wipes
3. sterilizing everybody's hands
I look up to see that James has already. begun. the project.
Without us.
And it's not going well.
"Mom, I don't know what I did wrong."
- *snort* Well, neither do I, since you didn't wait for me.

It was all I could do to usher everybody out before I began foaming at the mouth.
Regroup, try again.

We tried another project, but what was I thinking? I gave up when I turned to see one of them licking the prepared baking pan. By that point, it was after five, the day had been just one weird fire after another, and none of us had any umpf left in us. I sent them outside.

5:35 PM:
(Coming in with a Very Serious Look) "Mom, see this blood?" (shows me a bloody hand) "It came from my head."
- Of course it did. Today, that would make perfect sense.

We cleaned the wounds, fed the children, repaired the kitchen. Eventually, the sun went down, the bodies slowed, tempers cooled...

I didn't fully appreciate it at the time, but we had stories and snuggles in bed. We told jokes, and gave plenty of hugs. We agreed to start over again in the morning, and it was good.
I kissed my babies.
Brushed the hair back from their faces.
Kissed their sweet, sleepy, warm cheeks once again.
Turned off the lights.
Collapsed in bed, closed my eyes, and pretended I was invisible.

Technologically Challenged

Urk.

So I took the unformatted XD card to Wal-Mart, where they ever-so-helpfully directed me to the photo thingy. You know, the one that makes cheap copies of your Olan Mills pictures for you? Yeah, that thing. Upload, burn to disk, you're good to go. (And no, I do not make illegal copies of copyrighted original materials.) What they not-so-helpfully neglected to point out is that the pictures are burned into a marketing nightmare thirty layers deep, from which you will emerge embittered and probably burdened with Kodak products you never knew existed.

Once you arrive home, if you would like to view, retrieve, or in any way claim ownership of the images on the handy-dandy disk, you have to wade through a butt-ton of Kodak "Easy Share" software demons that want your email address ("makes it easy to share photos with friends and family through email!" Um... as opposed to hitting the "attach file" button, "browse", "attach" and *poof* you're done?), automatically sets itself to your default picture viewer (EVEN if you click on "FinePix Viewer", because you've developed Stockholm Syndrome after being held captive by Fuji's stoopid photo software for so long), and then finally locks down completely after doing something horrible to your existing files, and yet never letting you anywhere NEAR the ones you put on disk.

Where is the "I do not want your services. Please release the images into my control NOW" button? Where!?!?

Bee pictures.
Cute, clean baby pictures.
Awesome FOREVER HOME pictures - the school room (all decked out in kids and jelly beans), the baseboard in the bathroom (which makes potty time a happy time around here), and the latest really cool unidentified plants... all stuck!

I hate Kodak. Believe me, they don't want me to share these moments.

I'm going to bed. G'nite.
Dy

A Tale of Two Churches

It wasn't the best, or the worst. But it was pretty painful. I'm starting to wonder just how much bribe money it would take to relocate our entire congregation at our Wonderful Church so we don't have to change congregations. Zorak thinks this might be a prime opportunity to just scrap it all and start our own "church".

Last week, we visited what we will call the Very Small Church (VSC):

It's Very Small. Perhaps 30 people there, total, on Easter Sunday.
Quite family-friendly; we walked in and the boys said, "They like kids here! Look! There's a baby in the choir!" And what do you know, there was a toddler hanging out with the choir.
They have the children's lesson incorporated into the service, where the children are called to the front for a short talk. Very sweet. The pew was filled with... a 16-year-old-boy, a 5-year-old-girl, the toddler from the choir, and... our kids. That's a lot of work to put into such a small demographic, but by the same token, it was abundantly clear that we were all welcome there.

The pastor of the VSC was kind. Sweet. Mmmm, what's the word I'm looking for? I don't know. He was a bit nervous, and he told a story about another pastor's first Easter service that he informed us was, "absolutely awful" (at this point, we knew VSC Pastor was not a storyteller, per se), then he tied it in (sort of) to this service... leaving us to surmise that although he's been preaching for at least four years, this was his first Easter service. We think. If not, then all bets are off. The sermon he preached was "different". He did a dramatic first-person narrative. In one tone of voice. Stephen Wright uses more inflection than this guy. Good material, but the delivery was just. not. his. strong. point.

In all, though, a good, solid place. Small, so there's no anonymity. The children aren't likely to get lost in the background noise of a larger group. It's full of love and sweetness. Met a lady who's "new here, too" (she's been here over five years, *sigh*). Judging by the toddler's free reign of the sanctuary during the service, they will have no trouble at all with us keeping our children with us for worship.

Drawbacks? Well, no children's ministries other than the children's talk in the service. Actually, the dearth of children is a bit of a drawback, as well. I'm not sure about the pastor's leadership abilities. He seems very nice, and could very well blow us all away by being a phenomenally strong and intuitive leader. But if so, he doesn't exude those qualities right off the bat.

That led us to try what we'll call the Big Shiny Church (BSC):

It was big.
It was shiny.
Not a hymnal, or a child, in sight.
From 0-3, they want them (the children) in the nursery. From 4-6, they will let them in for the singing, and then they want them in another wing of the building, entirely, for the rest of the service. I'm guessing once the kids hit the ripe old age of 7, they've given up, as we didn't see any in the sanctuary under about 12 years old.
I don't know what they've done with the hymnals.
Great band. Really. I thought the music was a soundtrack until we stood and I could see the drum riser. The music is fresh, polished, and well-done.
The fellowship area looks like the coffee bars in Barnes & Noble. Faux marble, wrought iron, barrista area, inlaid wood tables and gourmet beverages on display. Truly a stunning place. They've thought of everything, down to the soda vending machine by the nursery.
These aren't necessarily drawbacks. The place is huge, and it was packed, so obviously, it's filling a need somewhere. It was just a bit... glossy for our comfort. Like the pages of a magazine.

We suspect the BSC Pastor made a bet with the elders before the service to see how many times he could use the word "sex", or one of its derivatives. "Sexuality," "sexual", "sensually satisfying", "sexually pleasing" (OK, we're starting to understand why they kicked the kids out...) I lost count at 15. I actually began feeling somewhat uncomfortable. We've never heard Sarah (Abraham's wife) raked over the coals with such sexually charged fervor... To hear this man speak, Sarah was the Paris Hilton of the Jewish people.

And, just to keep us on our toes, he made SURE we know that "tired out" is a synonym for "past menopause", "post menopausal", "no longer menstruating".

(sex)

We thought, based on the children's ministries at the BSC (chorus, catechism, weekday activities), that it would be a good place for our children to find fellowship and for us to find the support the church can give in parenting. Instead, it felt more like Vulgaria. You can, however, collect your children from under the tunnels as you exit the coffee bar.

In retrospect, inflection isn't everything... So next week, we'll try the VSC again, with a fresh perspective.

Or we'll start proceedings to start our own church. There'll be coffee!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy

Too Tired To Blog

It's almost two o'clock. We've just emerged from the basement. The stairwell is ready for us to move the steps tomorrow. (Currently, you walk down the steps, turn toward the back wall, and descend the last four steps facing the Scary Room. To get to the rest of the basement, you've got to wander back under the stairwell and around. We're guessing this stroke of inspiration happened about the same time he - whoever did the work - realized the third support column in the Scary Room wasn't gonna hit the joists, either.)

Six boxes completely emptied. Two big black trash bags filled, and two large boxes of trash. Two donation boxes filled. We started to get cocky in our decluttering, and wouldn't you know it, the next box we opened was just full of stuff we don't want, but is either collectable, or valuable, or simply in too nice a condition to throw out. *sigh* The entire box... (Anybody want a mechanical cooking pig?)

We did find several boxes of the boys' things. They've been set in the middle of the boys' room, as a surprise for tomorrow. Who says Christmas comes but once a year, right?

More brainstorming on the waterproofing and culvert plans.

We need rain barrels. Definitely need rain barrels.

The dog seems to be back to his excitable, yet not-horribly-intuitive self. I think I liked him better when he stayed in one place. He kept stealing stuffed toys from the boxes and running off to dismantle them. Not helpful. Or cute.

Thus rounds out the less glamorous *snort* side of home repair. Still, good stuff. At least there are no crickets this year!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy
(Drat. Zorak just informed he that he did see one cricket. So I'll modify that, "At least I haven't had to deal with crickets this year! WOOHOO!")

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